Speaker: Sarah Werner

Texts: Isaiah 60:1-6; Matthew 2:1-12

A few weeks ago I attended a seminar in New Haven, Connecticut called “The Gospel of Peace in Dynamic Engagement with the Peace of Islam.” It was led by David Shenk, a Mennonite scholar and missionary with a lifetime of experience dialoguing with Muslims throughout the world. I thought about sharing some of the academic sorts of things I learned about Islamic theology and practice, but I would encourage you instead to read about this on your own. Understanding the beliefs and practices of our Muslim neighbors is important and something we all need to do, but I want to offer a more personal reflection this morning. What stayed with me the most from my week wasn’t the history or theology of Islam. It was the spirit of hospitality, new ideas of what the witness of Christ means, and what is at stake for Muslims and Christians here and throughout the world.

This is also a very appropriate topic to delve into on this Sunday when we celebrate the Epiphany of Christ. Epiphany comes from the Greek word epiphaneia, which means “revelation” or “manifestation.” The light of Christ is manifested in the star of Bethlehem seen by the magi. Matthew tells us that these wise men have journeyed “from the East,” drawn by a star that they interpret as signaling the birth of the Messiah. Though they weren’t Jews, or even Israelites, they understood the star to be a signal of change in the world and they wanted to be a part of it.

The story of the magi is often interpreted as an indication that the gospel is for the Gentiles as well as the Jews, for all the nations. The Matthew text hints back to this passage of Isaiah. Isaiah promises that people will come…

Text: Luke 2:1-20  

Luke’s story of Jesus’ birth famously begins with a decree from an emperor.  The emperor.  There can only be one emperor at a time.  There’s only one seat at the top of the pyramid.  The Caesar, Octavian, who went by Caesar Augustus, which translates as Caesar, Most Revered.

From Rome, Caesar Augustus makes a declaration.  Luke begins: “In those days, a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered.”

The purpose of such a census was not to see how many families had fallen below the poverty line so the Romans would know how far to extend the social safety net.  It was to update the tax rolls.  It was a way of extending control over peoples, who were counted, head by head, reminding them who was in charge.  You can’t hide from Caesar.

When Caesar Most Revered makes a declaration, it moves its way down the pyramid, each layer of the hierarchy bound to carry out its demands.  Governors must oversee registration in their regions.  Local authorities must set up and implement the census.  Army commanders must see that their soldiers are keeping the peace.  And households, however distant they may be from Rome, must rearrange their priorities in order to fulfill their legal obligations.

The emperor declares, and the world bends toward his will.

This is the opening statement of the story.  It causes a peasant couple, Joseph and Mary, to leave their residence of Nazareth and go to Bethlehem.  To have their heads counted.  To get their names on the list of the subjects of the kingdom.

It’s here, in Bethlehem, where Mary gives birth to her firstborn, a son, Jesus, and wraps him up in bands of cloth, and places him in what was likely a feed trough for animals, a manger.

When Mary’s son grows…

Texts: Luke: 1:46-55; Matthew 1:18-25  

Alternative story line.

Matthew 1, beginning with verse 18:

18 Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah* didn’t take place.  When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. 19Her husband Joseph, was a righteous man.  Joseph was a righteous man, a man of commitment, a man of honor.  Joseph, a righteous man, a man of duty to the law of his people.

Mary, found to be with child not from Joseph.  Joseph, found out.  Righteousness demanded obedience to the law and the law was clear, as firm as stone, faithfully transcribed through the generations, read publicly weekly for all to hear who wished to follow the way of righteousness.

The fifth book of the Torah, the 22nd chapter of Deuteronomy, regarding the young woman given in marriage, from her father’s house to her husband.  If evidence is found of the woman’s lack of sexual purity, the law states: “then they shall bring the young woman out to the entrance of her father’s house and the men of her town shall stone her to death, because she committed a disgraceful act in Israel by prostituting herself in her father’s house. So you shall purge the evil from your midst” (Deuteronomy 22:21).

Mary, a pregnant unmarried young woman.  Joseph, a righteous man.  Not a hateful or violent man.  But a righteous man.  A God-fearing man.  Unable to see another way.  Unable to counter the obligations.  At first fundamentally divided about the way forward, then with a heavy heart, then, joined by other righteous men, with a growing sense of righteousness, Joseph carried out the teachings of the Scripture.  His honor restored.  Evil purged from their midst.  Now, the birth of Jesus the Messiah didn’t take place.

Alternative story…

Texts: Isiah 11:1-10; Matthew 3:1-12

While I was living in Kansas a few years back, my friend invited me to join her and her family for their annual Halloween gathering.  For them, any holiday was a good excuse to gather, but I was surprised to find out that Halloween seemed to be just as much of a celebration as Thanksgiving or Christmas.  My friend’s aunt’s house was packed with cousins, nieces and nephews, grandparents, and aunts and uncles.  We ate more than we should (a good deal of that being candy).  We carved pumpkins with an intensity that I have never done before, which included printed templates, precision cutting, strategically placed toothpicks to hold together the spots where our cutting was less precise, and a ritualistic lighting of the finished products. 

After a full and rich day, the family gathered around the large dining room table.  We had exhausted all the planned activities, but the conversations were still going strong.  At some point, the conversation turned to which TV shows we thought were worth watching that season.  I don’t remember exactly which guilty pleasures were being discussed, and as a good Mennonite Voluntary Service worker, I watched very little TV at the time, so I was mostly listening. 

A couple minutes into the conversation, my friend’s grandpa, who had also mostly been a spectator in the raucous back and forth that had been happening, interjected from the end of the table, “There are too many gays on TV.”

In the span of approximately one-and-a-half seconds, a number of things happened.  There was a collective intake of breath from nearly everyone there, my friend silently grabbed my leg under the table, I’m sure I probably made a face that was somewhere between surprise and intrigue, and my friend’s mom quickly commandeered the conversation back to…

Texts: Isaiah 2:1-5, Matthew 24:36-44

We’re still a month out from the ball dropping, the changing of our calendars to 2017, but in the liturgical cycle, this is the new year.  Year C has ended, we’re back to Year A, starting today.  The church calendar resets with Advent.  This is day 1.

So we begin.

We begin with birth.  We begin actually before birth.  We begin expecting birth.  We all start out pregnant.  Whether or not you feel it, we start the year collectively in a state of anticipation, watchfulness, alertness.  We are just enough out of sync with our other way of keeping time that it forces us reconsider our frame of reference.  What time is it?

We spent Friday with my family on the farm in Bellefontaine.  As I’m reminded every time we visit, I come from a family that has developed its own unique way of keeping time.  Probably every household has to decide for themselves how to set their clocks.  Do you set them to the actual time, or do you set them slightly ahead so you can get away with leaving the house 8:03, drive for 15 minutes, and still arrive at your destination at exactly quarter after eight?

This maybe isn’t as much an issue in an age when our main time keeper is our always reliable cell phones, but long before those days, the Miller family selected the strategy of mental trickery, setting clocks ahead.  I was never enthusiastic about this, partially because we went well overboard. The main authority on time in the house, a clock that hangs on the wall in the kitchen, still there, was often set 8, 10, even 15 minutes faster than the time that the rest of the world operated on.  The intention was to help us be on time to…