Week of Jan. 11 devotional points to consider

Sunday-Ps.29 may well come from another religion and adapted to fit the god of Israel. It is a hymn to god and creation’s power.I wish to highlight its boldness in belief that Israel could take any good prayer and apply it to their God. Our faith is secure enough to find the good and adapt to to our faith without fear, as we believe in a universal God.

Monday-Dwell invites me to make a home, to remain here for a long while, and to deepen into the stories of this place, making them a part of me... What do I want to dwell in? How do I choose to inhabit my days?  Dwell asks me to not to linger in resentment, anxiety, or anger, which have occasionally been some of the shadows lurking inside me these last few months. Dwell asks me to choose joy, possibility, and paradox.Abbey of the Arts

Tuesday-. The flight attendant comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland.""Holland?!?" I dreamed of Italy." -go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language..It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around..... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had in Italy .you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go."And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.-To some degree, every love in life lands us in Holland, no matter where we thought we were going when we boarded the plane. ..appreciate the reality,rather than to pine for another destination. Michael Jinkins

Wednesday-Lord, let me not only fall down before you in all humility, and worship you with the Magi, but allow me, I beg you, to take you in my arms, like Simeon.  And not only take you in my arms, but to hold you in my bosom, and to lodge you in my heart . . . Let me live in you, let me die in you, let me dwell eternally with you.  For my eyes have seen your salvation.  -- Charles Drelincourt, 1595-1669

Thursday-To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.-Arundhati Roy

Friday-We look with uncertainty/ beyond the old choices for clear-cut answers

to a softer, more permeable aliveness/ which is every moment/ at the brink of death;

for something new is being born in us/ if we but let it./ We stand at a new doorway,

awaiting that which comes.../ daring to be human creatures,/ vulnerable to the beauty of existence. Learning to love. Anne Hillman

Saturday-"I know now that true charity consists in bearing all of our neighbors’ defects—not being surprised at their weakness, but edified at their smallest virtues."– St. Therese of Lisieux

 

Jan 11 Sermon Notes-Beginnings and Baptism-Gen. 1, Acts 19

Sermon Gen. 1:1-5, Acts 19:1-7

At the beginning of the year, we have readings on beginnings, creation and baptism. It is presented as a theological account. It presents a God of order, of planning, of evaluation. It is an account that always pushes toward the web of life. Since we are not given a source of the first light, let us assume that light is the presence of God in the world. In a sense then, creation is sacramental when we see signs  of God within the patterns of nature.

When the Genesis account was written, the future seemed without form and void. Around the same time, Isaiah hears that God did not make a chaos. God turns disorder into something sensible, most importantly, creation points toward a pattern for life. Genesis chooses the polarity of light and darkness. Chaos is represented by the darkness. As children, we instinctively grasp a fear of darkness and made a world of fears from it. We know: light overcomes darkness.

Within the immensity of God’s creation, Christians like to argue about a truly trivial point. In what mode should baptism be performed? Our Book of Order solves the issue nicely by saying: any mode of water baptism is proper as long as it is approved by session. Baptism is the sacrament of new beginnings, new creation for Christians. Baptism in the Spirit presents issues of mode and source. We link the Spirit and the act of baptism together through Jesus Christ. We may present a candle to the baptized as a sign that Christ, the light of the world, is present in their life. Baptism takes the chaos of human nature and points it to a direction. It transforms a basic element of creation, to signify new birth, a new community. Baptism is a sign of God’s continuing work with creation. Out of the billions of years of creation, God works with the blip on the screen, the time human beings have been on this planet; God works in a new way for the less than two thousand years . It points us to the Christ who “will fulfill God’s purpose in God’s promised future.” When some of the old troubles persist into the new year, we get resentful. God’s new work in creation and in baptism signals that the past does not have to be a chain. We are always being released into a new future. God tears open the heaven to move heaven and earth together.

Once again, God evaluates us and God sees that it is good. As God said at the baptism of Jesus, this is my beloved, in whom I am well-pleased. Once again, God distinguishes one form of life from another: Christian life or not. Christian baptism is a new year’s, new life resolution that lasts a lifetime. Listen to the baptismal promises again. We remember and strengthen our vows on occasion. God marks us all with the sign of baptism, so we are all marked for service to God and each other. When we feel the need to turn a new leaf, the waters of baptism live. In creation and in baptism, it is God who makes the first move toward us in love. The creation gives us glimpses of God. Jesus Christ helps us to see God more clearly and fully. In this new year, we can try to keep God in better focus than in the past. We can try to keep our eyes open to God’s hand with the attention we pay to the moves of the coaches during the playoff games. We live between two creations, nature and baptism. In 2015 , let’s live in both fully.

