The Feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple (Mal 3:1-4; Ps 24; Heb 2:14-18; Lk 2:22-40)1/31/2020 The Feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple (Mal 3:1-4; Ps 24; Heb 2:14-18; Lk 2:22-40)
According to the Jewish Law, Baby Jesus was presented to God in Jerusalem since he was the first male born. Mary and Joseph brought him to the temple. In the story we heard this morning, we meet two prophets, Simeon and Anna. These were the people who had been waiting to meet Jesus all their lives. How wonderful for the parents to receive blessings from holy people for their child! However, in Simeon and Anna’s praises of Jesus, the actual content, especially that of Simeon, isn’t actually that glorious or promising. Instead, it’s quite horrible. Imagine Mary’s situation to hear that her son is “...destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed--and a sword will pierce her own soul too.” This does not sound good at all. What kind of mother would want her child to be a sign to be hated by people and to reveal all the evil inner thoughts of people? Simeon’s prophecy already seems to pierce Mary’s soul, and it probably prepared her to face her son’s death on the cross. While we can resonate with Mary and Joseph’s shock of hearing Simeon and Anna’s prophecies of their son, we also see what Jesus was prophesied to do or what role he was called to play. The first lesson from Malachi depicts Jesus’s role as a refiner’s fire and fullers’ soap. Malachi says, “For he is like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness.” (Mal 3:3) A refiner or a purifier’s first duty is to see and reveal what needs to be refined and purified. See what needs cleaning, and then start polishing. Throughout Jesus’s ministry, what he did very well was to reveal what’s in people’s hearts. In the hearts of all the local leaders, he reveals their self-centered and power hungry desires that only seek to serve themselves while in turn they end up oppressing and depriving those in need. Jesus is the light that sheds light on the darkness of his community. Those whose selfish desires are completely exposed by that light cannot stand Jesus but get rid of him, murder him. On the other hand, in the hearts of those isolated, forgotten, and abandoned in margin, Jesus reveals the reign of God fully present in them, no matter what their circumstances are. It doesn’t matter what background they have, how poor or sick or abused or forgotten they are by the society, God is the foundation of their being, God is with them, and God’s love to be one with them is eternal. Their brokenness is fully revealed by the light of Jesus and is healed and restored in their oneness with God. In short, Jesus reveals how fractured, divided, and broken our hearts and therefore our world are. But that’s not it. He also reveals God’s eternal oneness with us by mending what’s fractured, reconciling what’s divided, and healing what’s broken. We can then say that this is what Jesus presented in the temple. Our brokenness is presented in the temple as well as our oneness with God or our eternal belonging to God. My friends, every Sunday what do you bring to the altar? In the collect for today, we prayed, “...we may be presented to you with pure and clean hearts…” In order for us to present our pure and clean hearts, what must take place is to see our brokenness first so that our hearts can be refined and purified. What’s your brokenness, hurt, guilt, shame, or something so heavy and painful that you would like to present to the altar? And more importantly, do you believe and trust that God’s healing of your brokenness can only start with your own awareness of God’s presence, God’s union with you? Speaking of our brokenness, we can easily go into our own hurts. But deep down, that brokenness comes from a false belief that our identity depends on how I see myself or how others treat me. For example, if someone treats us poorly, we might feel hurt and that hurt usually remains with us to the point that it distorts who we really are. That feeling of hurt becomes a huge part of who we are, which leaks out as a way to hurt others in that same manner we were hurt. The fact we hurt others is that we haven’t been healed. And the way we hurt others is the way we were hurt by others in the first place. Our false belief that I am what I think I am or what others think I am or how others or I treat myself is the very foundation of our brokenness. Thoughts and feelings that are constantly changing cannot and do not define who we are. How we are, what we are, and who we are can only be found in the mystical experience of our oneness with God. In this union with God, we don’t need any predicate that describes or defines us. There’s nothing to add because it is more than enough. It’s like we are fully aware that the waves are part of the ocean. Consider the waves as our thoughts, feelings, self-image, everything that our ego does. We don’t say the waves remain permanently. They come and go. We are not the waves. The mystical experience is nothing but to see that there is this ocean that is eternal, the ocean in which we are eternally one with God. Another example I can give you is to look at the letters in your bulletin. We see all the letters printed in black, and we only tend to see the letters. What makes the letters visible is the white background. The letters are the waves as the white background is the ocean. The mystical experience is to be fully aware of the white background, not just being caught up in the letters only. This experience is simply like our sense of being or existing. We all have this experience or sense of being right now at this moment. There’s no need to analyze with your intellect to get this. There’s no need to feel since this sense doesn’t create much feelings either. Simply be. Unapologetically exist. Be aware of your being. Be attentive to your existence. When our thoughts and feelings are all over the place, the world we experience just expands or disperses. But when we begin to be mindful of our being, the world kind of shrinks to the point that there’s only one thing that is presented to your transpersonal consciousness, which is your union with God. This movement is from what’s broken or scattered to God’s oneness with us. Jesus reveals this mystical movement to us. My friends, let’s get on this journey from the divided to the united, from the broken to the healed. Present to the altar of God all your burdens. And experience God’s unifying healing work in you as you see your true identity in your oneness with God. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. AMEN. The gospel lesson this morning shows us the very beginning of Jesus’s ministry. John’s arrest seems to shock Jesus or had a life-changing impact on him to the point where he actually proclaimed what John proclaimed, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” Then we see Jesus calling his friends, Simon Peter, Andrew, James, and John. He invites them to join the work of God with him.
