Two For The Price Of One
Sermon
Sermons on the Second Readings
Series II, Cycle C
Today is an important day in the life of the world and the life of the church. In the northern hemisphere this is the first day of the New Year. Last night many of us celebrated the eve of this New Year -- noisily or somberly. Noisy types went out to dinner and danced until our feet grew weary. We counted down the last seconds of the old year, and wildly greeted one another with shouts, drinks, hugs, kisses, and fireworks. Then we sang the traditional lines of Robert Burn's poem, "Auld Lang Syne," and went home. A few of us remember a time when we were part of that great crowd in Times Square in New York City, and watched the ball descend as it announced the year's end and a year's beginning.
Others of us closed out the old year and the beginning of the new a bit more quietly. We went to small gatherings in each other's homes for food, games, conversation, and listened to Dick Clark do his broadcast from Times Square. Drinking was minimal or not at all; but we did have the shouts, hugs, and kisses as January 1 appeared. In addition, some of us gathered in our places of worship where we offered prayers of thanksgiving and hope, closing with some hymns of praise. Of course, a few just went to bed at their usual times and woke up to a New Year.
The Importance Of The New Year
Most human cultures have thought it important to dissect the flow of time into yearly segments, and not all of them have chosen January first to indicate a New Year. But ours has done this. The reason seems to be that in our northern hemisphere, the sunlight in the days of autumn and late December grows shorter. Prehistoric people -- whose habits and customs have often been incorporated into our own historical understandings -- became anxious that the sunlight might wink out altogether. Then the cold would be a prelude to the frost and freezing of all things and all life.
However, our forebears were more intelligent than we give them credit. Somehow, in the few days after December 21, the winter solstice, they perceived that the length of the day's sun was getting longer by just a few minutes. This meant that warmer times were in the offering, and crops could be planted and wild game would again become plentiful. For us, as for our pre-historic ancestors, it became appropriate to celebrate the return of the warmth of the sun, in the few days on, before, or after January 1.
Celebrating the new year, aside from the frivolities or the "no nonsense" styles in which we mark this moment, really means that we are thankful for the recurring renewal of nature. Even with a nod to quantum physics' disallowance of a rigid, regularity of nature, there is enough dependability in the flow of nature to enable us to extend to it our trust. The return of the sun dissolves our anxieties that the future might be so radically different that it would threaten all of life. January first is really an appreciation of the stability of the natural world, which gives us our life.
Going deeper, the regularities giving us the New Year, raise the question about the origin about these dependable regularities. One of Robert Frost's poems, "Accidentally on Purpose," seems to be asking this question: "Do these cyclic regularities of nature imply a Regulator, or did they just happen out of the long flow of natural evolution?" For the believer, one of the exasperating things about such theological questions is that they can be argued either way -- for or against. For believers, it does seem to strongly suggest a God who providentially arranges the universe so that nature proceeds on a regular and dependable course.
The conviction about the cyclic renewing of life allows two things. One comes from prehistoric sources effecting both our pagan and biblical traditions, enabling us to create the ability to think and explore reality scientifically. Science does not rise out of traditions holding that all is finally chaotic. Science begins with the belief that reality is patterned and regular. The ancient January experience is a position of science.
The second conviction comes from ancient and Christian sensing that the return of the sun and life is theological. It caused our prehistoric ancestors to think that darkness and death were not final. Prehistoric persons were terribly concerned about the meaninglessness of death. Archaeological discoveries tell us that they wished for something better than to give their loved ones and themselves over to an everlasting death. For them, and within our modern souls, the slow renewal of life as the minutes of light lengthen in our winter days, is more than a meteorological calculation given on the evening television news. Deep within it speaks for a vital human hope that life conquers the unhinging despair of death.
The Co-celebration Of Epiphany Sunday
In Matthew's Gospel, and in his gospel only, we are given a story of Wise Men from the East coming to the Bethlehem to give reverence to the baby Jesus. The church celebrates this event twelve days after Christmas, or January 6. Occasionally, January 6 falls on a Sunday, but in most years it comes somewhere in midweek. The busyness of modern life has crowded out most midweek celebrations. So the church honors these occasions not always falling on a Sunday by celebrating them on the nearest Sunday -- before or after.
This year (2007), Epiphany, or January 6, is next Friday, and we are taking note of it today. Epiphany, then, is our co-celebration: Wise Men from the East bringing their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the Christ Child. We have little knowledge of why Matthew created or preserved this tradition in his gospel. Perhaps he wanted to affirm that the many non-Christians gave deference to Christ and Christianity. This note of the superiority and uniqueness of Christ has been the dominant theme of the church's spirituality across the centuries.
