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Homepage >> Ministry >> Worship And Music >> Sermons >> Offering Our Gifts with the Magi Offering Our Gifts with the MagiI want to wish each of
you a very happy New Year and a happy Twelfth Day of Christmas which today is.
Tonight is Twelfth Night. Today we celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany of our Lord Jesus Christ. “Epiphany” comes from the Greek for “appearance” or “manifestation.” On this feast day itself each year we read the story from Matthew’s Gospel of the coming of the Magi, bringing their gifts to the newborn Jesus (Matthew 2:1-12). This story traditionally is taken as the first time non-Jewish people saw Jesus, and indeed the title of the feast day was “The Epiphany, or the Manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles” – looking to the manifestation of Christ to all the peoples of the world. The Epiphany season is going to be very short this year, because Easter Day is very early, March 23, about as early as it can be, and therefore Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, February 6, just a month away. During this season of Epiphany, however brief this year, we remember some of the first events in the public ministry of Jesus – his first appearances as an adult on the stage of world history. The first times we see him – and, in the words of the hymn we sing in Epiphany, the first times we see “God made manifest in him” – his first epiphanies. So next Sunday we remember the very first time we see him as an adult, at his baptism in the River Jordan, and on the Third Sunday after the Epiphany, January 27, we have the great story of the calling of the first disciples, from the fourth chapter of Matthew’s Gospel. January 27 will also be the annual meeting of our parish (at ten o’clock this year) with our worship at the regular times – and, if I know this congregation, several of you are thinking that it is also Mozart’s birthday. It is also St. John Chrysostom Day and one of Mozart’s names was just that, Chrysostom. But, you know, I cannot think of a better Gospel for our annual meeting, or our Patronal Festival, than the calling of the disciples: As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea – for they were fishermen. And he said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you fish for people." Immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him. (Matthew 4:18-22) As we hear this story read in the
Epiphany season, I believe God calls each one of us to follow Jesus as his
disciple, day by day. I believe this is fundamental to who we are as a parish,
as a community of faith, in 2008. Our great calling by God is to say “yes” to
God’s call to follow Jesus as disciples. This is our vocation, our calling. And
we are to invite others to discover their call, to fulfill Jesus’ Great
Commission that we are sent to make disciples, to help people discover their
calling to be disciples, and to help form their lives as disciples, in worship
and service and prayer and giving. That is our mission. Particularly at a
moment in church history where the waters are a bit rough, I think we need a
clear sense of what is most important, and I believe what is most important is
God’s call to us to follow Jesus. In this Epiphany season, may we see him, hear
his call, and say “yes,” and then follow him. Next Sunday, when we renew our
baptismal vows and covenant, the center of them is the promise to follow Jesus
– and as one of my colleagues pointed out some years ago, the Baptismal Covenant
is how we follow Jesus. This is a congregation who knows a very
great deal about getting ready for things – whether getting an MBA or training
to be a dancer or a surgeon or getting a kid into school, or running in the
marathon. Just so, we each are called to think out our resume as a disciple –
how we will worship and pray and give and serve others as a volunteer or in
work. How we will love. And, speaking of marathons, discipleship may very well
be a long-distance run. Indeed, I hope it is. I believe God gives each person in this
congregation, of whatever age or background, rich gifts for discipleship. They
may be obvious gifts, gifts that lead you to a career. They may be less
obvious. Reading Personal History, the
memoirs of Katherine Graham of the Washington
Post, I was struck that here was someone of very great gifts who for a long
time was told in no uncertain terms that she did not have many gifts or any
gifts. While God’s gifts are given for seven days a week and by no stretch of
the imagination confined to the church, or only to be exercised within the
church buildings, I note that the life of this parish depends on the gifts of
all sorts of people: teaching, reading, praying, keeping books, cooking,
welcoming. We remember today the Gospel picture of
the Magi bringing their gifts to the Infant Jesus. In the cloister our
Christmas posters are a photo of part of the Rubens’ painting in King’s College,
One of the offertory sentences in the Prayer Book at the Eucharist are these
words from Paul’s Letter to the Romans: I
appeal to you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present yourselves as a
living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual
worship (Romans 12:1). We are to present who we truly are, the
gifts we have to give. May this be a very happy New Year. May
this be a year when you hear God’s call to you to follow Jesus as a disciple,
day by day.
(This sermon was preached by the Rev. Raymond Webster, Rector, in St. Chrysostom’s Church, Chicago, Illinois, on Sunday, January 6, 2008, The Feast of the Epiphany.)
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