Happy New Year (almost)!
What will this coming week look like for you? Are you taking a well earned rest and a week off from preaching? Some of us who dont take an extra day for Epiphany might be using those texts this week. Others will be reveling in the beautifully mind-blowing poetry that is the first chapter of John. Whatever you doing this week, we'd like to hear about it - let us know in the comments.
At our place, we are doing Matthew 2 in its entirety, and I'm looking forward to tackling the second half of that reading, which I've never done before.
ReplyDeleteWe will jump back onto the lectionary on 1/9, though, with the baptism.
I'm preaching Thursday night at the church I'm now attending service before the homeless dinner. I'm struggling with what I have to say to a congregation of homeless men and women. I'm using the Jeremiah text for Christmas 2.
ReplyDeleteI also am doing all of Matthew 2, Juniper. I couldn't face the Slaughter of the Innocents on the day after Christmas, because that is the one weekend of the winter when our "summer" people come back and bring children and grandchildren, but I didn't want to skip it entirely either.
ReplyDeleteNadia Bolz-Weber has a great take on it at Sarcastic Lutheran. I've tried twice to create a live link and can't, but the title is Sermon on Herod and The Other Christmas Story, so you can probably find it.
I scheduled the wise guys for this week when I planned to do all the traditional nativity folks that appear in Matthew's gospel for Advent and Christmas. A couple of snow/ice storms really stole the continuity of that plan, so I'm less excited about this than I was originally. Thankfully we also had a baptism requested and approved after that plan was made so that gives me something else to work with.
ReplyDeleteSince we have a baptism and communion on the same week, I will keep things really short. I think what I want to do instead of a regular sermon is write an open letter to the baby being baptized. I've wanted to get into the habit of writing the babies letters that they open when they turn 12 (a tradition I learned from a colleauge years ago), but I never have gotten into it. Maybe this will get me kick-started into that.
Anyway, I think where I'll look to start is how Jesus couldn't have possibly remembered the wise men coming to visit (even if it didn't happen right at birth, but up to two years later) just as this baby won't remember her baptism. This will give me space to talk about how important it is for all of us adults to remind her of what is taking place and also I've been thinking about how the wise men went home by another way. Her life from baptism forward will be "by another way." And for now that means her parents will do things in a different way because of the promises they are making.
Etc etc. I don't think I'll do heavy exegesis for this or anything, but just start writing the letter tomorrow and see what comes. I'm looking forward to talking about baptism a great deal and probably a little less about the text this time.
I actually got jealous of the folks doing the Slaughter last wee, so there's a SLIGHT chance I'll read the whole thing and play with that imagery a little, too, but it'll probably be too much. I went with some of the themes of Jesus being born into the messiness of human life on Christmas Eve when I read and preached from the geneaology of Jesus. Family is messy, but by being born into the messiness of the human family, Jesus redeems it.
Hmmm, I am not sure what the readings are. The Gospel that was on Vanderbilt is the same one I preached on Sunday. Soooooo. I can't reach the secretary of the parish where I have been subbing so I will just have to take a cold tater and wait ;-D
ReplyDeleteI am doing the whole of Matthew 2. On a baptism Sunday.
ReplyDeleteMay early thoughts are here
Wondering if the wise men were from the Wisdom Tradition which is found in all religions - wondering if they were prompted/led to Jesus because they became aware that the first Wisdom One had been born in the west... Intrigued by Cynthia Bourgeault's work...
ReplyDeleteI'm supply preaching this week and the congregation has a hymn/carol sing scheduled using the Christmas 2 texts - John 1:10-17 I think. All about how Jesus came into the world and the world didn't recognize him. I'm barely started on my text study, but the whole 'he came into the world and the world didn't know him, came to his own and his own rejected him' thing keeps haunting my thoughts.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I'll have a better idea of where I'm going with it when I get the advance copy of the bulletin for the week.
I'm doing Jesus in the temple with the elders while his parents are frantically searching for him; it strikes home as I have a 12 y.o. of my own and am always losing him in Target! We are baptizing a baby, and I love the part at the end of the passage about his growing in wisdom, etc...seems like something in all that ought to preach well. Truth be told, I am far more interested in my husband's 50th b'day tomorrow and pre-parade viewing of Rose Parade floats on Friday night :-)
ReplyDeleteI'm doing Psalm 148 because church was cancelled last Sunday, and I liked my sermon from that day. But, I do love the beautiful text from John, so I might just get REALLY radical and preach that next Sunday...we'll see how the preaching winds blow.
ReplyDeleteI'm preaching Matthew 2 as well, highlighting the three wise men before all the Christmas stuff goes back to the storage room for another year.
ReplyDeleteI thought I would talk about how they knew outwordly (by the stars) but also inwardly (within their own hearts and spirits) that they were being called toward the Holy Child. The question then is: "What are you being called toward as we begin a new year? What is tugging at your soul and won't let go? What is God asking of you, and are willing to take a leap of faith and go there with Her/Him?"
we are reading both the wise men and the killing of the children. looking at how people respond to Jesus. Mary says Yes, Joseph had to think about it, the innkeeper didn't recognise him, the shepherds worshipped, the wise men travelled far in search of truth - a journey which hurt others; and Herod felt threatened.
ReplyDeletehow do we feel/respond to the life of Jesus in us and in the world around us. And how does our response effect others?
I may pinch some of Gord's outline as well.