Extravagant Sign

Extravagant Sign

January 17, 2016
Written by Kathryn Matthews (Huey)

Sunday, January 17
Second Sunday after Epiphany

Focus Theme
Extravagant Sign

Weekly Prayer
O God of steadfast love, at the wedding in Cana your Son Jesus turned water into wine, delighting all who were there. Transform our hearts by your Spirit, that we may use our varied gifts to show forth the light of your love as one body in Christ. Amen.

Focus Scripture
John 2:1-11

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine." And Jesus said to her, "Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come." His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you." Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, "Fill the jars with water." And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, "Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward." So they took it. When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom and said to him, "Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now." Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

All Readings For This Sunday
Isaiah 62:1-5
Psalm 36:5-10
1 Corinthians 12:1-11
John 2:1-11

Focus Questions

1. Shining a light on Mary's role in this story, what do you read between the lines about her words and actions in Cana?

2. What hidden abundance lies within our sacred traditions, ready to be transformed, in this hour, like the water in the great stone jars?

3. How is your church looking for ways to share God's abundance with generations yet to come?

4. Why do you think the disciples "believed" in Jesus after this work of great wonder? What sort of faith do you think is rooted in miracles?

5. Do you need to see miracles in order to believe? If so, what is a miracle to you? What's an example of a work of great wonder, a sign, in your own life?

Reflection by Kate Matthews

Timing and abundance intertwine in this story from the beginning of Jesus' ministry. Actually, Jesus has not yet begun teaching or working wonders among the people, yet his mother has confidence that he can help when a crisis arises at the wedding of a friend. This short but beautiful text provides a glimpse of Jesus and his mother as human beings who had friends, who "partied," who fretted when something went wrong, and who balked at leaving the party to solve another's problem. The exchange between Mary and Jesus feels particularly familiar to any parent who has mentioned a need to her child, from a bicycle left in the driveway to a young relative who needs company at a family function. Not now, Mom, not me.

And yet Jesus does indeed respond to the need at hand, with ordinary, earthy compassion for the hosts who are in a terrible predicament, but with anything but an ordinary response! However much we appreciate hospitality today, the people of Jesus' time and culture practiced it as a survival skill, a way of looking after one another in a hostile and perilous environment, and an assurance of being looked after in turn.

Learning from Mary

The first part of Jesus' response to Mary's observation that the wine has run out sounds almost modern in its detachment: "What's it to you and me?" But the second part of his answer sounds solemn and theological: "My hour has not yet come." Don't we wonder if Mary wondered what he meant by that? Whatever, she may have thought, just make sure there's wine for these poor folks, for everyone's sake. And then she set about the task at hand, un-concerned, it seems, about timing and what the "hour" was.

Chung Hyun Kyung and other Asian women theologians have suggested that Mary is much more important to this story than we usually think; after all, she had raised Jesus to practice "compassionate justice." We shouldn't hurry past the "Mary factor" in the story, for her actions express a "compassionate sensitiveness to other people's needs" that is often found in women, perhaps because women have an acute sense of need and vulnerability that may nurture a compassionate approach to life. Raised by a woman like Mary, "Jesus did not grow up in a vacuum" (see Struggle to Be the Sun Again: Introducing Asian Women's Theology). So timing, no matter how important, takes a back seat to human need at that moment, as it would throughout Jesus' ministry. How fitting that the "hour" of Jesus is, in a sense, indeed here, not in an hour of triumph but in a moment of need.

Abundance in the background

Abundance is quietly in the background of this scene, in the overflowing gift of six stone jars of wine when just one might have been enough. The jars themselves are "special," because they hold the water used in the religious purification rituals; they're large, too, each one holding 15-25 gallons, and they're "filled to the brim," Ann M. Svennungsen writes: "And from these big and special and brim-filled jars came the best-tasting wine served at the wedding." This wine, like overflowing grain and oil, are "signs of a golden age," highlighting the importance of timing, and the guests, Svennungsen says, know something important is happening when such wonderful wine flows at the end, not the beginning, of the celebration. But she also observes that the real human thirst, like our deepest hunger, is for the life God offers us, the close, living relationship with the One who loves us.

It often seems that we are so spiritually hungry and thirsty that we fill our lives with material "stuff" in a futile attempt to satisfy those needs, and we even shape a distorted gospel, a so-called prosperity gospel, that says that God actually wants us to have lots of stuff. Over-consumption is not the kind of abundance that Jesus shares, or the kind that God gave us at creation, and it invariably and ironically leaves us sitting hungry in the midst of excess, longing for the abundance of God, thirsting for God's grace. It makes sense, then, that Ernest Hess sees "drunkenness" as more than just a temporary state of having drunk too much wine, but "as a metaphor for all the ways we dull our physical and spiritual perceptions." There are myriad forms of "wine" in our world, and they all hold the power to hinder us on our spiritual path.

