Reflection for the Third Sunday after Epiphany

“As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea—for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people. And immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him.”

Ever notice how often Mark makes use of the word “immediately”? It often gets missed in the translation, if the translators use other words throughout, but Mark has this great sense of urgency in his gospel. Immediately Jesus does this, and then immediately the disciples do that. It makes for an interesting narrative style, certainly.

What would it be like in our lives if we treated the message of God’s love and work in the world in this way? What would our lives be like if we spoke of God’s action as happening immediately?

We often have this sense of urgency in our lives: the busy-ness of today’s world demands that we react with haste. Emails must be replied to, phone calls returned quickly, bills paid, taxes calculated, and so on and so on.

What if we considered God’s message of love even more urgent than all these secular urgencies? What if we considered telling the world about God’s peace, about how all people are loved by God and about how all people are worthy of justice and safety and love and life?

What if we prayed “immediately”?

What if we gave “immediately”?

What if we shared meals, or invited a friend to worship, or simple shared a moment of peace, or any number of things that we can do that would give the Spirit room to move between us? And what if we did it immediately?

What wonders Jesus was able to do, in inviting the disciples to action.

What wonders Jesus was able to do, in traveling and meeting strangers, and welcoming them.

What wonders, indeed.

God invites us, immediately.

God loves us, immediately.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

Reflection for the Second Sunday after Epiphany

“The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, ‘Follow me.’”

What does it mean to follow Jesus? What does it mean for us, as children of God, to follow this strange man who comes out of nowhere and asks for our lives?

I often wonder what Philip, and the other disciples, expected when they first followed Christ’s call. I often wonder what it would have been like for them to get up and follow this one who knew them.

In some ways, we have it easy: we know where Christ’s path leads. We know that the end of Christ’s journey is resurrection and ascension, and we know that in order to reach Easter’s glorious victory, we must first travel to the foot of the cross: to death.

It may not feel easy, and it certainly isn’t comfortable, to worship a God who became so human that he died at the hand of human oppressors, having been tortured for his message, the same message we seek to share with the world today.

And yet, this is the God who calls to us, “Follow me.” This is the God we worship, this is the God we serve, and this is the God whose world we live in, and whose world we respond to with love.

What does it mean to you to “follow” Christ?

What does it mean in your life to have this incarnate, crucified, risen one as your leader?

The answers to these questions are as diverse as the creation that yearns to respond, but our God is the God of diversity, the God of finding answers in many different voices.

This is the God we love, who calls us out of our safe places into a life of following that is not always comfortable.

And this is the God who loves us, no matter how we seek to follow.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

Reflection for the Baptism of Our Lord

“In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John the in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’”

Today we celebrate the baptism of our Lord. We begin this season of Epiphany, the season after Christmas and before Lent, by celebrating Jesus' baptism by John.

It makes sense, and is wonderful, that we celebrate this seemingly very normal thing for Jesus to have done. After all, in our lives today, we're used to baptism, it's a fairly standard event, at least for families of faith.

John was in the wilderness baptizing, promising a baptism for the repentance of sins. All sorts of people were flocking o the wilderness, to the river, to be baptized by John. And then Jesus shows up.

The last time we saw Jesus, he was just getting presented at the Temple, an infant still, with much growing and learning to do. Now, he's an adult, and has come to John in the wilderness, to the river, to be baptized. Of course, this throws John a bit. After all, he has been proclaiming that there would be one coming after him would be above him, because this one was before him. And now, here is Jesus, the very one about whom John prophesied, seeking the water. What sins could Jesus have to want to be baptized away? What reasons could this powerful Son of God have for wanting to be washed by John, this prophet in the wilderness? These questions and more were likely running through John's head as Jesus approached.

And John baptized Jesus in the river Jordan, and as Jesus rose up from the waters, “he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him.” This was no ordinary baptism. This was no ordinary moment, no ordinary washing in the river. This was the Son of God being claimed and named as such.

Which is where the story comes back to our own. It starts off sounding familiar: go and get baptized. It takes a turn with the tearing of the heavens and the appearance of the Holy Spirit. And then, Jesus is claimed and named as God’s own.

And what else happens to us in baptism but that we are named and claimed as children of God? It’s huge, it’s holy, and it is brilliantly simple. When the water touched your head and the Word of God was proclaimed over you, “baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” you were claimed by God, to be a child of God forever.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.