Our unison reading is found on page 690 in our pew Bibles. Chapter 60 in Isaiah is the first of several poems about the glory of Jerusalem restored. Remember, Jerusalem had been destroyed by Babylon; its temple knocked down, its citizens deported. About fifty year later, King Cyrus of Persia conquered Babylon, and the Hebrew exiles were able to return to Jerusalem. But not everyone was enthusiastic about the idea. The city was in ruins, no government was operating, and there was no economy to speak of. It would take a lot of work to get the city up and running.
Listen for the word of God as we read it together in Isaiah 60:1-6.
Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you. For darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the LORD will arise upon you, and his glory will appear over you. Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn. Lift up your eyes and look around; they all gather together, they come to you; your sons shall come from far away, and your daughters shall be carried on their nurses' arms. Then you shall see and be radiant; your heart shall thrill and rejoice, because the abundance of the sea shall be brought to you, the wealth of the nations shall come to you. A multitude of camels shall cover you, the young camels of Midian and Ephah; all those from Sheba shall come. They shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praise of the LORD .
This ends our reading from Isaiah. Jerusalem was rebuilt, and it did indeed become a marketplace; its leaders became wealthy and its kings became powerful. The politics in Judah were all about Jerusalem. And so any foreign politician traveling west would of course stop in Jerusalem. Bethlehem was a backwater, and few foreigners would have heard of it. We'll be reading from my translation. Listen for the word of God as it is found in Matthew 2:1-12.
1Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the time of Herod the king, behold, magi from the East came to Jerusalem, 2 saying, "Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the rising, and have come to worship him."
3 When Herod the King heard this, he trembled , and all Jerusalem with him; and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ is born.
They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it is written by the prophet:
‘And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the princes of Judah; for from you shall come a leader who will shepherd my people Israel.'”
Then Herod summoned the Magi secretly and ascertained from what time the star appeared ; and he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word that I too may come and worship him.”
When they had heard the king they went their way; and lo, the star that they had seen in the rising, led them, till it came to rest over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy, and going into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way.
This ends our gospel reading. The magi were gentiles from a foreign land. To have them included in the birth narrative indicates God's intention to include the gentiles in the good news from the outset. Salvation is offered to everyone, even to the powerful. Our epistle reading is from Ephesians. This letter was addressed to Christian churches in general, and explains that the church's existence was God's plan for the world. The letter describes the mystery of Christ, and Paul's work among the gentiles, and God's purpose of making God's wisdom known to everyone in power. Paul's being in prison is not an indication of failure, but of glory. Suffering does not always mean judgment. A hard life can indicate something important is happening. Injustice is being exposed. Gandhi, Bonhoeffer, and Martin Luther King Jr. all went to jail as they worked for their causes. An easy life is not necessarily an indication of blessing. In New testament times, the church met in people's homes, had not statues, buildings, or inscriptions. It was not part of a powerful organization by any means. The writer speaks of Jew and gentile being one body, sharing together. This text speaks of including the other, in the name of Jesus. No one is an outsider.
Listen for the word of God as it is found in Ephesians 3:1-13.
1This is the reason that I Paul am a prisoner for Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles--2 for surely you have already heard of the commission of God's grace that was given me for you, 3 and how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I wrote above in a few words, 4 a reading of which will enable you to perceive my understanding of the mystery of Christ. 5 In former generations this mystery was not made known to humankind, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit: 6 that is, the Gentiles have become fellow heirs, members of the same body, and sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. 7 Of this gospel I have become a servant according to the gift of God's grace that was given me by the working of his power. 8 Although I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given to me to bring to the Gentiles the news of the boundless riches of Christ, 9 and to make everyone see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things; 10 so that through the church the wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. 11 This was in accordance with the eternal purpose that [God] has carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord, 12 in whom we have access to God in boldness and confidence through faith in him. 13 I pray therefore that you may not lose heart over my sufferings for you; they are your glory.