God loves celebration and deep joy

Several scholars note that this story about a big celebration of an important life passage turns our attention to the ordinary but deep joy of living, and our habit of letting it slip by: "Sometimes, the church has forgotten that our Lord once attended a wedding feast and said yes to gladness and joy," Robert Brearley writes. "God does not want our religion to be too holy to be happy in." What a phrase for our reflection: "Too holy to be happy in"! It seems that we in the church need to examine our role in suppressing the joy of a life lived in and by grace, a life lived fully, abundantly, vibrantly.

It occurs to me that a dour attitude in the church might shed light on why so many people look elsewhere for sources and stories of joy in their lives, some of those sources better than others, of course, but many of them able to connect people with God's own joy and goodness in ways that are meaningful and even transformative in people's lives. The notions of "paying it forward" and of crowd-funding for people (strangers!) in need, and even the sharing of stories, memes and inspiring words on social media all suggest a hunger and thirst for meaning that at least includes some joy and happiness, not just repentance and sorrow.

How did those on the margins experience this wonder?

We also might experience this story from the perspective of one of the unnamed, marginal characters whose actions are nevertheless key to what happens. Kim Beckmann shares the responses of Bible study participants who read the text through the eyes of the workers who had to lug those giant stone jars full of either water or wine and were, in the process, "brought into the miracle." One participant says, "When I think about what this means in terms of the heavy lifting of my work, my relationships, and even, frankly, my church life, I'm so blown away by this glimpse of Jesus, and so mindful of how drably dutiful I've felt about such a gift." (I suspect that "drably dutiful" and "too holy to be happy in" are related in the life of faith.)

There is another question that nags at our hearts and minds when reading this story, what Carol Lakey Hess calls "the scandal of divine reluctance" when Jesus seems to balk at helping people in need. She sees a tension between that hesitation and the extravagant gift of the finest wine that follows it, and God's seeming absence or inaction in the face of human suffering and need in any age or place: "In a world where for so many there is not clean water--let alone fine wine--where is the extravagance of God? In a world where children play in bomb craters the size of thirty-gallon wine jugs, why the divine reluctance?" (I'm reminded of the children for whom a "snow day" means no breakfast or lunch.)

What is our role in the story?

Like Mary, perhaps we have a role in the story, if we truly believe in God's goodness and generosity, for we can "nudge God with our observation: they have no wine." (This is a powerful way to approach prayer: putting the needs of others first.) One of the most powerful scenes in the film, "Les Miserables," shows the masses of people praying to God for help in their suffering. Of course, the compassion and mercy that wind through the story in the person of one character or another suggest that we bear the responsibility to embody God's own compassion and mercy for one another; that's what Jean Valjean ultimately learned to do. We are no more able to answer the troubling questions of theodicy in our generation than any that came before us; still, Renita Weems urges us to "keep going the conversation between heaven and earth."

It is still very early in a new year. What is "the hour" for you and your congregation? What call has come, what need has arisen, what unforeseen opportunities lie before you, that might lead to a re-arrangement in your plans so that the reign of God might break in? What surprises, like that of the wine steward, might await you? Every time we turn the page on the calendar, it seems, time is very much on our minds. Still in the first quarter of a new century, we evaluate where we are today and where we want to go in the years ahead, and we reflect on the challenges and possibilities before us, in our own "hour." Polls show that the first ten years of this century were experienced by many as the worst decade in their lifetime, and yet we still struggle to recover from wars, terrorism, economic devastation, damage to the environment and destructive acts of "Mother Nature," violence not just in our streets but in our movie theaters and malls, our workplaces and even our first-grade classrooms.

The time is now!

We don't know what changes, for better or worse, lie ahead. Of course, that can also be said of our ancestors long ago, and we are grateful for their courage and foresight, and their generosity in thinking of us long before we ever existed. How will the times change the ways we serve and witness, too? When Mary went to Jesus about the wine shortage at the wedding feast, he said that his hour had not yet come, yet he provided the wine that was needed, and it was considered "the first of his signs." When have you been surprised by a change in timing in your life, especially when beginning something new? When has your church had to change its plans and adjust its timing? What did you learn about yourself in the process?

A preaching version of this commentary (with book titles) can be found at www.ucc.org/worship/samuel.

The Rev. Kathryn Matthews serves as dean of Amistad Chapel at the national offices of the United Church of Christ in Cleveland, Ohio (https://www.facebook.com/AmistadChapel).

You're invited to share your reflections on this text on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/SermonSeeds.

For further reflection

Sören Kierkegaard, 19th century
"Christ turned water into wine, but the church has succeeded in doing something even more difficult: it has turned wine into water."

The Dalai Lama, 21st century
"Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible."

Richard Cizik, National Association of Evangelicals, 21st century
"When I die, God isn't going to ask me 'Did I create the Earth in six days or five days?' but 'What did you do with what I gave you?'"

