C09 Epiphany

YEAR C: EPIPHANY

January 6

Matthew 2:2-12. (Sermon: “Epiphany: Are We Arrogant?”)

Ephesians 3:1-12.

Psalm 72: 1-7, 10-14.

Isaiah 60: 1-6

PREPARATION

The wise men came asking: “Where is he who is born king of the Jews?

For we have seen his star in the East and have come to worship him.”

The wise folk still come asking, receiving the Good News and worshipping the Christ;

The king of love, light of the world, the epiphany of God.

The light of Christ Jesus be with you all.

And also with you!

OR—

Entering the house, the wise men saw the Child with Mary his mother,

and they fell down and worshipped him.

Arise and shine, for you light has come,

and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.

All nations shall come to your light,

and kings to the brightness of your rising.

The light of God in Christ Jesus be with you all!

And also with you!

PRAYER OF APPROACH

Most wonderful God, as wise men followed the star of their most sacred hopes, you led them to the place where your Son was revealed. Guide us we pray, beyond all that is trendy or cheap, and even beyond those things that are virtues, to your unique disclosure in Christ. Humbled there in awe and delight, may we recommit ourselves to that holy worship which recognises no boundary between sacred and secular, west and east, or male and female. Let us worship you with the complete fabric of each day, with our work as with our prayer. Through Christ our Messiah.

Amen!

CONFESSION AND FORGIVENESS

Let us ask God to deliver us from our sins. Let us pray.

From being taken in by glitz and glamour while neglecting the truths that come in common places and through common people; save us, loving God.

Deliver us good Lord, and forgive our sins which are many.

From following those false prophets who pander to our prejudices and who sell us short with a religion of cheap rewards; save us, loving God.

Deliver us good Lord, and forgive our sins which are many.

From bowing down to gods that are made in our own likeness, and from only accepting responsibilities that suit our personal comfort zone; save us, loving God.

Deliver us good Lord, and forgive our sins which are many.

From following the Wise Men to the infant Christ, and bowing down with outward ostentation while inwardly making provisos; save us, loving God.

Deliver us good Lord, and forgive our sins which are many.

Merciful God, holy Friend, you have promised to all who turn to you with honest repentance, certain forgiveness of sins and the life everlasting. Fulfil your promise in us today, we humbly pray. Through Christ Jesus our Redeemer,

Amen!

ABSOLUTION

Whatever God promises, God delivers. Lift up your hearts and minds above failure and shame, and let the light of Christ sweep away all gloom and anxiety. Delight in your Saviour! You are a forgiven community!

Thanks be to God!

PRAYER FOR CHILDREN

People Who Look Different

Dear God, Jesus has shown me for sure

that you love everybody.

just as much as you love me.

When kids who look different

or speak with funny accents

are called hurtful names

or get bullied,

help me to stick up for them.

For your love’s sake.

Amen!

adapted from- ‘Prayers for Aussie Kids’ page 48, Ó B D Prewer & Open Book Publishers.

PSALM 72: 1-7, 10-14

See ‘More Australian Psalms’ page 128.

Ó B D Prewer & Open Book Publishers.

THE MAGI

A COUNTRY COP’S VIEW

I watched them arrive,

raising their surprised eyebrows

at this small hill town,

looking this way and that

at its obscure renown.

They seemed eager yet afraid;

eager to complete their mission,

yet afraid that the end

might ask much more of them

than they till now intend.

I watched them leave,

just a few days later,

heading from the camel yards

with servants and baggage

and fresh-hired body guards.

What was it they have found

within Bethlehem’s obscurity

that made them seek protection,

like couriers carrying gold

or a priceless pearl collection?

There’s more to this event

than meets the eye

that’s not ours to command.

Something mysterious is afoot

that reason can’t understand.

Ó B D Prewer 2003

COLLECT

Most holy Friend, you led people from far away, to find the Mystery unveiled in Christ Jesus. May we, who have come from even further away, never take your revelation for granted. Please keep alive in our hearts wonder and praise, and make us eager to share that light with all comers, without exception. In the name of this same Jesus, who with you and the Holy Spirit deserve all honour and praise from every land and race, world without end.

Amen!

SERMON: EPIPHANY: ARE WE ARROGANT?

Matthew 2: 1

Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem, in the days of Herod the king, behold wise men came from the East saying, “Where is he who is born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East, and have come to worship him.”

Are we being arrogant to suggest that the Epiphany is for all nations?

Are we being patronising, to claim that Christ belongs to all the whole world?

Historically speaking, without doubt we have often been arrogant.

Without doubt there are still some Christian zealots who today treat other races and religions as lesser breeds, to be cajoled or bullied into submission. Arrogance has not entirely faded away.

But does a belief in Christ as the light of the world

have to be bound up with arrogance? Is it inevitable?

I think not.

In truth I would strongly argue that whenever it is linked to arrogance it is no longer the truth of the humble, inclusive Christ.

FOR ALL PEOPLE

It is true that we cannot resile from preaching “Christ for the world.”

Not if we want to \still remain true to the Gospel that excited those first Christian witnesses.

We believe that what God did in Christ has relevance for all people.

It was for the world that Christ was born, lived, taught, suffered, died and rose again.

However, he and his message are not for an exclusive, privileged few.

Not for a smug elite who are then entitled to patronise or mock the rest as outsiders. Christ’s arms are stretched wide to embrace all; male and female, young and old, Asian and Australian, Arab and Jew, Hindu and atheist, sinner and saint. As the remarkable hymn writer Charles Wesley put it:

Love, like death, has all destroyed,

Rendered all distinctions void.

