January 20, 2008

Epiphany 2A

The Rev'd Lloyd Prator

New York City

There are verses in the scriptures which just cause the hair on the back of my neck to stand up, they are such transparent windows into the nature and purpose of God. Today’s gospel contains one of these verses.

Let me set the scene. Jesus has been baptized by John. The next day, John and a couple of his buddies are standing in front of Starbucks, watching the passing parade of humanity, and along comes Jesus again. John says look, there is the lamb of God. And, not surprisingly, some of John’s friends take off after Jesus wanting to know more about this ovine theophany. Jesus does something he does a lot in the gospels. He stops. He turns. He looks at them. He looks deep into the fabric of their being. And, he asks, what are you looking for? And, typical of the gospels, no one answers the question. But they pose another question. And here is where it gets good. “Rabbi,” they ask, “where are you staying?” There is a deep soul-shaking silence. What does that mean? Are they looking for his home address? Are they prepared to recommend a hotel? “Rabbi. Where are you staying?”

And this is the verse that strikes deep in my soul every time: He said to them, “Come and see.” And then we are told, they came and saw where he was staying and they remained with him that day. It was about four in the afternoon.

Consider the dynamics of this little interaction. It is a significant encounter. The disciples ask Jesus where he is staying. He says, “Come and see.” They go with him and stay with him for the day, for it is late, by now it is the time when the evening’s plans would already have been made.

So consider this point: They ask Jesus where he is staying and the answer is simple: He is staying with them. Where are the disciples? They are with God. Where is God? God is with the disciples.

Being a Christian means that like the disciples we are always being asked to come and see and to consider staying with Jesus. When you promise at your baptism that you will continue in the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, breaking of the bread and the prayers, you are promising to stay with Jesus and to recognize and accept his offer to stay with you.

So far, not a radical idea. Not even, perhaps a very exciting one. But let’s probe a little further and to do so, let’s take a closer look at the first reading because it gives us some hints about what it means to have God planning to stay with you and you with God.

Isaiah wrote at a time when the nation was in exile in Babylon and struggling to get home again. She was surrounded by a hostile foreign culture. Her faith was obscured by a blanket of pagan practices. Israel was hidden away in a foreign culture and country. Hidden away.

The prophet seems to be telling us that people of faith live lives which are sometimes hidden away in God. He speaks of his own sense of being hidden away. He says, first, that the Lord had hidden him away in his mother’s womb, from the body of my mother, he says, the Lord called my name. And, then he goes on to say that in the shadow of God’s hand, he is also hidden. And finally, he concludes by observing that God made him a polished arrow and hid him away in his quiver. Then he spends the rest of the reading showing how God brought him out and exposed him to the world—out of the womb, out of the hand, out of the quiver. And exposed, he is now given something to do—to proclaim the covenant of God to all people, Jew, Gentile and foreigner, all people.

To stay with God and to have God stay with you means to be hidden in God. Consider those three places where God hid the prophet: In the womb, in his hand, in his quiver. These are important places.

What is formed in the womb is new life, a new person, a new genetic pattern, and when a baby is born, the parents look eagerly forward to seeing what new life God has created.

What is held in the hand is what is loved. When I love my dog, I take his head or his paw into my hand and hold him. When you love someone, you hold her in your arms, you take her in your hand. What you handle, you love.

What is found in the quiver is a sharp arrow, a thing of power, a weapon against an enemy, a tool for the capture of food, a thing of might and power. So, that which is hidden, for the prophet, is a thing of new life, a thing loved, a thing of power.

In the Epiphany season, we consider the way that God shows himself to the world. We consider the unfolding life of Jesus, the reaching of the Church to new people and new cultures. Epiphany is the manifestation of God.

But Epiphany is also the manifestation of us. We are like those first disciples who were drawn to Jesus, asked where he was staying, and told to come and see. And they stayed. And with the grace of God, we stay, too.

And we are in the process of being revealed. Our identity is being shown forth. We are being displayed, uncovered, disclosed as a new creation of God, as objects of God’s embracing love, and as signs of God’s strength in the world.

The proclamation of the Gospel of Christ, however imperfectly it is done, should always bring us to self examination. And the self examination we should undertake today is a serious consideration of the extent to which we are open to being God’s new creation, to being loved and held by God, and to being the agents of God’s power for the renewal of the world.

In the coming weeks, the parish will have its annual meeting, its lay leadership may well change, and those who are charged with developing its programs may be augmented by new faces and new ideas. This is a time, potentially, of new creation. Every day in Christian time is a day to consider the absolute, immutable force of God’s love and care for us. And there is nothing like being loved to gain a sense of power and strength to face the work ahead.

My prayer for you—and I would ask, yours for me, too—is that each of us would know, like the prophet Isaiah, that we are a part of God’s creation, held in the hand of the divine, and given the power of God to display to the world around us.

And, if that sounds like a tall order, remember that like those first disciples, when we look at the Lord as he lays in our hand at communion, and ask him where he staying, the answer is pretty intimate. He is staying with us and we with him. For the gift of that covenant we praise and bless God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.