Propers of the Day:
Deuteronomy 18:15-20 / Psalm 111 / 1 Corinthians 8:1-13 / Mark 1:21-28

In November of 1958, American author and Nobel laureate John Steinbeck received a letter from his eldest son Thom, then a teenager studying away from home at a boarding school. In the letter, Thom told his father that he had fallen desperately in love with a girl at his boarding school. In response to his son’s note, Steinbeck sent back a letter in response – a letter filled with tender love for his young son. Here’s a portion of what he writes:

Dear Thom:

We had your letter this morning. I will answer it from my point of view and of course Elaine will from hers.

First — if you are in love — that’s a good thing — that’s about the best thing that can happen to anyone. Don’t let anyone make it small or light to you.

Second — There are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. The other is an outpouring of everything good in you — of kindness and consideration and respect — not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn’t know you had…

But I don’t think you were asking me what you feel. You know better than anyone. What you wanted me to help you with is what to do about it — and that I can tell you.

Glory in it for one thing and be very glad and grateful for it.

The object of love is the best and most beautiful. Try to live up to it.

Steinbeck goes on to add a few concluding words, looking forward to a later visit with his young son and his crush during a future break from the boarding school. Steinbeck’s letter is perhaps one of the most wonderful expressions I’ve encountered of the nature of love – I’ve filed his letter away both for use in the future when doing pre-marital counseling, not to mention to have for my own sake. Steinbeck’s letter, believe it or not, strikes right to the very heart of one of our appointed pieces of scripture for today.

Of all of the books of the New Testament, perhaps none is as focused on the nature of love as Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians. This may seem surprising, especially when we consider our epistle readings from First Corinthians over the past several weeks: we have heard Paul speak about sexual ethics, preaching that “The body is meant not for fornication but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.” Last week, Paul wrote that “let even those who have wives be as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing.” And this week, Paul writes to the Church in Corinth about the practice of eating food sacrificed to idols. In fact, as soon as we begin to read this epistle, it becomes clear that Paul is speaking to a community that is immersed in conflict on every level. Within the space of twelve chapters, Paul writes a condemnations of a man sleeping with his mother-in-law and of lawsuits among the community of disciples in Corinth, he writes instructing people who haven’t yet married that “it is better to marry than to burn” and writes to still others telling them that it is best not to eat food sacrificed to idols. Paul writes to defend his own authority as an apostle, writes to condemn abuses by the wealthy at the Eucharistic table, and writes seeking to end the abuse of some members of the community by others who perceive themselves as having greater spiritual gifts. There are seemingly an infinite number of conflicts, an infinite number of problems, with what would seem to be an infinite number of solutions. And yet, with so many different ailments, so many sicknesses in the Corinthian church, Paul deftly weaves them all together as symptoms of a single illness: the church has forgotten how to love.

Today’s epistle addresses the conflict among community members in Corinth concerning the consumption of food that has been sacrificed in pagan rituals. As would have been common in any Mediterranean city of Paul’s time, the food offered to idols in pagan temples would then subsequently be sold in the marketplace; it was conceivable, if not likely, that the cut of steak on the Corinthian Christian’s banquet table my have been sacrificed to Zeus earlier in the day. This caused controversy: some in the community argued that it would be a sacrilege for a Christian to eat food sacrificed to another God, while others said that since it was clear there is only one true God, it didn’t matter where the food came from – simply calling a piece of food a “Zeus Burger” didn’t make it so.

Paul’s response to the church in Corinth gives a clear answer to which side of this debate is correct – of course they can eat this food, he writes, because “even though there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth- yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ.” But, Paul stresses, who’s right on this particular question doesn’t matter so much. In fact, it barely matters at all.

What matters, he says, is that the community needs to look up from their plates, and into the faces of one another. Paul notes that not every one in this community of converts understands that there is nothing wrong with eating the food sacrificed to idols. In fact, many are new converts from the very religions who have sacrificed that same food, and so “they still think of the food they eat as food offered to an idol; and their conscience is hurt.” So while one side of the argument may be correct, and have the “right answer,” Paul writes, when these new converts see people with the right answerseating in the temple of an idol, could not these converts be hurt in their weakness, and be led to fall away from God? Has the community been so caught up in its quest to be correct – in its desire to be right – that it has failed to perceive the emotions, concerns, and difficulties of those around them they are called to love?