Carl Lewis, 20th century
"Life is about timing."

Jesse Browner, 20th century
"Eating, and hospitality in general, is a communion, and any meal worth attending by yourself is improved by the multiples of those with whom it is shared."

Abraham Joshua Heschel, 20th century
"People of our time are losing the power of celebration. Instead of celebrating we seek to be amused or entertained. Celebration is an active state, an act of expressing reverence or appreciation. To be entertained is a passive state--it is to receive pleasure afforded by an amusing act or a spectacle....Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one's actions."

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Weekly Seeds is a service of Local Church Ministries of the United Church of Christ. Bible texts are from the New Revised Standard Version, © 1989 Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Prayer is from The Revised Common Lectionary ©1992 Consultation on Common Texts. Used by permission.

Affirmed by Love/Beloved, Be Loved

Affirmed by Love/Beloved, Be Loved

January 10, 2016
Written by Kathryn Matthews (Huey)

Sunday, January 10
First Sunday after Epiphany: The Baptism of Jesus

Focus Theme
Affirmed by Love/Beloved, Be Loved

Weekly Prayer
God, your voice moves over the waters. Immerse us in your grace, mark us with your image, and raise us to live our baptismal vows empowered by the Holy Spirit and the example of Christ our Lord, in whose name we pray. Amen.

Focus Scripture
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, "I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire."

Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."

All Readings For This Sunday
Isaiah 43:1-7
Psalm 29
Acts 8:14-17
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

Focus Questions

1. How does one "remember one's baptism"?

2. What does baptism mean to you?

3. What is the power of a blessing?

4. Who has been your "John the Baptist"?

5. What does affirmation have to do with spiritual wholeness?

Reflection by Kate Matthews

Water, wind and fire: something important is about to happen, and it always helps to have special effects. So far, the Gospel of Luke has been full of important events, especially the births of John the Baptist and Jesus, each one accomplished by God's Spirit moving powerfully in most extraordinary circumstances. Sometimes, people have been afraid – angels appearing in the sky and all. Maybe that's why the words, "Do not be afraid," have already occurred so often, by this third chapter of Luke. Angels have told Zechariah, Mary, and the shepherds on a hillside not to fear. But water, wind, and fire have always had the power to inspire fear in humans – just think of the many ways we experienced fearsome winds and water and fire in recent years: tsunamis, hurricanes and tornadoes, fires that threaten our wildernesses out West and our neighbors next door.

And yet all three of these – water, fire and wind – have a mystical quality, too: water is the stuff of life – beginning with birth, we thirst for it all our days and someday we may fight wars over it. We may be able to live without oil, but we cannot live without water, the stuff of life. Fire brings light in the darkest night and heat in the coldest winter, and harnessing its power has helped us to build civilizations. And wind is the most evocative sign of the Spirit moving among us; the word "Spirit" in our reading from the Gospel of Luke can also be translated as "wind." When heaven was opened, and the Spirit descended upon Jesus, standing there in the River Jordan, the wings of that dove must have felt like a great rustling wind blowing through.

The season for revelation

It's no accident that we hear the story of Jesus' baptism during the season of Epiphany, the season of manifestation, of revelation, of a bright shining light. This story is full of revelation about who Jesus is: imagine the heavens as they open up and the voice of God speaks directly to Jesus, saying, "You are my Beloved." Here in Luke's Gospel, John himself doesn't necessarily know who Jesus is at first. The prophet is in for an epiphany himself, even as he keeps preaching his message of repentance and warning, and baptizes all the people, one after another, as they come forward.

John always seems driven, like any man who's convinced that he's on a mission from God. He doesn't bother with careful or time-consuming "preparation for baptism" classes for these candidates; his entire curriculum seems to consist of fire-and-brimstone sermons. And he doesn't decide whether or not the people are worthy, according to Renita J. Weems: he leaves the judging to Jesus and makes "no difference among them (Jew and non-Jew, rich and poor, elite and marginalized, women and men, Galilean and Bethanite, fishermen and tax collectors, fellow desert priests and members of the Sanhedrin)." So John may be so consumed in his work that he might miss "the one who is to come," right before his eyes.

Jesus, turning to a new direction

We don't know, of course, if the Jesus who appeared met his expectations: in her sermon, "Sacramental Mud," Barbara Brown Taylor draws a stark contrast between the "ax-wielding arsonist" John warns the crowd about in verse 17 and the "gentle carpenter whom the Holy Spirit chose for a roost" who shows up, along with the crowd, to be baptized. She describes the revelation that occurs in this scene in simple terms: Jesus "goes into the waters of the Jordan a carpenter and comes out a Messiah. He is the same person, but with a new direction. His being is the same, but his doing is about to take a radical turn." It's a subtle twist on the notion of "repentance," which means, of course, a turning away, taking a new direction. Jesus doesn't have to turn away from sin, but according to Taylor, he is turning now toward his ministry.

