Years ago, my dear wife, Roberta Maran, came up with an idea at Christmas that enchanted me. “In addition to other presents, let’s give people Christmas boxes that have nothing inside of them – except messages that are deep and pithy!”
Herod, who is a ruler on a throne of power, and Joseph who is a peasant in an unconventional marriage. One man is powerful and one man is not. And yet the text only describes one of these men as being afraid.
A sermon preached on the Second Sunday after Christmas – the readings for this sermon include: John 1:1-9, The Gospel of Thomas 70; Matthew 2:1-12.
"The greatest Epiphany is the discovery of the LIght within ourselves." Watch as Rev. Salvatore Sapienza, pastor of Douglas Congregational United Church of Christ, explains the symbolic meaning of the journey of the Magi.
I hope you've been having a restful and reflective season. And, I realize that, for many of us, this has been a difficult season - whether simply feeling the weight of national and global tensions and tragedies, or the pain often borne uniquely in our immediate context. I carried this paradox with me in my conversation with my dear friend Alexander John Shaia yesterday. It was our final Make Advent Great Again dialogue, and it's too good not to share with you
Ever wonder how everything came into being? Ever wonder why? Was it merely a random chance occurrence, or was it something done with a purpose? And how does your answer to such questions determine how you look at the world and life? People have considered such questions for all of recorded history, and perhaps as long as there have been people.
Rereading this sermon from 2014, I am struck by the power of Jesus, Gandhi, and MLK’s saltiness to address our current need
It's an epiphany - the biblical Greek word for a sudden appearance or manifestation - to discover the difference between looking for and just looking. When I'm just looking, I see things I miss when I'm looking for.. like incarnations of God.
O God, our Divine Parent, may your presence be ever revered. May your peace and justice dwell among us. May your love and compassion live within and between us. Nourish us daily with the necessities of life; sustenance for our bodies, and inspiration for our spirits.
The butterfly lives in a seamless realm, a matrix, poetically in the palm of God/dess’s hand, not alien or estranged. Is it possible for us to find that kind of confidence, or trust in the nature of the Universe itself? Let’s take a moment or two to think about Wisdom, and our place in the Universe. What kind of liturgy, or worship experience, would celebrate the kind of inclusive, nurturing community the butterfly knows without thinking about it?
THEME: The Interplay Between the Inner and Outer Worlds. The Journey to the place where we once began
Out of this house where there is no room For the little ones that to him belong (He is weak but he is God)
A poem by Madeleine L'Engle
This is no time for a child to be born, With the earth betrayed by war & hate And a comet slashing the sky to warn That time runs out & the sun burns late.
The outside shed where Jesus lay Was home to goat and ox; It was a dirty place to be; Fit for the shepherds’ flocks;
From the Boundless Life collection
Who is this Herod in my heart That seeks to kill the child? It is the one who measures life Till all is weighed and filed;
In the midst of the liturgical progression from Epiphany to Lent, tradition calls the church back to the mundane details of Jesus' infancy. Luke's Chapter 2 fills in the story from birth to circumcision to presentation as the first-born son to the coming-of-age of a gifted religious leader anointed by God. In The First Christmas (HarperOne, 2007), Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan suggest that Luke's purpose was to set up the birth of the Jewish Messiah as a counter to the birth of the Roman Caesar - also hailed as the "Savior, Redeemer, Son of God." The scene in the temple in Jerusalem confirms the child Jesus as the expected one who would redeem Israel from bondage to imperial injustice and oppression.
The Year of Luke is the first in a series of commentaries on biblical scripture found in the three-year cycle of Christian liturgical
For 21st century activists, from Occupy Wall Street regulars to poets such as Drew Dellinger,theologians such as Spong, Crossan, Borg, and Fox, the way to distributive justice-compassion for all beings on the Planet is our own flesh and blood.
Before any of this can speak to 21st century post-modern, post-enlightenment, post-Christian minds (if it can), first remember that John’s Gospel is an extended proof – an argument.
The trouble with an epiphany is that it often leads to enlightenment! And enlightenment can alter the way one sees the world and one’s relationship to it. As such, anyone who would bend the knee in praise and adoration might do well to consider it can also be a radically subversive act of obeisance and allegiance.
More than being a “human being” on this earth, John’s gospel calls for a transformed life: water into wine; a temple made of distributive justice-compassion, not gold and stone.
Sea Raven's inspired historical-critical reading of Jesus' thought welcomes us into the past and present struggle to bring about a divine commonwealth.