Begin anywhere.

Esme was born in England and raised in Chepstow, a Norman town on the Welsh/English border. She has B.S. in business administration/marketing from Portland State University and a master of divinity from Church Divinity School of the Pacific. Prior to becoming a priest, she was CEO of an executive recruiting firm. She served as associate rector at Grace Memorial in Portland, rector at St. Aidan's in Portland and as supply priest at Calvary Episcopal Church in Seaside.

Last Sunday after the Epiphany

Transfiguration Sunday

Exodus 34 29-35

Psalm 99

2 Corinthians 3: 12-4:2

Luke 9:28-36

Gates of Hope

Some people are very good at remembering dreams in their entirety, but I am not one of them. Most usually, I remember remnants of dreams upon waking, and over time, only fragments of dreams stay in my memory. Once in a while, however, a dream will seem so lifelike that, fantastic as it may seem, it stays with me almost as a guidepost for living. As it is, one dream is always top of mind at the close of Epiphany. As I can best remember it, the dream was like this.

I was moving slowly, seeming to float really, between two high walls…they must have been hundreds of feet high, made of very old bronzed, iron with a softly aged patina and glow which flowed over countless shapes sculpted into the iron. At first glance, the shapes reminded me of those grotesque gargoyles one sometimes sees protecting doorways or in the crenelated towers of old castles. But at closer look one could see all manner of shapes …people mostly…along with some wild animals of nature…..diverse in character and circumstance…….all protruding from the wall …..permanent guardians of what I determined to be iron gates far ahead, appearing quite small at first, due to the distance. Coming closer revealed what seemed to be glass insets in the upper arches of the gates, and behind the glass I saw a faint flickering light. The light seemed to beckon and invite one to enter through the gates, and I was curious to find out more. Without seeming to move at all, and yet aware of my coming ever closer to the gates, the iron figures did not hinder my passage and indeed, once past me, the wordless figures simply faded fast behind.

As I continued toward the gothic arches of the great iron gates, I could begin to perceive that there were more carvings along their sides, over the top and on the gates themselves. Drawing even closer, I struggled to understand what I was seeing. The questions arose in my heart about what manner of creatures these were, and I began to question whether they were friendly creatures or out to destroy me. The light behind the gates seemed at times to flicker more like fire, and the creatures changed their features back and forth, friendly to menacing and back again. For a fleeting moment, I was confused, and then I seemed to instinctively recognize the guile of that light…..beckoning me on, seducing me into thinking I knew how to navigate it. And I remember beginning to chant silently…..help me decide… God….. No…I will not go through your gates if you are not God…I will not go to you if you are not whom you pretend to be….I will not go if you are not God….and God will let me know….I trust in God… I trust in God.

I kept up this mantra as my body slipped up the sides of the gates and I somehow knew they were there for me. These were the gates called Indecision and Denial. Suddenly I felt myself lifted up and over the top of the gates into a serene midnight beyond and I noticed my body was now weightless and free. 

I was no longer surrounded by those iron walls, and found myself drawing closer to another, far brighter source of light. I was no longer alone but one of many. All were smiling and with faces and clothing reflecting light that was difficult to look at, it was so bright. I wondered if I looked the same, but I couldn’t tell….. I didn’t really understand what was happening and I wanted someone to tell me that I was on the right path. Yet somehow I knew I had to keep moving toward the light which began to throb with increasing brightness……brighter….brighter….

And then I woke up. 

And the first words that came out of my mouth when I recognized my bedroom were “Thanks be to God!” 

But there was also a sense of disappointment….I was so curious to see that light and know it at last, It was so close….so close….

As thankful as I was to find I was safe in my own home again, I was still quite sure in the moment and I am just as sure now, that I was also thankful for the revelation of the dream.

Perhaps, in the waning light of Epiphany, as in the waning moments of an extraordinary dream, one yearns for it all to begin it again in order for it to take us to its conclusion. Like any memorable experience, we want to revisit, albeit with trembling desire,  to live into the light of whatever lies ahead. 

At Christmas,  we basked in the new light that shone over all the earth, our eyes fixed on the bright star leading the way to a divine light on earth lying in a manger.  We longed to keep its message of hope for the future. We longed to hold on to it and not forget its bright promise of peace on earth with its goodwill to all. 

Alas, the message of Christmas, with the passing of time, becomes much like a fading dream or like a mountain top fading into the distance as we fly past it into a new year. It slowly loses its color and shape until we begin to lose sight of it completely,  and we are left to imagine the memory of it as we continue to fly on. So it is as we come to the last moments of Epiphany, still clinging to the sweet reminders of the birth and ministry of Jesus, as we glide on toward Ash Wednesday and Lent. 

Yet, like the mountain top moving by us, its drama does not pass by us unnoticed. The movement from Epiphany into Lent is punctuated by its own drama, a particularly startling, fantastic occurrence in the life of Jesus and his disciples. 

Luke tells us that Jesus took Peter, James and John up to a mountain top to pray and “while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed and his clothes became dazzling white.”(v29) It is a moment of glorious illumination of the divine nature of Jesus….not the Jesus we met as the child of God, lying in a manger. Not the Jesus we know as teacher and healer, friend of the marginalized on the dusty streets of Galilee….. but Jesus as he approaches the completion of his life on earth, coming near to his own departure. Jesus, recognized now as completely and utterly glorified and embraced by God. 

Jesus is not alone with his disciples in this moment of recognition. Luke’s version of this mountain-top story us that at the moment of Jesus’ transformation he was joined by two of the most revered prophets Peter, James and John would have known, Moses and Elijah. These historical human giants were talking with Jesus about the coming turning point in his life… the time for him to turn his steps toward Jerusalem and his inevitable departure from his ministry on earth. 

The time for change had come to Jesus, and as God’s chosen one, he was transformed by a light so bright that it was difficult to recognize him in the moment. The disciples had been with Jesus for some time, witnessing all manner of miracles, but it was in this moment, according to Luke, that “they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him” (32b) They had seen his compassion and heard his teaching, yet they had never seen anything like this. 

For Peter and for the other disciples it must have been, as it is for us, hard to understand…hard to grasp ….this sudden, unexpected almost blinding transfiguration. It must have seemed dreamlike and surreal. Yet, just as in our dreams, we are much more than mere spectators. The disciples who accompanied Jesus participated fully and completely in the sight and sound of everything that transpired on that day, and in doing so, they too, would be transformed. 

And now we, too, are invited to move toward participation in this transfiguration -- to surrender to it in whatever circumstances we find ourselves in as it comes to meet us. We are not merely spectators and are called to enter into the experience with Jesus. In doing so, we are given a glimpse into what it means to come closer to God and all that God wants us to be. It brings insight into Jesus’ words, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12) 

As Jesus prepares for his departure, he leaves us with the belief that as the children of Light, we, too are equipped to be empowered by the power of the Spirit to act in Jesus’ name. We just have to realize it. 

I believe my dream was a dream about choice…. and this re-telling of what seemed like a dream to the disciples is also a message about choosing which path we are to follow, the path toward the light of God, or what worldly path we think might merely please God. 

On this Transfiguration Sunday, Jesus shows us an example of what it means to be completely and utterly obedient to God and what it means to be recognized and embraced and transformed by God’s holy light.

“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid…… let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” (Matt 5:14-16)

Transfiguration Sunday offers encouragement to prepare ourselves for total abandonment to God’s will so that we become active participants in that will.

In a world so filled with despair and brokenness, we are called to participate with God in transfiguring God’s creation, reaching always toward the Light, giving ourselves to service, and working for justice and peace. With Jesus, Moses and Elijah, we are called to enter into transformative action which shines with the good news of hope for the world. 

It sounds like a dream, but is it? And how will we know unless we allow ourselves to move past the gates of our own iron walls of indecision and denial to discover what truths we know about ourselves and what strengths we hold to prepare ourselves to do God’s work in the world. 

On this Transfiguration Sunday, we are called to prepare ourselves for our own personal transformative Lent, giving up all that is not contributory to God’s creation and taking on all that is just that. It sounds like a tall order, yet it can begin anywhere and in any way. The only requirement for us is to hold on to the reality of the transformative Divine Light that is bequeathed to us with the power to banish darkness that loves to veil our hearts and minds, trapping our faith behind iron walls. It is not a dream. 

St. Paul said, “All of us with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit. (2 Cor. 3:18)

My friends in Christ, the time has come for us make up our minds how we will approach the imaginary walls through which we must pass during Lent to reach Easter….with sincerity, courage, with strength, with joyous anticipation even in our contemplation and, yes, perhaps even our deprivation. 

The time has come for us to build rather than destroy, to create with God rather than to tear down, to stand strong in the light of God’s transforming message of peace and love in the world and to be obedient to that message, no matter the consequences. 

Listen again to the words from our collect today: “Beholding by faith the light of his countenance may we be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness form glory to glory.”

As we approach Ash Wednesday, we begin our journey toward a different dream for ourselves and for the world. If we are willing to submit ourselves to God’s transforming grace, we will reach the gates that open onto an explosion of light, filled with hope and renewal.

That is the measure of Transfiguration, which carries within it the holy light of Easter, carrying us with it as in a dream, buoyed up by faith, always onward to the place where yet again, we will discover the star still shining down on shepherds in their fields, always waiting to lead us, like the wise men of Epiphany, away by another road, through the Gates of Profound Inspiration, Acceptance, Certainty, and Peace.

Amen

Written to the Glory of God

E.J.R. Culver+

March 2, 2025

Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany

Genesis 45:3-11, 15

Psalm 37:1-2, 41-42

1 Corinthians 15:35-38,42-50

Luke 6:27-38

Enemies No More

If Joseph had known that his eleven brothers had no sense of humor when it came to listening to his dream interpretations, he might have thought twice about sharing. As it was, they were enraged to think that this young upstart, brother or not, would dare to imagine he would be lording it over all of them. The next thing Joseph knew was that, not only did they consider killing him outright and lying to his father, Jacob, about the cause of death, but stopped short of that thanks to one brother who didn’t want murder on his conscience. So, they ended up throwing him in a pit, leaving him, then selling him into slavery to a bunch of Ishmaelites who dragged him off to Egypt. With brothers like that, who needs enemies? Oh wait, they were jealous, envious, resentful and wanted him dead. Yes. They count as enemies!

As it turned out in the end, Joseph was right on the money with his dream interpretations, and he became pretty famous for the gift, not to mention rather high up in society due to his many other gifts for administration and management. Thus, after a few decidedly difficult and politically charged ups and downs, he rose to the number 2 spot in Egypt which is where we find him today.

The famine has driven his long-lost brothers into Egypt in search of grain for food and they find themselves in front of the Regent, second only to Pharoah. Of course, they don’t immediately recognize Joseph. He is no long a youngster, but a grown man who has accumulated a fair amount of life experience, not to mention now being in charge of food storage and food distribution for the entire nation and its close allies. But Joseph recognizes his brothers, alright, and decides to accuse them of spying and have them prove their innocence and sincerity by going home to fetch Joseph’s youngest brother, Benjamin. 

So now here they all are and the time for the denouement has arrived, and with the help of an interpreter, Joseph reveals his identity to his brothers “I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?” The scriptures say the brothers were so dismayed after this revelation they couldn’t say a thing. I would say that’s a bit generous on the part of the Genesis writer. How about “they were agonizingly humiliated and scared out of their wits, especially when Joseph invited them to ‘come closer.’” But Joseph loved the ones who were once his enemies and rather than even pretend revenge, he instantly desired to have them put their fears to rest, to find ways to ease their collective consciousness, and to realize and learn what the power of love can really do. 