Why in the world would those crowds, with Jesus among them, make the trek out into the wilderness to listen to a wild-eyed prophet warn them about fire and winnowing, and then to let him drag them down into a muddy river to (ironically) cleanse them of their sins and mark a new beginning to their lives? Richard Swanson is the most eloquent of those who describe the desperate and deep hope of the people in those days. He writes that John's preaching doesn't bring them out, but hope does, and he puts Jesus right in the middle of that "multitude of Jews who are all waiting for the promises they heard about from their grandmothers" in a time when "the sense of accumulated wrong is so powerful, the backlog of unkept promises so enormous, that the hopes coalesced into a focused question directed at John: Are you the messiah?" Swanson often speaks evocatively of those grandmothers and their promises, and he also reminds us of the faithfulness of those, including Jesus, who "keep Torah, hold the world stable, and try to point to the goodness of God," even in the face of one oppressor after another. Maybe they've heard about this powerful preacher, maybe they've heard that they can make a fresh start, maybe they're thinking that this might be the moment they have been waiting and longing for.

A scolding to get started

First, though, John yells at them. Or, as we might say, he pulls no punches in this sermon. One reason Luke tells this story is to make it absolutely clear to everyone, then and now, that Jesus, not John, is the messiah. This is obvious when John talks about "the one who is coming," who is "more powerful" than he is: "Jesus has power," Stephen I. Wright says; "John has not." Wright notes that Luke wants to show that Jesus is in line with the traditions--the faith and deep hope--of his people, but Luke also wants to make clear how Jesus is different from the prophets who came before him. Jesus is not just one more prophet in a long line of prophets. The people need to be prepared for the God of their ancestors, who has often acted in history, to do something "disruptive, uncomfortable, unexpected, and, above all, new," Wright says. Today we might say, "Fasten your seatbelts."

So John is not the messiah, and he yells at them, warning them about one who will come with a winnowing fork and a fire. Barbara Brown Taylor says: "Uh-oh, the people thought, knowing enough about what he meant to be afraid….it was going to hurt." And yet the crowds stay, and long enough to get down into the muddy river with him, getting ready for that one who is going to sort things out and purify them of their sins. John uses water to mark this turning away from sin, this new beginning. Like Jesus, he is a good Jewish prophet who knows the traditions of his people, including the cleansing bath taken by Jews for various religious reasons and by Gentiles when they convert to Judaism, according to Ronald J. Allen and Clark M. Williamson. Williamson and Allen also note that this baptism by John is about forgiveness of their sins, but it went farther when it "set people apart as a community for the new world."

The "not yet" of "already/not yet"

It seems to me that this makes baptism much more than a personal, private thing between an individual and God, or within a family or a congregation. Instead, it's a powerful bonding experience after which nothing is ever the same, for we understand that we now belong to something much greater than ourselves, this new community engaged with God in the transformation of the world, in bringing a new world to reality at long last. Swanson says that baptism "connects people with promises too big to fit into the world as it is presently constituted"; it's no wonder, then, that we are a people who yearn for the "not yet" of the "already/not yet" of God's reign. This brings us to church, and a moment in church history, if you will, when John "set[s] in motion the ministry the apostles would later continue in the book of Acts," writes Renita Weems. Not that Weems is saying that John the Baptist is about founding the institutional church, but he "staked his ministry on a belief in new beginnings."

Martin Luther, the great Reformation leader, passionately reminded people to "Remember your baptism!" Many (but certainly not all) of us were baptized as babies and can't "remember" our baptisms, of course. But I think Luther meant something bigger than our historical memory of one day. And I have a feeling he wasn't just talking about dressing up in a pretty white dress or suit, having a party and, if we're a baby, everyone saying how sweet we look. In his catechism, Luther wrote, "A truly Christian life is nothing else than a daily baptism once begun and ever to be continued." I think Martin Luther wanted us to remember each day who we are, and whose we are, and how beloved we are. Even in an age when we spend so much time talking about "self-esteem," don't we still long to hear that we are beloved?

Overhearing the message

When I think of baptism, I remember something that happened to me many years ago. When I was attending seminary, I worshipped on Sunday mornings at a small, African American congregation of the United Church of Christ. The pastor of this church, the Rev. Dr. Leticia Rouser, is one of those unforgettable people in my life, and one of the people who prepared me for ministry. Leticia is well over six feet tall, and when she talked, I listened. I remember one Sunday morning when she announced that several people were going to be baptized that day, but the baptisms weren't going to happen there, in our sanctuary, but up the street, at the Seventh Day Adventist Church, because that church had "a tank." When Leticia preached that morning, she addressed the children seated in front of her, those about to be baptized, and I was impressed that her words — ones that we were, in a sense, "overhearing" — were just as powerful and moving to the rest of us as they must have been to those preparing to be baptized. (It was masterful preaching.)