Sermon Notes I Sam. 3, I Cor. 6-Jan. 18

I Samuel 3:1-10, I Cor 6:12-20 1/18

It tells us something about American sports culture that beer and erectile commercials fund broadcasts,along with a flurry of getting our weight down as a New Year’s resolutions. Come and see says Philip.The body is temple of the Spirit Paul sees the body as a sanctuary, a tabernacle, a temple. God sees fit to make it a dwelling place in this physical life of ours. Glorify God in your body.Notice, God doesn’t disdain the body; God doesn’t want us to rise above these bodies. I heard Tom Hanks talk about losing some weight and he said that we have to take care of the temple.You get to a certain age and to hear your body called a temple is laughable. If it a temple, it’s in ruins, or in need of repair. What would make the body a proper tabernacle? How should we use it to honor God? The physical was good enough for Jesus Christ.

The ancient church feared the body not because it was bad, because pleasures could hide our deep wounds. They found the human heart has many rooms, many chambers, like the part of the second Matrix movie where different deeper architecture comes in.Life can become a search for  pain relief-life often hits exposed nerves- pain distorts our thoughts and feelings.. Farley (Wounding, 2005) sees our complicated lives as distortions. We have drives that distort our search for the good. to play.. In other words, the physical often is a visible sign of something deeper going on. Instead of the clarity of seeing our lives, we often get a distorted view. Sexual union is a holy union-married. Just as we develop muscle memory, we build up spiritual memory. Habit becomes second nature. These bodies are proper dwelling places because they are vehicles for love, the very nature of God, so  precious that these embodied lives will continue on in resurrection.We are dwelling places of the holy One. Just because we can do something, even if we have a right, does that mean we should? We are not our own. Are we called to self indulgence or to act beneficially for all?Can freedom mean surrendering to every whim? Do not some things then gain power over us as obsession or addiction? Paul raises the issue of spiritual intimacy with Christ. Sexual activity is not hooking up alone, but it does create a bond, a union,  a pledge-we then treat someone as if married.

Eli knows well the infirmities of age. He is growing blind, and he probably has come to rely on young Samuel to help him with keeping up the tabernacle area. Sometimes sleep doesn’t come as easily as we age. Sleep is a merciful blindness to the sins of his sons and the curse God has placed on his family. So, it is hard for him to recover when young Samuel rouses him from the deaf and blind territory of sleep. In a way, his physical condition matches his spiritual condition: deaf and blind. Still, he is not utterly disabled. He is a priest and tells Samuel the right words to say to the words in the night. We can try to run from God’s call, in sleep, in denial, in staying out of church, but we cannot hide. As the Psalmist makes clear, God permeates every facet of our existence, and that includes the physical.

We carry out our callings physically. Honor God with your body. How are we to be the hands and feet of Christ? Elsewhere, Paul speaks of us forming Christ. As individuals we bear the indwelling Spirit. Together, we help for m the body of Christ. As Julian of Norwich said, “this is a fair and delectable place, large enough for all. We are right to try to handle special items with care. We don’t handle each other with that same level of respect. Familiarity pushes us to treat others  with an almost casual disregard. Respect gets generated when we see each other as made in the image and likeness of God. Every body is a dwelling place for the divine.

Devotional Pts to Ponder for week of Jan. 18

Sunday-Ps. 139 offers a prayer on the God’s elusive and ever-present relation to us. I love its poetic way of describing how well god knows us and the lifelong loyalty god has toward us. Please consider writing similar notions in your own words as you write your own psalm on the presence of god in your life. God’s love extends beyond the cradle and grave.