“Do not be angry with yourselves because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life.” In other words, it was God who got me here and you were and are a part of all that. So now we will all survive. Joseph did not say thank you for the favor of your decision to get rid of me. What he did was absolve them absolutely and completely from any need for remorse or shame. What happened, happened, long ago…. is all now in the past. Until this moment, who would have guessed, whether Joseph, his brothers, or even his father, could have known that all the twists and turns of life would bring them to this moment of recognition and enlightenment which would be nothing less than a blessing for every one of them and all those directly or indirectly concerned with them. How could they have ever imagined that a family, broken apart by jealousy, guilt, secrecy and envy would find it’s way back to loving wholeness and healing.

It is an immense story that has echoed down through the ages with enormous lessons for all generations and for us in our own living today. As such, we are led to ask ourselves what part of parts of this story are ours. What of our own relationships with family and friends, acquaintances, workplace associates, institutional cohorts and the like? What of our dreams and favors we have shared with others, only to inspire jealousy, resentment and yes, enmity?

What do any of us know of being sold down the river or perhaps being part of a group that betrayed knowingly or unknowingly someone who trusted you? Have you ever been angry enough with someone that you would do everything you could to avoid him or her? What is it deep within you that betrays everything you wish to be? Could it be there is a little bit of Joseph and a little bit of the brothers residing in each of us? Perhaps the time has come, as it did for Joseph and his brothers, for a little sorting out to take place.

These are tough questions and, perhaps, come at a good time, as we approach the end of Epiphany and enter into the murky time of Lent. Walking toward the cross demands profound and honest truth and perhaps Epiphany has shed some light into a few of the dark places hiding in our hearts. Lent presents a time to turn things around, to move from dark to light, from wrong to right, from estrangement to reconciliation. Anything less makes the walk toward Good Friday meaningless. 

Reconciliation is defined in the dictionary as the processes of two people or groups in a conflict agreeing to make amends or come to a truce. That’s tidy, but from a biblical viewpoint, the Greek word translated as “reconciliation” in fact means to change completely. To change completely has very little to do with simply coming to a truce, and when you think about it, we can be pretty sure that would not be enough for Jesus. 

After all, through his death on the cross, God made reconciliation possible for all God’s people. In other words, God isn’t merely concerned with people reconciling with people, but rather, that through reconciliation with each other, we become reconciled to God. Without reconciliation with each other, we are alienated from God,[1]which is not where any faithful heart wishes to be.

The question is, what is it in our lives that seeks to be reconciled and where to start? What was it within Joseph that allowed him to take pleasure in seeing his brothers again, to kiss them, gathering them to him with so much love that he wept? What did or did not need to take place in order for him to choose his course of reconciliation? What does or does not need to take place in order for each of use to choose a course of reconciliation in our own lives?

Perhaps, first we need to allow ourselves to shed a few tears, for ourselves, for time and opportunities lost, and grieve for that which can never return to the place before a relationship was broken. If the tears will not come, then we must ask ourselves why not. What’s stopping them and why? I can always remember my mother saying when I came to her with a troubling situation, “You’ll feel better if you just go and have a good cry and then get on with patching things up.” 

So, we weep for what was broken and then look at what must be done for the coming together in reconciled relationship again. What must be done by each one of us in our own relationships, and what must the collective “we” do in our communities and the world to effect reconciliation.

To begin we must never consider that reconciliation is impossible. The fact is reconciliation is possible no matter the severity of situation and circumstance. Joseph’s brothers behaved in the most heinous way toward him, and after playing with them for a little while, he sought to reconcile with them completely, letting all that had happened in the past slip away into a forgotten history.

Reconciliation leaves no room for the ands and buts, as in, I am ready to reconcile but don’t ever do that to me again! We leave the past behind, as we enter a newly minted relationship. To bring the past into the conversation, is to sully it, stain it with memories of who did what to whom, and how one suffered as a result. In short, the past brings with it fresh blame and therefore fresh suffering and resentment. It is the relationship that is the center star here, and not the past. 

Reconciliation cannot be realized with lies or even slight fabrications in order to save face or to seem less at fault than we are. It demands the whole truth and nothing but the truth, good, bad or really bad. When Joseph met his brothers for the second time, he disclosed who he was and reiterated what he knew had happened in the past, but he did not bring it with him, and he did not magnify how he had been affected by his brothers’ actions against him. He quickly laid the truth of the matter out in front of them all, after calling them to come closer to him. He seemed to want to talk to them quietly rather than out loud so that all could hear of the brothers’ evil intent. He told the truth of the past but moved quickly to the truth of the present situation which was what brought the brothers into Egypt. Joseph understood, first- hand, the effects of the famine on his land and on the lives of his father, his brothers and the rest of his family.

Joseph does what he can to move forward into right action. He tells his brothers to go and bring his father and all his family and livestock back to Egypt so that they would not suffer due to the famine. He, Joseph, would take care of them. For their part, the brothers admitted to the truth of their mistreatment of Joseph and acted to bring Joseph’s father and his entire family to Egypt and a secure and safe life. 

Reconciliation requires grieving with regret for what has transpired. It requires leaving the past behind and it requires action going forward. It requires that we understand and accept that all the circumstances that have surrounded us leading us into misdirected and broken relationships. It requires us to understand that we have now found a time, place and time for reconciliation to take place. Most importantly, it requires the recognition that God’s presence is in the midst of it all. 

It requires an outward pouring of love, filled with good intent, prayer, endurance, a giving of oneself, in the same way that Jesus understood love. Nothing more than a pure gift of God, with no conditions attached and with no expectation of anything in return. Joseph recognized God’s hand in all the challenges and triumphs of his own life and that all he had experienced had brought him to this moment of reconciliation. He found within himself a limitless well of blessings which he spread lavishly over his entire family, over Egypt and beyond. 

We are not Joseph, or his brothers or their father, nor are we living with their story. We have our own families, our own stories, our own circumstances. Yet, from the beginning of time until today, there has been and always will be a profound need for reconciliation within families, within communities and in the world. 

In a world always wracked with pain and suffering, with division and misunderstanding, and riddled with mistakes and terrible decisions, may we, who call ourselves Christian, as a community of the One who is always present to offer unlimited divine love, attempt to offer some of that divinely given love, too? 

It is that love which is poured into us, inspired by the Holy Spirit…a divine spirit of love… that allows us to participate in the creation of a community we call the Kingdom of God; a community of love among those who were once called enemies. 

May we always be prepared to do whatever it is we can do and to work ceaselessly for reconciliation between ourselves, between communities and nations, and all those we once called enemies, until they are enemies no more and reconciliation becomes no longer a dream, but a reality that will set all God’s people free at last to love and to live in peace. 

Amen

Written to the Glory of God

E. J. R. Culver+

February 23, 2025

[1]See Colossians 1:20–22

Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany

Jeremiah 17:5-10

Psalm 1

1 Corinthians 15:12-20

Luke 6:17-26

Raised Blessings

How many of us visited the Portland Convention Center about two years ago to enter into the immersive experience of an exhibit of the Dutch artist, Vincent van Gogh? (hands) Van Gogh was a post-impressionist painter who, after his tragic death at only 37 years of age, became one of the most famous, revered and influential artists in Western art history. The exhibit, which is probably still running somewhere in the world, was called “Beyond Van Gogh,” was mesmerizing and an unforgettable experience for me. 

To be immersed in something, be it the human condition or nature itself; be it a conversation, the written word or other art, is to give more to it and to receive more from it than that which one can simply experience on the surface. It is to go underneath and inside the motivation that raised the human expression in the first place. From what place within one does an idea emerge, how does nature, art or conversation carry those ideas into insights? What depth of thought, what unconscious need to set free…..what muse, maybe suffering and pain, or joy and passion… or recognition of any of these, motivate one to great writing or music on to the blank page, or art on to the blank canvass, or any of these and more on to `the empty stage of life itself? 

I’m centering on Van Gogh, not just because the immersive event made public was memorable for me, but as a faithful Christian man, he is intriguing. Even though he was well acquainted with God and Christ, he lived a troubled life, largely driven by his artistic sensibility and his doubts about himself and the inner turbulence that drove him to a kind of madness. Even though faithful and given to scriptural direction he was withdrawn and solitary, spurned by much of life and the world with little self-confidence or sense of worth. His need to serve humanity led him to a deep interest in ministry and theology, and finding orthodoxy and doctrine confining in his own country, he traveled to the coal-mining region of Belgium. It was there, in the deep winter, that he faced a huge spiritual crisis which led him to give away most of his worldly goods. He was subsequently dismissed by the church for interpreting Christian teaching too literally. 

It was here that his Christian faith ebbed and flowed, and when sensing that his faith was being destroyed by the world, he discovered his true gift as an artist.

Perhaps his faith, no matter the degree of its intensity, held firm through his recognition of his own vulnerabilities and self-doubts. Like the Jesus he followed, he felt a passionate and deeply meaningful connection to the downtrodden in life, the ones who struggled to survive, working hard to make ends meet and he made the decision that all his work would be to bring comfort and understanding into the lives of all humanity, especially those who suffered. “I want to give the wretched a brotherly message,” he said. “When I sign (my paintings) ‘Vincent,’ it is as one of them.” This sense of the restorative power of his painting helped to bolster his own self-esteem and confidence.

As one who took time to immerse himself in the underlying meaning of life’s personal triumphs and tragedies, Van Gogh’s art invites one to take time to immerse oneself in his paintings, and in their underlying meaning and motivation. Doing that is to allow oneself to truly begin to understand the man and his mission in a far deeper, more profound way and by way of this, to try to understand, as he did, Jesus’ message to his disciples as he is preparing to enter into the consequences of his own ministry. It is interesting to note that Van Gogh was very close to the same age as Jesus when he was struggling with those same kinds of consequences.

He, too, dealt with struggling to understand the dualities of reality presented to us by Luke today. In the Gospel of Matthew there are eight blessings which we know as The Beatitudes. Yet in Luke’s Gospel we heard four blessings and four of what Jesus calls, woes. They are dualities of reality which Van Gogh well understood and tried to convey through his art.

On the surface the blessings and woes seem pretty straight forward, especially if you don’t take time to immerse yourself in their underlying meaning. Jesus wasn’t concerned about who had money or who didn’t. But he was concerned with the human condition of people’s hearts and souls, and there are differences and nuances between those who work for the building of God’s kingdom and those who work for worldly success alone

There are rich people who are humble of heart, and who work to alleviate the suffering of the poor. There are poor, who are arrogant and filled with anger against the ones who have privileges. Then there are the rich who take no notice of the poor and could care less about them. And there are the poor, who are humble in heart, blaming no one for the losses in their lives, yet still falling on their knees to thank God for the blessings they recognize as freely given by God.

None of these can be understood in concrete terms. The word “poor” need not be understood exclusively as an economic term, although Luke is certainly lifting up that social reality, especially in ancient Palestine. In our time, as a general rule we don’t think of material goods as being in limited supply. In Jesus’ time, however there was a vastly different view of the availability of goods. All goods, whether material, or spiritual wealth such as honor, friendship, love, power, security and status, and everything that existed in living was in limited supply. Thus, if one had a goodly amount of any one of these, then it meant that someone else had far less. There was only so much to go around. 

In Jesus’ time, the honorable took only what was rightfully owned with no desire to acquire more by taking someone else’s rightful share. This would be viewed as stealing. Profit making and the building up of wealth, as we know it, would have been thought of in ancient days to be the result of extortion – literally the robbing of the poor. 

To be rich was as much a social or moral statement as it was an economic one. Having the power to take from someone more vulnerable than oneself, that which was not one’s to take, put one in the position of having to hold consistent values for good or for evil. 

