Today's Scripture Readings
Jeremiah 31: 7-14 (NRSV)
Psalm 84 (BCP, p.707).
Ephesians 1:3-6, 15-19a (NRSV)
Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23 (NRSV)
Blog Reflection
Among the hottest issues in our time, immigration seems to ignite passions of emotional proportions like no other. In a country in which our own ancestors migrated anywhere from Spain and England, and displaced the Native American people to claim land as their own, the conversation that suggests that we "own" what is not even ours, and our passion for hording it, cannot be justified. But, it is the unspoken attitude behind calling the Dream Act a bill about amnesty. The conversation that this land belongs to Caucasian, Christian, men, who speak English, and are wealthy and powerful dominates every debate about topics such as immigration, as well as marriage equality, a woman's right to make her own health care decisions and health care reform itself.
The readings on this Second Sunday after Christmas, and the Twelfth Day of Christmas, give us some insights in to the Person of Christ as a Child, a refugee and an immigrant.
The reading from Jeremiah is his earnest desire to see the north and south countries in Israel that have been divided, to come together and make peace. It is as if those who were weeping, would at last be able to laugh and live in happiness. It is the story of Jeremiah wishing for the relief of the people who have been separated from each other. It is a division that Jeremiah prays for God to heal.
What does this mean for Christians?
Our Christian Tradition suggests that before Christ, the relationship of God with God's people was estranged. Let's be clear so as to avoid antisemitism, God's People, Israel were not lost. The message of the Christian Faith is not a statement against Judaism. It is a message of how God saved us through Christ, and those who draw closer to God through Christ find their salvation. In Christ, God's perfect revelation of God's Self, God draws closest to us, so as to draw us closer in relationship with God. If we read Jeremiah in that context, it is God reuniting our wounded humanity, in Christ to live in Community with God and one another. Even those, who do not understand or believe in Christ as we do. It is still God's work to save humankind.
In Ephesians, we read that the salvation we find in Christ was prepared for us from the foundation of the world. We are God's children by adoption through Christ. In that relationship, we are also in relationship with each other. All of the labels that we pin on ourselves and others, do not make any one of us, any less of a daughter or son of God.
The Gospel reading from Matthew has two meanings. First, Matthew's Gospel uses for it's theme, the connection of Jesus Christ with the prophesies of the Hebrew Scriptures. Jesus Christ, for Christians, is the central figure that connects us with the narratives and prophetic discourses in what is commonly called the Old Testament. Handel's Messiah makes this connection in exquisite Baroque music of choruses, instrumental music, arias and recitatives.
The particular narrative in this Sunday's Gospel Reading, is an interesting "slice." It is the story of Joseph picking up the Child Jesus, and Mary and fleeing to Egypt before Herod slaughters the Holy Innocents. The second paragraph for this reading, is after the Holy Innocents have been killed, and the Holy Family returns. In the first paragraph, Jesus, Mary and Joseph are the Holy Family, the refugees, the immigrants. In the second paragraph, the Holy Family returns to their home land of Nazareth to raise Jesus into adulthood.
The finer point here, is that Jesus, the Incarnate Word needs to protection of his mother and father to escape an early death. He also needs a foreign nation to keep him safe until He can return home. He needs His mother and father to be taken home, to be nurtured, taught and matured into a functioning member of His community. If Jesus Christ, who was God needed help to be safe and mature, than each of us needs the help of each other that much more. In this Gospel story, Jesus is the refugee and the immigrant. In our own time, Jesus is present in the refugee and immigrant who comes to us for help.
Women, men and children leave wherever they come from, and flee to America for hope, opportunity and some kind of future. They come here with their own language, culture, customs and even their own religion. It is important for Christians to welcome Christ in the stranger, who may be a refugee and immigrant, and to make room for Christ in our hearts and communities.
