Rev. Steve Ellis
The Episcopal Church of Saint John the Baptist welcomes all to worship God and to share Christ’s love in the world. We are a parish family committed to provide liturgy, Bible study, music, counseling, and Christian education for children, youth, and adults, and to equip all our members for life and for service to others.
Eternal Father, you gave to your incarnate Son the holy name of Jesus to be the sign of our salvation: Plant in every heart, we pray, the love of him who is the Savior of the world, our Lord Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.
First Reading: Numbers 6:22-27 – The LORD spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, Thus you shall bless the Israelites: You shall say to them,
The LORD bless you and keep you;
the LORD make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you;
the LORD lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.
So they shall put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.
Psalm 8 Page 592, BCP
1 O LORD our Governor, *
how exalted is your Name in all the world!
2 Out of the mouths of infants and children *
your majesty is praised above the heavens.
3 You have set up a stronghold against your adversaries, *
to quell the enemy and the avenger.
4 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, *
the moon and the stars you have set in their courses,
5 What is man that you should be mindful of him? *
the son of man that you should seek him out?
6 You have made him but little lower than the angels; *
you adorn him with glory and honor;
7 You give him mastery over the works of your hands; *
you put all things under his feet:
8 All sheep and oxen, *
even the wild beasts of the field,
9 The birds of the air, the fish of the sea, *
and whatsoever walks in the paths of the sea.
10 O LORD our Governor, *
how exalted is your Name in all the world!
Second Reading: Galatians 4:4-7 – When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children. And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God.
Gospel: Luke 2:15-21 – When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them. After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.
Sermon:
The Psalm asks an interesting question:
5 What is man that you should be mindful of him? *
And what are we humans? A lot of people wonder, like the Psalm, if we matter, and if there is anyone, a Creator, to whom we might matter.
As I talk to people in the community, in town or on my recent study leave in Wales, about how they see life, and what, if any faith they might have some are pretty sure we are alone in the universe, and so they just try to get what they can out of life without any particular obligations to do right by anyone. And others feel a kind of desolation, sure that the universe ought to be moral, but afraid that it is not. Some live with brave compassion, believing there must reason to make life fair or at least better for others, feeling there must be something right about that. Jesus came so that no one would need to wonder that anymore.
Today is the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus. “Jesus” is a common name. Has been for a very long time. Jesus (in Spanish), Joshua, Yeshua or Yehoshua ben Joseph. A common name. The lesson from Numbers says: (not really The LORD, but Yahweh)
The LORD bless you and keep you;
the LORD make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you;
the LORD lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.
Yeshua means, “Yahweh delivers (his people).” His name, very popular in his day as it has been ever since, expresses the hope that God, who created all, who formed the Hebrew people in the Exodus so they could be a light to the world, will rescue all people, rule them justly, and bring them true salvation.
What that salvation is – is what Jesus came to reveal. I love the rest of Christmas season, these twelve days of Christmas, today is the eighth day of Christmas. I love them because after the cultural festival of shopping and gift-giving dies down (and don’t get me wrong, I think it is fun) – but when it is over we can celebrate the Incarnation, and that does my heart great good. God became human in Jesus so that we could know the Divine loves us, so we could love the Divine not through pictures of a ruthless leader of armies sitting on a throne of judgement smiting wrongdoers or any other projection of our fearful hearts, but as one who was willing to become human for love of us, to heal us, to show us how, to rescue us from the cumulative effect of our selfishness and fear running down through the ages, and much more.
I read some wonderful books while I was on sabbatical. One was by a Greek Orthodox historian named Timothy Hart. He has much to say about what Christians have done poorly, and where we have done wrong and fallen short over the centuries and millennia. But he also powerfully makes a case that we have forgotten. Before the Jesus experience the Roman world was a much more brutal place. Might was right, not only in the way the strong trampled the weak, but weakness was mocked with glee, without mercy, without guilt in a way we cannot, I think, quite imagine. Cruelty was much more normal. Feeding the poor, hospitals, caring for orphans on a widespread basis are contributions of the early Christian Church and have grown where faith has grown around the world and over the centuries.
Galatians says Jesus came so we could experience God’s “adoption as children.” Estrangement removed, fears answered by God’s love and self-giving. With the Holy Spirit in our experience crying out to God no longer in abasement or desolation, but as confident children able to call their Father “Daddy”, Abba. That much of a turn-around can make a huge difference in the confidence with which we live life. A huge difference in the courage we have to do right, to reach out, to forgive and love, to change where we need to and be agents of change in our world.
We are about to say a phrase that is striking, and I wonder sometimes how people hear it. As we bless the bread and wine today and ask that they become Jesus’ Body and Blood for us, so that we can become and remain his Body and his presence in the world, we pray, “put all things in subjection under your Christ and bring us to that heavenly country . . .” What does “subjection to Christ” mean? For us, it means knowing him as revealer of what it means to be human in the best sense, the one who takes the scales from our eyes and shows us God, who wins forgiveness for us by paving a new way to be human, Lord, example of self-giving, leader, brother, guide, teacher. His Name is the Name above all names.
What does it mean when we pray God to “put all things in subjection under his Christ?” Is this some kind of power-trip? Or is it asking for a blessing for all? We sincerely hope that, in the end, all creation will know what it means to be unafraid, full of forgiveness, love and hope, God’s children. Whenever people try to use worldly domination in his Name we betray him and do harm. As the song says, “He rules the world with truth and grace.” Not with coercion and violence. That is what the Name of Jesus means and should mean. That God rules with truth and grace and we only serve God when we use those godly tools and don’t resort to the things that tempt us.
But when we pray in his Name, when we spread his love by living his self-giving love, we do great good.
