Epiphany 2 Year B January 15, 2006

Do you see what I see?

A Sermon based upon 1 Corinthians 6:12-20 and John 1: 43-51

In the name of Jesus; amen.

I am a visual learner. This means that in order for me to really learn how to do something I have to be shown how to do it.

If I read it in a book there have to be pictures for me to understand how to do it.

If you want to give me directions to get somewhere don’t tell me write them down and draw a map. Even better… take me there once yourself and I’ll be able to get there later.

I have to see it in order to get it.

When I was a child one of my grandmothers taught me how to crochet. Years ago, on a whim, I decided to pick it back up again as a hobby. So I bought a book on how to crochet. I couldn’t understand the descriptions, but I could follow the pictures.

A few years ago I replaced and rebuilt a toilet all by myself because I could follow the pictures in the Time Life Do-It-Yourself book.

If you show me how to do something there is a good chance I can do it.

I am a visual learner, but if you really want me to be able to do something well: show me how to do it then let me try while you talk me through it, show me what I did wrong, then let me do it.

A dear friend got married several years ago at another friend’s house. Somehow I was recruited to help make 50,000 white bows and the men’s boutonnières for the ceremony at about 1:00am the night before. Michael had me watch him make a bow then I tried and he critiqued me as I did it.

It was that late night that taught me that if I want to really know how to do something I have to see it done then try it myself with someone there to show me what I’m doing right and what I’m doing wrong.

Most people are visual learners. This means that in order to learn we need to see it being done and then we need to be watched as we try it ourselves.

There are things I can figure out on my own, even things I can do well by making up the directions… but I had to be shown how to make my mother’s fudge before I could make real fudge. I had to be shown how to tie my shoes, pump my own gas, read a map, turn on a computer and then use it before I could do those things.

I am a visual learner. But not everything that I have been shown has taught me good things. In ninth grade my friend Erica showed me how to French inhale a cigarette. Not everything I’ve been shown, by others, has been for the best for me.

I have learned some pretty awful things by what I’ve been shown, by seeing what others do and then following their example. It’s made me careful as to what I show others.

Jesus had decided to go to Galilee and there he met up with Philip and invited him to become a disciple. Now this made some impression on Philip and so Philip found his friend Nathanael and told him about Jesus. But Nathanael was skeptical: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

And Philip’s response: “Come and see.”

Nathanael was a visual learner too. Philip had knowledge; important, useful knowledge and the only way he could teach his friend was to show him. Philip could have just decided to let Nathanael figure it out on his own, but instead he made an invitation to teach Nathanael.

And because Philip showed him Jesus, Nathanael was able to see, in Jesus’ own words, “greater things than these.”

It stands to reason that if we can learn by being shown that we can teach others by showing them.

This means two things to me: First, that we make the invitation to come and see. If we know something, something as important and life-changing as God’s love then we should make certain to invite others to be witnesses to it. Information like we have isn’t supposed to remain secret it’s supposed to be shared so that others know it too.

And this is knowledge that is taught by what is shown. All the theological books in the world can’t teach a person about God’s amazing grace the way it can be taught through the actions of coming in contact with God’s people.

And that’s the second thing. As God’s people we should show others the best of ourselves. And that doesn’t mean that we should fake it when we aren’t feeling our best or that we can’t make mistakes. But that it’s important to do things that are good and to do them not so we get praised for doing them, but so others can see good and want to learn how to do good too.

It means that people learn about God’s love for them from how we show love to others and how we present ourselves.

St Paul writes about how we should use our bodies in the second lesson today. Until now I couldn’t see the connection between that reading and the Gospel. But it is there.

How we use the bodies that God gave us also shows others what it means to be loved by God. Paul focuses on fornication, having sex with lots of people. But how we use the gifts that God has given us in our own selves goes beyond who we sleep with. It’s also about how often we put ourselves down on our knees and pray. It’s about how we put ourselves physically in other people’s lives through the time we spend with them and the time we give to them.

Other people see this. They see what we show them and what we show them should be about God’s love and God’s grace.

We don’t need to convert people, or judge others, or tell them what they should do. This isn’t the way to show others God.

Showing others God is living a life that is focused on God and God’s desires for us and doing that will be an example for others.

And then it means living with them as they struggle to figure it out.

Invite others to come and see and then give them something to see: that’s God’s love through Christ is a blessing and a miracle and a vision of great things.

Amen.

Epiphany / The Baptism of our Lord

A Sermon for Epiphany and The Baptism of Our Lord Year B 2006 based upon:
Matthew 2:9-12 and Mark1:4-11


In the name of Jesus; amen.