This ends our reading of God's word. Epiphany is on January 6. Our gospel text from Matthew 2 is read on Epiphany. For Protestants, it's not a well-known holiday. It is the feast day that celebrates the arrival of the magi to Jesus' house. The magi dreamed that it would be dangerous to return to Herod, so they returned home another way. Joseph also was warned of Herod in a dream, and took Mary and Jesus to Egypt .
A magazine editor, Dee Dee Risher wrote about one epiphany:
“It is Sunday morning, the feast of epiphany, and I am driving up Ogontz avenue to church. Outside, the January wind is bitter and biting enough to toss trash and leaves and the occasional stray Christmas decorations down the street like restless tumbleweeds. Every block we pass has its share of boarded-up houses, which stand like outposts, reminders of reality before we hit the outlying clean suburbs with superstores and SUVs and malls.
‘Why did Jesus die?' asks my three-year-old son from the back seat.
His question jolts me. First, it's hardly the season for it; We've been celebrating Jesus' birthday and the festivities of Christmas.
And how to answer it? Did Jesus die because God dictated that one innocent person bear the weight of all our sins? Because human evil is a persistent reality of which Jesus was only one victim? Did he die because we must, in fact, always kill God when God is among us?
‘Jesus died because people were afraid of his power and wanted to kill him. But when he came back to life, he taught us not to be afraid,' I replied .
On the radio is singer Bruce Cockburn's haunting rendition of the Christmas story, including the gruesome episode of Herod slaughtering the children: ‘Who when he hears there's a baby born king of the Jews/Sends death squads to kill all male children under two/but that same bright angel warns the parents in a dream/ And they head out for the border and get away clean. /Like a stone on the surface of a still river, driving the ripples on forever,/Redemption rips through the surface of time in the cry of a tiny babe.'
The light turns, and I stop suddenly. On one corner is a small, storefront church. Painted above the door, in bold black letters, its name: ‘The Church of Broken Pieces .' I want to run in the door, grab some strange hand, and say, ‘here I am, take me in…'
Instead, the light changes, and I continue to my own church community. There, we gather around the Word. We take a loaf of bread in our hands, and it becomes broken pieces—the body of Christ. We share it and it becomes our flesh. We offer up our hearts and pray over our broken places. We share the peace of the child with one another.
It is Epiphany. Jesus is born. Jesus will die and be resurrected .
And we gather each week so that, like those three sages centuries ago, we might go home by a different way. Broken people with souls on fire.” (1)
I read another epiphany memory, this by reporter Chris Hedges.
“I can remember being in a refugee camp in Honduras . These were Salvadoran refugees and it was the Epiphany. They were decorating the whole camp for a big fiesta that night. And I said, “Why is it such a big day?' One of the refugees turned to me and said, ‘Because this is the day Jesus became a refugee.' Now I'd read [Matthew 2:1-12]. I knew it by heart. But I didn't understand what it meant until I stood in a refugee camp with refugees who read the story and did understand what it meant.” (2)
So much of the gospel is foreign to us Americans. And so we need to open ourselves to other people's stories, to hear what they have to say so we can hear what the bible has to say. Some of you remember Johny Ruhulessin, the pastor from Indonesia who came here in October, who preached to us about love. Following last week's tsunami in Indonesia, I have not heard from Johny specifically, although Presbyterian Disaster Assistance announced that all their mission co-workers are safe.
Last week I was on vacation in California. While I was there, I read a letter to the editor in a San Francisco paper. The letter-writer was joyful, and said the tsunami in Indonesia proved there was no God. I was startled by his meanness and his logic. I wondered how I could begin to respond to a letter like that. When I returned home, I received a letter that comforted me. It is from two Presbyterian missionary co-workers in Indonesia. I thought you'd like to hear their reflections on the tsunami.