The problem in the Church, Paul says, is not food, or sex, or money, or any of the myriad other issues that confront us as much today as they did the church in the first century. Our problem is that we become so tied up in the idolatry of self – in the selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing that was as real to Paul and the Corinthian church as it was when Steinbeck described this reality to his son, and as it still is today. The problem isn’t idols, or pieces of meat, or correct answers; the problem is a failure to see one another, to meet one another, to wait patiently for one another. Jesus’ love compels us to reach out in love and concern for others, seeing each other as valuable and beloved. In doing so, as Steinbeck later wrote, strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom are then released in us that we didn’t know we had. Jesus’ love charges us to give up and sacrifice everything of ourselves for the sake of others in a way that ultimately builds us up in ways we could never seek to build ourselves. Love means giving up of ourselves so completely to one another, being so knit together with each other, that we are raised by and through others and not unto ourselves. You’ve heard how Steinbeck describes love – but consider the words Paul gives to the church in Corinth as he concludes his thoughts on their many arguments. I suspect you’ve his words before:

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end… For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

While our lectionary never gets us there, each of our lectionary readings from First Corinthians point to, and build to, this ultimate aim: every conflict, every problem, is nothing in the face of true love for one another, love that looks to to the needs, concerns, struggles of others above and beyond our own. It means putting aside who is “right” for the moment, and simply seeking to meet each other where we are. This is the love that is shown to us on the cross, and this is what it means for us to love one another as Christ’s body.

I read to you the beginning of Steinbeck’s letter to his son, written out of his own deep compassion and care for his child. The end, I believe, is just as instructive:

And don’t worry about losing. If it is right, it happens — The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.

Lord Jesus, through your grace, teach us not to worry about losing. Teach us to love without reserve, without concern, without worry, that nothing – and no one – that you have made good may ever get away.

Amen.

• The full text of John Steinbeck’s letter to his son may be read online through The Atlantic: http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/01/john-steinbeck-on-falling-in-love-a-1958-letter/251375/

Take a quick moment to think back to a time in life where things seemed stuck in a holding pattern. I’m fairly certain that all of us have had these moments, these times where questions seem to outnumber and outweigh any answers we might think we have. It seems like these moments of confusion come when we are asked to risk something of ourselves – to leave our souls open to being either completely filled with joy, or totally hurt, to put our very hearts on the line - for something that is critically and dearly important. These moments often come during the critical junctures in our lives – when we are left considering whether to chance our livelihood to take on a new job in an unfamiliar place. When we try to decide whether lay our hearts on the line to enter into a new relationship. When we debate whether we’re truly ready for a next big step – buying a house, or having children, or retiring from work. When we are left trying to pick up and patch up the results of our brokenness after we fail our friends. When we try to find again who we are after we lose someone we love dearly. These are moments when we are left searching, discerning, reaching out. These are times that we are looking for the past to come into a clearer perspective, when we are looking for way forward to be made clear, when we search for answers. For a sign. A Showing. A manifestation. A making clear of who we are, and whose we are. When we search for an Epiphany.

It is to my constant amazement how our observance of time in this holy gathering – as Christ’s body, the church – reflects so closely the deepest longings and emotions of our human hearts. It is true, as the writer of Qoheloth tells us, that there is a time for every thing – and every stirring of the soul – under heaven. On Friday, the church celebrated The Feast of The Epiphany – Of the Manifestation and Making known of Jesus Christ to that larger world outside of Bethlehem. The Feast of Epiphany commemorates when the infant Jesus was visited by wise men from the East. And today, on the First Sunday after the Epiphany, the church commemorates the Baptism of Our Lord, that moment at the very beginning of his public ministry when Jesus descends into the water of the River Jordan to be baptized by John, and emerges from the to see the heavens torn open, and the Spirit descending upon him like a dove, and hear the voice of God say, “you are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Today is the Sunday that we celebrate this moment of clarity, of answering, of manifestation, in the Baptism of Our Lord in the Jordan River. And because we have been joined to Christ in Holy Baptism, and knit into his body, we celebrate how all of our own desires, longings, moments of seeking and questioning – our own quests for Epiphany – reach their fulfillment, and their completion in Jesus Christ, who is all in all.