Monday-In baptism, we see ourselves in a new mirror. God holds the mirror of Jesus Christ up to us and proclaims you are beautiful, you are whole, you are worthy, you are loved. You are a beloved child of God. That is who you are. That is your true identity. No matter what. May you live out of and into that identity. Julie blum from God Pause

Tuesday-We are baptized for action. We are baptized to go out into the world and be the hands, voice and presence of Christ. Often times we think we are baptized for our own benefit, but in truth we are baptized for the sake of others and for the sake of the world. We are called to make Christ known.What will you do this day to live out your baptism? How will you proclaim, through word and deed, that you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the Cross of Christ forever? Whatever you do, may you be bold in your actions and faithful to your calling. Julie M. Blum

Wednesday-The Church does not dispense the sacrament of baptism in order to acquire for herself an increase in membership but in order to consecrate a human being to God and to communicate to that person the divine gift of birth from God." -Hans Urs von Balthasar, Unless You Become Like This Child

Thursday- Hymn-When Peace Like a River-You have probably heard the story of this hymn. It was written by Horatio Spafford following a series of calamities, including the tragic drowning death of his four daughters. Instead of being justifiably angry with God, this hymn writer proclaims that he is at peace with God. Indeed he praises God for God's great love and grace. To be able to be in a state of peace and well-being when one's life is as peaceful as a river is one thing. But to be in a state of peace and well-being when "sorrows like sea billows roll," is quite another. The author doesn't claim to be able to do this by himself or by his own strength, but gives all the credit to God. He knows that God is the first to weep when tragedy strikes; he knows that in the midst of suffering he is held in God's tight embrace. Julie M. Blum

Friday-In the torment of the insufficiency of everything attainable we begin to realize that here, in this life, all symphonies remain unfinished," wrote theologian Karl Rahner. Ponder:

How is my life like an "unfinished symphony?"

Saturday-from Abbey of the Arts Discernment is the process of listening for movements of grace and Spirit guiding us toward this wholeness, leading us closer to who we were created to be.

Sermon Notes Jonah 3

Imagine going to the stronghold of ISIS and giving a brief mention of coming overthrow.So here is Jonah, marching into Nineveh, near Mosul in Iraq, in our time. He tells the people in this capital of empire that change was coming, but change; the empire would be overturned in 40 days. This was the empire that despoiled Israel and was at the gates of Jerusalem. To Jonah’s astonishment and ours, they do change. It would be like preaching to the Taliban or the mullahs in Iran and seeing an immediate mass conversion to become Mennonites.

Jonah did not want to go to Nineveh, the seat of the dreaded Assyrian empire that had destroyed the Northern kingdom, depopulated it and imported with alien cultures. He has the most successful short sermon imaginable. Would he die if he brought the message of repentance? He would rather die than have it heeded, perhaps. I picture him more than halfway hoping that Nineveh will be overthrown and punished. He may have hoped it was a look into the future, not an opportunity for repentance. Instead, it stops everyone in their tracks, and all of these pagans repent. In Hebrew, we read of Nineveh, a city great to God.  Great could be size but it could point to other interpretations, obviously such as import and power  I find the exaggerated description of Nineveh’s size to add spice to the story itself, an extension of the fish story where the catch keep getting bigger; a three days walk across is one big town. It is a version of the country bumpkin visiting the big city;  three days walk matches three days in the great sea beast.

Jonah is an extraordinarily persuasive evangelist, The response of the city is a mass conversion of everyone to this short sermon that puts preachers in a spasm of envy. The entire community of Nineveh follows ritual prescription of repentance. So, unbelievers teach the people about the quality of their own worship and their response to the call of the liturgy and the prophets.

Instead of the stereotype of the angry OT god,we see  a merciful God whose character is set in Exodus 34:6-7. God’s wide mercy moves toward the enemies. Jonah runs, in his realization that God could have mercy on the Assyrians, and he can’t live with that. If they listen, if the enemies repent-what does it say about us?  We are in a world of satire. The evil Assyrians take the message seriously, and we don’t. Jonah is designed to have us look around with a challenged perspective. If the enemy can change, so could we. It is a perspective shift to see that the enemy can indeed change and fast, but we are slow to respond to God,