“Dear Friends and Family,
Today is New Year's Eve and also our wedding anniversary. Normally it is a day of celebration. But we don't feel much like celebrating. There is a knot in the stomach and tears just behind our eyes as we are engulfed with the news of the earthquake and tidal wave. Thank you to the many who sent e-mails asking about our safety. We are about 1,500 miles South of the devastation in North Sumatra. The only indication we felt, as we camped on the South coast of Java at the time of the earthquake, was gale force winds, whipping the rain from all directions. In Yogyakarta there is no physical disaster, but the emotional impact is incalculable. On every street corner there are students collecting money for Aceh. Almost everyone in this university town has friends from Aceh (the Northernmost province in Sumatra). Very few know if their families are alive or dead.
Many New Year's Eve parties have been cancelled or changed into charity drives. Mountains of food, clothing, money and supplies pile up in Yogyakarta as the people pour out their grief in donations. Indonesia has no experience of a natural disaster on this scale and the logistics for delivering the relief are a nightmare. No roads, airports or communication systems are working in Aceh. What can we do? What does it mean?
We were in the United States on September 11th, 2001 when America went into shock and mourning. Everything shut down for two weeks and the total energies of a great nation were focused on dealing with meaning of this attack. The world was changed , not by the 3,000 dead, but by the meanings, which we construed from it.
In these days, as I process my own puny grief, I try out various stratagems. For example, death is not so bad. We all have to die. Does it really matter if we die now or in a few more, short years? The 100,000 all would have died sooner or later. Even Jesus only lived until he was 33 and was killed in a cruel and senseless manner. Would the meaning of his life be greater if he had lived to be 90? The Christian faith has affirmed his death as a sacrifice for all humankind, allowed by God, and crowned with resurrection. The grief of his friends was turned to joy by the conviction that he was alive again, and still with them. Muslims and Christians live with the hope of the resurrection.… The grief of those left alive will not turn to joy as they struggle to find food, water, clothing and shelter in the rainy season. The children will remain orphans and the parents will not receive their children back.
Tragedies sometimes give birth to miracles, like the story of the brave five-year-old boy, swept out to sea clinging to a door, who crawled on a floating mattress and survived for two days on the open sea before being reunited with his parents. Amazingly, they too were still alive. Unfortunately, for every miracle of survival there are a thousand tales of death. Not many can ride out a tidal wave.
We may be tempted to ask: Is this God's judgment on Indonesia? Or on Aceh? Aceh is called 'the Porch of Mecca,' the most religiously devout area in Indonesia. It is the only province to enforce Islamic Syari'ah law. Aceh is ruled by the Indonesian military that are accused of horrendous human rights abuses, sometimes matched by their separatist guerrilla opponents. Its Governor was recently arrested for corruption. Do we dare ask if God would punish a province bathed for years in blood and corruption? But this is a question that does not bear asking.
The tens of thousands of children, women and men who died , the millions who lost their homes, were not more evil than you or me. They have already suffered through years of warfare and oppression. What kind of a God would punish with such indiscriminate slaughter?…
Those without faith may see this tragedy as further evidence of the incomprehensible, meaninglessness of human existence. But those with faith can only submit to the will of God. The earthquake and tidal waves are acts of God that demonstrate the immeasurable power of God and nature. Terrorists seem puny in comparison. Why? is beyond the powers of human comprehension.
Nevertheless, we can and will construct a meaning for this tragedy. We cannot live without meaning. The meaning of this tragedy is not fixed or eternal. We will create it by how we respond. As the grief and donations flow in, we feel the unity of Indonesia, indeed the unity of the world. 11 countries were hit and the entire world is responding. Poor farmers in Java are sending their best change of clothes to Aceh. The Indonesian soldiers who survived the tidal wave have put down their weapons and taken up shovels. The military is the strongest institution in Aceh and at least for now, it is focused on relief of suffering. Foreign agencies, long denied access to Aceh are pouring in. How long will this compassion and unity last? Soon the ideological battles will begin as different interest groups compete to exploit the tragedy for their own agenda.