I received a really great gift from my husband for Christmas this year: a paraffin wax bath. Now for those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s a pot that looks a little like an oval shaped crock pot. You put paraffin wax inside and melt it then you dip your hands or feet inside until they have about 5 coats of wax on them. Then you place your hands in a plastic bag and cover them with warm mitts and wait until the wax solidifies and remove it.

The idea is that the wax has oils in it that soften your skin and make it feel like new. It is exactly what I asked for; I even pointed it out to my husband and told him that was what I wanted.

It’s one of those things that makes me glad I am a girl. It’s a wonderful experience, luxurious, and soothing. But it has personal and practical applications for me as well. In the winter-time the skin on my hands becomes very dry; it cracks and bleeds if I’m not careful, so while it seems like it’s a luxury it also helps my hands.

Mary and Joseph had found their way from the cave they had been in to a home in which to stay in Bethlehem with their new baby boy. They were trying to settle in when astrologers showed up at their door with gifts for the baby. Tradition calls them magi and kings, but they were astrologers who had seen a sign in the stars. Tradition also says that there were three, but there could have only been two or even more than three.

The gifts that they brought were extravagant; gifts meant for a king: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. You gave gold to a king and anointed him with oils made with frankincense and myrrh. Mary and Joseph must have been surprised to be part of that baby shower.

Of course the gifts were extravagant; they were symbols of the baby’s kingship and it would have made anyone glad to be a king to receive such gifts.

But the gifts had a practical purpose as well. While gold, frankincense, and myrrh were symbolic they also provided financial stability to this new family because shortly after giving the baby these gifts the magi and Joseph were informed, through their dreams, that Jesus was in danger and the family had to flee to Egypt.

These gifts would have given them the means to travel and then make a home in a new place.

I like gifts that are extravagant, but when they are extravagant and serve a practical purpose… ooh… those are the best.

There’s a lesson here about gifts and the giving of them. How many of the gifts you received this year for Christmas are already broken or put away never to come out of storage again? One year my mother-in-law gave me a waffle iron for Christmas. I loved it; I even used it, but it’s been on one shelf or another collecting dust for some time now.

The gifts that have the most meaning are usually the ones that we wear all the time or that we take out and use on a regular basis.

I intend to put my paraffin wax bath to great use; I might even take it out later today.



We entered into the season of Epiphany two days ago; the season we remember the coming of the magi and their purposeful and extravagant gifts only to come to this Sunday’s Gospel reading of Jesus’ baptism. I don’t think there should be any mistaking the connection. Jesus’ baptism is a gift; an extravagant and purposeful gift. In Mark’s gospel Jesus’ baptism is the beginning of the story of what God has gifted to us.

At face value it might not seem extravagant, but there’s John the eccentric cousin to Jesus, out in the wilderness wearing funny clothes and eating strange food wading out into the Jordan River with Jesus, pouring water over him in an act that prompts God to tear open the heavens and come down in the form of a dove like a prophecy come true.

That’s pretty extravagant… something that doesn’t happen all the time, something excessive, something out of the ordinary.

And with Jesus’ baptism comes his ministry and with his ministry comes his teaching and healing, and with that comes the gift of his very life, an act that doesn’t simply fulfill our needs but actually changes our needs and then fulfills them.

Jesus’ baptism is an extravagant gift because it drives him into the wilderness and into our lives and our wildernesses. It’s excessive, to say the least, that God would go to such lengths and yet it is necessary and purposeful.

Jesus’ baptism becomes a connection to us in our baptisms, another gift of God, which makes us children of God. And in that way we are given another connection to Jesus in his death and resurrection.

And that is purposeful, useful, necessary for us because it means our salvation and because it means life with God.

Our baptism is an extravagant purposeful gift that God went to extremes to make sure we received. And like Joseph and Mary used the gifts of the magi to finance their flight to Egypt we are meant to use the gift that we’ve been given to finance our lives.

We aren’t supposed to put baptism up on a shelf and say things like: “Oh yes, I got that years ago but I only take it out for special occasions like Christmas or Easter.” Or “Oh I really do like it; I just never get a chance to use it.”

Baptism is meant to be practical, to be used every day, put on and worn even when company isn’t around.

Epiphany is supposed to be the season of light; the time of God’s light revealed to us.

In baptism we are given a part of that light: a part of that star that shone and led the magi to the baby Jesus and a part of Jesus himself. And once given that light we are called to let it shine so that others might be led to the place where Jesus is and then realize the light that has been given to them.

It is a gift that we have been given so that we can give it to others.

May your light so shine, in this season of Epiphany and throughout your lives, that others might see your love for Christ, and give glory to God in Heaven.

Amen