Then the time came to move from our sanctuary to the other church, and I thought I would just slip away to my car and go back to school. I had never seen one of these tanks and for some reason I was feeling a little shy about the whole idea. Unfortunately, my pastor-mentor had other ideas. As we started to file out of the church, she said, "Come on, Kate, you're getting in the tank with me." I looked up at her. "No, Leticia, I don't think so…." "Oh, yes, you are, you're going to help me baptize these folks." "No, I really can't. I have stockings on." "Don't worry," she said, "we're going to get you all dressed up and ready — come on, girl, you're going with me."

Take us to the water

The next thing I knew, I was up to my waist in water, high up above the sanctuary of a church I had never seen before, and I had on a long white robe and there was a door up to my left and Leticia was in the water, singing, "Take me to the water, take me to the water," and children were coming out of the door up on the left and Leticia was bringing them down into the water with us (my job was to lift them back up to the door on our right, where someone would take them back up and dry them off), and she was baptizing them one by one, and she kept on singing, and I....I was deep in prayer, asking God, "Please don't let me let any of these children drown."

And then something happened. A young woman came down into the water — because, unbeknownst to me, we weren't baptizing only children that day, but an adult, too - and Leticia stopped singing and told the congregation down below that this woman had something she wanted to say to everyone gathered there that day, before she was baptized. To this day I can still see this woman's face and the radiance that shone upon it as she raised her eyes to heaven and said, "I just want to thank God for this day, that I have a chance to start my life over." Leticia started singing again and lowered this woman, radiance and all, down into the waters of baptism, and I found sudden strength to lift her up, or perhaps she didn't need me or my sudden strength, but I wasn't thinking about myself or my stockings or even about drowning anymore, and there was that shining light, that fire, that wind, that glimpse of the Spirit at work right before our eyes that day, in that place.

Inscribed on the palm of God's hand

Today, in churches around the world, people are still being baptized, still being washed in the living waters, still thirsting for God's grace and a word of forgiveness and life, still waiting to be included, to find their place in the story of healing and salvation, still longing for the chance to start their life over. Just like those crowds coming out to the wilderness so long ago, with Jesus right there in their midst. The voice from heaven says, "You are my Child, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased." These words may come from heaven but they do not come out of the blue: they echo God's words from Isaiah long before: "Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine…you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you" (43:1b, 4a).

God remembers us, Isaiah says; in fact, God reassures us, "I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands" (49:16). God's love didn't start yesterday, or even in the New Testament. It is ancient, before time, it is from of old, and it is focused on each and every one of us, by name. We belong to God, and God loves us. It's as if God is trying to say to each one of us, "No matter what happens and no matter how low and discouraged you feel, no matter what is happening around you and in your life, don't you ever let anyone tell you that you are anything but a precious and beloved child of God." The next question, then, is how well we acknowledge that "belovedness" in all of God's children, not just in us, not just in those we love and can "accept" in the circle of God's grace.

A "pure intention of blessing"

One of my favorite books is Marilynne Robinson's Gilead. The narrator of the book is an elderly minister who knows he's about to die after a long and faithful but fairly quiet life as a pastor. He's writing to his young son, the child of a late-in-life marriage to a much younger woman, about things like watching his little boy play in the sprinkler, and a young couple walking in the rain. Water, the stuff of life. But he also tells the story of one of his childhood exploits as a preacher's kid who, with another PK, decided to baptize a litter of kittens. The boys took this all very seriously, he says, but the mother cat didn't appreciate what they were doing with her babies, and she interrupted their little service and took the kittens away right in mid-baptism.

Afterward, the preacher's little boy tries to reflect theologically on what had happened that day, but when he asks his father the pastor--theoretically, of course--about baptizing cats, he gets a stern lecture about respecting the sacraments. The boy, of course, felt that they had been respectful, for "we thought the whole world of those cats." Now, at the end of his life and after many years of baptizing the faithful of his flock, the old pastor looks back on that day from his childhood, and he remembers the feel of "those warm little brows," experiencing the difference between petting a cat and touching it "with the pure intention of blessing it."

Acknowledging sacredness

Robinson's narrator connects blessing to baptism, which "doesn't enhance sacredness, but it acknowledges it…" (Gilead). This story reminds me of my favorite moment in baptism, when the pastor places her hand on the head of the newly baptized person and says, "God's blessing be upon you, child of God, disciple of Christ, member of the church."

There is something so embodied, so incarnational, about baptism. In Preaching the Gospel without Blaming the Jews, Clark and Williamson say that "Jews in antiquity valued hearing more than engaging the other senses," but this story, and the story of all of our baptisms, has so much more than just hearing. In the first place, the people come out to the wilderness and see something of a wild man. Then, after they listen to John, they don't have intellectual discussions about what he has just said, and they are spared today's pundits who would want to explain to them what John meant. No, instead, they get down in the river and feel the water and the mud and John's hand upon them. They bring their whole selves, to be washed clean and made new, not just on their own, but again, as part of a new people, in a sense, longing for what is about to be.