The New Testament often equates poverty with vulnerability or even misfortune. An inability to defend what was yours would leave one poor. For Luke, the poor were the imprisoned, the blind, the debtors, the lame. Matthew depicts the poor as those who are blind, lame, or are lepers, are deaf and even dead. Mark writes of a poor widow, and thus a victim. Revelation describes the poor as “wretched, pitiable, blind and naked.”

You may recall the story of how the rich man is contrasted with the poor beggar Lazarus, covered with sores. Upon his death, Lazarus is raised up into the kingdom to be with God, all sores gone and filled with an abundance of joy and gratitude, and at the death of the rich greedy man, well, we all know where he ended up!

In that society power brought wealth. In our society, wealth brings power. To be powerless meant one would be vulnerable to the greedy, who were like predators upon the weak. 

I think years later, Van Gogh somehow lived into these kinds of sensibilities, seemingly always pulling forth the short end of life’s stick. The social condition of suffering for whatever reason, as a social condition relative to one’s neighbor was the subject of Jesus’ teaching that Van Gogh might well have understood as a victim of the world’s expectations. The poor are weak, the rich are strong. It was his art that allowed him an outlet for his sense of helplessness in the face of all that. 

Like Jesus, the artist was moved deeply by the humble who had to struggle to make a living and yet were honest and accountable to do what it was had to be done. In his 1882 painting, Women Carrying Sack of Coal in the Snow, the women are struggling with the weight of the sacks of coal, and since their backs are to us, we don’t know who they are. Lacking identity, one not particularly distinguishable from another, they namelessly walk away from us into the distance which seems somehow infinite. That seeming lack of destination gives us a very real sense that life will never change for them, and that the destination they may be dreaming about may never appear. 

How much Jesus would have understood that painting and how much the artist understood that human condition. Jesus’ teaching was focused on those whose willingness to suffer so that the will of God may be blessed. It is to these that Jesus promises comfort and assurance. Whether in the first century or today, whether one’s work is simple and uncomplicated by life or whether it is the product of a brilliant but troubled creative mind, it is into these lives that God can enter in, so that all may revel in the blessings of God’s grace. 

Like Van Gogh, himself, and like Jesus, they know life’s reality, and they allow themselves to be completely dependent upon God’s care, comfort and grace, which they receive in limitless abundance. 

It is through the richness of God’s mercy and grace that a joyful and vibrant sense of being enters the hearts of the faithful, even through their suffering. They are less caught up in the dog-eat-dog world of the greedy, and more in love with the gifts of God.

Perhaps that is why Van Gogh, was able to revel in the natural beauty of nature around him, producing paintings filled with vibrant color and movement, in contrast to his painting of the women carrying coal. He was lone ranger, misunderstood, difficult, depressed, while at the same time reaching into the God-given possibility, the beauty of God’s handiwork, in a sense, painting in partnership with the human condition and its pathway out of pain and into blessing.

No matter who you are, how rich you are or how poor, whether you live in the Western world, or whether you live in a remote spot out in the world, prince or pauper, settled or refugee, Jesus wants his disciples and God’s Church to hear a particular call to discipleship based on love for all God’s people with compassion for their circumstances. 

Maybe you express that love and compassion through gifts that you acquire or through particular interests that speak to you. Most importantly, we can all express that love and compassion by embracing the values of God’s kingdom that are very different from those of the world. It is not an easy order, but just as Jesus called his disciples to follow “now,” so we, too, are being called, “now.” 

Jesus’ words are true and we, as the body of the faithful, can trust in how well God knows us, in every moment of our lives, in our better moments and our less-than-great moments. And that is good news indeed. It is these true words of Jesus that put the words of the world to shame. 

We participate in this truth through what we offer in community we know as family, friends, worshipping and hearing the Scriptures together, offering service to God and God’s people through the sacrifice of our own time and above all, by entering into communion with Jesus through the sharing of bread and wine. 

It is through this divine communion that we find ourselves rich in acceptance, rich in loving and joyous belonging, so much so that we can feel free to express ourselves just as we are, with truth and integrity, throwing off the dark and suffocating expectations of the world, covering it with our own version of painted flowers and fields, so that the woes of the world can never overcome what we know as God’s Kingdom.

We give thanks for all the Van Gogh’s who have and do suffer long and hard, misunderstood by the world and its woes, and yet find the their own outlet for beautifying it and offering it up as both a personal testament and a sacrifice to God. Surely these are to be blessed and, on the last day, will all be raised from the woes of the world. 

Our God is a God for all people and especially for those who have nothing but God, which means every one of us, here and far away. The reality is we are all as vulnerable as the poorest of the poor and no matter how vast our possessions may be, none will be everlasting. 

We have heard the truth from Jesus about what the faithful life of discipleship entails. We cannot say, after hearing his words today, that we weren’t warned. 

Here is the poem that seems to capture the spirit of Jesus’ words to us today, while seeming to fit well in conversation with Van Gogh’s painting of the Women Carrying Sacks of Coal in the Snow.[1]

Those who carry grand pianos

to the tenth floor

wardrobes and coffins.

The old man with a bundle of wood hobbling toward the horizon

the lady with a hump of nettles

the madwoman pushing her baby carriage

full of empty vodka bottles.

They will all be raised up

like a seagull’s feather

like a dry leaf

like an eggshell

a scrap of newspaper on the street.

Blessed are those who carry

for they will be raised.

Anna Kamienska, Poland,1984

Amen

Written to the Glory of God

E. J. R. Culver+

February 16, 2025

[1]Vincent Van Gogh (Dutch 1853-1890) Women Carrying Sacks of Coal in the Snow, 1882, Chalk, brush in ink, and opaque and transparent watercolor on woven paper. Kroller-Muller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands.

Fourth Sunday after The Epiphany

The Presentation of Our Lord

Malachi 3:1-4

Psalm 84

Hebrews 2:14-18

Luke 2:22-40

Just as You Are

We brought extra candles to glow at our Altar today. They are special candles, poured especially special Feast Days, especially on this day, the day known in the Church as Candlemas. We don’t hear too much about Candlemas, since it always arrives on February 2nd, 40 days after Christmas and, because it doesn’t always land on a Sunday, it often slips past us. Some Orthodox churches might hold a candlelit Mass of the Candles. The congregation brings all their old candles to burn during the service, and new candles are lit in celebration, bringing light into the world, just as Simeon suggests that the birth of Jesus brought light to enlighten the nations. There is also a more secular tradition which surrounds Candlemas, which I will share with you. Tradition has it that Candlemas marks the time when you really should take down your Christmas decorations! In fact, custom says that whatever decorations you don’t take down on January 5th, the Eve of Epiphany, you have to leave up until Candlemas. For those who hate to take down Christmas decorations, that’s one reason to love Candlemas!

Candlemas is one rite that is observed in the Church, just like many of our other rites we observe throughout the liturgical year. 

However, whether or not it lands on a Sunday, Candlemas is important for us to observe as the celebration of the Light of the World, the arrival of Our Lord, brought as a child to be presented to the temple in Jerusalem by his parents, Mary and Joseph. 

Being faithful and law abiding, Mary and Joseph have come to the temple in Jerusalem so that Mary might be purified, as was the custom 40 days after childbirth. It was one of the rites of the Temple, just as we understand rites in the Church today, such as coming to church to celebrate Christ’s birth on Christmas Eve, or coming to pay our respects on Good Friday, or like today,  Candlemas. 

They came just as they were….a simple carpenter, his young wife and their baby. They made their way through the crowded streets with their infant child, and we can imagine the noise and dust of the city, the bustling markets with voices laughing or arguing, the air filled with the scents of animals and incense surrounding them and filling their senses as they walked. 

They came like any other law-abiding new parents would have come. It was time. They couldn’t afford the most expensive offering to offer the Temple for their special rites, but they brought what they could afford: a pair of birds. 

Mary and Joseph had their own history around the conception and birth of Jesus and they knew Jesus was special, but they didn’t think of themselves as exempt from the norms of their day. They just came as they were, as was the custom, to present Jesus to the Temple authorities and to offer him to the Lord. 

They weren’t sure what to expect, because Jesus was their first child and they had never presented an infant to the priests in the Temple before. So, they were probably taken aback when, one after the other, two complete strangers approached them. One was Simeon, who seemed kind and faithful, as if filled with the Holy Spirit, and Mary and Joseph trusted him to hold Jesus. Simeon knew at once that this was the one he had been waiting for, the Messiah at last….the one told to him by the Holy Spirit that he would see before his death, and he utters his famous words, “Lord, you now have set your servant free, to go in peace as you have promised….” But he warned Mary that one day a “sword of sorrow will pierce your soul.” Like every young mother, we wish there could be a way that she would never have had to hear these words….but yet, looking back at Jesus’ life, we know, as did Simeon who prophesied into the future, that this would come to pass. Mary would know deep pain. 

Someone else came to the side of the young parents, so that she could take a close look at the infant Jesus. She was very old and deeply devout, a widow named Anna and, like Simeon, she was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she, too, knew of God’s promise that God would come among God’s people in human form. The old widow, Anna, probably led a quiet and contemplative life, praying constantly and rarely leaving the Temple Yet once she saw Jesus, she was filled with the Good News of God’s promise fulfilled and praised God for Jesus and she told everyone she saw about the arrival of the One come to redeem all God’s people. 

Mary and Joseph were amazed at hearing this and all Luke tells us about what happened after they received Simeon’s blessing and prophesy of what was to come, and had witnessed Anna’s joy and jubilation. They simply returned home to family life. And, according to Luke, Jesus grew and became strong, filled with wisdom and the favor of God was upon him.

It was and is an auspicious day to consider…the day Jesus came to be presented in the temple before the Lord. The day when the Light to enlighten the nations was recognized by those who had been waiting for the day when they would see the prophesy fulfilled. Simeon and Anna had probably seen scores of baby boys presented at the Temple, but this one was different, and they knew it. Simeon and Anna saw a promise fulfilled and they knew this was the one for whom they’d been waiting. 

We know that they were right and so the candles of Candlemas glow with our own recognition that the Light of the World had come into being and was acknowledged as so, long ago in the temple.

And yet, for all this, we might have some mixed feelings about the day. Mary and Joseph heard some hard truths from Simeon. For all the wonder of Emmanuel, God with us, Simeon’s words must have echoed in their hearts and minds, “"This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed.”  His additional somber words to Mary must have been something they talked about, thought about and prayed about. 

It must have been exhilarating and exciting and a bit confusing to experience the greetings from Simeon and Anna, but the words carried painful truths. Their child is destined for glory but is also destined for great suffering and pain. Mary sensed the truth of this, and did what any other mother would probably do, she did her best to stay strong and not let her fears get in the way of the need for Jesus to grow wise and strong himself. Mary sensed her destiny, too, yet there was no turning back.

As they made their way back through the streets of Jerusalem, one wonders about their conversation. They had experienced gladness and yet that blessing of great joy was inevitably intertwined with dread and the city was far to busy to know of the burden the young parents now carried with them.

This scene, which happened two thousand years ago, could be a story of today. 

Mary and Joseph heard truths that day, that they would rather not have heard. Sometimes we hear truths in our own lives, or about our lives, or about our family or our community, or our nation, we would rather not hear. Often, we’d rather not hear the truth at all, or just want to stick our heads in the sand up to our necks and hope that when we emerge, all will be well. The problem is, the truth is the truth, and we carry our truths with us for the rest of our lives, whether we confess them or not. Sometimes, it is someone else who has to point them out for us. 