Instead of flight from the world, God keeps calling us back into this world, filled with all of its irritants, annoyances, and troubles. We so want spiritual life to somehow be above the noise and the difficulty, for spiritual life to remove us from the fuss of life and into an ethereal realm. As people of the Incarnation, Christian spiritual progress is pursued in the muck and mire of the real world, with real people, of all possibilities. Our paths may well move through difficult territory on the road to the celestial city. In Christian theology, we are a called people as well as choosing creatures. God guides, entices, pulls us toward finding a purpose, even a destiny, that we would not choose, be it Harry Potter, or Frodo, or Jonah. It’s been said by rabbis, “if you wish to make God smile, pray. If you wish to make God laugh, share your plans.” Jesus Christ always enters enemy territory, not only places of threat, but also the rough terrain of the human heart and mind. Barth called it the journey of the son into the far country. Indeed the early call stories to the first apostles do not seem to be planned tours as much as encounters. Put differently, Jesus has the goal of teaching and healing, as the situation it will dictate.

devotional Ideas for Week of Jan. 25

Sunday-Ps.62:5-12 is our listed prayer for our readings today. Rock has a masculine sound to me, but it refers often to the maternal finding of a place to give birth.  The rest and protection the writer seeks is at the end, a loving god. So often, we ignorantly speak of the violent Old Testament God. Where do you seek rest in god? Have you discovered that rest at some points in life?

Monday-We refuse to take ourselves too seriously.  Laughter makes us larger. Our motto:  Lighten Up. We see full well the absurdities in our present state of human nature.  Yet, we are not cynics. We refuse to be abstemious in our thinking or rigid in our rules or stingy with our compassion. Patricia Adams Farmer

Tuesday-One definition of spirituality is "the art of making connections." There are certain givens: The one is made up of many. One thing always leads to another. Everything is related to everything else. You practice connections, then, by consciously tracing the links connecting you with other beings. Any point is a good starting place — your family line, your work, your back yard. Watch for the moments when the separations disappear. And don't be shy about naming mystical experiences as such when you experience them.From Spirituality and Practice

Wednesday- GOD SPEAKS TO us through our lives, we often too easily say. Something speaks anyway, spells out some sort of godly or godforsaken meaning to us through the alphabet of our years, but often it takes many years and many further spellings out before we start to glimpse, or think we do, a little of what that meaning is. Even then we glimpse it only dimly, like the first trace of dawn on the rim of night, and even then it is a meaning that we cannot fix and be sure of once and for all because it is always incarnate meaning and thus as alive and changing as we are ourselves alive and changing.Originally published in The Sacred Journey

Thursday-“We spend January 1st walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives...not looking for flaws, but for potential.” ― Ellen Goodman

Friday-As we age, we are not losing days to the past; the future comes to us every day as a new gift. Mirolsav Volf So often, we refer to growing older as the winter season of life. Volf reminds us that every day we awake brings the promise of the future.

Saturday-The world is full of people whose notion of a satisfactory future is, in fact, a return to the idealised past. Robertson Davies,

Column on Selma and Guess Who's coming to dinner

With the events in Ferguson, race matters. We often feel at a loss at how to even begin to talk about matters. Art can be a vehicle toward finding a place to discuss matters in a safer way. Toward the end of the month, Kevin Costner has a new movie, Black and White on a mixed race child custody proceeding.

Recently, I witnessed two works, Selma, the movie with Academy Award nominations on events of 50 years ago that led to the Voting Rights Act and the play Guess Who’s Coming to dinner at the St Louis Rep Theater at Webster University.

For me, Selma was seen with the lens of my youthful memories of the Selma terror, readings about it as an adult, and now as I near retirement age. Even if the voting rights Act has now been diminished, ask a young person that African-Americans were kept from voting and look at their incredulous reaction. It was good to hear Martin Luther King’s soaring rhetoric as we near another of his birthday celebrations. The film shows his greatness, along with his doubts, fears, fighting depression and anxiety, and his deep faith and prayer life, and yes, his failings. King learned over time that demonstrations needed a focus, and he learned the hard lesson that a violent response by the authorities improved his standing within the broader political community.

In some ways the play seems locked in a distant past, with passé opinions. On the other hand, as it is kept in the 60s, we also realize how little we have moved on deep-seated reactions to each other in almost two generations. Still we struggle with the line between public acceptance and private prejudices. At times, the laughter at lines or situations was a bit uncomfortable, at other times, it seemed free and maybe freeing. At times the racial fault lines will not be closed. At other times, the shared human, not racial, shared human experience allows the characters to see each other as human beings, racial human beings, but human beings nonetheless.