God, identifying with us

Kim Beckmann observes the difference between "the Pentecost tongues of fire" and the "bodily, enfleshed form as a dove [in which] the Spirit appears." Jesus' own baptism is an epiphany that reveals that he is fully human and fully divine, even though we mostly forget about the first part. Barbara Brown Taylor reminds us that Jesus "took the plunge right along with the rest of us" and "never asks us to go anywhere he has not been first." Ann M. Svennungsen also describes Jesus in the water with us and calls it a sign of the God "who identifies with people who are sinful, broken, and overwhelmed." Stephen Wright goes even farther, saying that Jesus "identifies totally with his compatriots' sense of shame and yearning for a new start in the humiliating ritual of baptism." I have never heard the word "humiliating" associated with baptism before; how does it strike you?

Together, in the water. We return to the image, then, of the church into which we are baptized, this new people we have become. Svennungsen's lovely reflection speaks of "the voice of grace" as "the abiding melody that runs" through our lives, despite the noise that assaults our senses every day, telling us very different things. In worship, we find some respite from all that noise, and have a chance to "hear anew the abiding melody" of "God's unconditional love." What is the "abiding melody" that runs through your life? Can you hear the melody of God's love, in your own life and in the life of your congregation?

Fire, wind, water

Blessing. Beloved. Fire, wind, and water: life is utterly mysterious and yet, here in the unknown, here in the midst of all that might make us afraid, God is near to us, just as God was near to Jesus as he stood there in the River Jordan, with so much still ahead of him. As he moved ahead through it all, step by step, he knew that he was God's Beloved Child. Whether we can remember our baptismal day or not is less important than whether we can remember that we too are blessed and beloved. And even if we have not yet been baptized, we can rejoice that we are beloved and blessed, for baptism, as Gilead's narrator reminds us, is a blessing that doesn't make us or our lives sacred but acknowledges, recognizes that we are filled with grace. It doesn't matter if the sky opens up and the voice of God can be heard, for the Spirit is truly in our midst.

In this Epiphany season, there is no doubt that we will be blessed to witness the workings of God's Spirit in many and marvelous ways, from the smallest kindnesses to great healings, from stories of reconciliation and newfound faith to visions of ministry in this world that God loves. The life of faith is also a life of surprises, and Renita Weems suggests the possibility of one of them: "You may just find yourself standing waist deep in waters with a stranger," she writes, "hearing voices, seeing doves, feeling an odd glow within, and discovering things about others and about yourself your soul has yearned for years to know" (New Proclamation Year C 2000-2001). Something important, then is definitely about to happen!

A preaching version of this commentary (with book titles) can be found at www.ucc.org/worship/samuel.

The Rev. Kathryn Matthews serves as dean of Amistad Chapel at the national offices of the United Church of Christ in Cleveland, Ohio (https://www.facebook.com/AmistadChapel).

You're invited to share your reflections on this text on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/SermonSeeds.

For further reflection

Abraham Joshua Heschel, 20th century
"Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy."

Payne Best, 20th century
"Bonhoeffer always seemed to me to diffuse an atmosphere of happiness, of joy in every smallest event in life, and of deep gratitude for the mere fact that he was alive….He was one of the very few men that I have ever met to whom his God was real and close."

Victor Hugo. 19th century
"What a grand thing, to be loved! What a grander thing still, to love!"

Hans Urs von Balthasar, 20th century
"The Church does not dispense the sacrament of baptism in order to acquire for herself an increase in membership but in order to consecrate a human being to God and to communicate to that person the divine gift of birth from God."

E.E. Cummings, 20th century
"For whatever we lose (like a you or a me),
It's always our self we find in the sea."

Henry David Thoreau, 19th century
"Life in us is like the water in a river."

Leonardo da Vinci, 15th century
"Water is the driving force in nature."

About Weekly Seeds

Weekly Seeds is a United Church of Christ resource for Bible study based on the readings of the "Lectionary," a plan for weekly Bible readings in public worship used in Protestant, Anglican and Roman Catholic churches throughout the world. When we pray with and study the Bible using the Lectionary, we are praying and studying with millions of others.

You're welcome to use this resource in your congregation's Bible study groups.

Weekly Seeds is a service of Local Church Ministries of the United Church of Christ. Bible texts are from the New Revised Standard Version, © 1989 Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Prayer is from The Revised Common Lectionary ©1992 Consultation on Common Texts. Used by permission.

12 Quotes for 2016

12 Beautiful Quotes To Inspire You In 2016

Meditate on these words as you celebrate New Year's Eve.