The Christmas story is about welcoming Christ, the Word Incarnate into our world, into ourselves and into each other. Jesus Christ was born in the middle of our human disorganization. He came, looking for room in the inn's of our overcrowded hearts and lives. He comes into our country seeking refuge of countries like Russia and Uganda as the violence towards LGBTQ people escalates. Jesus seeks a home in America and the Church, as they persecute the Coptic Christians in Egypt and Syria. Jesus the refugee and immigrant will displace us. We will be uncomfortable with Him not understanding how we observe traffic lights, driving laws, employment and housing laws.
Tomorrow, we will celebrate the Epiphany. The manifestation, the revelation of God in Christ.
As the story of Christ unfolds in our Liturgy and in our debates about immigration reform, may we decide that welcoming Christ in others is important, because our relationship with Christ in one another is priceless. Even better than all that stuff we can buy with a Mastercard.
Amen.
Prayers
Jeremiah 31: 7-14 (NRSV)
Thus says the LORD:
says the LORD.
- Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob,
- and raise shouts for the chief of the nations;
- proclaim, give praise, and say,
- "Save, O LORD, your people,
- the remnant of Israel."
- See, I am going to bring them from the land of the north,
- and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth,
- among them the blind and the lame, those with child and
- those in labor, together;
- a great company, they shall return here.
- With weeping they shall come,
- and with consolations I will lead them back,
- I will let them walk by brooks of water,
- in a straight path in which they shall not stumble;
- for I have become a father to Israel,
- and Ephraim is my firstborn.
- Hear the word of the LORD, O nations,
- and declare it in the coastlands far away;
- say, "He who scattered Israel will gather him,
- and will keep him as a shepherd a flock."
- For the LORD has ransomed Jacob,
- and has redeemed him from hands too strong for him.
- They shall come and sing aloud on the height of Zion,
- and they shall be radiant over the goodness of the LORD,
- over the grain, the wine, and the oil,
- and over the young of the flock and the herd;
- their life shall become like a watered garden,
- and they shall never languish again.
- Then shall the young women rejoice in the dance,
- and the young men and the old shall be merry.
- I will turn their mourning into joy,
- I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow.
- I will give the priests their fill of fatness,
- and my people shall be satisfied with my bounty,
Psalm 84 (BCP, p.707).
Ephesians 1:3-6, 15-19a (NRSV)
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.
I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, and for this reason I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers. I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe.
Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23 (NRSV)
Now after the wise men had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, "Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him." Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, "Out of Egypt I have called my son."
When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, "Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child's life are dead." Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee. There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, "He will be called a Nazorean."
Blog Reflection
Among the hottest issues in our time, immigration seems to ignite passions of emotional proportions like no other. In a country in which our own ancestors migrated anywhere from Spain and England, and displaced the Native American people to claim land as their own, the conversation that suggests that we "own" what is not even ours, and our passion for hording it, cannot be justified. But, it is the unspoken attitude behind calling the Dream Act a bill about amnesty. The conversation that this land belongs to Caucasian, Christian, men, who speak English, and are wealthy and powerful dominates every debate about topics such as immigration, as well as marriage equality, a woman's right to make her own health care decisions and health care reform itself.
The readings on this Second Sunday after Christmas, and the Twelfth Day of Christmas, give us some insights in to the Person of Christ as a Child, a refugee and an immigrant.
The reading from Jeremiah is his earnest desire to see the north and south countries in Israel that have been divided, to come together and make peace. It is as if those who were weeping, would at last be able to laugh and live in happiness. It is the story of Jeremiah wishing for the relief of the people who have been separated from each other. It is a division that Jeremiah prays for God to heal.
What does this mean for Christians?
Our Christian Tradition suggests that before Christ, the relationship of God with God's people was estranged. Let's be clear so as to avoid antisemitism, God's People, Israel were not lost. The message of the Christian Faith is not a statement against Judaism. It is a message of how God saved us through Christ, and those who draw closer to God through Christ find their salvation. In Christ, God's perfect revelation of God's Self, God draws closest to us, so as to draw us closer in relationship with God. If we read Jeremiah in that context, it is God reuniting our wounded humanity, in Christ to live in Community with God and one another. Even those, who do not understand or believe in Christ as we do. It is still God's work to save humankind.