This morning I would like us to focus on Christian calling or vocation in three aspects which are: 1) Jesus’s words of invitation or calling to his friends, 2) the locus of our calling, and 3) the common or catholic calling that we share together. 1) First, let’s pay attention to how Jesus invited or lured his friends into his ministry. He tells them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” The first phrase, “Follow me” clearly shows us where our Christian calling is directed to and from. All Christians are called to follow Jesus, which means we are all called to follow the way of Jesus, the way that Jesus revealed to us through his life for others, death on the cross, resurrection, and ascension. In other words, our Christian calling begins when we personally hear this voice of Jesus calling each one of us in our hearts to follow him, his way that leads us to God’s eternal oneness with us. I think this saying of Jesus in relation to calling is not so hard to understand. What can be hard, however, would be whether we truly hear his invitation deep in our lives. One thing I can assure you is that you are here because you somehow heard Jesus’s voice whether you actually agree or recognize or not. We might not follow him as much as we would like to but we are still on the way despite all our shortcomings and failures. God doesn’t lose anyone after all even if one might feel lost! Perhaps too often, we forget to take this invitation of Jesus at a personal level. Jesus knew God invites every single one of us to follow, not as a way to restrict us but to live freely in love, trust, and hope. Have you told anyone to actually follow you? Imagine this moment when you tell someone to follow you. “Follow me.” It’s quite daunting to say it to someone because when I say to you to follow me, that means that I will take responsibility for your following me. I need to guide you. I need to in a way provide what you need. In this sense, our Christian calling is not God’s way of using our labor for free as if we are slaves. Our Christian calling is God’s expression of love that says, “I will take care of you. I am with you forever. You are mine. You are my beloved. You and I are one forever that there’s nothing that can set us apart, not even death.” Now, let’s reflect on Jesus’s second phrase to Simon Peter and Andrew. Jesus says, “I will make you fish for people.” or “I will make you fishers of men and women.” Some other translations say, “I will teach you how to bring in people instead of fish” or “I will teach you to catch people.” Whichever translation we use, we get the point. Simon Peter and Andrew are fishers. All Jesus’s fisher friends end up following Jesus and become his disciples, sharing the gospel. What gets tricky or confusing here about our Christian calling. It can be quite misleading that if you’re called or have a calling, then you’re to become a clergy. This is one form of clericalism. But this is not the point of Jesus’s saying. If this is so, then there’s no one who is called here but only clergy, which is a very bad theology and ecclesiology. What Jesus’s saying to fishers evokes in us should be that we have a deeper spiritual meaning in what we actually do in the society. If I’m a fisher, I’m not just catching fish but catching people from despair or suffering. If I’m a teacher, I’m not just teaching people knowledge but also the wisdom of life. If I’m an environmental service aide, I’m not just keeping things neat and clean but also help people keep their spirits clean. Jesus’s calling to make Simon Peter and Andrew fishers of men and women is not giving them a career change opportunity but transforming what they do for living into what they can do for others. Jesus in his words of calling basically says, “You’re more than what you do for living. You’re not just a vessel of money but a vessel of God.” 2) Let’s then move to the second aspect of our Christian calling, that is, the locus of our calling. Where do we experience this calling? The answer to this question is way too simple. We experience this Chrsitian calling in ourselves. It doesn’t happen outside ourselves. It only happens when we actually experience within ourselves that God is present, God and we are one. What does this experience or encounter with God within and without look like? Today’s Psalm 27, which is named “Dominus illuminatio,” depicts it so beautifully: 1 The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom then shall I fear? * the Lord is the strength of my life; of whom then shall I be afraid? 