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4th Sunday after Epiphany, Annual Meeting

1/28/2024

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Birthdays this week : Ken

Upcoming Events:
2.14: Ash Wedneday
2.18: Soup Social

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3rd Sunday After Epiphany

1/21/2024

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Announcements: Annual Meeting next Sunday. Bring your ideas for 2024.
Hearty Hospitality will be available.

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A long time ago:
In a time where visions were rare, and unexpected:
In a time where people thought that the word of the Lord was rare and
unexpected:
God called out, and spoke to a small child named Samuel.

Samuel did not ask God to speak to him.
Samuel did not request a sign, a vision, or a word.
God just spoke:
Calling out Samuel’s name—in the darkness of the night.

Samuel—a young child--
Did not yet know God.
The word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.

Yet that didn’t matter:
Because God knew Samuel:
And called his name.

A long time ago:
The Psalmist wrote Psalm 139:
A beautiful poem about God’s knowledge:

God’s INTIMATE knowledge of each individual.

The Psalmist rejoices: “Lord, you have searched me out and know me”
“Indeed, there is not a word on my lips:
But you O Lord, know it altogether.”

God knows so Intimately:
So completely:
That God knows us:
Before anyone else:
In ways that no one else can ever know:

The Psalmist says:
“While I was being made in secret and woven in the depths of the earth:
Your eyes beheld my limbs, yet unfinished in the womb;
All of them were written in your book:
They were fashioned day by day.”

And a long time ago:
When Jesus was calling some of his first disciples:
He knew them before they could ever imagine who he really was.

One disciple, was named Nathanael--
Nathaniel was unconvinced that Jesus was the messiah--

Nathaniel didn’t know at first who Jesus was.
But it didn’t matter:
Because Jesus knew Nathanael.

And Nathaniel became suddenly astonished at Jesus’ knowledge--
Jesus’ call--
And Nathaniel asks: “WHERE DID YOU GET TO KNOW ME?”

The truth is that
God knows us.
Each of us.
From the very beginning in our mothers wombs.

Before Samuel knew God:
God knew him: and called his name.

Before the Psalmist’s mother even felt a fluttering kick:
God knew every limb, and every future breath.

Before Nathaniel believed:
God knew his worth:
God knew who he was:
That he would be a disciple of Christ.

And it’s true for us too:
Before we can know:
Before we can even begin to understand:
God knows us:
God speaks:
God calls our names, and invites us to “Come and see.”
To come and see that God knows us deeply--
Intimately--
And holds the entirety of our lives and our beings.

Paul speaks of this knowledge too:
Of God knowing us more intimately than anyone else.

In a pretty scary passage to the Corinthians:
Paul speaks against fornication and prostitution.
A quite uncomfortable passage to hear and read in church…

(Trust me: I very much wanted to ignore this today…
To skip over it, and pretend that it’s not there….)

But because it's so scary and uncomfortable:
It needs to be addressed.

And there’s no need to get anxious

There’s no need to get hung up on all the ranting about sexuality…
Because it’s not about that.
It’s about God knowing us:
In the most loving and intimate way.

Its about God urging us to live lives of mutual love:
To live our lives beyond our physical bodies--
As we begin to understand and know the one who knows us.

The passage is about God speaking our names:
And calling us to be members of Christ:

Members of Christ:
In which God’s intimate knowledge of us transcends any other encounter or
knowledge.
Members of Christ:
In which we belong to God and each other in a way that moves beyond
physicality:

Members of Christ:
In which we recognize that each of us--
All of us—and all others
—are marvelously made--
Marvelously made in our bodies, our minds, and our spirits--
Every part of us:

Both physical, and spiritual--
Marvelously made and known by God.
Whether we’re young or old--
New Christians, or life long Christians--
Whether we know God intimately--
Or are just beginning to know and discover him--

Whether we’re living in Corinth--
In Galilee--
Or New London--
God knows us.
And God calls us.

But can we listen?
Will we hear?
Will we accept the invitation to “come and see?”

Samuel:
Hearing God call his name--
Not even knowing who God is--
Replies to God: “Speak, for your servant is listening.”

And God is speaking to us too.
Urging us to listen:

To listen to God,
To one another,
And to our neighbors.

And again and again,
We learn how to listen:
Listen to the one that knows us.
The one who calls us:
The one who invites us to come and see.

And in order to hear:
We might just need to expect that God WILL speak to us:
That the word of God WILL come to us.

In order to hear:
We might begin to believe that God already knows us--
At our deepest being.

In order to hear:
We must have faith that the word of the Lord is NOT rare--
Instead: God’s presence is WIDESPREAD--
Among us, around us, and within us--
The one who knows us--
Urging us to know him--

To see God more clearly--
As Samuel begins to see and discover God for the first time.

Love God more dearly--
As the psalmist rejoices in God through loving wonder, and joyful astonishment.

And follow God more nearly--
As Nathaniel accepts the invitation to follow—and to see.

Amen.

Announcements: Annual Meeting on 1/28. Prayerfully ponder individually and in small groups what God desires for St. John's in 2024. Hearty snack to be provided.

