Included

This is from the Epiphany Sermon delivered on the Eve of Epiphany, Wed., Jan. 5, 2022

Do you like to be included or left out? It depends upon the enterprise of which we are speaking, doesn’t it? If it is a Saturday at the outdoor swap meet, we may want to be excluded. If it is a lovely dinner with your five closest friends, you will want to be included.

What if someone could invite you into fellowship with God? I am speaking of a connection between healing and restoration. This is a communion that grants membership within the family of God’s people, complete forgiveness of sins, the presence of God—always, eternal life, and everlasting felicity. Who could possibly issue such an invitation? Only God can invite us into this. Only God holds eternity, can be present wherever you are, can forgive sins, can bring the fulness of joy without end.

Listening to the scriptures of the Epiphany Festival liturgy, we hear that they include just such an invitation. The truth is, every time we gather around the altar—the Bible—the Book of Gospels for the sacramental meal, we hear again the invitation offered by God: “Will you consider yourself invited? Included?”

Religion is very old, perhaps pre-historic. I can visualize early women and men near a fire before a hunt. Someone has painted images of the hunt on the cave wall. Someone is dancing around the perimeter of the fire, covered with the skin of an animal, the kind they hope to bring home. In their hearts, they all wonder if they will be granted power for a successful hunt and a chance for continued life as a people. Yes, matters of the spirit, matters of religion are very ancient.

So often in the history of belief and religion, some aspects are about inclusion, and some are about exclusion. Sometimes religions emphasize union and often they describe lines of division and separation.

At the very outset of the Abrahamic Covenant, the promise indicated that Sarah and Abraham would be blessed with a place to be, and with a family too great to measure. The promise was that their blessing would allow for the blessing of all people. Well, you know how it goes: what starts as a wide-open blessing for all we turn into a much narrower blessing for “me” and “mine”. We say in effect, “The rest must get along however they can manage on their own.” It seems the people of God, just might not have room, resources, and warmth-of-heart for all of those others, the Gentile nations.

You remember Saint Paul. You heard some of his writing and teaching tonight. He may have started with the work of arresting people to delineate who was in and who was out, which people should be met with favor, and which should be pushed out and handed over to jailers. That is not where he would up. He saw the Light, the True Light which had come into the world. “Arise, shine, for your light has come”, Isaiah predicted. The light came for Paul and blinded him for certain. But his sight was restored in time, and this is the man he became…listen to a portion of the epistle again:

“In former generations this mystery was not made known to humankind, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit: that is, the Gentiles have become fellow heirs, members of the same body, and sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. Of this gospel I have become a servant according to the gift of God's grace that was given me by the working of his power… this grace was given to me to bring to the Gentiles the news of the boundless riches of Christ, and to make everyone see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things; so that through the church the wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known. (Eph. 3:5-10)

You are included in what God has for you, because of love, poured out. You are not held out but are enfolded into God by Grace. You may not be part of the literal seed of Abraham, but you are part of the seed of faith. Consider this from fifth century Bishop of Rome, Leo the Great [461 AD]:

Abraham’s descendants are therefore compared with the array of the stars. The father of all nations was to hope not in an earthly progeny but in a progeny from above. Let the full number of the nations now take their place in the family of the patriarchs. Let the children of the promise now receive the blessing n the seed of Abraham. In the persons of the Magi let all people adore the Creator of the universe; let God be known, not in Judea only, but in the whole world. (Leo the Great, Bishop of Rome, 461)

Tonight, in celebrating the Feast of the Epiphany, we celebrate the uncreated light of God, most brilliantly and vividly entering our world in the person of Jesus Christ. The mystery of our salvation, hidden among the stars, was revealed first in the star-gone-wild, followed by the party of astrologers from the east, then revealed most perfectly in the being of the child they found by their persistent searching—God Incarnate –the young child, Jesus. Take note of the same language in the sermon of the fifth century Bishop of Ravenna, Peter Chrysologus [450 AD]:

Today the Magi find, crying in a manger, the one they have followed as he shone in the sky. Today the Magi see clearly, in swaddling clothes, the one they have long awaited as he lay hidden among the stars. Today the Magi gaze in deep wonder at what they see: heaven on earth, earth in heaven, humankind in God, God in human flesh, one who the whole universe cannot contain now enclosed in a tiny body. As they look, they believe and do not question, as their symbolic gifts bear witness: incense for God, gold for a king, myrrh for one who is to die. So the Gentiles, who were the last, become the first: the faith of the magi is the first fruits of the belief of the Gentiles.

On Epiphany, we gaze in deep wonder. Beyond our worship, we are sent out into mission. Extending our hearts to the uncreated light, we also go forth as children of the light. You are included and sent out to let others know that they are invited, and they can accept the love and grace of God, they are included in the offer.

In a moment you will internalize Christ the Light in the sacrament of this table. Then the candle you hold will be lit. Each holding a simple little flame, we will sense how we are all pulled into the inextinguishable Light of Christ.He is counting on us. Indeed, We want to walk as children of the light. We want to follow Jesus. God sent the stars to give light to the world. The star of our life is Jesus. In him there is no darkness at all. The night and the day are both alike, The Lam is the light of the city of God. Shine in our hearts, Lord Jesus.