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When I took typing, back in the last century, I found that my favorite spot on the keyboard was the key that said MarRel — the Margin Release.  Long before digital wonders that justify the edge of our printed messages, this key was necessary to jump the fence.  That is, when the typist reached the end of the line and needed just one or two more letters, a click of the MarRel key would allow the right-hand margin limit to be exceeded!  Now I could explore beyond the frontier, could march off the map with impunity!  (Impunity never knows when to stay home)

Weekly scriptures are good at pressing the limits, squeezing the envelope.  Jeremiah reminisces about his boyhood call to Prophesy, to release the margin.  “But the Lord said to me, ‘Do not say, I am only a boy; for you shall go to all whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you.  Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you….Now I have put my words in your mouth…'” (Jeremiah 1:7-9)  Jeremiah spent a long and controversial life troubling the complacency of Israel, probably perishing with the Babylonian conquest, about 610 BC.

I Corinthians 13, the infamous Love Chapter.   Widely overused at weddings, this really isn’t about hearts ‘n’ lace and sloppy kisses.  What Paul has in mind here is a discussion of how the Church can show compassion and charity within the community which surrounds them/us.  If we Corinthians are really serious about Releasing the Marginal, there are opportunities all around to care for the homeless, the hungry and the hurting.  Even illegal immigrants.  Or ex-cons.  Or those battling depression or addiction.

Remember last week?  Jesus has returned to his hometown synagogue and has identified himself as the vehicle in which God’s Kingdom is revealed.  “TODAY this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:21)  But then he hits the MarRel key:  Elijah fed a Gentile woman, Elisha healed a Gentile leper.  Uh-Oh.    Even worse, he implied that these Children of Abraham at Nazareth could use some feeding and healing themselves!  That did it:  they hustled him off to a nearby cliff and threatened to throw him off; but it wasn’t his time.  He had lots more frontier to expand.

Beyond the Margins is where vaccines against children’s diseases, computer chips & symphonies are found.   We who hear the Gospel are to follow Jesus to the brink of the cliff, to the frontiers of Holiness, Justice and Mercy.  And note this:   the God who sustained Jeremiah and Jesus as they marched off the map will sustain YOU, as well!

God Bless Us, Every One.           H    B   King 

“This is the word of the Lord,”  I said.   “Thanks be to God,” they responded.   Why?   What’s this all about, and why is it important?   We honor the weekly reading of Scripture, often standing when the Gospel is read.   Our individual devotions are likely centered on a particular passage; and some of us meet regularly to debate the finer points of what we consider Holy.

The Book of Nehemiah (yes, that’s in the Hebrew Bible) recalls the Great Reading in Jerusalem which re-launched the Jewish nation.  Finally the last of the exiles straggled in from Babylonia, only to find wreckage and ruin.  After seventy years, only a few grandfathers remembered how the Temple  had been.  So Ezra the High Priest called them together in WaterGate Square and read aloud the Old Law–probably the Book of Deuteronomy–  to re-identify the central points that were unique to this people, that is, to make them again a Nation Under God.  All the people wept when they heard the words of the law:  can we really be Holy before the Lord?  But the leaders told them, “This day is holy to the Lord your God; do not mourn or weep.”   (chapter 8, verse 9)

St. Paul, still urging the Corinthians to level their playing field and love the diversity, urges a unity in the Body of Christ through the centrality of their own purpose together.   We don’t know how this passage (I 12:12 and beyond) was received, yet we can bet that some crying turned into laughter….

St. Luke’s Gospel remembers the time Jesus went to his hometown synagogue in Nazareth (4:14-21).  He asked to read, and chose a passage from Isaiah which spoke of the role of God’s Servant.  They liked it until he began his remarks with, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Confronted with a Word we respect, we’re aware that something about our life must change!  Those who read aloud to the nation/Body/people of Old First are charged to be audacious in their presentation, for the Life of the Community –the World? — hangs upon this.