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1st Sunday after Epiphany

1/7/2024

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In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a
formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God
swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there
was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from
the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And
there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

I love that line:
“A wind from God swept over the face of the waters.”

Before the voice there was the wind:
Wordless power trembling over a void of formless night,
There was blackness,
darkness,
a watery deep.

Before the wind and water:
Before the murky land:
Before even heaven and earth:
There was pure essential silence and absolute nothingness.

And yet:
though there was NO thing:
There was ALL fullness:

For there was God.

In the beginning: God sits enthroned in perfection:
And even now: God sits enthroned in perfection:
And God says: “It is good.”

The font of all love:
All love begotten:
All love created:
All love shared.
Creates, and proclaims loving goodness.

Julian of Norwich, a 14 th century mystic and theologian once said:
“He who created it everything for love,
and by the same love is it preserved and always will be without end.”

In the beginning: when God created the heavens and earth:
Love is the beginning:
Out of the stillness:
Even before the creation of the heavens and the earth:
Even before the very first words of the Bible found in Genesis:
Love:
Even then: was the going forth that caused heaven, earth, and water to be.

Our God: Who moves over the face of the waters:
speaks in love:
“let there be light.”

And order, distinction, intelligibility, and purpose:
All grounded in love come to be.
And this creation IS.
And as it “IS”
It is preserved by love.

Loving over and over again:
Time and time again:

Love for the guilty.
Love for the weak.
Love for the frail:
Continues the creative process.

Creating:
Over and over again:
The wind and the waters,
The birds and the trees,
and even the Church itself.

All throughout the history of the world:
Throughout the history of Humanity:
God speaks and creates out of love.

In Mark’s Gospel today:
We hear about Jesus’ baptism.
A pivotal moment in Jesus’ life and ministry:
Where God continues to speak and create out of love.

At this pivitol moment:
The heavens are torn apart:
The very heavens that God created:
Are torn as God speaks love to his Son:
His Beloved.

And at this pivitol moment:
The rest of us will follow:
Through our own baptisms:
Through God’s continual creating out of love:
A church is created and born:
Again and again.

And this church IS a community over which the Spirit moves:
Just as in the beginning the spirit of God swept over the face of the waters.

Just as in the moment of Jesus’ baptism the spirit of God descends like a dove:

In every baptism:
At every moment:
A new humanity is born and created.

A new song,
a new commandment,
a new creation,
a new beginning:
Given life out of love.

There’s beginnings all around us:
The Genesis story, the first part of which we read today,
tells us of the very beginning:
Of God’s relationship with creation.

Last week, we heard John’s creation and Christmas story:
The very beginning, wrapped up in the beginning of Jesus’ human life.
Where John tells us that in the beginning was the word, and the word was with
God, and the word was God.

And today, Jesus’ baptism tells us of the beginning:
Of Jesus’ relationship with humanity:
And the foundation of the church.

The story from Acts tells us of a beginning:
The beginning of a faith journey for a few Ephesian disciples.

And for us, this week:
We’ve entered the beginning of a new year.

These beginnings in our readings:
And the beginnings all around us
Should remind us of God’s continual creating:
Continual beginning:
And God’s continuous speaking out of love.

Sometimes beginnings can be scary.
Change can be scary.
The unknown is most often scary.
Beginnings, change, and unknown are often signs that things will never be the
same again.
And that’s pretty scary.

But we have a great God.
Who creates, speaks, moves, and begins:
Always out of love.

After God entered the scene on day one of creation:
The world would never be the same again.

The formless void and darkness over the face of the deep was no more.

Likewise: as we hear in the book of Acts:
After the Holy Spirit entered the scene with those Ephesian disciples:
And after Jesus emerged from his baptismal waters with the sound of the Father’s
voice above,
Their lives would never be the same again.

Yet God:
Continually speaking and creating out of love:
Reminds us of the goodness in these beginnings.

Because wherever God enters the scene:
Goodness is to be found.
Wherever there is creation:
God sees goodness.

At the beginning of the created world:
At every step along the way:
God declares that it is good.

At Jesus’ baptism, the beginning of his earthly ministry:
God declares that there is goodness there.

God is IN the beginning.

And God finds and sees goodness there.

When God enters your scene:
Whether its at the beginning of a faith journey,
or the beginning of a new day,
or somewhere in between:
Brace yourself!

Because when God enters, amazing things happen:
Because every new day,
Every new beginning:
All of it is created out of God speaking love.

And in all of it God see’s goodness.
And says, “It is good.”

Amen.

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Happy New Year!

1/1/2024

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First Sunday after Christmas Day we celebrated Morning Prayer
Announcements:
Annual Meeting 1/28

Sign up for Sunday Ministries, lots of opportunities
~Sunday Ministry Sign Up click here

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Weekly Lessons and Sermon

4th Sunday after Epiphany, Annual Meeting

3rd Sunday After Epiphany

January 15th, 2024

1st Sunday after Epiphany

Happy New Year!

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