If we were reading it directly in the Bible, most of us would probably look at today’s Epistle as a sort of introduction for one of Paul’s famous “body” passages….However, I suspect we generally miss Paul’s main point about the body, largely because we forget to read it not only in light of the communal aspect of Christianity but especially in connection with what he just told us...

God communicates with people in a way that they’ll be able to understand. The Ancient World needed to understand that God reigns everywhere, not simply in the Heavens and not to some restricted degree on Earth. The Kingdom of Heaven spreads throughout the whole of reality. For us, then, perhaps we need to understand that God’s Kingdom continues to extend throughout our reality as well.

What would you say if I told you the Bible isn’t really about you? All those verses that we read: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” “Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.” “If you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed.” “I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.” None of those apply directly to you, at least, not to you as an individual.

…what if the problem with our prayers isn’t that we’re doing it wrong or invoking the wrong God or offering an inferior Exchange? What if our real problem is Intention? What if what we aren’t actually seeking to spread God’s glory but simply hoping to make our lives easier? What if we’re simply trying to use magic words to force whatever it is we want to happen? What if our request might actually damage Jesus’ reputation?

Theologians like to make a big deal about Jesus’ “I am” statements in the Book of John. Throughout its history the Church has used these claims as proofs of Jesus authority, Messianic nature, and divinity. So it’s a little strange that no one gives much attention to this one. Commentaries tend to shoot right past it, rushing toward the claim in verse 11. It makes some sense. “I am the Good Shepherd” isn’t necessarily all that hard to figure out. “I am the gate for the sheep” is a little more opaque.

In this impromptu message, I talk about the structure of a standard Sunday service in an Episcopalian church and explain the reasoning behind and purposes for the various parts.

From childhood, many of us learn to be afraid of God. We imagine this unseen Scorekeeper watching our every move and weighing the minutia of every single thought and motive. Despite recognizing the futility, we try to hide ourselves. We pretend that God won’t see our negative choices or bad moments and hope that they’re only keeping track of what’s good.

Most of us probably don’t give much thought to the idea of “Emmanuel,” especially at this time of year. Christmas and Advent, yes. Epiphany, maybe. But Lent or Holy Week? Not really. We may have learned to associate “God with us” almost exclusively with Christ’s birth, but the point where we find ourselves today—Good Friday—might just be the most appropriate time to consider the depth of Emmanuel’s implications.

My first encounter with Maundy Thursday took place at a tiny Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Church in South Carolina. Having grown up Baptist, we never paid much attention to the Church Calendar apart from Christmas and Easter. I was familiar with Palm Sunday and Good Friday, but I had never heard of this other oddly named day during Holy Week.

We don’t give a whole lot of thought to gods anymore. We consider them to be, for the most part, fantasies and superstitions. Gods were something people believed in when they didn’t know any better, before we had the scientific and technical capabilities to understand things like we do today. Our advancements have allowed us to move beyond all those bizarre ideas—to become the rational, enlightened beings that we are. But most of that thinking is simply pride—hubris, really, when it comes down to it.

Sometimes I think we get scared of the idea of Jesus having real emotions. It’s much easier to think of the Savior of the World in an abstract sort of sense, kind of like a puppet or cardboard cutout, someone more layered onto the world around him than fully part of it. Despite being able to interact with and affect his surroundings, we envision him as still somehow separate at heart, largely impassive to the joys and tragedies of human life.

Approaching John from this position of dominance, particularly so many centuries after it was written and from a cultural lens utterly foreign to the author’s world, leads us to easily misinterpret it as an us-vs-them narrative. But what’s happening in the background of this Gospel isn’t a battle between Christianity and Judaism for claim to Absolute Truth. It’s a fight between brothers. And it’s rare that we even properly identify all the characters we find here.

Faith and belief are hallmarks of modern religious expression and experience. The two terms permeate not just the Bible but the Book of Common Prayer and many of our hymns. Just this morning the Apostle Paul told us that “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” Our Gospel passage included one of the most famous verses in any scripture: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

Original Sin has held a significant position within the history of the Church. Our Hebrew Bible reading recalls the story of its fateful beginnings while our Psalm sings about God mercifully overriding it. Paul waxed eloquent about it in our passage from Romans, and Matthew shows Jesus conquering it in the Temptation in the Wilderness. Original Sin has shaped human society from time immemorial, leading us to the confusion, violence, and discord that continues to plague the world today…

Jesus’ Transfiguration is one of those parts of the Bible that stumps me every time we come across it. I get most of the theological positions and concepts people draw from this passage, but I can’t quite help thinking that none of those are the main point. The whole story feels like we’re missing something—it’s like Matthew’s referencing a story or custom or tradition so obvious to the people in 1st Century Palestine that nobody ever thought to write it down for those of us who came after.

…the Peace is…an important part of our worship. It might feel like a time to greet friends and visitors, but it has a structural purpose: it’s our time of collective reconciliation as a congregation. Having just confessed our personal and corporate sin and before approaching the altar to present our lives to God, we, like the person making the offering in Jesus’ parable, turn to one another and choose love over animosity. We choose forgiveness and reconciliation over division. We choose the children of God in front of us—all of them—over the labels and divisions Empire imposes to separate us.

Shannon and I frequently find ourselves rewatching The Good Place, an NBC comedy from a few years ago that follows the adventures of four humans in the afterlife. The show provides a not-so-subtle introduction to moral philosophy, with the characters applying various ethical teachings to the situations they find themselves tossed into—or sometimes experiencing the consequences of those philosophies firsthand. At its core, the show asks the question, “What is it to live a moral life?” or, more simply, “What is it to be good?”

Epiphany might feel like we’re just waiting for the next big thing, but it’s an important portion of the Church Year that allows us to turn our attention to revelation, bringing to light the incarnate reality of Christ and the Gospel. As such, that’s a good place to start as we begin looking at each of our Bible readings throughout this season. Isaiah shines that light directly in our faces this morning, announcing “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; | those who lived in a land of deep darkness—on them light has shined.”

We all have different ideas about Jesus—what he looked like, his overall demeanor, how he behaved, etc. We all have different expectations about the role we think he ought to play in our lives. A lot of those come from the way people have presented Bible stories to us or different artistic impressions we’ve seen of events from our Savior’s life.

The real problem, however, doesn’t have anything to do with which of the interpretations of the prophecy is the right one. The issue is how we understand prophecy to function. From fairytales to movies to Bible studies, we put a certain mystical weight on prophecy, expecting dim predictions to mysteriously—even magically—fulfill themselves in future events. But that isn’t how prophecy actually works.