POWERFUL CLAIMS IN SCRIPTURE about the gospel are clothed in thought forms so archaic that most preachers shy away from them. The letter to the Ephesians has much to teach us this month, but what are we to make of the claim that we are called to ensure that “through the church the wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places” (3:10)?
We moderns assume that evangelism targets human individuals, but the New Testament writers insist that the revolutionary message is addressed to cosmic forces that exert control over our culture and our political institutions, giving them notice that God’s saving intervention in Christ is more than a match for their malign influence. These are the “rulers and authorities” that the writer to the Colossians insists were disarmed by Christ’s death on the cross, where he “made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it” (2:15). Let us do the hard work of translating these claims into terms that can apply to our own work of evangelism. We may no longer believe in actual heavenly entities that need to be deposed by the good news, but we must bring the gospel to bear on our contemporary equivalents. Don’t we talk glibly about “the markets”—as if they were an impersonal force we can do nothing about? But the gospel debunks this evasion of responsibility about how human beings distribute the good things of the earth.
[ January 6 ]
Uncontrollable Mystery
Isaiah 60:1-6; Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14; Ephesians 3:1-12; Matthew 2:1-12
AS WE LET MATTHEW beckon us across the dirt floor of the house in Bethlehem to look over the shoulders of the Magi and gaze at Mary’s newborn, what is our reaction? I find myself reciting Yeats’ haunting poem “The Magi.” The poet sees in his mind’s eye the astrologers from the east, now very aged, looming up in the sky, apparently on a quest to experience again their encounter with the infant Jesus and discover what it really meant. Their motive for this mystic time travel is bafflement at Jesus’ absurd death on the cross: “being by Calvary’s turbulence unsatisfied.” So they seek again a vision of the infant, “the uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor.” This haunting last line was judged by novelist E.M. Forster to be “the most deep and terrible yet written on the Nativity.”
We are not surprised by the poet’s nor the Magi’s lack of satisfaction with “Calvary’s turbulence.” Those who identify power with control can react to the revelation of what Paul calls the “foolishness” and “weakness” of God on the cross only with puzzlement and disgust. Ancient astrology, the Magi’s field of expertise, was based on the myth that human destiny is under the control of supernatural astral forces. To claw back some power for ourselves, we must constantly deploy countermeasures, manipulating these powers through magical techniques. These reassure us that we have some control after all. But the embodiment of God in an utterly vulnerable human infant, who ultimately surrenders his life as the victim of the forces of law, order, and power, subverts the entire myth. The paradoxical revelation that begins to shine out from the filthy stable floor is that the being of God as vulnerable, nonviolent, and self-giving love is the authentically uncontrollable mystery that cannot be parried, manipulated, or defeated. Herod lashes out to fend off that mystery through atrocious but futile violence. The Magi slip away moved, even joyful, but did they guess at the revolution, of which “the bestial floor” is ground zero?
[ January 13 ]
Holy Spirit Twist
Isaiah 43:1-7; Psalm 29; Acts 8:14-17; Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
LUKE'S ACCOUNT OF the Holy Spirit’s descent upon Jesus after his baptism has a twist to it. Mark and Matthew have the Spirit descending “ like a dove,” suggesting a gentle swooshing. But Luke strangely insists that the Spirit descended upon Jesus “in bodily form like a dove.” A real dove here!
What are we to make of this? In fact, this is a highly political statement, a provocative judgment on regimes based on violence, such as the Roman Empire. Take our word “inauguration,” meaning a ceremonial initiation into a position of authority. It comes from the Latin word augur. In Roman times, augurs were state officials expert at predicting the future by interpreting patterns of bird flight at political events. If certain birds of ill omen appeared, the augurs pronounced that the gods were vetoing the candidate. But if auspicious birds flew in, that meant the gods were giving the go-ahead. So it was that every Roman emperor from Augustus onward claimed to have been singled out, when power was shifting, by the appearance of an eagle, the bird associated with Jupiter, the supreme god.