In the book of Acts, Peter proclaims, "There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved" (4:12). The Wise Men as Matthew presents them, certainly make the same point -- Christ and Christianity are the only truth by which salvation comes to humanity, but the mood is changing in our world today. Many, but not all Christians, are sensing that God's saving truth is not limited to Christ. Our time is one when some traditional ways of understanding are being transformed into new and different ways of thinking. In the seventh and eighth centuries before Jesus, such a moment happened in biblical and non-biblical religions. This time is called "the axial age" because human understanding took a major turn away from previous understanding. It was in such a time that the biblical prophets rose -- Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. All of them presented the human situation before God in challenging, yet disturbing ways. In Greece, this time saw the tragic playwrights and the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. In the Far East, this axial age gave us Vedic Hindu reformation as well as the teachings of Buddha.
If history can tell us about past eras when major changes came in our human understandings, perhaps we can sense that we live in such a time today. Modern science has become less confident that we live in a blind and purposeless universe, one that is going on its rigid law-abiding way, heedless of our human hopes and needs. This is a major change; one that the new physics has brought us. In religion, a major change that has been with us for many years, reaching back to the prophets of the Hebrew Bible, is the insistence that religion cannot be divorced from public needs -- especially the plight of the poor and the oppressed. No longer can we think of salvation as restricted to be something that kicks in at our death, and is restricted to those who mumble a few words about allegiance to Jesus.
It is also possible for us to sense we are living in another religious axial age where all religions are seen as human responses to the merciful and loving God. No religion has any monopoly on salvation in this life or the next. For Christians who ponder the spirituality of Wise Men from the East, we might begin to think of the term "Christ" as meaning much more than the historical Jesus. Christ can be the saving grace that was present in Bethlehem and in all his life, but it is not limited to him. Christ can be the saving mercy of God reaching out to all humanity and reflected in many different ways, and many different traditions.
Modern communication and modern transportation conspire to break down our religious isolation in today's world. When we are confronted with the many other religious traditions we can react in two ways. One is to intensify our insistence that Christ, known in Jesus, is the only true religion and the only true way to earthly and heavenly salvation. This approach appeals to many simply because moving out of an old way of thinking and believing and into a new way of thinking and believing can provoke a deep anxiety within us. Some think that the success of the Christian fundamentalist, evangelical religion is forced by this tremendous anxiety, what Paul Tillich once called, "The Shaking of the Foundation."
But borrowing a line from Paul, "but to us who are being saved" (1 Corinthians 1:16b), our time is exhilarating and exciting. We sense some of the fears and anxieties of leaving the old and launching out into new and uncharted territory, as that experience by those early explorers or the American northwest, Lewis and Clark. Yet like them, we also know something of the awesomeness of what is confronting us. We feel the freeing experience of leaving behind old, binding ways and traditions.
Hence, our co-celebration this New Year's Day enables us to ponder the godly regularity of nature and the conviction that life conquers death. And in the Epiphany part of today's worship, we can rejoice in the new and more expansive nature of the meaning of salvation, exhibited by the Christ Child, but not confined to him. This is truly a spiritual rich and wonderful day. Today we are getting two for the price of one.
Others of us closed out the old year and the beginning of the new a bit more quietly. We went to small gatherings in each other's homes for food, games, conversation, and listened to Dick Clark do his broadcast from Times Square. Drinking was minimal or not at all; but we did have the shouts, hugs, and kisses as January 1 appeared. In addition, some of us gathered in our places of worship where we offered prayers of thanksgiving and hope, closing with some hymns of praise. Of course, a few just went to bed at their usual times and woke up to a New Year.
The Importance Of The New Year
Most human cultures have thought it important to dissect the flow of time into yearly segments, and not all of them have chosen January first to indicate a New Year. But ours has done this. The reason seems to be that in our northern hemisphere, the sunlight in the days of autumn and late December grows shorter. Prehistoric people -- whose habits and customs have often been incorporated into our own historical understandings -- became anxious that the sunlight might wink out altogether. Then the cold would be a prelude to the frost and freezing of all things and all life.
However, our forebears were more intelligent than we give them credit. Somehow, in the few days after December 21, the winter solstice, they perceived that the length of the day's sun was getting longer by just a few minutes. This meant that warmer times were in the offering, and crops could be planted and wild game would again become plentiful. For us, as for our pre-historic ancestors, it became appropriate to celebrate the return of the warmth of the sun, in the few days on, before, or after January 1.
Celebrating the new year, aside from the frivolities or the "no nonsense" styles in which we mark this moment, really means that we are thankful for the recurring renewal of nature. Even with a nod to quantum physics' disallowance of a rigid, regularity of nature, there is enough dependability in the flow of nature to enable us to extend to it our trust. The return of the sun dissolves our anxieties that the future might be so radically different that it would threaten all of life. January first is really an appreciation of the stability of the natural world, which gives us our life.
Going deeper, the regularities giving us the New Year, raise the question about the origin about these dependable regularities. One of Robert Frost's poems, "Accidentally on Purpose," seems to be asking this question: "Do these cyclic regularities of nature imply a Regulator, or did they just happen out of the long flow of natural evolution?" For the believer, one of the exasperating things about such theological questions is that they can be argued either way -- for or against. For believers, it does seem to strongly suggest a God who providentially arranges the universe so that nature proceeds on a regular and dependable course.
