Fostering conversations about the Church among theologians, pastors, and congregations.
Christmas 2/Epiphany
This Sunday our church will read scriptures of Epiphany, celebrating the visitation of the magi to Jesus. Although no manger scene would be complete without these exotic strangers from afar, Matthew says that they showed up some time after the birth of Jesus, and found Joseph’s little family in a house at Bethlehem. Read more
Seventh Sunday After the Epiphany
In his essay, “Two Economies,” writer and farmer Wendell Berry recounts an exchange with his friend Wes Jackson. The two were struggling to come up with an economy that would more appropriately value what is valuable since the money economy was clearly failing on that account. Berry suggested that perhaps an economy based on energy rather than money would be more comprehensive, but Jackson rejected that measure as still too small. Frustrated, Berry asked Jackson what economy would be large enough. Jackson replied, “the Kingdom of God.”
As we work through the Sermon on the Mount we find Jesus in the role of the new Moses, on the new Sinai, teaching God’s people the renewed Law. The instructions offered are how these people gathered as Jesus’s disciples should enter into the reality of heaven—the place where God’s will is done. Read more
Micah 6:1-8
Psalm 15
I Corinthians 1:18-31
Matthew 5:1-12
Are we still of any use? What we shall need is not geniuses, or cynics, or misanthropes, or clever tacticians, but plain, honest, straightforward [human beings]. Will our inward power of resistance be strong enough, and our honesty with ourselves remorseless enough, for us to find our way back to simplicity and straightforwardness?
Deitrich Bonhoeffer, “After Ten Years” Read more
In the Episcopal Church, the collect for the third Sunday after Epiphany focuses our attention on the task of preaching the Gospel. “Give us grace, O Lord, to answer readily the call of our Savior Jesus Christ and proclaim to all people the Good News of his salvation, that we and the whole world may perceive the glory of his marvelous works; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.”
As Christians, we are called to preach the good news of Jesus Christ. And in so doing, we pray that we and the world will see God’s glory. This is a hopeful prayer, and we all need hope. Read more
The Epiphany of the Lord
Isaiah 60:1-6
Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14
Ephesians 3:1-12
Matthew 2:1-12
Lectionary for Mass
Welcome home, my child.
Your home is a checkpoint now.
Your home is a border town.
Welcome to the brawl.
“Song of the Magi,” Anaïs Mitchell
They are as familiar as any in the cast of characters that make up the mash-up we know as the Christmas Story.
The “wise men from the East” in Matthew’s gospel join the shepherds and angels found only in Luke to populate children’s Christmas pageants everywhere. With tinfoil crowns on their heads and festive tablecloths draped over their tiny shoulders, solemn preschoolers reverently place wrapping-paper-clad boxes at the feet of makeshift mangers. Parents and grandparents sigh and chuckle. Video and still shots are posted to Facebook before “Silent Night” has been sung and happy applause has been rendered.
Christians high-church and low have ritualized these stories (even as they have conflated them) in this very recognizable and much-beloved form. And why not teach children (and others) in such ways—through embodiment, performance, spectacle?
But for those who may be weary of the inevitable kitsch of this rite of passage, and perhaps especially for those who wonder if the whole nativity narrative isn’t just another fairy tale, it’s worth noting how the story of the wise men in Matthew (and also of the shepherds and angels in Luke) is rooted not in cuddly cuteness but in the politics of domination and costly resistance to it. Read more