Luke’s readers would have gasped at the audacity of his version of Jesus’ baptism. It is Jesus’ inauguration as supreme regent of God. But instead of a raptor, the eagle representing imperial dominance, it is the Spirit as dove who appears. In the ancient world the dove was the universally recognized symbol of romantic love, nurture, tenderness, care, vulnerability, simplicity, and innocence. Luke’s original readers would have thrilled at the daring contrast—and been reminded of the radical political implications of their own baptism. Baptism was their own bold commitment to the divine dove, the life of vulnerable love in union with the crucified and Risen One, and a decisive pulling out from under the sway of the eagle and all it stood for—coercive power and privilege. As for us, baptized under the sign of the dove, the fact that the eagle is America’s national symbol calls to mind the shadow side of our identity as the most powerful nation on the earth.
[ January 20 ]
Divine Excess
Isaiah 62:1-5; Psalm 36:5-10; 1 Corinthians 12:1-11; John 2:1-11
IN PAUL'S FIRST letter to the Corinthians, he tackles their misconceptions about the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Leaders were whipping up ecstatic worship experiences and, in the excitement, prophets had evidently been known to bark out “Jesus be cursed!” The worship of the Lord was leading some to suppose that the historical Jesus had been a phase that was irrelevant now to life in the Spirit. Jesus’ inconvenient and radical moral teaching would be a drag now on the license the Corinthians felt the Spirit was giving them. It seems strange to us, but is it really? Time and again in Christian history, the actual teaching of Jesus has been disregarded and stepped over, and the Spirit’s freedom and inspiration used to justify permission for all sorts of evasions and practices that conflict with the new ethics of God’s reign that the Jesus of history proclaimed.
The reading from Isaiah revels in erotic, bridal imagery for the relationship between God and ourselves, as God’s beloved: “So shall your builder marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you” (62:5). How often do we hear sermons inspired by this exploration of intimacy with God as erotic, in the deepest meaning of that word? Seldom! The historic bias against sexuality in post-Reformation Western Christianity continues to repress our imaginations, dry out our worship, and keep our prayer shallow.
John’s story of Jesus at the wedding at Cana is a probing challenge to our pinched and utilitarian ideas about the Holy One. Jesus’ miracle produces a fantastic quantity of the finest wine—nearly 150 gallons—that promises to make the country celebration exhilarating indeed! Imagery of excess, of divine surplus and overflow, is essential for the proclamation of God’s reign. Christ comes not merely to address a lack in us or to meet our so-called “needs.” The good news is of a divine excess bound to surpass “abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine” (Ephesians 3:20).
[ January 27 ]
‘Joy-Giving Grief’
Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10; Psalm 19; 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a; Luke 4:14-21
THE WRITINGS OF early Christian monks are a treasure house of wisdom. One particularly astute expression used by the desert fathers and mothers is “joy-giving grief.” It evokes the gospel stories where repentance is never self-lacerating remorse but a wonderful opening to the joy of God whenever human beings expose their brokenness to divine healing. In Nehemiah, we see the wise leader guiding the people through their grief at realizing how far they had wandered off track in their faithfulness to God’s Torah, to break through to joy at the opportunity to begin again, living from its wisdom and fruitfulness. “Do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength” (8:10). The sign of this joy will be a turning toward one another in mutual regard and care, so Nehemiah nudges the people to once more assume responsibility for those who have little or nothing and include them in the celebration: “Send portions ... to those for whom nothing is prepared” (8:10).
In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, he unfolds the imagery of our life as limbs and organs of Christ’s body, in which joy in our interwoven dependence on one another is the hallmark of life in the Spirit. In the passage from Luke’s gospel, Jesus provocatively identifies himself, after reading from Isaiah in the Nazareth synagogue, as the one anointed by the Holy Spirit to proclaim God’s amnesty, liberation, and healing. We listen, all too aware that this proclamation will not result in his listeners sharing in “the joy of the Lord” but in the quick secretion of acid resentment in their hearts, which will drive them to attempt to lynch the town’s homeboy who has outraged them by claiming to be the Anointed One.
“Preaching the Word,” Sojourners’ online resource for sermon preparation and Bible study, is available at sojo.net/ptw.
Martin L. Smith, an Episcopal priest, is an author, preacher, and retreat leader. He lives in Washington, D.C.
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