5 One thing have I asked of the Lord; one thing I seek; * that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life; 6 To behold the fair beauty of the Lord * and to seek him in his temple. 7 For in the day of trouble he shall keep me safe in his shelter; * he shall hide me in the secrecy of his dwelling and set me high upon a rock. 11 You speak in my heart and say, "Seek my face." * Your face, Lord, will I seek. All these words of the psalmist do not come from the head but from the innermost depths of her heart. One can only come up with such words due to one’s experience and encounter with God in oneself. As you know I love to talk about this subject on the presence of God or gazing upon God’s eternal oneness with us, which we call “contemplation,” it is crucial for every Christian to experience it. In that moment of our experience of God within, we hear the voice of God, “Follow me.” And this experience becomes the source of our ministry and this experience becomes our spiritual exercise and prayer life. So how do we get to this point? Simple but not so easy because we, no one else, usually get in the way. The simple logic is this: when our thoughts and feelings stop, what’s left is God’s presence in us. While our thoughts and feelings are crucial for our survival, they tend to dominate us to the point where we believe we are what we think and how we feel. Let me make it a bit easier for you to imagine what it’s like to suspend our thoughts and feelings. Imagine that you’re by the shore, looking at the ocean, smooth waves tiding in and out. Or you’re at the Metropolitan Museum, gazing upon a beautiful artwork. These two experiences share one thing. In that very moment of gazing upon ocean waves tiding in and out or a magnificent artwork, our mind stops. Our thoughts and feelings are suspended. And there’s a sense of calmness and peace. After that, we feel relaxed, refreshed, and restored. Neuroscientifically, we can say our brain activity slowed down. Spiritually speaking, God revealed Its presence to us. What we want to do then is to revisit this moment of encounter our oneness with God more and more. In this very moment, there’s no thought therefore no judgment. There’s no feeling therefore no anger or fear. The fruits of this experience are love, peace, and hope. From this place, our Christian calling is first heard, then refined and renewed over and over again. 3) When all Christians have this experience of God within their innermost depths of being, we all hear the calling of Jesus which we share the common calling. Paul in today’s second lesson, however, talks about when this common calling is forgotten or ignored or completely unexperienced by the members of the church in Corinth. He says, “...all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose. For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters.” While it is somewhat surprising that the early church also had disputes and quarrels like any other churches nowadays (even ours), we see how important it is to be in touch with our ultimate experience of God within. When we lose this, we get caught up in our ego, our thoughts and feelings, our own judgment of others and ourselves, so there’s a division. If we detect any division in ourselves as well as in our faith community and in our society and world, that is a sign that we have lost our touch with our oneness with God but an opportunity to get back into that eternal oneness. It is my prayer, my friends, that all of us seek to be in unity with God, to be one with God, especially in our everyday lives, in our every encounter with others, by the grace of our loving God. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. AMEN. Today is the end of the twelve days of Christmas and the beginning of the Epiphany season. During Christmas, we celebrate the coming of God creating Its own human nature and uniting us to Itself eternally, which we traditionally call the incarnation. The Epiphany is the revelation of that incarnation mystery to the whole world. The appearance of the wise men from the East in today’s gospel story symbolizes that this revelation is not limited to a certain ethnic group but is open to all. So, during this season of Epiphany, we celebrate and remember what is revealed to the world, which is God’s eternal oneness with the entire humanity, namely Christ. And Jesus of Nazareth reveals the mystery of Emmanuel, God with us through his life, death, resurrection, and ascension.