The rush of living in our world is familiar to us, and we know how easily we can become focused on whatever it is in the moment that needs our attention. We spend most of our time moving from task to task, often taking little notice of what is happening around us,  rushing, as we do, to fulfill the world’s expectations of us. We get lost in our own story. And then, suddenly, something happens that jolts us back into a truth about ourselves.  Maybe we have chosen to ignore it, or simply didn’t want to know about it at all. Perhaps the truth comes from a stranger, or perhaps a friend. Perhaps it is a kindly word, or it might be difficult to hear. But it is truth and serves to remind us that we are not called to live only in our own personal story, allowing it to unfold according only to our self-absorption. 

We are all part of a much larger story, that reaches far beyond ourselves alone…..a story that embraces a vast range of human emotions, situations, circumstances:  love, hate, kindness and cruelty, and all sorts of dualities that contain joy or sorrow deep within them. The world will draw us into its story, no matter how much we try to avoid it. And sometimes, our souls will be pierced by the sword of circumstance beyond our control. 

In a way, as faithful Christians, we must have the courage to follow Jesus into the Temple in order to discover our own truth. We each enter bearing our own gifts…each seeking God’s call to us. Who will the Holy Spirit use to deliver the message of our truth to us…who will be your Simeon or your Anna. 

Mary and Joseph went to the Temple and to the synagogue to learn their truths and to learn how to deal with them. We go to church, to Bible study, to special lessons in order discover God’s truths revealed to us. We go out amid other groups, we might take a stand on a particular issue that we feel called by God to address. 

In all these we expose who it is we really are, we expose our truths and sense our vulnerability because of it. We risk our ideas and perspectives, knowing that, however noble they may be, they may well clash severely with the ideas and perspectives of others, who must either be very wise or could be very frightening strangers. We live in a world of real-time positioning, which leaves us even more vulnerable than humankind has ever been before. In our era of social media, competition for attention and the increasing isolation that it propels, it becomes harder and harder to discover our truths and more difficult to find a safe place in which to face them. 

Regardless of where it is we go to find our truths, to family, to church, in the solitude of our own rooms, as we ponder and pray, listening to the still small voice within, we must go, we must enter in, or we will never encounter our Simeon or our Anna. The Simeon’s and the Anna’s will not know that we even exist and we will never see the truth of ourselves reflected in their eyes, unless we have the courage to be open enough to let our truth be revealed to us and to the world.

In the surface, this day seems like a simple, happy episode in the early life of Christ, and yet this Day of our Lord’s Presentation in the Temple is a complicated day, holding as it does, its blessings, its burdens and its particular message. It is a day of counter-cultural dualities: joy and pain, elation and suffering, and, like the city streets of Jerusalem and in the streets of this city and the cities of the world, the day holds opportunities filled with life,  promise, beauty and danger, wonders and disturbance, attention and distraction, excitement and boredom, and in the midst of it all, it holds a real opportunity for us to keep the faith that God is present among it all. 

We follow in the footsteps of Mary and Joseph and jostle our way to the Temple. We must allow our hearts to be made vulnerable and yes, to be pierced by our truth, because that is the way to life. 

Let us light the candles to celebrate Our Lord as we enter in and let us recall the words to that wonderful hymn…“Just as I am….Yea all I need, in Thee to find, O Lamb of God, I come, I come.”[1] Apt words for this day, because it’s a day of moving forward a little closer to God, just as we are, in all our simplicity and our complication. It’s a day of arrival, a day that shifts everything just a little, so that we can sense, if we are open to receive it,  a slight shift of difference in who we are, and where we are going from this day forward. It is a day when it is possible to see and feel the Holy Spirit working in us, to bring us closer and closer to the truths in our lives. 

As we enter the Temple of our life, just as we are, who will we find there? Who will find us? Maybe someone who is a stranger will capture our attention, come before us, and maybe our story will never be the same again.

Amen.

Written to the Glory of God

E. J. R. Culver+

February 2, 2025

[1]Hymn #693 1982 Episcopal Hymnal

Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10

Psalm 19

1 Corinthians 12: 12:31a

Luke 4:14-21

Call to Mission

Some of us can remember when the best-selling book in American culture having to do with how to better oneself in business or how improve one’s quality of life at any level, was Norman Vincent Peale’s “The Power of Positive Thinking.”[1] It was on the best seller list for decades, bought by religious and secular alike, in search of how to achieve a more optimistic view of life. It was not as popular with academics or health experts, but the general population went for it. It was published 70 years ago and, for quite some time, stood pretty much alone as a self-help book for people who were searching for direction and improvement in the living of this life. 

Since then, there have been hundreds of books published in the self-help, or reason-for-living genre, not the least of which, decades later, was evangelical Pastor Rick Warren’s, “The Purpose Driven Life.”[2]  Warren is founder and until his retirement in 2021, was senior pastor of Saddleback Church, in California, at the time, the largest mega church in the U. S. His book is, without a doubt, a Christian book, filled with scriptural citations throughout, yet written for searching hearts, no matter their church affiliation. Each in their own time and each in their way, his words and the words of scripture spoke to the heart of the people. People wanted to know and still want to know the answers to questions which lurk just beneath our human consciousness, no matter who we are, whether millionaire or on the streets. Who am I? Why am I here? What is my purpose? What is my mission?

Some of us are fortunate in that our gifts are easily recognizable from a young age. Perhaps we are noticeably musical or artistic in other ways. Perhaps a particular sport captured us in such a way that we couldn’t leave it alone and it became our life, or somehow, we were born knowing how to build furniture, or with a particular gift to know how to fix things. These calls to a way of life are easy to identify, but most of us are left to figure it out on our own throughout life, asking ourselves “What is my gift, what is my purpose for life in this world?” Without seeking for or landing on an answer, we are apt to walk through our days wherever we find ourselves, doing our work in the best way we can with what is demanded of us, with nothing extraordinarily noticeable about us to ourselves or anyone else.

There was nothing particularly extraordinary about Jesus coming the synagogue after he arrived back in his home town of Nazareth. But the ordinary turned into the extraordinary when Jesus volunteered to read from a particular section of the Torah written by the Prophet Isaiah. Just as we have our lectors in our tradition, in the synagogue readers were selected to read prior to the beginning of worship. However, on this day, to the amazement of all present, Jesus steps up and volunteers to read. He reads what he intends to read, presents the scriptures in the way he wants to present them. However, what he has to say about his purpose for reading the passage provides the breaking open moment of how he will focus his ministry and its ultimate purpose. It is at this new beginning, this turning point in Jesus’ life that he acknowledges the presence of the Holy Spirit in his life and ministry from the very beginning of his life and, as we now know, beyond his life on earth. 

At his Baptism, the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus like a dove. Through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, Jesus was led into the wilderness for a time to sort priorities and to reject temptations to leave his path, and now on this day, surrounded by astonished elders, family and friends in his own hometown, Jesus is filled by the Holy Spirit, and given powerful insight into what his ministry is to be, how it is be to carried out and what its ultimate purpose will be. 

He reads the words of the Prophet Isaiah, a prophetic text that is a reflection of his earthly mission and purpose. He is the Messiah. 

Guided and filled by the Holy Spirit, Jesus is called to minister to the poor, the neglected, the marginalized and to set the captives free….free from whatever it is that binds them; people like us who can so easily become paralyzed by the size of life’s challenges; to bring sight to eyes that have lost the ability to see, just like our eyes, which too often cannot see truth or falsehood very clearly; to bring light into darkness, wherever it is found. 

In short, to be the Light to enlighten the nations, and all to the glory of God. That too includes us. Our hearts and souls can be readily enlightened when we leave them open to receive the light of Christ’s words. 

What a mission for Jesus! What a purpose! It is, for Jesus, and for the Holy Spirit, a defining moment. It was a new beginning, a new Covenant, and the stirrings of what would become a new Church. 

Not Church as we know it today. No buildings or budget, no BAC or Annual Meeting. Only a handful of assorted locals, a few fishermen and a tax collector who saw, heard and believed. What they saw was transformation through the presence of the Holy Spirit, and it was the Spirit that gave them the strength and courage move forward to proclaim the Good News and to do the work they, too, were called to do. 

In a way we can relate to that moment, today. Here we all are. We have our church and our grounds, and next week we’ll have our Annual Meeting. Two thousand years after Jesus stood up and declared his mission and ministry, we are called by the same Holy Spirit to join together in order to love and support each other within our communal mission and ministry to serve our neighbors, near or far, in the name of Christ. 

We are Church in the year 2025. Perhaps the question that Jesus would ask us now, today, is how much power of the Holy Spirit are we open to be receiving? Jesus found himself having to introduce the Holy Spirit into his ministry from his first words to the people in the synagogue at Nazareth, “Today,” not next week, or next year, but “Todaythis scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” 

How do we know if the Holy Spirit is alive and working through us, wherever or however we are living our lives at present, or wherever and however we are to grow and navigate our church’s mission and purpose through a world of increasing secularism and Christian division?

Perhaps the Holy Spirit is guiding us in this very moment, asking us to consider at our Annual Meeting next Sunday, a question that is fundamental to the ministry Jesus is expecting of us. The question isn’t “How are we doing as Church” Rather, the questions is “What are we doing for God, as a Church?” “How does Christ Episcopal Church impact the world of the needy and oppressed?” “Who are the captives we are called to set free?”

Perhaps in order for us to begin to answer these questions, we must each ask ourselves the same questions as they relate to us personally. “What is it that God is asking of me in this church to which I have been called?” “What is it that God is asking me to do that will make a difference even to one of the least of these in this world?” What are my gifts or experiences which can help to drive my church mission and ministry? In short, what is God desiring me to do for Christ Episcopal Church, how does God want me to use my gifts and how will all of us recognize the work of the Holy Spirit in this place?

The answers to these questions come from the hearts of each of us and are created by God to be recognized as absolute truth. It is when we truly understand our personal mission, we are able to come together as Church, allowing the Holy Spirit to guide us toward a communal mission that is as relevant today, as was Jesus’ mission in his own time. 

When we are drawn to common mission by the power of the Spirit in the name of Jesus Christ, we find ourselves suddenly brought alive in the vitality of God’s purpose in Creation. We become co-Creators with God, drawn by God into God’s love and compassion, drawn by God to offer that love and compassion to the world. 

It is when we forget our purpose as Church and when we lose sight of our core mission, when we become too habitual or working without the joy of knowing our work makes a difference in the lives of others, that the very life of a church becomes lost in the noise of the world. 

Perhaps this week, each of us needs to contemplate how or what gifts we offer or could offer for our Church and then, further, we can question how our work can impact the core mission of our Church.  What are we passionate about regarding God’s work in the world? What propels us? If we can say we are propelled by the Holy Spirit, then we are on the right track and our last words before sleep are words of gratitude to God for our creation and our purpose for being here.

It is something for us to ponder in the days ahead prior to our time for our meeting next week, as we consider the state of our church, its purpose and its mission. What is it we must reach toward? What is it we are to accomplish and how are we to do it? What is it that the Holy Spirit will give us to do in the name of Christ and when are we to do it? Perhaps we will need to come together informally at a special time other than our Annual Meeting to really explore that question in depth. 

When Jesus read his chosen passage from Isaiah in the synagogue at Nazareth, he must have felt raging excitement throughout his whole being, urging him to now continue what he had started, to move forward without fear, abandoning himself completely to his purpose and the mission now begun.

“Today,” said Jesus, “Today, this scriptures has been fulfilled in your hearing.” In other words, “We’re off!” 

What if, by the time we leave our annual meeting next Sunday, we leave with our first thoughts of a renewed purpose and mission, in the life of the church and in our own lives. What would our purpose and mission look like? Feel like? W

Conversely, what if it were the last day for us to fulfill our mission, our last chance? What would we do with it? If this were our only day to reimagine our ministry and our purpose, how deeply could we listen to God’s call to us and how quickly would we be moved to action?