In the play, one of the characters notes that we had come so far in the by the late 60s, but in some ways things had grown worse. Surely that comment has us push toward continued progress in our own time, most notably a president who was the product of a mixed race marriage. At the same time, so many social indicators have slid even further back. At times, it seems that race is not the deciding element but part of the dense network of relations of society. How much is poverty itself, class bias itself as much an issue as race at times? Looking back, I am so pleased at so much of the progress we have made on race in my lifetime. At the same time, I am so frustrated by the seemingly frozen condition of the underclass, black and white in the intervening years.

Dialogue in itself will not solve intractable issues. Art works may enlighten but will not move the political, social and economic dials very much. At the same time, if we remain frozen in our positions, if we do not even become aware of other perspectives, our racial morass shows little signs of movement. Stereotypes persist in part due to our ignorance of other information or perspectives. In conflict, we flee toward them. All races would do well to be armed with information and become more capable of nuance and care, instead of throwing accusations at each other. Religion is often a support for the worst in social life. Yet, the words of Genesis 1 continue to echo through the years: we are made in the image and likeness of God. How do we live out that clear mandate?

Column on Spiritual Practices for New year

In some church circles, we have seen an explosion of interest in being deliberate about adopting spiritual practices. It deals with the question of how one grows spiritually, or are we content with an assurance of salvation for the next life, but wander about in this one.

Some have adopted ancient traditions such as fasting, while others emphasize careful attention to habits of faith such as not judging others or forgiveness.

Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, urged his group to conduct a daily review before sleep. At this time of year, people naturally extend it into a year review. Some illustrative questions would be: Where did you see the hand of God in the year past? When did you feel the presence of God in the year past (and when was it glaringly absent)? Does an event rise up that demands spiritual attention?

Many of us have long ago given up on New Year’s resolutions. Some of us figure that we are so close to perfection, so why should we bother with a resolution. Some of us do not want to face the failure of not living up to yet another personal vow for improvement. Lately resolutions seem to deal much more with weight, exercise, and eating properly more than seeking inner virtues.

One crucial facet in examining one’s spiritual life is our basic orientation. Do we live in our own head or heart more? Do we require contemplation or action? Are we more social or more introverted? I would ask that folks consider making some sort of spiritual inventory and decide to try to work with one of the virtues listed. One could choose to strengthen an already powerful one or to work on a perceived weakness.

One writer who touched me deeply some years ago is Marjorie Thompson. In Soul Feast, she listed a number of basic spiritual practices to open our spiritual horizons. One of her items is spiritual reading. For many, that would include reading the Bible. We can give some thought to doing that simple exercise. Are we reading for content or insight? A fine monastic tradition is to read a passage slowly until a word, an issue, a character jumps out at you and then you reflect on it. I like to read the Bible with three sets of glasses: What is the background, what issues is it presenting for that time, and what contemporary issues am I bringing into my reading? In other words, reading the bible can take us into new depths, new spiritual territory as we wrestle with its words and meaning.

Another item would be various types of devotional literature. Again, we do well to assess our strengths and weakness. I candidly admit that most of us read spiritual fast food and rarely commit the time and effort to pushing our severely circumscribed boundaries very much. In part that is due to our over-emphasis on feeling states in the spiritual life to the neglect of thought, soulful contemplation, and action in t he spiritual realm.

January’s name comes from the Roman god, Janus. Janus had two faces, one looking backward and one looking forward. Anyone who says that we can walk away from the past is foolish. The past forms us, even as we react against it. It shapes the future itself. At the same time, we do look forward. While the past has enormous impact, it is not a wooden destiny. Change does occur, in incremental steps or in large events. Surprise is always part of human experience. Always, we live in tension with the past and the new moment that is 2015. May it be a year that we can look back upon with real fondness.

Week of Jan. 4 Devotional Pts

Sunday-Ps. 72 is a source for the transformation of Magi into kings. for 2015, it also has relevance for the standard by which we are to regard political action. It is attributed to solomon, so the wealth and power make sense out of the description of his reign as the apex of Israelite power. How do you judge political action, and does it square with the biblical conception? Should it?

Monday-Solitude, stillness and being present to the moment have been my focus for 2014. Just last night, I was sitting in my car after a holiday gathering downtown and once again was struck by how the holy is everywhere. The neon lights of the city became jewels in the mist of my windows, rivulets casting shadow on the altar of my dashboard. Passing cars became the sounds of ocean waves as they processed down the wet streets. I became lost in the wonder of the moment, reflected in the ordinary. My heart is full.

