Revised Common lectionary text for the third Sunday after
Epiphany can be found here:
“A people
in darkness has seen a great light!”
With these thunderous words Isaiah announces a hopeful message
of deliverance. Set in a time of threat, the reference appears to be the birth
of a prince or the coronation ceremony. The geopolitical reference to Galilee
is clearer; this was where the Assyrian invasion stalled; consuming Israel, but
sparing, by God’s grace, Judah.
However, the contemporary promise of Messianic deliverance included
a reference to the last days. It is probable that both dimension, near and
distant future are woven into the prophet’s message.
The first Christians recognized Jesus as Messiah. So Mt
reports that when Jesus walked the dusty roads of Nazareth, this was Isaiah’s light
shining on the people of Galilee. (Thanks be to God!)
Jesus, however, turns out to be a different kind of king. He
was not a Davidic warrior come to deliver His nation with sword and spear. God
knows that “the darkness and gloom” of geopolitics is not the biggest problem. The
horror of Assyria, Babylon, Persia, and Rome; of Nazi and Communist yesterday, or
radical Islam today are a manifestation of the spiritual darkness which encompasses
us all.
Jesus is the Light of the World, the true light which fills our
darkness. This darkness permeates every human, good and bad. In Jesus God
reaches to humanity. Jesus is God’s promise, delivered and fulfilled, that no
one is forgotten or abandoned.
In Matthew we learn that salvation has an ecclesiastical
dimension. The disciple is called to be with
Jesus. Discipleship is companionship. It is also school. Disciples are
students who learn about God from
Jesus. But it is head and heart knowledge—information and skill. Disciples
become like the Master through the difficult formation process of life
together in the church.
The curriculum is God Himself. He conveys His very Divine self
in word and sacrament to be with His
people and to act through His
people. The Bible is our text book, but
the learning process includes lectures (Tradition) which explain and practicums
which apply the word to life.
Paul is concerned about the church which began the day that
Jesus called Peter, Andrew, James and John. The church had expanded to Corinth
and its divisions are the same we see today. Self-important individuals
intoxicated by our beliefs, like Assyria or Babylon, we, too, would oppress the
people of God and conform them to our way of thinking.
It seems easy to assign Peter to the “Catholic” (institutional
and hierarchical), Paul to the “Protestant” (“Letter to the Romans”) and, more
of a stretch, Apollos, the philosopher,” to the Liberal/Modernist church of the
Rationalist. And in every age you have those who claim they have Jesus (“the only
ones who got it right, ever.”)
No doubt our strongly held beliefs are important and worth debating,
but Paul reminds us that it is the heart
and mind of Christ which is central. All of us, whether, Catholic,
Protestant, Pentecostal, Non-denominational must follow Jesus. IF I am coming to Jesus and if you are coming
to Jesus THEN we all end up together (with Jesus).
That is the scandal of church division, schism in Greek. The Body of Christ is ONE. Our divisions contradict
our witness. Christ is not carved up into pieces like a dismembered corpse!
So how does one acquire the heart and mind of Christ? It is a
gift, graciously given: we are too dark to be our own light. We must ask the
Father, however, we know that the gift is received by those who commune with Jesus.
The mind of Christ comes from hearing Him speak in Bible and in the church. The
heart of Christ comes from loving others more than self. It comes from CROSS
SHAPED service to the poor and needy (however those terms are defined in
particular situations).
One cannot be in community alone.
Jesus called discipleS (plural)
to be with Him. It is neither a private nor individual adventure. It
encompasses every Christian in the whole world. In this local parish, for
whatever reason, you and I are yoked together in this process. To walk as one in the light who is Jesus;
and to be light to those in
darkness. It is a gift, it is a vocation
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