The Holy Spirit has its own role to play in its guidance of this church just as it did for Jesus. The Spirit taught Jesus that the real purpose of living was to turn away from all that misguides and tempts us away from God’s loving intent for all God’s people and to turn away from personal glory in whatever way it presents itself, whether in simple conversation or through exploiting positions of leadership. 

Jesus, now filled with the Holy Spirit, in front of God and all the people present around him that day, said yes to all that God desires for God’s people, and said yes to working to alleviate the poor, to heal the sick, to free the oppressed and captives. The Spirit is leading us to turn away from manipulating God to do what we want God to do for us, and to embrace our opportunity to say yes to God with intention to work for God with love, compassion and grace in the way God’s Holy Spirit leads us. 

The presence of the Holy Spirit is palpable in this church, and each of us personally, have known and felt that presence in moments known only to ourselves and God.  Even though we will soon go our separate ways, into separate lives filled with separate agendas, I feel the presence of the Spirit among us even now, as we begin to ponder God’s renewed mission for us as Church. 

Let us resolve, each in our own way as we pray today, to listen to the Holy Spirit’s direction in our own lives and in the life of the Church we have come to know and love. Let us come to our annual meeting, and perhaps, a special meeting beyond to which we readily invite the Holy Spirit to listen and guide us, alert and ready to direct our God-given gifts and passions toward new possibilities meant to create new beginnings of our own. God is showing us, even today, even at this moment, that we can create new ways to make the purpose and mission of Christ Episcopal Church known in a way that glorifies God.

Just as Jesus began his ministry, in the power of the Holy Spirit, so do we.

Just as Jesus relied on the Holy Spirit for guidance, so shall we.

Just as Jesus founded his ministry on love, mercy, compassion and grace, so must we. 

Being Church has less to do with function for ourselves and all to do with our relationship in Christ. We share life as community, no matter whether we are personally present or not. We are to exist as a visible expression of God’s purpose, because God’s purpose is our purpose. We are to exist as a visible expression of God’s love that delights in each one God calls beloved, which encompasses all that God has created. As part of the body of Christ, we are hold strongly together as a community of welcoming love as Church; a body of caring people, doing the work of God in the world.

When Jesus made his pronouncement in the synagogue, all were amazed, and now we are called to say the same words to a hurting world, “Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” May each one of us, and may we, as the Church, as the body of Christ, be the source of comfort, of healing grace, compassion, and of love and may our purpose and mission in the world be led forward only by these and none other.

Amen.

Written to the Glory of God

E. J. R. Culver+

January 26, 2025

[1]Norman Vincent Peale, The Power of Positive Thinking: A Practical Guide to Mastering the Problems of Everyday Living, (Prentice Hall, US, 1952)

[2]Rick Warren, The Purpose-Driven Life (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002)

Isaiah 62: 1-5

Psalm 36:5-10

1 Corinthians 12: 1-11

John 2: 1-11

There’s nothing like a good wedding. One or thousand years from now, when people look back at the rituals and customs in the world of ancient 2025, they may talk about how the people, even in the midst of all their stupid wars, climate misunderstanding, misguided billionaires, among so many other strange happenings, still took time for special events. Religious holidays, weddings and funerals, continued to happen around the globe, regardless of whatever was going on around earth. With biblical intensity, perhaps these future analysts will study the way things used to be in the ancient marriage customs and rituals during the 2025 era. The advanced planning and coordination, the flowers, the cake, the music, the dancing, the food and drink, the photography, the dress, the special thought-out venue, the crowds of well-wishers gathered round and above all that, the all-pervading, unspoken, collective recognition that here is another opportunity for love to conquer all. For the happy couple, around whom all the celebrations swirl, and for all those in attendance, no matter what bends in the road await them in the future, there is a universal longing that this love….this marriage, will be a beacon of beauty in a weary world, aching for more lightness of being and joie de vivre. There’s just nothing like a good wedding.

As we take our own look back over a couple of thousand years, it’s easy to understand that people have always felt the same way. The wedding in Cana, appears to adhere to the wedding customs of the day. As was the custom, in lieu of a honeymoon, the wedding couple entered into a seven-day wedding feast, hosted at the home of the groom, and as the mother of two sons, I am relieved that this particular ritual has faded away over the course of two thousand years!

It seems clear, then, that a seven-day festival of eating, drinking, conviviality and just plain good times, would require just as much planning as does a wedding today, whether it be in bare feet in the middle of a field, come one come all, or in a church of choice, with a well-planned mixture of invited guests.

Either way, as with any anticipated event, large or small, Murphy’s Law will undoubtedly be in effect, and this is especially true at a wedding. The first of Murphy’ three laws states that anything that can go wrong will go wrong, and we can all probably recall an event that we, ourselves have planned, or have attended, where for all the good planning, something didn’t work out as well as was intended. Since the first events such as weddings emerged, so it is. So it was at the wedding of Cana.

Here we are at the home of the groom, the font of hospitality for days to come, and in the midst of it all, the wine runs out. 

The mother of Jesus, (Note: John does not call Mary by her name,) becomes aware of the approaching disaster and she urgently nudges Jesus, also an invited guest, as he sits, quite contentedly, off to the side, probably simply enjoying the party atmosphere. Mary takes charge of the situation by informing Jesus about the wine rapidly running out, however, Jesus appear to initially feel he should be involved. Clearly, Mary knows he can do something about it, yet Jesus is unsure if this is an appropriate time for him to reveal his divine gift of miracle or indeed, his divine identity. He’s not sure if they should be involved at all, addressing his mother as “woman,” which was a very common and typical address during Jesus’ time, from a grown man to his mother. This said, the expression “woman” addressed to Mary does indicate his distancing from his mother in terms of what she can or cannot tell him he should do. 

Like any good mother, Mary leaves the decision and solution to Jesus and merely tells the servants to do whatever Jesus tells them to do. She and Jesus must have been highly influential guests in order for the servants to accept her words and Jesus’ directions, and it is clear that she is among the first to be alerted regarding the dilemma of running out of wine, hence her prompt to Jesus. Perhaps it was this genuine human need and a desire for the wedding couple’s happiness that propelled Jesus to perform his first miracle before all present with the eyes to see and the taste to know that all was good and well. For the rest, including the steward, only rational explanations exist. The steward simplyrealizes that superior wine is now being served. He doesn’t know its source has come from Jesus. The host, he thinks, has brought out a considerable amount of superior wine, a puzzling move, given that the best wine is usually served first, yet deeply welcome. 

The steward is, in a way, much like us. The miracle of turning water into wine would probably have been as difficult for him to understand as it would be for us to notice sudden good gifts appearing in our own lives. Miraculous gifts arriving, without any thinking by us that the source of their seemingly miraculous presence have anything to do with God. But these kinds of things are not the purpose for miracles or signs revealed by Jesus. Rather, most very real signs are like arrows pointing beyond what we deem as rational or understandable, toward that which is being revealed through the signs and miracles. 

Jesus enters into his ministry, by performing the first sign to his disciples, to all who were there that day, and to us, of his divine call. It is an understated sign, but significant and miraculous. “Fill the jars with water,” Jesus said,” ….draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.” The jars are huge and produced over 120 gallons of wine to keep the week-long festival supplied with the fruit of the vine. And so it was that now it is the best wine that is served, it is the best wine that will keep the joy and laughter going. 

The steward is amazed, while the servants, on the other hand, saw what happened and the disciples enter into a new era in their relationship with Jesus. They share a particular kind of knowing. They believe. The wedding continues on to it’s happy conclusion, the joyous feast has been saved and all present are filled with a sense of extravagant abundance for the entire occasion. 

It is the first of many signs that Jesus will reveal and one to which we, as Christ’s church, should pay close attention. Here is a scene which finds Jesus, a guest at a wedding, saying “yes” to joy. He turns water into wine….the mundane into the celebratory, directing us from the start to the one who created all with the intent for pleasure and gladness. God did not create in order to summon sadness, but joy. 

Somehow, over the passing of the centuries, the Church strayed from astonished and joy-filled awe to a place where too often, religion becomes just a Sunday sort of thing. Too frequently, and for many, according to Presbyterian author, James McBride Dabbs,[1]who wrote back in the ‘60’s,  “Religion was a day and a place: religion was Sunday and the church: almost everything else was life…….it came around every week, but it didn’t seem to have much to do with the rest of the week, that is, with life.”

I like to think we’ve loosened up a bit since the 60’s, and Jesus’ sign at the wedding in Cana establishes with certainty, that God delights in all creation and puts joy into the heart of it all, and that Jesus thinks that any event during which we celebrate people is worth turning the mundane into the celebratory, in whatever way we can find to reveal it. 

God never intended that God’s people would take joy out of piety, religion and ritual, whether public or private. Jesus exemplified this intent in the way he moved through his ministry. Faith does not require misery, just the opposite. Everywhere Jesus traveled, he lifted up and celebrated people as they moved through their particular triumphs and tragedies of life. He celebrated people being married, and he continued celebrating events of all kinds: healing people from their various ailments, physical or mental, freeing them from the demons that love to haunt humankind within. He loved sharing meals with people and carried a sense of celebration with him, teaching of God’s call for peace and joyful awareness of God’s mercy. 

It is this joyful awareness that is at the heart of the story of Cana. It is a sign to us that, as recipients of God’s grace, we can rejoice and bring that joy into the world as a sign handed down to us from that day in Cana. Ours is not a religion of somber puritanism, it is a celebration of something miraculous, it is born of hearts filled with joy and awe at the powerful grace and mercy of God.

We are called to celebrate whenever and however we can. We are called to throw parties, real or metaphorical that bring food, flowers, music and joyous celebration into an atmosphere of radical welcome, well-being and love for all those who have need of it. If we forget how to do that, we just have to look back to Jesus at Cana, to be reminded how to live fully and richly in our lives, and how to celebrate our faith joyfully in the service of the One we call Lord. 

It is our legacy. It is a gift for the good times and for the hard times. It is a gift for whatever challenge we may be going through now, personally or as a community. It is our reminder to find joy in God’s blessings wherever we choose to notice them. Whether we find ourselves in the rough terrain of life or our road is smooth, we are called to find joy in the thoughts of each other. Take a moment to stop each day and recall the people in your life, and take joy in their existence, for they are beautifully and fearfully made. Rain or shine, take a look at Creation and give thanks for its complexity and realize that you are made to be part of it, and that it recognizes you as vital to its own joyful presence. 

The miracle of celebration in Cana reminds us that, throughout all the wars, plagues and disasters, large and small, throughout the lives of the ages, we are all human with the capacity to celebrate our ways through it. That is our strength. That is our armor. That is our survival. To turn our attention to the banquet of life and the living of all it offers. With a constant barrage of news via our smart phones, televisions and more, and because of its constancy and speed in reaching us, it is easy to notice all that is bad and seemingly hopeless in the world, and we must be aware of all that. 

We must be vigilant in remembering that Jesus points us to a new perspective, a new way of viewing the world, especially when the world is difficult. He is pointing us to a way that offers hope and opportunity to find a kind of peaceful celebration deep within our hearts and our souls in living with joyous faith in a God who is celebrating with us.

If we accept this gift from God, we become liberated through God from fear: of life and of death. We are a redeemed people, and therefore we are called to be a celebratory people. Imagine how quickly God’s Church would regrow if the world noticed how filled with joy and hospitality all Christians seem to be. What is their secret, the world might ask, and how do we find some of that joy!

The wedding at Cana was a quiet first sign of Jesus’ amazing, life-changing ministry, and yet it was a major miracle because it magnified, and still magnifies, God’s glorious desire for God’s people to be a living celebration of God’s Creation. 