12/28/2015 06:53 pm ET

• Carol Kuruvilla Religion Associate Editor, The Huffington Post

New Year's Eve is one of those rare moments during the year when regardless of religion, age or nationality, people around the world take a break from their busy lives to celebrate the startling fact they've made it another 365 days.

As you head into the new year, we hope these quotes from both spiritual and secular thinkers will help you reflect on 2015 and hope wildly for all that is to come in 2016.

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A Nation Divided by Fear

A Nation Divided by Fear: Studies Reveal How and Why We Target Muslims, Immigrants

Fifty-six percent of Americans believe houses or rooms can be haunted. One in five believes Bigfoot is a real creature; about the same percentage are afraid of zombies.
Yet at least until the walking dead put up their own candidate in the New Hampshire primary, those are not the concerns that should frighten us the most.
Fears can become toxic, research finds, when they turn groups of people against one another, breaking down the sense of social trust that enables nations and communities to work together for the common good.
America may be nearing such a critical tipping point.
A new set of studies surveying fears in 2014 and 2015 offer insights into how much we are afraid of one another.

Here are some key findings from the Chapman Survey of American Fears:
• Almost twice as many Americans said you cannot be too careful in life as opposed to saying most people can be trusted. Among young adults, nearly three times as many were more likely to be careful than trusting.
• Half of Americans said they are at least somewhat afraid of people they do not know.
• Fewer than half said they would feel safe helping a stranger who ran out of gas on the road.
The fears and distrust often target the most vulnerable among us.
Nearly four in 10 Americans in the Chapman study said immigrants bring diseases into the country, and illegal immigrants are more likely to commit crimes than U.S. citizens.
By a significant margin, Americans have the warmest feelings toward whites, with a rating of 74 on the feeling thermometer scale in the study. Way down toward the bottom, below even immigrants and just slightly ahead of atheists, are Muslims, with a rating of 50 on the scale.
A nearly threefold increase in hate crimes against Muslims and mosques in the last month, one study found, is evidence that they make easy targets. Politicians who would not dare target majority groups in the same manner float proposals such as banning all Muslims from entering the country.
But it is a dangerous game.
"When we get too fearful, we tend to get more emotional than logical, and you can actually create the threat that you fear," said Chapman sociologist Christopher Bader, a lead study researcher.
Fear beyond reason
Compared to 20 years ago, what do you think has been the rate of crimes such as child abductions, mass shootings, gang violence, school shootings and pedophilia and other sexually predatory acts against children?
If you are like most Americans, according to the Chapman study, you believe there has been a marked increase in such terrifying offenses.
In truth, from available statistics, there are fewer such crimes in each category; in some cases there have been dramatic declines, Bader noted.
What the Chapman studies help us understand is how our fears can override reason when they touch on deeper parts of the human psyche. These include our fears of things Americans perceive as beyond their control, such as the government and advances in technology, Bader said.
So, in the 2015 Chapman study, despite little evidence of major scandals, the greatest fear was of government corruption, with 58 percent saying they were either very afraid or afraid of such malfeasance.
The next two top fears were of cyber-terrorism and corporate tracking of personal data, followed closely by the fear of a terrorist attack.
Deeply ingrained fears of "the other" reveal themselves in the latter.
It may have been white men who blew up a federal building with a day care center inside it in Oklahoma City or shot up a school in Newtown, Conn., or more recently committed mass murder in a black church in Charleston, S.C., - a reported attempt to start a race war.
But those atrocities are largely interpreted as individual acts of terrorism.
In contrast, our innate fears of people who are different enable us to assign collective responsibility - and engage in indiscriminate measures of reprisal - to groups that are different, several studies have found.
However, too much fear based on too little reality can have dangerous consequences.
In the case of crime, a reasonable amount of concern can lead people to take responsible action such as forming block watches or looking out for one another in public places such as parks, Bader noted.
However, ramp up the fare of crime too much, and it can be overwhelming, leading people to avoid public parks and neighborhood walks. So the area becomes less safe as public space is ceded to the people most likely to commit crimes, researchers have found.
Similarly, anti-terrorism efforts have been effective in identifying individuals most likely to commit such crimes and actions can be taken against them.
Moreover, a 2014 Duke University study found that since the attacks of Sept. 11, more Muslim-American terrorism suspects and perpetrators were brought to the attention of law enforcement by members of the Muslim-American community than through federal investigations.
Yet, the reaction to the terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., have created a moral panic among many Americans that seeks to hold each member of a religious minority accountable.
Recent examples of such apparent "third-party revenge" ranged from shots fired at a Connecticut mosque and a fire set in the prayer area of an Ohio mosque to a sixth-grade girl in the Bronx reportedly being attacked by three boys who tried to take off the hijab she was wearing.
Leading GOP presidential contenders have made startling proposals appealing to these fears. Donald Trump seeks to establish a religious test for immigration by banning all Muslims. Ted Cruz proposes the revenge fantasy of carpet bombing ISIS into oblivion.
Yet the available research suggests this type of indiscriminate response is a road to a downward cycle of violence and persecution, heightening tensions and increasing grievances that potentially feed violence.
So how can we build social trust and become a safer society?
First, research suggests, we have to realize this is not going to be easy. It is not only cultural but genetic traits that lead us to fear others outside our group
"Be not afraid" and "Love your neighbor as yourself" may be clarion calls of Scripture for the nation's majority faith, but in the Chapman study mainline Protestants, evangelicals and Catholics all expressed less warmth toward Muslims than the general public.
Education needs to be a priority, analysts contend.
Helping people become aware of and understand the psychological mechanisms behind hatred may open doors to reason, compassion and an awareness of what can be the "absurdity" of human antipathy toward other groups," says researcher Willa Michener of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
"If human feelings of enmity are innate and spontaneous, they are not infinitely strong. It is possible to overcome them, but people need a reason to do it," she writes.
Sociologist Bader hopes research such as the Chapman studies will help Americans become aware of the distance between many of their fears and reality, and to understand the psychology of fear that helps drive emotional responses against minority groups.
"There's always fear of the other, the people we don't understand, the people who are different from us," Bader said.
"Let's not have our fears create a more dangerous world."
David Briggs writes the Ahead of the Trend column for the Association of Religion Data Archives.

