Epiphany Sunday
The Will to Dream: Courageous Defiance 1/4 @ 10am, LIVE! on-site & online via Zoom at http://zoom.us/j/907548568 Epiphany unveils divine presence in unexpected places and people, revealing that true revelation demands resistance. In Matthew’s telling, revelation is not peaceful or benign but dangerous and urgent. Along with the visiting magi, Joseph listens to divine warnings. He listens to messages given in dreams and acts without hesitation to protect what is vulnerable. He leads his family on a journey of forced migration, fleeing to Egypt under the cover of night. His faithfulness is not abstract; it is embodied through action, disruption, and care. By attending to Joseph’s resistance and the magi’s defiance, Epiphany becomes a story not just of recognition, but of radical courage in the face of imperial violence. This worship service will include the gift of Star Words and our celebration of the Sacrament of Holy Communion. ALL are invited to Christ's table. |
WHAT IS ADVENT? In contemporary Western culture and even for many Christians, the commemoration of Christmas exceeds the commemoration of Easter. Because of the importance of Christmas, how we understand the stories of Jesus’s birth matters. What we think they’re about — how we hear them, read them, interpret them — matters. They touch the deepest of human yearnings: for light in the darkness, for the fulfillment of our hopes, for a different kind of world. The stories of the first Christmas are both personal and political. They speak of personal and political transformation. The personal and political meanings can be distinguished but not separated without betraying one or the other. Set in their first-century context, they are comprehensive and passionate visions of another way of seeing life and of living our lives. They challenge the common life, the status quote, of most times and places. Even as they are tidings of comfort and joy, they are edgy and challenging. They confront “normalcy,” what we call “the normalcy of civilization” — the way most societies, most human cultures have been and are organized. (from The First Christmas: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus’s Birth by Marcus Borg & John Dominic Crossan) Many of us, if not most, were taught that the Advent season (if we grew up celebrating it) and the Christmas and Epiphany holidays that follow are exercises in nostalgia. Throughout this season, we tend to look backward, not just to the birth of Jesus more than 2000 years ago but to our own personal history, for good and for ill, and to the history of the church and wider society, to what we may think of as “the good old days,” despite knowing intellectually they were never actually as good as we remember and never actually good for everyone. But the past is the past. Jesus has been born… and grown… and been killed… and been raised again for the sake, not of the past, but a more abundant future for us and for the world. The stories of the past we remember during Advent from the Prophets and the Gospels and the Letters of the Early Church help ground us in God’s promises for an even better future. The spirit of Advent frees us from the tyranny of the rose-colored past and the “all too with us” present to dream about the true kin-dom of God where hope, peace, joy, and love really are made available for all God’s children. And like the dreams of our ancestors our dreams today help us anticipate that kin-dom here and now. In this time of upheaval, we find trust is fragile, truth contested, and spaces between us feel harder to cross. Divisions stretch far and wide. The constant churn of political tension leaves many feeling anxious and uncertain. Community feels strained, and connection is harder to come by. Hearts are weary, and souls unsettled, and people of all perspectives are searching—not just for answers, but for understanding, healing, and hope. This ache is not weakness; it is a holy longing—a sacred desire for a world made whole. (from The Will to Dream, by Illustrated Ministry) Join us in dreaming–dreaming God’s dream of a whole made whole for all God’s people–this Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany holiday season. Peace, Rev. John |