Murphy’s Second Law states that nothing is as easy as it looks. Faced with so many great unknowns as we are, it is easy for us to feel strong primal human emotions of anxiety, guilt, anger and compassion, confusion and opinion, leading us to ask what is it we can possibly do to alleviate the pain in the world today, While it may not look easy, and may seem just too hard to try, we have learned another lesson from Jesus today. And that is to do what we do with what we’ve got to work with, no matter how little we have, no matter how much. Jesus decided that coming out of obscurity for the benefit of all was the right thing to do. 

Murphy’s third law says everything takes longer than you think it will, from watching the kettle boil, to waiting for the time when people across the globe can be together again in peace: to hug and kiss, to eat and drink together, to gather with wild abandon with the people we love.

Well, let’s wait it out, knowing that Jesus is prepared to turn our water into wine for as long as we need it. Let us live with joyous love for each other, no matter how much we fear in the world, or how great our challenges. Jesus paved the way and now it is up to us to turn water into wine, wherever and whenever we notice, as did the mother of Jesus, that it is time to overcome whatever impending darkness awaits, by the simple pleasure of living in a world created by God for our benefit, with celebration and an extravagant abundance of joy for all. The celebration begins now and extends into coffee hour and beyond. As Jesus probably said to his disciples with a knowing look and a young man’s smile…. “Party on!”

Amen. 

Written to the Glory of God

E. J. R. Culver+

January 19, 2025

[1]James McBride Dabbs, The Road Home (Philadelphia Christian Education Press, 1960.), 25. 

Ist Sunday after the Epiphany

Isaiah 43: 1-7

Psalm 29

Acts: 8:14-17

Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

Divine Affirmation

This is a strange time of year for the faithful. Our journey from Christmas into Epiphany is something like racing from zero to sixty in 12 days that fly in moments. It seems just yesterday that we decorated the church. Yet, here we are at the first Sunday after the Epiphany, long after the wise men from the East left for home by another road after visiting Jesus who was, last Sunday, still a tiny infant lying in a manger, yet who is now around thirty years old, walking into the River Jordan to be baptized by his cousin John. John, the one who leapt with joy in Elizabeth’s womb when she received Mary, has grown into the kind of prophetic preacher Elizabeth and Jeremiah could never have imagined. One wonders about the conversations between the two mothers at this stage of their sons’ lives.

They say children grow up fast, but never like either of these! We can thank the Apostles, Matthew, Mark and Luke for their need to cut to the chase and with the exception of reporting a couple of childhood incidents, move straight from the crib to the beginning of Jesus’ ministry on earth. 

So, here we are still basking in the aura of the birth of Christ, the shepherds, the angels, and are still wanting more of the wise men and their gifts, and let’s be truthful, we are all still wanting just a little more Christmas before the Herod’s of our world start trying to take over our lives again. Maybe that is one of the reasons we decided to leave a few of the decorations up in the church until today!

It might help us to try not to think too chronologically. It makes liturgical sense in our minds for the season of Epiphany, the season of Light, to begin with the baptism of Jesus, the One come to enlighten the world. There are slight, but important differences between the Gospel writers of the sequence of events unfolding from the birth of Jesus and his life beyond and the particular emphases and the way in which each tells his birth story.  From Christ’s nativity to the time of his baptism we are offered varying perspectives adding depth and breadth to our own knowledge of all that happened so long ago. 

This year, we are journeying through these stories with Luke and there are several emphases which he brings to our attention, as he unfolds his version of what happened at Jesus’ baptism.

People are flocking to hear John the Baptist preach and listening to his call for repentance and invitation to baptism. Many are being baptized and wonder if John could be the long-awaited Messiah. The people were “filled with expectation” and “questioning” in their hearts and minds about this. They were probably wondering if this man, John, would be the one they had been longing for. The one they had, for a long time, been hoping would arrive to lead them out of all the difficulties and challenges in their lives. 

It’s a theme not unfamiliar to us. We long for the coming of the One who will lead us out of all the difficulties and challenges of our own world in our own time. It is not a new phenomenon. In all of human history and experience, it has been the same. Expectations and hopes that the right leader will materialize fills every human heart, no matter where they are in the world, who they are, or what their circumstances. All are filled with hope that they will be able to discern just who it is the world can trust enough to follow. Luke seems to understand this deep-felt and very real expectation and hope in the hearts of humankind during his own time and in ours.

Luke doesn’t’ describe much about the actual baptism of Jesus, but rather what happened after all the people, including Jesus, had been baptized and as Jesus was praying. 

Jesus came to God in prayer. He was baptized and he prayed. He did not expect his ministry, his role on earth, to be dependent only on his own human abilities or within his own power. He came to God, the source of his strength, knowing that source of strength was far beyond himself. And he was right. So, it is for us. We humans can learn from this simple action taken by a very human Jesus at his baptism. 

According to Luke, it was not at the moment of his baptism, but when Jesus was praying, that the Holy Spirit came to Jesus, and it was the Holy Spirit that gave him the courage to keep moving forward in his ministry throughout all the challenges and horrific events he had to face. Therein was a message for his disciples who would learn the value of prayer, even as they had to learn to carry on with their own ministries with patience and love, without Jesus.

Again, we, too, are recipients of that same message. We were “sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever” at our baptism. The journey of faith and obedience to God which we begin at our baptism, continues and is lived out through the practice of prayer, and it is through prayer that we receive the Holy Spirit’s power and strength to keep our faith strong and intact. 

As Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, we are to support each other in love, and we are to prayerfully depend upon the Holy Spirit to guide us out into the world to make a difference in the lives of those in need of hope, and secure love. No matter how much we are beset by pandemics, war, fire or flood, political divisiveness and all the problems that face people at all levels of our society, we are called to be a lifeline inside it all, and we must never forget how to turn to God for the strength to carry out that call.

When the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus in Luke’s Gospel, the description in Mark’s telling of the story has it descending “like a dove.” Yet Luke’s version has a very distinctive difference from that of Mark. In the description we heard today, the Holy Spirit “descended upon him in bodily form like a dove….” In other words, what happened was real. It was a spiritual experience made tangible, and yet at the same time, ethereal, unworldly, indefinable “like a dove.”

For each of us, as a result of deeply profound and sincere prayer, there is a moment when heaven opens up, and something very real descends, like a dove,  into our earthly experience. It is a kind of 

inbreaking, if you will. A new way of thinking. A new beginning. Perhaps the start of a new age.

It began when the Spirit descended upon Jesus, and it continues today. It happens each time our prayers rise up in Eucharistic prayer, invoking the Holy Spirit: “And so, Father, we who have been redeemed by him, and made a new people by water the Spirit, now bring before you these gifts. Sanctify them by your Holy Spirit….” 

It is our moment of Epiphany, which is open to us over and over again, not just once at our baptism. It is a profound opportunity for us to pray deeply and with intention about our own journey of faith and our own call to ministry, as individuals and as a Church Community as it was for Jesus, as the Spirit descended upon him. 

Then a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” The voice from heaven was directed straight to Jesus, so that he would understand completely his identity as God’s Son and how he would live out his ministry with that identity.

In his letter to the Romans, St. Paul said, “Now, if we are children, then we are heirs – heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share His sufferings in order that we may also share in His glory.”[1]

We share in the glory of God’s message to Jesus at his baptism, “You are my Beloved.” When we hear these words from a parent or someone significant to us in our lives, we absorb them, are strengthened by them, find our identity and our ability to move forward into fulfilling life, acting from that secure identity. If we don’t experience this kind of affirmation, we can become unsure of who we are, struggling with trust and self-confidence. 

Yet, no matter our earthly experience or circumstances, we are all affirmed by the good news that in Christ, we are Beloved. We are all strengthened by the power of that identity, all moved to trust, to find purpose and deep love for God’s world and all that is created in it. It moves us with powerful conviction into the renewal of our Baptismal Vows, which we will repeat in just a few moments. 

According to Luke, Jesus was baptized with “all the people.” He presented himself as one of us, as one of the world of sinners. He just got in line with the rest of us, all who were facing the same kind of tearing apart by the world and had just about given up on finding any hope in the future, for the world or for themselves. But there they were, lined up after listening to John, hoping that by returning to God, they would find renewed hope. And there was Jesus, right with them, identifying with all the broken and damaged people who needed God; identifying with all of us who are lined up for the same reason.

The Good News is that through the baptism of Christ, and through the presence of the Holy Spirit, each one of us called Beloved, number among all in whom God is well pleased. No matter our mistakes, our hesitations, our challenges and suffering, our triumphs or our degree of faith, our stumbling and our insecurities or wherever we or however we find ourselves, we are, every one of us, beloved by God. We are each uniquely created by God, each a child of God, and therefore each pleasing to God. The only way we cannot be pleasing to God is to ignore God’s commandments to love one another and to love our neighbor. Those are the two commandments that Jesus took to the cross. They are the two commandments he left with us, sending his Advocate, the Holy Spirit, to assist us in adhering to them with all our heart, mind and strength.

It is the Holy Spirit that will give you the will to get through these dark days of confusion and chaos in the world. It is the Holy Spirit who will give you the strength to follow your path, regardless of the obstacles the world insists on placing in your way. It is the Holy Spirit who sealed you and marked you as Christ’s own for ever and it is God, the Father of Jesus who calls you “ my Beloved.”

We are in great need to hear this divine affirmation from God and we need to hear it from each other. No more tearing down, no more watching from the sidelines, for “You are my child, whom I love, with you I am well pleased.” They are the words that changed Jesus’ life forever; they are the words that, when you choose to hear them, will change your life and the lives of all those whom you bless by this same divine affirmation. 

Our celebration at Christmas may be over, but you still possess a powerful gift freely given to you and which can be freely given not just once, but times without limit. How many will receive your gift as they hear your divine affirmation, “You are God’s Beloved child.” Alleluia!

Amen. 

Written to the Glory of God

E. J. R. Culver+

January 12, 2025

[1]Romans 8:17

 Jeremiah 31:7-14

Psalm 72:1-7,10-14

Ephesians 3:1-12

Matthew 2:1-12

ETERNAL PURPOSE

In the olden days, long, long ago, we used shop primarily in department stores like Macy’s, Nordstroms, remember Woolworth’s? Sometime around mid-November, we would begin to hear Christmas music among the popular tunes of the day. We would hear songs like, “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas..”, or “Deck the halls with boughs of holly….” Occasionally, one might hear a carol such as  “Love came down at Christmas…” Although, I’m not sure everyone knew the words to that one, or if they did, what the significance of the word “Love” actually was.  Nevertheless, as Christmas drew near, the Christmas carols became more frequent, and an enormous number of non-church-going people were familiar with the first lines, at least. So it is today in various venues like supermarkets and office buildings. “Silent Night” is still considered de-rigueur at the close of many a public gathering or private party. 

There is no doubt, Christmas has become universally recognized, by Christians and non-Christians alike, even if for some, the meaning of it all gets a bit lost in the preparations and buying of gifts. But no matter. For people in all parts of the world, Christmas allows a time for generosity of spirit, regardless of one’s understanding of the Christmas story. Christmas allows one to give to others. To offer compassion. To include rather than exclude. To find a certain softness within otherwise hard hearts. To rediscover sincere joy in witnessing another’s happiness. To love and support, rather than to tear down through hatred or revenge. Sadly, for many, Christmas is over in just a couple of days and old habits quickly reappear. 

For faithful Christians, however, Christmas itself is a gift. Not just any gift, no matter how glorious and inviting it may look, waiting under the tree. Rather, Christmas is a gift that never grows old, never needs expensive wrappings and never has been, or ever will be a secret. Rather than being forgotten in mere days, it is ours to enjoy every day of our lives and meant never to be forgotten. Christmas is a special kind of gift to be infinitely and timelessly shared with the world.

