From the Pulpit:

It is still Christmas. Whether your tree is still standing or on its way to being mulch, whether you have eaten the last of the special cookies or still dodging the diet, and in full recognition that we toasted each other at midnight Thursday and are now writing 2010 as the date, if we remember, it is still Christmas, at least until Wednesday. The Feast of the Epiphany rarely falls on a Sunday, and so we jump the gun a little so as not to miss  this glorious and mysterious part of the nativity story. We can’t hold it off until next Sunday because that will be the baptism of our Lord, and we’ll be having several baptisms and that is a whole ‘nother kind of party.

I hope you have noticed how especially beautiful our worship bulletins have been this holiday season. Thanks to our wonderful copy machine Lisa has been able to reproduce exquisite paintings as our covers. They are mostly from the Renaissance period and are visual sermons in themselves. The picture of the Adoration of the Magi is lovely, isn’t it? Can you imagine what it must have been like for Mary and Joseph? Many of us have in our lives had that period of time when we were just settling in to life with an infant. If you were like me it was overwhelming. It was a time of intense intimacy and at the same time a sense of inadequacy. I’ll have to admit I wasn’t all that keen on visitors. It was taking all my energy and focus just to hold it together, let alone be in the position of entertaining, but here they came, and not just your mother in law’s best friend or over eager neighbors from down the block. No – they were PhD astronomers from the Ivy League, potentates from the Orient, magicians, kings –  whatever they were, they were exotic and powerful and they brought jaw- droppingly opulent gifts. How on earth does a young teenaged mother rise to the occasion? How does a rural carpenter instantly access diplomatic protocol? If we put ourselves in the place of these new parents we might begin to get some sense of the awe that swirls at the center of this scene.  

The hour hand of the clock of the church year has swung past midnight now, and we move into the season of Epiphany. The arrival of the Magi is the first of the showings forth that are what the season is about, the stories of aha moments that reveal to us who this Jesus is. The stories that move us from darkness into light, beginning next week with his baptism by John, and followed by the miracle at Cana and his reading the prophet Isaiah at the synagogue. We’ll be reading from Luke’s gospel this year and getting his particular spin on who Jesus was. One thing we’ll hear over and over is that Jesus witnessed in his life and teaching a degree of hospitality that was more radical than anybody on earth was ready for. We’re two thousand years along in this adventure of living out his teachings, and I’d have to say we have still not caught up. And so, today as we meditate on what it meant that his first visitors were noble and wise, we may also reflect on our own evolving ministry of hospitality.  

And so I want to talk about Epiphany and hospitality. They really do go together, and in the spirit of our stewardship message for this year, it is all about giving and growing in the likeness of Christ. As Jesus shows us more and more clearly who he is, we get an increasing notion of who we are meant to be. There is an old custom for Epiphany, and it is why there is a basket of chalk in the narthex. It goes way, way back, and nobody really knows how it started, but one article I read said it has been around since the sixth century, and it is a special house blessing that imagines each of us has been visited by the three kings, whose names, we are told, though not in the Bible, are Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar. I’ve already blessed the chalk, so that part is done, so what we do is gather at the entry of our home, say a prayer of blessing of the house, those who live there, and all who will visit this year, and then write above the doorway 20+C+M+B+10. That is the number of the year, 2010, with the initials of the kings in the middle.  

I think of this church as a home as well, one that is blessed by every person who enters.  I quote the Irish poet and mystic John O’Donohue often, and it is he who wrote this in his house blessing, May you have the eyes to see That no visitor arrives without a gift And no guest leaves without a blessing. It’s a simple thought, but a profound one, and one that lies very close to the heartbeat of Jesus himself.

And so, what could be better for this Sunday before the Feast of the Epiphany, as we consider the blessing that our homes are to us and the blessing we are called to be to the world  because we have been made aware of the unfathomable love of our God, who came to us as a baby, who taught us in his radical hospitality, in his strange stories, in his life, his death, his resurrection and his return to heaven –  what could be a better way to begin this calendar year than to pray a blessing of this year as our home?  

The Year as a House: A Blessing

Think of the year as a house:
door flung wide in welcome,
threshold swept and waiting,
a graced spaciousness opening and offering itself to you. 

Let it be blessed in every room.
Let it be hallowed in every corner.
Let every nook be a refuge
and every object set to holy use. 

Let it be here that safety will rest.
Let it be here that health will make its home.
Let it be here that peace will show its face.
Let it be here that love will find its way. 

Here let the weary come
let the aching come
let the lost come
let the sorrowing come. 

Here let them find their rest
and let them find their soothing
and let them find their place
and let them find their delight. 

And may it be in this house of a year
that the seasons will spin in beauty,
and may it be in these turning days
that time will spiral with joy.
And may it be that its rooms will fill with ordinary grace
and light spill from every window
to welcome the stranger home. (1)

Amen. 

(1) Jan L. Richardson, The Painted Prayerbook