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Less than a month ago, we encountered the familiar story of the Wise Men who brought the ChristChild gifts of gold, frankincense & myrhh.   Gift-giving seems to be a staple of every culture, honoring a birth, marriage or other important milestone.  Most of us fret about giving a gift that’s Just Right, and we spend time and thought in selecting our gifts.  Readings for this coming Sunday question us about what we’re willing to bring to GOD!

Micah’s famous oracle (6:1-8) continues the question:  “With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high?…. burnt offerings?….yearling calves?….thousands of rams?…. ten thousand rivers of oil?….my firstborn?”   What could possibly be good enough for the Holy One?  Does God need anything?   “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”   So the gift most suitable has to do with revering those whom the Lord has created, and treating them as also Holy…

The good gift isn’t our wisdom and insight, say St. Paul. (I Corinthians 1:18-31)  “Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?”  Not many of us were wise, nor have we been powerful and of noble birth.  So evidently these don’t cut much ice with God, since he chose to live with us despite the lack of such virtues!   God’s choice is what seems low and despised, the Simple Gifts of song.
We come as we are, warts & all — which is what the Lord really wants.  We’re reminded that God “is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption…”  If God needs nothing more, then why should we?

The Gospel lesson is The Beatitudes, found only in Matthew’s account at the beginning of what we call Chapter 5.

Righteous and devout people –nice people– just don’t live up there.  “There”, to the orthodox Jews, was Galilee, “the territory of Zebulun & Naphtali”,  which was the furthest north the sons of Jacob traveled when they settled the Promised Land under Joshua.  Capernaum, a busy fishing port on the Sea of Galilee, was the predominant town.  Through this area came marauding armies from Assyria & Babylon, and a major trade-route stopped there for water & supplies.  When the Ten Lost (Northern) Tribes were disbursed some six centuries before the birth of Jesus, some intermarried with nearby Gentiles, thereby sullying the purity of the Faith.  To be sure, these were the Badlands!

Isaiah of Jerusalem looked for Great Things!  On Sunday, we’ll read that “there will be no gloom for those who were in anguish. In the former time [God] brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time [God] will make glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.” (9:1)   He speaks of heavenly light to those in deep darkness, and the new freedom for the enslaved and persecuted.  Having seen God At Work, we who are the caretakers of a Holy Message are encouraged to point to this light and to be part of the newly redeemed.  Even in the Badlands.

Paul doesn’t waste any time getting to the point, as he begins his letter to the Corinthian congregations!   Beginning at verse 10 of the first chapter of the first book, he makes an appeal for unity in love and belief: “That there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose.”  This was expecting a lot.   Corinth was a major seaport, with all the apps:  hard living, hard drinking, multi-cultural, diverse; probably with a whole range of understanding about sexuality and human worth…  Nice people wouldn’t go to your churches, Paul  –it’s the Badlands, y’know.

Nazareth was a nice enough, quaint little town when Jesus lived there.  On County Route 1147, I think.  But Jesus knew that he had to move to Capernaum-on-the-Interstate.  Matthew’s short commentary (4:12-17) helps his Jewish readers to recall Isaiah’s Messianic words from long ago: the land of Zebulun & Naphtali, “on the road by the sea”, would host Divine Light in that “region and shadow of death.”   And Jesus told those Badlanders, “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near”!

When I Googled “Badlands”, I found that it can be a geographic term for places where the topsoil & vegetation are thin, quite scenic yet useless for farming.  Badlands exist not only in the National Park in South Dakota, but in Canada, Argentina and parts of China.  This is also a code-word that urban realtors use for troubled neighborhoods where their clients –nice people– shouldn’t live.  Our readings remind us that in the Badlands is exactly where the Lost Tribes would carry their Faith, where St. Paul would establish congregations…and where Jesus himself would live.   And we??

God Bless Us, Every One……                             Horace Brown King

Epiphany could be seen as the Forgotten Season, a wasteland between the euphoria of Christmas and the intensity of Lent.  I’ve always liked to emphasize this time as an expansion of the Gospel to the ends of the earth, a time to enjoy the AHA moments.  What began with the visit of the Three Kings continues the sacred journey  as they returned home by another road.  The Church is invited to remember these stories about pushing back the frontiers of God’s Kingdom, and to become engaged in pointing to the Holy Signs still unfolding all about us. 