Its time of celebration continues until Epiphany, offering us twelve days to celebrate with great joy the birth of our Lord, and from the first Sunday of Advent to Twelfth Night of Christmas we have 86 hymns and carols to choose to sing, each telling a part of the Advent/Christmas story in their own particular way. 

So it is today, on this Eve of Epiphany, that we, too,  celebrate in our own way and which we will continue to celebrate according to the liturgical calendar of 2025 until March 2nd when our mood will naturally shift to Ash Wednesday and Lent. In many more Orthodox traditions, all these celebratory dates are very different. Observations and rituals differ, but just as our familiar hymns and carols of every season celebrate the life and story of Jesus, so the core of Christ’s life story is celebrated by Christians the world over, each in our own particular way. So we need not worry about the chronology and focus on the themes.

The theme of Christ’s birth takes a subtle turn during these final hours of Christmastide as we anticipate the arrival of Epiphany and the full meaning of what Epiphany means. Epiphany is just that…an epiphany, a manifestation, a significant event that lifts up a particular part of Christ’s birth story and a time for us to recall and acknowledge the visit of the three wise men, the magi who came from afar to establish the significance of Christ to the Gentiles. Matthew’s account speaks to “wise men of the east.” Tradition established their number as three and gave them names and nationalities: Caspar, from India, Melchior from Persia and Balthasar from Arabia. Maybe that’s true, or simply another product of tradition, but again, the source of the details are not what is important. What is important is that by some miracle, when there was no post, no email, no smart phones, by the sign of a very distinctive star, the ancient kings interpreted the news of a very special birth in Bethlehem. They responded and, following that star, they came. 

Before their arrival, the stable in Bethlehem was alive with noise…angels, singing, alleluias, a musical story. Yet the wise three brought with them a time of quiet discernment, entered into by simply following the silent movement of the star. They, too, must have travelled gently and silently, deeply aware of Herod’s rage against any other king besides himself. History gives us no knowledge of wise words of guidance they brought to say before the child. We only know they brought deeply symbolic gifts which spoke to this new king’s life mission and destiny: gold for a king, incense for God, and myrrh used to anoint the dead, perhaps providing a glimpse of His coming journey to the cross 

And then, just as suddenly as they appeared,  

Joseph and Mary, the shepherds and their sheep, the gawkers from across the fields nearby, the sheep, donkeys, the camels and the dogs, left the stable,  and the three kings from afar, who went home by a different route, so as not to encounter trouble along the way, left too. The end. Everybody goes home. Each one, to simply tell the story in their own particular way. 

There is no-one left in the stable except us. And in these waning hours of Christ’s birth story it is time for us, as well, to step away from the little stable, to leave Bethlehem, and to continue the conversations begun by those who were firsthand witnesses of all that took place there. The stories of our Lord’s birth, who He became, what He accomplished, His life and times which were picked up and subsequently published by those who were with Jesus, who encountered Jesus, and who mourned His death. 

The stories were not passed down to us in order for us to simply know what happened that night so long ago. The stories foretold of his coming long before Christ was born and the message to all who have heard the story for the past 2,000 years is now left to us. It is our turn to pass the story along to those who have not yet heard, or do not yet understand and accept its message of love and peace. 

This is the defining moment when we look around at each other before pointing to ourselves, asking the question, “Who me?!” The Prophet Jeremiah makes it all pretty clear to us today. “Sing for joy to Jacob… make our praises heard.” “Hear the word of the LORD, you nations; proclaim it in distant coastlands.” Yep. He’s talking to us about God. As we thought about on Christmas Eve., there was God before time. And then came Jesus.

Then came the disciples, and others, who told what they knew, who told about how they had been healed, felt comforted, felt known and felt saved from their earthly experiences, and believed in something far greater than these fleeting moments of life as we know it. 

Then came Paul, who called himself a “prisoner for Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles,” telling us again of how the mystery of God’s Son was made known to him and his own particular understanding of that mystery. Paul reminds us of the continuing conversation about Jesus, not previously revealed to humankind, but now “revealed by the holy apostles and prophets by the Holy Spirit” to the Gentiles (and all of us) who “have become fellow heirs, members of the same body and sharers in the promise of Jesus Christ.” This is the part where again, you look a bit perplexed and ask the question, “Who me?”

Yes, Paul would respond. You are no different than I, “the very least of all the saints.” This “grace was given to you just as it was to me to bring to all unbelievers the news of the boundless riches of Christ.” 

Hello. 

But, Paul. You don’t understand. Life is very different now. We have different ways of communicating, and people are well, no offense, a bit more sophisticated in their thinking.

Paul, undaunted, continues, 

“…to make everyone see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things…. This was in accordance with the eternal purpose carried out in Christ Jesus, in whom we have access to God in boldness and confidence through faith…”

The eternal purpose. There is it, my friends, the meaning of it all. The reason for the stories, the embellishments, the triumphant alleluias, the angels, the star, the incense… the Epiphany…all of it.  God’s eternal purpose was brought to humankind in a very human way, and the story has been brought to us through generations of people near and from afar, so that we, too can tell the story. Not just about the birth story, but about how the story has been handed down to all God’s people, no matter their circumstances, be they peasant or king, 

Those who hear the story and believe its message call themselves Christians. Those who have faith in God and God’s eternal purpose for peace in the world will understand, no matter their faith tradition. There is room in the story for all God’s people. 

As Christians we have just heard the Christmas story anew, and each time we hear it, it will impact us in a slightly new way. In the same way, we will be impacted in new ways as Epiphany leads us on to the end of one story and the beginning of another. 

Most importantly, as Jesus people, we are now tasked with the work of continuing the conversation about God’s eternal purpose made clear by sending the Son of God into the heart of our world. 

We are each tasked to tell the story in our own particular way, given the particular circumstances in which we find ourselves, and whoever it is who might be listening to us. A school child or a know-it-all teenager; someone who has lost hope or someone who is dying; perhaps someone who simply joyous and would love to give thanks for their inexplicable joy. The story has been given to us as a gift to be offered to any of these and more. You and I will know the moment and will know how best to tell of God’s eternal purpose for all God’s people, to be kind and compassionate rather than judgmental or cruel, forgiving not vengeful, to encourage and support rather than to be silently absent, to listen and not overwhelm. Above all, we are to love, deeply and sincerely, all that God has created and for which we all give thanks.

Who will hear your particular story of God’s eternal purpose in this year our Lord, 2025? How will you explain the Christmas story of the birth of Christ the King and God’s Epiphany made manifest by three earthly kings humbly bearing gifts? How will you describe, in your own particular way, the story of the greatest gift of all: Christmas past, present and future? 

The prophets of old knew that one day God would make God’s eternal purpose known to humankind. The magi came, saw, believed what they saw and heard and made their way home to spread the good news of God’s Son come among us.  The disciples and apostles carried the story with them and Paul made it clear before he died, that the story must continue to be explained and made clear.

They all did a very good job. Now it’s our turn.

Amen.

Written to the Glory of God. 

E. J. R. Culver+

January 5, 2025

Christmas Eve

Isaiah 52:7-10

Psalm 98

Hebrews 1:1-4

John 1: 1-14

Light in the Darkness

About 16 billion years or so ago, farther back than my mind can conceive, there came out of infinity a new place for life created by God. Slowly, the life emerged on God’s time about which we have no understanding. And, as life emerged out of the chaos of creation, mankind showed itself at home in the garden, co-existing with it in harmony and grateful thanks. There was no war or violence, no envy or hatred, no darkness or death, only peace, light and contentment. 

Adam and Eve were beautiful in their innocence until they were compelled to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, which was forbidden to them by God, and we are still trying to figure out how to fix that mistake. We still tend to turn away from God’s will in order to satisfy false idols with our worship.

But God is not willing to let us go that easily. Everything that exists comes from God, there is nothing that is not created by God and there is nowhere one can be where God is not. We are never out of God’s presence and there is nothing that is not a sign of God’s love.

To turn away from God, then, is to willingly move into nothingness…to darkness of our own making. 

The very human stories handed down over the ages since the time of Adam and Eve….stories of violence, greed, and all the rest of the darker side of humankind, deepen this reality of our choices. 

We have heard the voices of the prophets warning us against our stupidity calling us to repent and return to God’s way, but we are poor learners and we continued to live according to our own desires.

So, the time came for God to have had enough. And now there was time before Christ, and time after Christ. BC and AD. For a fleeting moment time stopped, and everything changed, because after millions of years of human deafness, God came to be among us, born in the most unlikely place, to the most unlikely parents in a town that was just a dot on the map, so that we could not only hear God’s voice, but see and touch God. And, when all that happened, all of heaven and earth: angels and humankind alike, held a collective breath as human history was changed forever. 

The Light had come into the world, 

God the Son incarnate. Immortal, yet God with a human face, hands and feet as one of us. After all those years, since the time of creation, we would not listen to God, so God came to us.

God came not to admonish but to bring us to him and to unite his nature with ours: Human and Divine, manifested in one living example, Jesus Christ. And that is why we call him Savior. 

Through him we are freed to love, freed to find peace, freed to choose good over evil, freed to choose life over death.

It is the meaning of Christmas. It is God’s gift to God’s own creation.

Fast forward to 2024 years later, to the memory of that night in Bethlehem. Whoever we are, wherever we are, we cannot help but feel the light shining into the darkness again, the way it always has and always will, and somehow, we sense that no matter what happens in the world, the world will not win. 

It was that way in the beginning, and it is that way now, and God knows we are going through some dark days, yet as this season of light teaches us, we don’t have to succumb to any kind of darkness.

We have all experienced loss….of loved ones, loss of comfort and peace, of time for rest and we think of Christmas as the perfect antidote for our darkness, but there we go again, burdening Christmas with worldly expectations. We want it to be perfect. We want it to look and sound like the Christmas songs and carols we sing. Like Christmas cards. Perfect. All the parts must be in place….all the decorations, the tree, the food, the gifts, the usual family issues gone and in their place, congeniality and unmistakable love. We want snow, but not so much that we cannot go where we want, when we want. But we do like things to look like Christmas, so a little snow would be…well….just about perfect. 

But hands up, friends, if you’ve ever known a Christmas to be perfect! Yes or no…. here’s the good news. At the time of the year when we find ourselves worshiping our Savior, wrapped in rough cloths, in a stable lying in the manger that is usually reserved for feeding the cows, we are shown that from the first Christmas night in Bethlehem, it was anything but perfect, and yet we, along with a good part of the world are still celebrating that day! 

If you think about that, it’s easier to let go of the need for perfection at Christmas today than it was at the first day of Christ’s earthly life. I’m not too sure how quiet it was, what with angels proclaiming, shepherds shouting, with sheep, cows and who know what other animals everywhere. There’s a lot about animals we don’t mention when we retrace our steps through the nativity story. Animals are earthy and are not easy to imagine as serene. I can imagine the racket the dogs were making with all these strangers showing up!

So, no. It wasn’t perfect and it probably wasn’t too comfortable or quiet. It was a holy mess. It was as God found us, as we were and as we are.

Mary gave birth to Jesus in a manger because there were no rooms available in Bethlehem, so she wrapped him in whatever bands of cloth she had handy and laid him in a manger. When we consider the amazing proclamation made earlier to Mary by the Angel Gabriel, this she would bear the Son of God, it seems strange to people new to the story, and who do not understand his message of humility, that he would desire to enter into his world in such humble circumstances. 