The conviction about the cyclic renewing of life allows two things. One comes from prehistoric sources effecting both our pagan and biblical traditions, enabling us to create the ability to think and explore reality scientifically. Science does not rise out of traditions holding that all is finally chaotic. Science begins with the belief that reality is patterned and regular. The ancient January experience is a position of science.
The second conviction comes from ancient and Christian sensing that the return of the sun and life is theological. It caused our prehistoric ancestors to think that darkness and death were not final. Prehistoric persons were terribly concerned about the meaninglessness of death. Archaeological discoveries tell us that they wished for something better than to give their loved ones and themselves over to an everlasting death. For them, and within our modern souls, the slow renewal of life as the minutes of light lengthen in our winter days, is more than a meteorological calculation given on the evening television news. Deep within it speaks for a vital human hope that life conquers the unhinging despair of death.
The Co-celebration Of Epiphany Sunday
In Matthew's Gospel, and in his gospel only, we are given a story of Wise Men from the East coming to the Bethlehem to give reverence to the baby Jesus. The church celebrates this event twelve days after Christmas, or January 6. Occasionally, January 6 falls on a Sunday, but in most years it comes somewhere in midweek. The busyness of modern life has crowded out most midweek celebrations. So the church honors these occasions not always falling on a Sunday by celebrating them on the nearest Sunday -- before or after.
This year (2007), Epiphany, or January 6, is next Friday, and we are taking note of it today. Epiphany, then, is our co-celebration: Wise Men from the East bringing their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the Christ Child. We have little knowledge of why Matthew created or preserved this tradition in his gospel. Perhaps he wanted to affirm that the many non-Christians gave deference to Christ and Christianity. This note of the superiority and uniqueness of Christ has been the dominant theme of the church's spirituality across the centuries.
In the book of Acts, Peter proclaims, "There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved" (4:12). The Wise Men as Matthew presents them, certainly make the same point -- Christ and Christianity are the only truth by which salvation comes to humanity, but the mood is changing in our world today. Many, but not all Christians, are sensing that God's saving truth is not limited to Christ. Our time is one when some traditional ways of understanding are being transformed into new and different ways of thinking. In the seventh and eighth centuries before Jesus, such a moment happened in biblical and non-biblical religions. This time is called "the axial age" because human understanding took a major turn away from previous understanding. It was in such a time that the biblical prophets rose -- Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. All of them presented the human situation before God in challenging, yet disturbing ways. In Greece, this time saw the tragic playwrights and the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. In the Far East, this axial age gave us Vedic Hindu reformation as well as the teachings of Buddha.
If history can tell us about past eras when major changes came in our human understandings, perhaps we can sense that we live in such a time today. Modern science has become less confident that we live in a blind and purposeless universe, one that is going on its rigid law-abiding way, heedless of our human hopes and needs. This is a major change; one that the new physics has brought us. In religion, a major change that has been with us for many years, reaching back to the prophets of the Hebrew Bible, is the insistence that religion cannot be divorced from public needs -- especially the plight of the poor and the oppressed. No longer can we think of salvation as restricted to be something that kicks in at our death, and is restricted to those who mumble a few words about allegiance to Jesus.
It is also possible for us to sense we are living in another religious axial age where all religions are seen as human responses to the merciful and loving God. No religion has any monopoly on salvation in this life or the next. For Christians who ponder the spirituality of Wise Men from the East, we might begin to think of the term "Christ" as meaning much more than the historical Jesus. Christ can be the saving grace that was present in Bethlehem and in all his life, but it is not limited to him. Christ can be the saving mercy of God reaching out to all humanity and reflected in many different ways, and many different traditions.
Modern communication and modern transportation conspire to break down our religious isolation in today's world. When we are confronted with the many other religious traditions we can react in two ways. One is to intensify our insistence that Christ, known in Jesus, is the only true religion and the only true way to earthly and heavenly salvation. This approach appeals to many simply because moving out of an old way of thinking and believing and into a new way of thinking and believing can provoke a deep anxiety within us. Some think that the success of the Christian fundamentalist, evangelical religion is forced by this tremendous anxiety, what Paul Tillich once called, "The Shaking of the Foundation."
But borrowing a line from Paul, "but to us who are being saved" (1 Corinthians 1:16b), our time is exhilarating and exciting. We sense some of the fears and anxieties of leaving the old and launching out into new and uncharted territory, as that experience by those early explorers or the American northwest, Lewis and Clark. Yet like them, we also know something of the awesomeness of what is confronting us. We feel the freeing experience of leaving behind old, binding ways and traditions.
Hence, our co-celebration this New Year's Day enables us to ponder the godly regularity of nature and the conviction that life conquers death. And in the Epiphany part of today's worship, we can rejoice in the new and more expansive nature of the meaning of salvation, exhibited by the Christ Child, but not confined to him. This is truly a spiritual rich and wonderful day. Today we are getting two for the price of one.