In Ephesians, we read that the salvation we find in Christ was prepared for us from the foundation of the world. We are God's children by adoption through Christ. In that relationship, we are also in relationship with each other. All of the labels that we pin on ourselves and others, do not make any one of us, any less of a daughter or son of God.
The Gospel reading from Matthew has two meanings. First, Matthew's Gospel uses for it's theme, the connection of Jesus Christ with the prophesies of the Hebrew Scriptures. Jesus Christ, for Christians, is the central figure that connects us with the narratives and prophetic discourses in what is commonly called the Old Testament. Handel's Messiah makes this connection in exquisite Baroque music of choruses, instrumental music, arias and recitatives.
The particular narrative in this Sunday's Gospel Reading, is an interesting "slice." It is the story of Joseph picking up the Child Jesus, and Mary and fleeing to Egypt before Herod slaughters the Holy Innocents. The second paragraph for this reading, is after the Holy Innocents have been killed, and the Holy Family returns. In the first paragraph, Jesus, Mary and Joseph are the Holy Family, the refugees, the immigrants. In the second paragraph, the Holy Family returns to their home land of Nazareth to raise Jesus into adulthood.
The finer point here, is that Jesus, the Incarnate Word needs to protection of his mother and father to escape an early death. He also needs a foreign nation to keep him safe until He can return home. He needs His mother and father to be taken home, to be nurtured, taught and matured into a functioning member of His community. If Jesus Christ, who was God needed help to be safe and mature, than each of us needs the help of each other that much more. In this Gospel story, Jesus is the refugee and the immigrant. In our own time, Jesus is present in the refugee and immigrant who comes to us for help.
Women, men and children leave wherever they come from, and flee to America for hope, opportunity and some kind of future. They come here with their own language, culture, customs and even their own religion. It is important for Christians to welcome Christ in the stranger, who may be a refugee and immigrant, and to make room for Christ in our hearts and communities.
The Christmas story is about welcoming Christ, the Word Incarnate into our world, into ourselves and into each other. Jesus Christ was born in the middle of our human disorganization. He came, looking for room in the inn's of our overcrowded hearts and lives. He comes into our country seeking refuge of countries like Russia and Uganda as the violence towards LGBTQ people escalates. Jesus seeks a home in America and the Church, as they persecute the Coptic Christians in Egypt and Syria. Jesus the refugee and immigrant will displace us. We will be uncomfortable with Him not understanding how we observe traffic lights, driving laws, employment and housing laws.
Tomorrow, we will celebrate the Epiphany. The manifestation, the revelation of God in Christ.
As the story of Christ unfolds in our Liturgy and in our debates about immigration reform, may we decide that welcoming Christ in others is important, because our relationship with Christ in one another is priceless. Even better than all that stuff we can buy with a Mastercard.
Amen.
Prayers
O God, who wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully
restored, the dignity of human nature: Grant that we may
share the divine life of him who humbled himself to share
our humanity, your Son Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns
with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever
and ever. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer, p.214).
O God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us
through Jesus your Son: Look with compassion on the whole
human family; take away the arrogance and hatred which
infect our hearts; break down the walls that separate us;
unite us in bonds of love; and work through our struggle and
confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth; that, in
your good time, all nations and races may serve you in
harmony around your heavenly throne; through Jesus Christ
our Lord. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer, p.815).
Gracious Father, we pray for thy holy Catholic Church. Fill it
with all truth, in all truth with all peace. Where it is corrupt,
purify it; where it is in error, direct it; where in any thing it is
amiss, reform it. Where it is right, strengthen it; where it is in
want, provide for it; where it is divided, reunite it; for the sake
of Jesus Christ thy Son our Savior. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer, p.816).
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