God Bless Us,Every One!          H   B   King

We’re into Epiphany, the season of signs that God is not only in charge, but especially that Jesus is Lord.  Epiphany is like a light-bulb in a drawing, when the searching individual suddenly gets it.   We began with the WiseMen story, when the seekers from the Ends of the Earth got it.   Last week we dealt with Jesus’ Baptism, when a few of the onlookers got it.  Right through Transfiguration, the Ultimate getting-it, we’ll hear stories about how the Holy breaks in so that we ALL may get it.

The Old Testament for this week is from Isaiah’s oracles (62:1-5).   Here the perceived rejection of Israel has become vindicated, “shining like the dawn”, and salvation becomes “like a burning torch”.   God’s Creative purposes are once again to be seen, for God’s People have become  “a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord”.   Whoever reads this passage aloud needs to express the imagery with rolling r’s and flashing eyes!

St. Paul addresses us about spiritual gifts, and he names a few: wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, ecstatic speech and other miraculous signs of Grace. (I Corinthians 12:1-11)  These are f’r- instances, not meant to be The List of Who’s OK (and Who’s not…)!  The verses that jump out at me are nos.4 & 5, about the many varieties of gifts, services and activities –and all instigated by the same Spirit, the same Lord, the same God….”all of them, in everyone” !!  Great Calvin’s Ghost!   

The Gospel is John’s familiar story about Jesus and his friends at a wedding (2:1-11).  But this isn’t a story about a wedding as much as it is a story about wine!  (I know:  Heaven & Earth, holiness & secularity, salvation & sin all in Holy Wedlock.  And that’s not a bad sermon.)  Yet it seems to me that this “first miracle” is the change that Jesus brings:  what was Just Water has become the Finest Wine!   What does this imply for my washed-out life, for your routine busy-ness?

This is also the weekend that we remember Martin Luther King, Jr., and others who have stood boldly for social justice.  Somewhere in our preaching we need to recognize the diversity all around us — gender understandings, language, names & cultures, regional imprintings  — and also that we’re all driven by the same Creator-Redeemer-Sustainer who is the Author of all!

God Bless Us Every One!         H   B    King

To begin with, I’m always reluctant to preach on the day of The Baptism of the Lord.  Somehow the Gospel always takes second place to those who quibble about Baptism’s “correct” form.  As a United Methodist, I believe that Baptism is a sacrament, thus initiated by God’s Grace.  It’s form is irrelevant, since we’re speaking of a holy in-breaking and not of a human faith-response. 

We need to remember that Old Testament (Jewish) people didn’t much like water.  They had many cleanliness rituals, of course, and groups like the Essenes were pretty obsessive about washing away the dust of a sinful world.   But these were people of the highlands and the plains, and they were suspicious of the seafaring life.  Many Psalms show this hydro-  phobia in reference to Leviathan the Sea-Monster and storms at sea.  Jonah went to sea (away from God’s dry land) and was brought back only by Divine Intervention….is this a baptismal story?

Isaiah 43:1-2 is a message to the exiles (aren’t we all?) at Babylon:  “I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.  When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you.”   The holy-history tells about crossing the sea and the Jordan on the way to the Promised Land; why not expect it again?  There’s new life on the Other Side….

Luke’s account of the early church (Acts 8:14-17) gives a minimal reference to the giving of the Holy Spirit through laying on hands–interestingly enough, AFTER Baptism!  This was Samaria, of course, and indicates that the Gospel was for the whole world.  (If God can love those Samaritans, God must love EVERYbody!  Even me?)

John the Baptizer — the ultimate forerunner of the Christ — acknowledges that his water baptism isn’t the last word: “[Jesus] will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” (Luke 3:16)  To me, the importance here is that Jesus is living out his humanity by being baptized just as you and I have been.  “When the line of downtrodden and sin-sick people formed in hopes of new beginnings through a return to God, Jesus joined them.  At his baptism, he identified with the damaged and broken people who needed God.” (Robert M. Brearley, in Feasting on the Word) 

So we observe the metaphor of Water on Sunday with many  reminders:  maybe a filled font just inside the sanctuary doors, or a loudly-trickling fountain…. this last could be counter-productive…  Though water can drown us, it can also buoy and support us!  And there’s Life on the Other Side.

God Bless Us, Every One           H   B   King