In today’s gospel, Mark recounts how “Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as Jesus 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.’” The scene of today’s gospel is well implanted in our memory by scores of memorable pieces of art, such as the icon depicted on the cover of our service leaflet today. It seems to fit the theme of Epiphany – of visible manifestation. And yet, as we read from Mark’s gospel more closely, we find that the voice coming from heaven was not heard by all present – but by Christ alone. Throughout Mark’s gospel, the Messiahship of Jesus is gradually revealed and shown to the world; throughout the gospel, we see numerous instances where Jesus charges people not to speak of his miracles, or of his identity.

And yet in Mark’s gospel, despite the veil of secrecy that appears to surround Jesus’ identity as God’s son, as the Beloved, we hear voices proclaim Jesus as just that on three separate occasions. It occurs first at Jesus’ baptism, when the heavens open and the voice proclaims Jesus as the Beloved. At the Transfiguration, while Jesus is seated in splendor with Moses and Elijah, and a voice proclaims to Peter, James, and John, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” And finally, on Good Friday, at the crucifixion, when darkness covered Jerusalem, after Jesus took his last breath, the voice of the centurion proclaimed, “Truly this man was God’s Son.” God in Christ is made visible, made manifest, not only in splendor, but most especially, and most publically, at the cross.

I don’t think this is a coincidence at all. Because that Jesus who is made visible to us in scripture is not just the baby in Bethlehem visited by the Magi. Because the Jesus we proclaim is not just the man emerging from the Jordan, or the one transfigured in splendor. Because Jesus made visible is Jesus on the cross, and Jesus raised from the dead. When we celebrate Epiphany, the Manifestation, when we celebrate our Lord made visible – we celebrate that he is made visible not simply in his life, or in his miracles, but most of all, in his death and resurrection. The Jesus who is all in all, and who is himself the Epiphany to our own longings, the one who reaches out to us in our own deepest moments of discernment and confusion, is Jesus born, baptized, transfigured, crucified, and risen.

The baptisms we will celebrate in a few short moments are not baptisms into a single moment in Christ’s life. Because, as Paul tells us, we are buried with Christ by baptism into his death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For when we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. Beloved in Christ, the waters of baptism are dangerous. In the waters of baptism, we are called to drown, to be willing to give up everything, to die, believing that we will be raised in Jesus Christ. And in this same baptism – in this same death and resurrection, we are knit into his body, made forever one with him. And just surely as Samuel and Arianna will be knit into Christ – buried and raised with him – they, too, are called to make Christ visible in the world. We all are. We are each called to manifest Christ to the world around us. To be the light shining in darkness. To keep the covenant we have made, and boldly confess him as Lord and Savior.

To be Epiphanies, shining out into the world. Amen.

It’s quite funny how often I fail to remember that Jesus was, in fact, a devout Palestinian Jew. Every time I hear Jesus’ voice in the gospels, he’s speaking to in English – not in the Hebrew or Aramaic he most certainly actually spoke. When I picture what sort of clothing Jesus wore, I generally imagine a simple white tunic or toga-like garment – I almost never think of him wearing a yarmulke, or the tallit with tzitzit – the traditional prayer shawl with fringes still worn everyday by Orthodox Jews. When I think of Jesus at worship – even though I know its in the synagogues – my mental process association generally groups that worship with our Sunday worship – even though visits to the synagogue could be a daily affair, with the principle observance of the Sabbath on Friday night into Saturday. As much as I hate to admit it, the Jesus of my imagination looks an awful lot like me, and not like the lower-class, Palestinian Jew that he was.