For now, we are content to feel the grief this tragedy demands. …. Later there will be time for celebration. Tonight, Farsijana, my loving wife, cooked a delicious meal and we cancelled our plans to celebrate our [wedding] anniversary and the New Year at a fancy restaurant. Instead we put on a recording of Mozart's achingly beautiful Requiem and felt the grief of death. Farsijana said we should not fight nature. This is the time for grief. We remember the 5-year-old boy who survived the tidal wave by floating on a mattress. He said, "I was not afraid. I am used to the sea. I was only cold." He became one with the wild ocean and his courage saved his life. Perhaps, only perhaps, the courage and compassion of Indonesia and the world may transform this tragedy into a new opportunity for peace, justice and life.
Insya Allah. (God willing)!'Thy loving kindness is better than life.'
Bernie and Farsijana Adeney-Risakotta, Yogyakarta, Indonesia ” (3)
I also discovered a hymn on the PCUSA website. An Australian pastor, Peter Holden, adapted a hymn by Presbyterian pastor Carolyn Winfrey Gillette. The hymn is called “ O God, that Great Tsunami.” Peter used to work in Jakarta , Indonesia. I thought you would like to hear the words.
O God, that great tsunami has stunned us one and all;
Our neighbors reel in anguish while homes and cities fall.
O God of wind and water who made the sea and sky,
Amid such great destruction, we mournfully ask "Why?"
How many folk have perished? We can't their bodies find:
Life will not be the same now for those they've left behind.
More than a million mourners are grieving to their core;
O Jesus, Friend and Savior, you suffer with the poor.
Economies are ruined and lives in tatters lie,
Sewage is washed down-river while lonely orphans cry:
O Spirit, send your comfort and give us faith that cares.
For when our neighbors suffer, our lives are bound with theirs. (4) (5)
W
hen Christians talk about what matters, when we offer up our hearts and pray over our broken places, we share the gifts of the child with the world.
(1) Risher, Dee Dee, “Broken pieces,” The Other Side, January and February 2004.
(2) Hedges, Christ, Harvard Divinity Bulletin, Fall/Winter 2003, quoted in Context, April 2004, vol. 36, number 4.
(3) Personal communication, e-mail, 12-31-04
(4) Text: “ The Storm Came to Honduras ” © 1978 Carolyn Winfrey Gillette. Adaptation © 2004 by Peter Holden.
Tune: Passion Chorale Hans Leo Hassler, 1601, Harm. Johann Sebastian Bach, 1729 (" O Sacred Head, Now Wounded ").
Free one-time permission is given to congregations that are using the hymn to support ecumenical relief efforts in response to the earthquake and tsunami of December 2004 in Asia.
(5) Background on the Hymn:
An Australian pastor, Peter Holden, has done an adaptation of a six-year old hymn for the new disaster caused by the earthquake and tsunami in Asia and Africa. Holden served as a pastor in Indonesia before retiring to Australia. His adaptation changes some of the verses in “The Storm Came to Honduras ” while keeping other lines. The new hymn also keeps well-known tune of “Passion Chorale” by Hans Leo Hassler (1601) that was harmonized by Johann Sebastian Bach in 1729 and is associated with the popular hymn "O Sacred Head, Now Wounded ".
In November 1978 Carolyn Winfrey Gillette wrote a hymn, “The Storm Came to Honduras ,” in response to Hurricane Mitch's devastation in Central America. Many congregations in the USA and overseas used this hymn to encourage support for what the United Nations described as the “worst natural disaster in western hemisphere in the 20th century.” The hymn was widely shared on the Internet, posted on numerous denominational and ecumenical web sites and featured twice on national PBS-TV. Holden and Gillette hope the new hymn will encourage individuals and congregations to support the relief efforts responding to new disaster
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