Tuesday-Thomas Merton-My chief care should not be to find pleasure or success, health or life or money or rest or even things like virtue and wisdom - still less their opposites, pain, failure, sickness, death. But in all that happens, my one desire and my one joy should be to know: 'Here is the thing that God has willed for me. In this (God's) love is found, and in accepting this I can give back (God's) love to (God) and give myself with it to (God).1

Wednesday- Not only does the false self submit itself to the relentless judgment of the world, it engages in the judgment of others. The urge to correct, chastise, rank and judge others is a compulsion of the false self, an expression of the spirit of the Pharisee or the Puritan, though sometimes writ small in its petty pursuit of one-upmanship, but no less corrosive to the soul for its smallness. It is none other than Jesus who calls into question the world's standards of success and even righteousness.

Thursday-God is the ultimate with," says a Jewish scholar. When Moses tells God he feels unworthy to go to his people, God says, "I will be with you" (Exodus 3:12). This with-ness of God is especially significant for Christians because it is fulfilled the very title for Jesus: "'...and they shall name him Emmanuel, 'which means God-is-with-us" (Matthew 1:23 // Isaiah 7:14).Kent Ira Groff

Friday-"I think we need a new word -'comjoyment' -as a companion to "compassion" to remind us that our greatest gift to the world may be in sharing what gives us the greatest joy."-- Sam Keen in Learning to Fly

Saturday-”Prayer is nothing else than being on terms of friendship with God."— St. Teresa of Avila

Epiphany Sunday Jan 4 Sermon Notes

January 4-epiphany Readings Is. 60, Ps. 72, Mt. 2

We are here in the sunrise of 2015.In two days, I may take down the manger scene that includes the wise Ones. In the winter darkness we grab at images of light as the long darkness starts to recede just a bit.The east reads the place of the rising. Is. 60 is written after a sense of real disappointment when the leaders have returned home and life is still such a struggle.Another Christmas has come and gone and a lots seems the same and we may be nestled in a bit of nostalgia and sighing yearning now that family has returned, the adrenaline rush of presents and preparation is over. Isaiah will not allow darkness to be the motif of life, but a place to seek the light, even when it seems dim. The future is a place where light shines more brightly.

Many of us prepare a lot of treats for Christmas and New Year’s. Baking brings different elements together.In our creche scenes, we have been mixing up images to make a deeper story the camels the gifts, the ethnicity of the Magi have been molded together by finding some of the mention of the gifts in other sources.I would bet that the early church enjoyed the idea of merging the Magi with kings, as the secular king Herod put out a death warrant for the infant Jesus, but these kings were bowing before a king in a simple home. We get three Magi from the number of gifts,so we could have many or two. We get their ethnicity from the readings from the OT as well.Some traditions even name them, So we sing of three kings instead of court magicians.Their ethnicity in the OT allows them to be children of Noah, representing the major races of the globe.

Magi were often advisors to political and economic administration-they tried to peer into the coming order of things by noticing the arrangement of the stars in the heaven.Our readings use an ancient form of biblical interpretation as they pick up some of the words, in this case, gold and frankincense and seek other passages that share the set. the only place one will find all three in fairly close proximity is Ex. 30, the building of the tabernacle, a physical locus for God. Myrrh was an element in anointing oil, and the very name, Christ, means anointed one..It separated the area and those who entered it as holy, distinct.

These readings give us a glimpse into the many-faceted wisdom of God, Faith is holding a beautifully cut gem you may received at christmas and letting the light change its color  sparkle through the facets. Christianity is such a vital faith, as its boldness can draw on other patterns of life and weave it into the story of Jesus of Nazareth.

Smart is not wise. The Magi only partially understand.Their gifts are incongruous for whom they visit on one level. On another, they are unwittingly perfect.They place the life of the infant Jesus in early danger due to their partial grasp of his significance. I respect spiritual but not religious seekers. I rep spect other paths to religious enlightenment. At the same time, the bible contains our stories of religious enlightenment and we do ourselves no favors in downplaying them as Christians. After all, the Magi stumble upon a person of flesh and blood, not the movement of stars in the sky. In the end, Christianity is a down to earth faith. At the same time, we are people  of the rising, of the East, of sunrise and a new day.