When we think about the word Epiphany which means to manifest, shine, or bring to light, there’s this image of darkness and light. The Prophet Isaiah declares, “Arise, shine; for your light has come.” The wise men from the East follow the light of the star to find baby Jesus in dark night. An interesting and obvious observation about light is that it does not seem to exist when there is no darkness. In order for us to see light, we need to be somewhere dark. My son, Theodore has one of those glow in the dark pajamas. When there’s light, it’s just regular pajamas with stars printed on the front. But once the light is off, all the hidden stars glow in the dark and my son gets so excited and amazed by those glowing stars. He doesn’t know many words but simply shouts, “Look! Look! Wow!” In a very similar way, the revelation of Christ is like that. Only in darkness, the divine light shines through and forth. In today’s gospel story, we see two groups of people. One group are those who are prepared to see light in darkness. Following the star in a dark sky, the wise men from the East traveled through darkness to see the light. Joseph and Mary, as we know from the nativity story, also struggled through to find a place to give birth and then to save Jesus’ life from King Herod. The other group, however, are those who are afraid to see the light. They would rather remain in darkness whereas the first group is able to recognize the darkness and seeks the light in its midst. King Herod is driven by fear of change in his power. All Jerusalem, according to Matthew, is also frightened with King Herod. All the chief priests and scribes, all those in power do not want any change. They do not want a ruler or a king who is not one of them. The reaction that King Herod and all Jerusalem show before the coming of this new world in Christ is their violent resistance to change. This resistance shuts down all the possibilities of change that Christ would bring to their world. This resistance to Christ not only keeps itself and others in darkness but also creates darkness to hide the light. This resistance to Christ that King Herod and all the chief priests and scribes manifest is also in us. That fear which is the origin of their restraining forces to changes is in us. Whenever we are resistant to changes to which Christ calls us, we remain in darkness out of fear. The problem is that in darkness, we either find comfort and security or remain in despair without hope. This darkness, we might want to call, our own comfort zone whether it is healthy or not. It’s like we create our own comfort zone and never want to step outside. Then we become numb or ignorant to problems that need to be challenged and changed in this unhealthy comfort zone. But no matter how much we darken our surroundings, it cannot hide the light of Christ. No matter how we hide ourselves from changes that Christ brings to our lives, we will be exposed by what is revealed to us. This is something we cannot change or run away from. All of us, when we were created in this world, have the light of Christ embodied or ensouled in the innermost depths of our very existence. The light of Christ within us is something that we can never get rid of since it is built and given in our very spirit. No one, even if you want to, can take that inner light away from you. No one can separate us from God’s eternal oneness with us. If this is the case, then why run away from light? Even if we try our best to remain in our comfort zone of darkness, the light will sooner or later invade and expose whatever is hidden. Then how do we actively invite this light to manifest in our lives? The only way is through. We often like our problems, challenges, and difficulties in our lives to simply go away or disappear like magic. We might ask God to solve all our problems in the way we want without having to get our hands dirty or putting any effort or sacrifice. It can be more like praying away bad things to happen to us. We might ask for magic, not for God’s will to be done. Now, going deeper into the darkness of our own is far from this attitude. Actively walking into and facing darkness of our own takes courage to accept things as they are. See your own darkness as it is and truly accept it. Never try to justify all your faults and wrongdoings in the past but compassionately accept them as they are while trusting God’s unconditional love and forgiveness. Then believe that the light of Christ is already within you and walk to that light. The key here is to acknowledge and accept darkness in us as it is. It’s because only when we are able to see and find ourselves in darkness, the light of Christ transforms our lives. Without getting too caught up in self-attacking feelings of shame and guilt, see what your darkness is. And accept it as it is. Then move forward. The light of Christ is not to punish us but to deliver us from that punishment of darkness. The light of Christ is not to shame us but to remove us from that shame we carry and bury deep inside. When you see that loving flame of Christ’s light transforming your whole being, you will shout, “Look! Look!” As we begin the season of Epiphany, accept all the darkness the light of Christ reveals in and around you as it is. Don’t attach yourselves to the past, but accept what is revealed by the light of Christ. Don’t be anxious about the future that you do not know. But walk in the light of Christ here and now, discerning God’s will in everything you do. The beauty of Epiphany is not just about what is revealed to us in Jesus of Nazareth but that which is revealed to us reveals our true nature, which is Christ. Let the light of Christ shine upon you and lead you to be the light of Christ for those in darkness. Also, persist to remain in that light to the point where its excess will be felt like darkness, the divine darkness. Only through the dark night of the soul, we will see God who is beyond light and darkness. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. AMEN. |
Paul"...life up your love to that cloud [of unknowing]...let God draw your love up to that cloud...through the help of his grace, to forget every other thing." Archives
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