Jesus’ Jewish background and faith informed his entire life. And it is Jesus’ life as a devout Jew that brings us today’s observation in our calendar – The Feast of the Holy Name. The designation of January 1^st as the Feast of the Holy Name is actually a relatively new event – previous editions of the Book of Common Prayer observed January 1^st the Feast of the Circumcision. Perhaps our squeamish tendencies got the better of us in changing the name of today’s feast; nevertheless, today is the same observance one the church has held since around the year 567. But nonetheless, it is important. So valuble, in fact, that the Prayer Book tells us that when January 1st, falls on a Sunday, The Feast of the Holy Name takes precedence over the regular seasonal day, over the observance of the “First Sunday after Christmas”

January 1^st is, of course, the eighth day after Christmas Day. And as today’s reading from Luke’s gospel recalls: “After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.” Torah, the Law of Moses, requires that every male child be circumcised on the eighth day after his birth. Circumcision, God had told Abraham long before, was to be the sign of his covenant to make a great nation of Abraham and his descendants. At Mount Sinai, that covenant was further reaffirmed: Israel was made God’s special possession among all people. And in today’s lesson, many, many generations later, in the fullness of time, an eight day old boy, whose place as Son of the Most High was announced by the Angel Gabriel nine months earlier – an eight day old boy, whose birth was announced by the angels to shepherds in the fields – an eight day old boy, Emmanuel, God with us, God incarnate – was given that same sign of the covenant. At his circumcision, that eight-day old boy was marked with the sign of that covenant of which he himself was sent to fulfill. And, just as the angel had told Mary before, he is given that holy name we commemorate today – Jesus.

The name Jesus comes to us from Latin, which itself is a translation of the Greek Iesous. Translation and transliteration have obscured that original name given to Jesus at his circumcision some two thousand years ago. That name would have been Aramaic – Yeshua. This was, in fact, a common name; it appeared throughout the Old Testament, and the young Jesus would have likely had peers who were also named Yeshua. But that name – common as it may have been in Our Lord’s day – finds its great significance, and great holiness, in God incarnate who received that name. For Jesus, Yeshua, has a meaning in its original Aramaic – God delivers.

Jesus’ name may have been nothing special in his own day, but it was forever made holy when that child bore that name – would bear the promise that God made to his people – that he would deliver them; that he would deliver us. For in Jesus, God does deliver us from our own sinfulness, from our own fallen-ness, from our own broken-ness; God delivers us with his very son, with God’s very self. God delivers us in Jesus Christ . So we remember Christ’s Holy Name, that holy name which Paul tells us is “above every name” – not because of its greatness, and its grandeur, and glory – but because it points to God who emptied himself of those very things, taking on human likeness, so that we might be delivered. So that we might be brought back to God.

Our names – in and of themselves, when they are given to us at birth, don’t carry much meaning as to who we are, or what we shall be. Cultural custom usually means that our names imply whether we are male or female, or perhaps our ethnic background, but beyond that, you cannot tell much about who we are simply from our name alone. But names are important. We cannot imagine the ones we love – our spouses and significant others, our children, our friends – by any name other than the ones they have. And as we know each other, the name takes on a new meaning of its own – meaning steeped in shared experiences, in shared lives, in shared love. Meaning is found in the one who bears these names. And so it is with Jesus.

As Christianity developed, of course, we no longer believe it to be necessary circumcise male children to initiate them into covenant with God through Jesus Christ. But we are called into that same covenant relationship that Jesus was marked by, and came in fulfillment of. It is in the waters of baptism that we are marked as Christ’s own forever, and sealed with the name of Jesus. Our baptism carries with it a covenant – one we reaffirm each time we baptize new members of the church, as we will again next week. In that covenant, we promise “that we will proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ.” That we will bear the name of Jesus – with its Good News that “God delivers” – to the whole world. That we will for ever seek, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that we will perfectly love him, and worthily magnify his holy name.

Eternal Father, you gave to your incarnate Son the holy name of Jesus to be the sign of our salvation: Plant in every heart, we pray, the love of him who is the Savior of the world, our Lord Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.