If I'm Your Token Muslim Friend...

Amani Mohsen Become a fan

If I'm Your Token Muslim Friend...

Posted: 12/25/2015 1:37 pm EST Updated: 12/27/2015 10:59 pm EST

If I'm your token Muslim friend, here's what I need you to know. First and foremost, thank you for being such a good friend. I call you a good friend because you have every right to your opinion on what is going on in the world right now, and could easily denounce our friendship, but you didn't, and so I thank you.

Next, I need you to make more friends. Please don't take this the wrong way. I just hope that your circle includes more than just me because I am not, nor is any one person, a true symbol of any religious phenomenon (or race, or any group for that matter). If I'm your token Muslim friend, realize that all Muslims don't look, talk, or act LIKE ME. If I didn't tell you I was Muslim, you wouldn't know I was one, whereas the hijabi walking down the street makes it obvious.

We Muslims roll in all shapes and sizes, colors and genders. There's Malcolm X style Muslims, and there are grandma and grandpa Egyptian Muslims. There's rappers like Mos Def, and gay Imams like Imam Daayiee Abdullah. None of us are the same. And if you put us all in one room, we may even have different opinions about life.

If I'm your token Muslim, let's get the stereotypes out of the way. Not all Muslims are abiding. Some Muslims drink, some Muslims eat pork, some Muslims are praying in the mosque, some Muslims are praying in their homes, some Muslims cover their heads (cough cough Nuns do too), some Muslims cover their face.

If I'm your token Muslim, please note that Islam has rules much like many religions and people follow them as humans naturally do (some do, some don't). If I'm your token Muslim, please don't tell me, "but you're not one of them" - NO - THEY ARE NOT ONE OF US! Honestly, what does that question even mean?

If I'm your token Muslim friend, please know that it is not my job in every conversation we have for me to denounce what is happening in the world as a result of "ISIS" or individuals who shout "Allah Akbar" before doing something stupid. That would be like me asking one single "white person" to explain what's up with the KKK, or why did Hitler go on his rampage, or why any small part of a larger group did what they did.

If I'm your token Muslim friend, let's educate ourselves together via the multiple available resources to find out what's happening in the world and be open minded to our sources. If you'd rather not know, no problem. I get like that too and binge watch mindless TV instead just to shut off the constant negativity.

If I'm your token Muslim friend, please don't feel bad for me. Let's do something about it. Complacency is the enemy. Let's make a difference together - "thoughts and prayers" wont work.

If I'm your token Muslim friend, know that my parents taught me that being a good Muslim meant being a good person to others and kept it that simple. My family went on to teach me that being a good Muslim meant to give praise to God because God is the only one in the end that can judge me.

If I'm your token Muslim friend, know that we can still be friends even if you don't believe in God. I'm not here to convert you. I'm here to go on road trips, listen to music, eat delicious food, and have awesome conversations with you, my friend.

If I'm your token Muslim friend, don't be afraid to ask me questions, but understand, I don't know everything, and we can find answers together. Dont be afraid to talk about Muslims out loud -- you don't have to whisper. Feel free to talk about Muslims just like you would talk about anyone else because we are all human beings! "Hey, did you know that my electrician is Muslim? He's just like us!"

If I'm your token Muslim friend, please know that I am always learning about Islam, too. I'm constantly challenging passages in the Quran and trying to learn more about the peace that is within Islam. I am also learning about other faiths because I know we have more in common than anything else.

If I am your token Muslim friend, please know that I have a faith that believes in you and I being friends and us making the life we live a peaceful one for ALL.