Names and sects and parties fall,

You, O Christ, are all in all.”

WANTING TO SHARE THE GOOD NEWS

The Good News is for sharing.

One cannot experience the liberating grace of God in Christ Jesus and not want others to share it. It is good news. Always good news. It is not our task to ram Christianity down the throat of others; but we cannot but help to want them to have the chance to delight in it.

Again, no one has expressed this better than Charles Wesley:

O that the world might taste and see

The wonders of his grace.

The arms of love that compass me

would all mankind embrace.

We are called to be the evangelists, the good news bearers, of Christ.

HUMBLE EVANGELISTS

However, the sharing of the good news

is best accomplished in genuine, warm-hearted humility.

We should respect the religious heritage and sensibilities of other people.

We should respect the sincere agnostic and dedicated humanist. This means we must be ready to listen and well as to speak. Indeed, God may give them a word to speak to us which we desperately need to hear. Joy and enthusiasm, coupled with humility and respect, should characterise those who want the world “to taste and see the wonders of his grace.”

On this Epiphany I call to mind a brief but powerful saying of a wonderful Christian

who has for many years now, been a member of the larger church in heaven. D.T Niles of Sri Lanka once commented:

“A Christian is just one beggar showing other beggars where to find bread.”

The setting is, I think, very significant.

This saying came from a person living in a community where Christianity was a minor religion; about 6% if I recall correctly. Niles had a profound respect for the other major religions around him. There was no limit to his passion for Christ Jesus, he was a tireless evangelist. But he fulfilled his passionate ministry with a humble awareness of his status as “just another one of those for whom Christ Jesus died.”

Such humility,

I believe, is the attitude that should emerge from our Epiphany celebrations.

THE LEGEND AND OUR PRIVILEGE

The legend that grew around the Wise Men was valid.

It was imaginative folk theology.

Folk took Matthew’s scant description of three magi and turned them into Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar, representing the then known world of the East, Europe and Africa, was right. Jesus the Christ does belong to the world, and people from every part of the world, and from every race and class, have found in him the revelation of God.

That is the thrust of epiphany.

It is the revealed glory which we celebrate and to which we bear witness in the world. No room for arrogance. Let our witness always be done in genuine humility; a humility based on the fact that we have this good news not by virtuous works, effort, superior wisdom, purer religion, but simply by the free grace of God. We have been given a sublime bonus; by grace we are the privileged people who have exciting news to share.

We are just remarkably fortunate beggars,

“showing other beggars where to find bread.”

THIS WE BELIEVE

We believe God is light in whom there is no shadow or darkness at all. The light has always shone in the darkness and the darkness can never overcome it.

We believe that the light of God has been openly displayed in Jesus, who though being human as we are, is the very radiance of the invisible God.

We believe that this revelation belongs to the world, for Jew and Palestinian, American and Iraqi, English and Argentinian, Ethiopian and Swedish, Indonesian and Australian.

We believe that those who come seeking him, even though they bear no gift except their spiritual emptiness, will never be mislead and never turned away.

We believe that by the Spirit this light of God in Christ is revealed to us, and that by grace we are among the luckiest people in the world.

This we believe, may God help us to express it without reticence or distortion.

Amen!

PRAYERS FOR COMMUNITY, NATION AND WORLD

# This prayer is designed for 2 voices, but may be used

or solo, or with Leader and People.

Most glorious Friend, we pray that the revelation of Christ will be made available in all places, and that the Gospel will bring joy and peace to all people.

We pray for our international neighbours: Our New Zealand cousins, the people of Papua & New Guinea, those in Timor, Indonesia, the Philippines, and the island nations of the Pacific.

Please bless everything that is good in our cultures and beliefs, eradicate that which is evil, and bring us all into the harmony for which Christ came.

We pray for our domestic neighbours: Those in our street, office, workshop, on train, tram or bus, or highway; those on neighbouring farms, working fishing boats, toiling in mines, or living in nearby towns. Please bless these neighbours; help us to honour one another with that respect which you have given us in Jesus.

We pray for enemies within our community and nation : Individuals and groups who oppose our ideas and beliefs, sneer at our goals and values, or who simply dislike us and try to make our lives as miserable as possible. Please bless all these people who hate us and have mercy on those who spitefully treat us, just as Christ has mercy on us.

We pray for our international enemies: Countries who despise our culture or hate our politics; or those who believe we have treated them unjustly and whose grievances have festered; some who set out to denigrate our nation in international forums, and any who plan terrorism or war against us. Please bless our enemies and help us to forgive them, even as Jesus forgave his enemies..

Most wise and merciful Friend, you send your life-giving sunshine or both good and evil people, and give refreshing rain to both the just and the unjust, make us more like you in our attitudes and actions. Let our faith in a Christ who belongs to the whole world be expressed, not just in songs and creeds, but in our attitudes and deeds, that the world may taste and see, the wonders of your grace. Through Christ Jesus, our humble, loving Lord.

Amen!

WORD OF MISSION AND BLESSING

Epiphany = an unveiling, manifestation, revelation, eye-opener, self-expose¢

In Jesus we are blessed with the most remarkable epiphany.

Let us go our separate ways, carrying the light of that revelation

into every shady situation and every dark corner.

The God of all grace be the strength in your hands,

The Christ of all light be the guide for your feet,

The Spirit of all truth be the integrity in our deeds.

Amen!

The incomparable blessing of the three person’d God

will be with you this day and ever more.

Amen!