Isaiah  caught the universality of God’s Reign as he wrote to the Exiles in Babylon, where they thought that they were far from God’s Country.  “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” (49:6)  Before this, the Hebrews thought of Yahweh as a REGIONAL God, sovereign over a few hundred square miles of rocks and scattered oases.  Could it be that Yahweh is Lord of other places, too?  Even (yecchh!)  Babylon??

We often neglect or skip completely over the salutations of Paul in his letters to the churches.  Yet there’s where a lot of his understanding tells us how he views God, before plunging into his long sentences and weighty thoughts.   Don’t ignore any of this Sunday’s reading, which includes “To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours…” (I Corinthians 1:2)   What?  ALL those who in EVERY place?   This surely sounds as if God is universal, and that there’s no hidin’ place down here!  It also expands the mission duty of the Church in the 21st Century to bear light and vision beyond our comfort zone…

“The next day [after Jesus was baptized] he (John the Baptizer) saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, ‘Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!'” (John 1:29)  Linger here, for a bit, before continuing with the narrative about Jesus and his first disciples.  Too often we read this as the SINS of the world:  separate and personal errors and misdeeds.  But here The Sin is singular and the world is everyone!  What then IS The Sin of the World?  I believe that we’re talking of self-directed arrogance, just as when the First People thumbed their noses at the Creator back in the Garden of Eden; or when later generations tried to build a tower to claim the heavens for themselves.  This is the brokenness that Jesus came to fix, to take away the world’s prideful rebellion against the King.  Believers are to stand with John and point:  “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”

there’s a Woody Allen movie — was it “Sleeper”? — where the girl asks Woody’s character, “Do you believe in God?”   And he replies, “Well, yes, I think there’s a Divine Being who regulates the world….except maybe for New Jersey.”   Being in seminary in that state at the time, I thought the line riotously funny!   Readings for this weekend will again remind us that a restorative and saving God is truly omnipresent in ALL the world.   Even New Jersey.

God Bless Us, Every One.                          Horace Brown King

Slightly, ever so slightly, the daylight is getting longer.  Today’s sky is January Blue, and sunshine pours into my study window so much  that it’s difficult to see the screen upon which I write.  The Weather Service tells us that the temperature is frigid, and I claim pathos for those who are less comfortable than I.   There will be many more weeks of Winter–but they’re endurable with the gradual return of the light.  People gathered in their communities of faith this weekend will receive gifts of light–and the commission to be active bearers of that light.

Isaiah of Babylon wrote to exiles mourning their homeland and traditions. “Their call to live as a family of faith within the family of nations was a distant echo.” (Richard F. Ward)  They sat in darkness; was there no one to scratch a spark of hope?  But “HERE is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights;  I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations” (42:1)   And later, “I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations…” (v.6b)  What is this justice, this light?  In the original, these seem to indicate “the true way/ how things ought to be”.  Luke’s Gospel story tells that Jesus opened his public ministry by reading this passage in his hometown Nazareth synagogue, and telling the world, “TODAY this is fulfilled…”(Luke 4:18-19)

The reading from the Acts of the Apostles (10:34-43) is Peter’s baptismal sermon after baptising Cornelius, a Gentile Roman.  We read it today to lift up the universality of God:  “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable him.”  Anyone, it sez right here.   Illegal immigrants, LGBT, convicts…even bigots and red-necks!    Doing “what is right” is a phrase which could get lost, so we’d better refer back to the Isaiah passage about justice and light, “the true path” brought by Jesus….

The Gospel for the day is Matthew’s account of Jesus’ baptism, 3:13-17.   “Suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him.  And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.'”   The author writes to the Jews, well-steeped in the Hebrew tradition, including Isaiah’s concept of the Servant.  Here in this Season of Signs, we gladly receive both the Dove and the Voice as affirmations of our expectations.  During this liturgical year we’ll be regularly examining “proofs” of Jesus being the Messiah…and the greater inclusion of “those others” in God’s loving care as well.

The people sitting next to you in church are yearning for the Light, more than you know.   The Servant brings Justice and Light, and expects those called in righteousness to bear it throughout all the world: “to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.”

God Bless Us, Every One!                                   Horace Brown King