The story reminds us of the many babies who will grow into their own remarkable destinies and are being born in tents in refugee camps…..along the roadsides of escape…..deep in woods and caves……hidden from enemy sight. Babies born without the luxury of modern hospital care…..babies born into the heart of a world filled with strife and suffering…….just exactly in the same way that Jesus came into the world in a Bethlehem stable. It is one ancient story that is our very real, very modern story. It is one story in which we can believe and look to as a source of hope.

We are here tonight to hear that story of hope again. We want to be reminded anew in the birth of the One who will lead us out of any chaos of our own making. And we are here because we believe something very special and unusual happened that night in the fields around the little town of Bethlehem. 

The shepherds there that night heard for the very first time the Good News for all God’s people to hear…..that God had come to be among us….God Incarnate…. … the Giver of Life and Light. Their terror was replaced by abounding joy that was beyond their words to describe, so euphoric was their sense of renewed hope for themselves and for the world. 

It is the story of the coming of the Light into our own vbery real story….a story that those who insist Christmas is only a secular holiday cannot yet have fully heard or understood, but may yet, if only they are able hear the story in a way they, too, can understand, because the story of Christmas has within it a particular powerthat speaks to one’s heart, which can transform one from skepticism to faithful belief. 

It is heartening to imagine that some among those searching skeptics might hear anew and accept the story of Christmas Eve and find themselves transformed by it at last. It has happened before and it can happen again. It depends on time and circumstance and how the story is heard. In a particular way it is heard can speak to and transform an unbelieving heart into faithful understanding.

It is a story with depth and staying power…..a compelling story that reaches into and out of one’s senses….creating a deep and abiding call to gather with others who come to hear the story again and again…… who want to find the place in the story that has been reserved especially for them, their own place within a story that never grows old. It is the story that has filled humanity with awe and wonder from the time the shepherds shared in its reality a long time ago and continues to do so for those who wish to share in its reality today. A story that is singular and carries within it the power to change the course of life on earth…... a story that holds within its heart a reason for the Christmas tree decorating the corner of the room in many a non-believer’s home. 

It is nothing less than the story of when God chose to enter into our world. A world that needed to understand the power of humility and how to put our priorities in the correct order. 

We will continue to endure our losses and conflicts, or plans gone awry, but we can find strength in knowing that Mary never thought she would bearing this very special child in a stable under such excruciating circumstances. But she did, little knowing that her ordeal was only just beginning.

We are just like Mary. In the midst of our darkness, we don’t know what to expect. We have no way of knowing what darkness will try to haunt our bodies and souls. Yet, whatever it may be, when nothing seems to be going our way, Christ is always with us because he was with us from the beginning of God’s time, in God’s present and God’s future. Christ came among us at a time we call Christ’s Day, yet Christ was with us before that first Christmas, still is and will be evermore.

There has never been a Christmas without Christ, and there never will be a Christmas without Christ… not during war,  in the midst of natural disasters, nor during human-made disasters, nor when there is too much snow to hold a church service, no matter what, there has never been a Christmas without Christ, and the more chaotic the world seems, the more we celebrate the birth of Jesus and the more we give thanks for his presence. 

And now, here we are again. Christmas has come again, regardless of our own circumstances or the circumstances of our world. Regardless of any of these, throughout much of the earth, the Light that enlightened the world has come again to banish all our darkness; to chase away our doubts, to quell our fears, to comfort our souls, and there is nothing we have done, or will do that will stop the Light that lightens the very souls of those who choose to receive it.

That is why our prayer of thanks reveals itself in the lights that glow from within and outside out homes of the faithful and those still finding their way. It is why swords are laid down, hungry are fed, the most pitiful receive compassion, earth’s people are compelled to offer greeting in Christ’s name, if they realize it or not. And, it is why we know that, on this day of remembrance of Christ’s coming, God’s love, from the beginning of time, today and into a future none of us can comprehend, really does and will conquer all. Merry Christmas!

Amen.

Written to the Glory of God

E.J. R. Culver+

Fourth Sunday of Advent

Micah 5:2-5a

Psalm 80:1-7

Hebrews 10: 5-10

Luke 1:39-55

The Visit

In the years before COVID-19, we never thought much about the deep value of visiting. We enjoyed a quick coffee or tea break with friends, or making time for an evening out. We never thought much about the value of visiting. We never considered the impact that visiting had on our mental, emotional and intellectual health and vitality. We just jumped into opportunities to catch up on the latest news about each other’s lives and we moved on. In our fast-paced world, the moments of our visits were like little islands of pleasure in a sea of work, information processing, or world events that continue to this day to shock, sadden and dismay. We looked forward to these get-togethers, large or small. They kept us vital and we felt alive. Then, the unthinkable happened. Something we thought wasn’t really possible in our clinically managed world, a virus stopped us.

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Perhaps it took a pandemic for us to realize the depth of our desire to visit, and the value of our visiting, for more reasons than we never took much time before to fully understand. And now, here we are at the Fourth Sunday if Advent in 2024, the COVID years of imposed isolation sliding into memory, even as the specter of the virus still remains. As we find the freedom to visit returned to us, and our time and reasons for visiting are in danger of becoming less profoundly important than they were when we longed to see our friends and loved ones when we were unable to visit them. Perhaps, COVID or no COVID, we should turn to Mary and Elizabeth to lead us to a deeper understanding of what visiting is all about.

Visiting means going deeper. The verb “to visit” can be translated into a sense of “being concerned about” something and moving closer into it. It means to have purpose and intent, which might hold a need for forgiveness, or a desire to renew neglected relationships during the past year; to air misunderstandings longing for resolution and atonement, or simply to see a dear one’s face and to be assured that all is well in their life. To visit, then, means to put into motion some new action, with new thoughts and new possibilities. 

We hear of God visiting various people throughout the Hebrew Bible, and when God visits, the interaction is never a surface one. Divine visiting is active, interactive, loving and caring. God “visits” Sarah and she gives birth to a son, Isaac.” (Gen 21:1), Joseph tells his brothers that God will “visit” them and lead them out of Egypt and God gave a promise to the exiled Jews, saying “I myself will look after and tend (visit) my sheep.” (Ezek. 34:11). All these visits empowered the people to whom God came and God’s people made way or prepared the way for the Lord to enter into their lives in even more meaningful and fulfilling ways. Then, if you stop to think about it, most of the stories of Jesus have reflect his visiting people where they lived, finding them to teach them, to heal them and, however or wherever it was needed, to give of himself to God’s people. 

This act of giving of ourselves is a reflection of what God wants of us, not just at Christmas time but all the time. We are called to go deeper in our relationships.. Called to seek each other out in the same way that God seeks us, holding a continual intuitive awareness of each other’s needs, whether we are fortunate enough to be present to those we love and care about, or whether we have to communicate with them from afar. 

Holy seeking and receiving is not just a now and then thing, or something that happens when there is no choice, or when the calendar lends itself to it, but all the time. Holy seeking and receiving is at the heart and soul of intimate visiting. Holy seeking and receiving fills us with joyous awareness of the opportunity to be God’s visitors to others at all times.. 

It was this kind of awareness that Elizabeth felt when Mary came to visit her. As she heard Mary’s greeting, she felt intuitively that Mary and her child were blessed in a very special way and that Mary was filled with the Holy Spirit. Elizabeth was so honored by her visitor that her own child leapt for joy in her womb.

Mary’s reply is equally joyous and filled with gratitude. “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” 

God wants us to grow our intuitive awareness of how we interact with each other and with God and to be filled with gratitude for the opportunity to serve and love each other as God loves us. Elizabeth was deeply happy to witness God’s blessing on Mary. She did not greet her falsely. She did not greet her passively. Even though she, too, was blessed by God, Elizabeth did not compare her situation with Mary’s. Her joy for her cousin was real and open, welcoming and unconditional. 

Mary’s words were shared and acknowledged by both women, as Mary, speaking of God’s hand in all God’s works, past, present and future, were thrilled for them both and are thrilling for us to hear. 

God has moved in the life of their world, and everything that seemed impossible became possible, just has it has always been, and always will be possible. Whenever God acts in the world, an old way of thinking is replaced by the new. Mary‘s song of praise speaks in a deeply Advent way. That God has acted decisively in the incarnation of the Word, and nothing will ever be the same again. It is nothing less than a grand reversal and we are reminded of it, year after year at Christmas. 

Within the grand reversal that Mary joyfully lifts up, a message of change is revealed for every one of us. The most evident reversal having to do with Mary is directed at herself, a poor peasant girl living in an economically depressed, militarily occupied country. Yet, here she is, in all her humility, chosen as the God bearer…the theotokos. 

In the same way, God does bring down the powerful from the thrones of their own making, thrones of pride, of vanity, of judgment and desire to belittle others. And God lifts up the hope of those who are humble of heart and oppressed or maligned by the proud. We are witnesses of these powerful reversals in our own day.

All the reversals which appear in Mary’s song have to do with our own way of setting ourselves apart from one another, through our words or actions, which too often lead us to take opposing sides, setting us against each other in word and deed. 

Mary recognizes that we are, each one of us, made in the image of God and that we are called to recognize God in each other and to say “yes” to God’s call to love one another and to ensure justice prevails in the lives of all God’s people in the world.

Perhaps, since we are now free to visit with family or friends during this visiting time of the year, God is calling us, as God called Mary and Elizabeth, to be change agents, not only in our own lives, but importantly through the pursuit of blessing in the lives of others. 

Just as God has called Mary to serve, God uses us in special ways, and looks with favor on the humble of heart. When we think about the kingdom of God, we can think about a particular ordering of actions and values meant to raise up and bless those who are poor, weak, and hungry. 

We wonder what it is God is asking of us, and we listen as Mary proclaims that God is doing a new thing. Like Mary, we are called to be open to find and acknowledge that grace. As she sings of wrongs to be made right, we think of all the wrongs we have inflicted as the hands of the prideful or the haughty or the powerful or perhaps, which we have received from the same. 

God’s mercy lifted up by Mary, is available for all people. God’s blessings are often unexpected and inexplicable and that the status quo will most certainly be turned on its head by God’s purpose in our lives. So the questions rise up.

Where is God in the midst of your own decision making? 

What new possibility in your life does God call you to embrace now?

Likewise, during these last days of waiting for shepherds and magi to visit Mary and Joseph and the infant Jesus, perhaps we can take a little time to examine our own visits and relationships with others. 

Are we skimming the surface of our relationships or are we lifting each other up with encouragement and gratitude? 

Are we bringing the message of Advent, hope, love, joy and peace into a world that longs to believe each of these exist?

What is it about yourself which deserves a deeper study? What growing possibility or miracle is waiting to be born in you or me, just as it was in Mary?

At this waning Advent time, this fourth week of Advent, let us carry the same  message of hope, love joy and peace for the same kind of reasons, into our visits with each other as did Mary and Elizabeth. Let us bring the same kind of love and healing to each encounter that Jesus brought to all who crossed his path. 

May we all be blessed with that same anticipation with the confidence of a young girl from Nazareth. God is not just on the way. God is here, knocking at our door. He has always been waiting for us to answer his call, from the beginning of time, in this moment, and forever more. All we have to do is open the door with joyous anticipation to invite our visitor in. 

Like Mary, each one of us, and we, collectively as Christ Church in St. Helens, are filled with the promise of all things made new and the promise that Christ will come into the world be wherever the search for God’s healing grace is longed for. Knowing that, we too, are called blessed. We are uniquely and beautifully made. No matter in which way, how or where we make it happen, the time has come for us to greet each other with delight and joy, our souls magnifying the Lord, our spirits rejoicing in God our Savior, and to eagerly share the Good News of God’s blessed grace in our lives with all those who invite us in to share our songs of hope, love, joy and peace.

Amen.

Written to the Glory of God

E. J. R. Culver+

December 22, 2024