According to the Roman Catholic way of marking the Church’s year, today is the Second Sunday of Ordinary Time, in other words, the second Sunday in the Church’s year when we’re neither celebrating a particular feast day, nor are we in a specific season of the Church’s year. The Church of England, on the other hand, regards the time between the Epiphany of the Lord until the Presentation of the Lord at Candlemas, to be the season of Epiphany and so, in the Anglican Church, today is the Second Sunday of Epiphany. And I must say that, in my opinion, this is one of those occasions when the Church of England has got it right.
The word ‘epiphany’, as we know, means revelation, and as we go through this time between Epiphany and Candlemas, our Sunday Gospel readings are about various revelations of Jesus’ identity, so this time is one when we’re very much concerned with revelation and coming to understand just who Jesus really is. On the Day of Epiphany itself, Jesus is revealed as King, God and Saviour of the nations. In the story of his baptism, Jesus is revealed as the Messiah and Son of God. And in our Gospel this morning, in which St John alludes to Jesus’ Baptism, Jesus is revealed to be the Lamb of God, the one who takes away the sin of the world, and the Chosen One of God. But in this morning’s readings we also see another side of this season of revelation, a side that speaks to us about what we are called to reveal to others about Christ.
In the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, we find four passages that we know as Songs of the Servant, songs that describe the Messiah. This morning’s reading from Isaiah is part of the Second Song of the Servant and in it we read that the Messiah (who is the personification of Israel) will glorify the Father. To glorify someone really means to say something good about them, so what Isaiah is saying here is that the Messiah is the one who will reveal the Father; first to Israel, but not only to Israel because, Isaiah goes on to prophecy that the Lord has said,
“I will make you as a light for the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”
So this is a prophecy that the Jewish Messiah will also be the Gentiles’ Christ, which is a prophecy we see fulfilled in part, in the coming of the Wise Men on the feast of Epiphany itself.
But Jesus said that his followers, his disciples, are also to be lights in the world didn’t he. And he also gave his disciples a commission to take his teachings and commandments to all nations. So Jesus called and then commissioned his disciples to carry on the work that the Father had sent him to do.
A disciple, as I’m sure we all know, is a follower and in our case, as Christians, we’re called to be followers of Christ’s teaching and example. So we’re all Christ’s disciples. An apostle, on the other hand, is an authorised messenger, someone who’s sent out to pass on a message on behalf of the one who wants the message to be delivered and heard. So, as lights of the world, called to proclaim and spread the Gospel, we’re also Christ’s apostles.
But if we’re going to take a message to someone, we obviously have to know what that message is. And if we’re going to pass on a message accurately, we have to pay close attention to the message before we pass it on; we have to know exactly what the one who’s sent us out with the message wants us to pass on. We could say that we have to make sure that we follow the instructions of the one who’s sent us so that we know not only the words of the message but the meaning of the message too, the intention behind the message we’ve be asked to pass on. So we have to be followers before we can be messengers or, to put it another way, we have to be disciples before we can be apostles. And if we’re going to be good, faithful apostles, we have to be good, faithful disciples first. But what does it mean to be good, faithful disciples so that we can be good, faithful apostles? I think this morning’s Psalm can give us a few helpful pointers.
It must be said that this Psalm, Psalm 40, or 39 depending on how you want to number them, isn’t the most straightforward to understand. It seems to be split into two distinct parts, and that’s led some people think that this was originally two psalms that somehow became joined together as one. Through Jewish eyes, the part we read today is a song of thanksgiving to the Lord for deliverance, either of an individual Israelite, or the nation, that was interpreted by the early Church as a messianic prophecy. But however we read it, it can help us to understand what it means to be a good disciple.
In verses 6 -8 of the Psalm, we read,
In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted,
but you have given me an open ear.
Burnt offering and sin offering
you have not required.
Then I said, “Behold, I have come;
in the scroll of the book it is written of me:
I delight to do your will, O my God;
your law is within my heart.”
What we read here is the prioritising of listening to the Lord and of offering our lives to the Lord through obedience to his will over ritual sacrifices and offerings.
These verses also suggest that delighting to do God’s will, making that our priority and our joy, comes from being so conversant with God’s words, through listening so attentively to them, that they become our own words. In other words, if you’ll pardon the pun, we become so steeped in God’s words that his ways become our ways. And in the Psalm, this leads to the proclamation of God’s ways to others;
I have told the glad news of deliverance
in the great congregation;
behold, I have not restrained my lips,
as you know, O Lord.
I have not hidden your deliverance within my heart;
I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation;
I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness
from the great congregation.
So what we can see in this psalm is good, faithful discipleship leading to good, faithful apostleship. And it’s important that we go get our discipleship right first before we attempt to go about the business of being apostles. Because if we’re poor disciples, if we don’t listen properly to the words of the Lord and if we don’t at least try to live out his commandments to the best of our ability, how can we pass his words and commandments on to others? If we don’t know what the Lord said, how can we tell others what he said? If we don’t try to live out the things the Lord taught, how can we ask, let alone encourage others to do that? And if we don’t know that Lord’s words mean and don’t apply them to ourselves by trying to live out his commandments, but then try to proclaim these things to others, what kind of message, what kind of Gospel are we really passing on? I think it’s only a matter of logic and common sense that if we try to proclaim a Gospel we don’t understand and don’t at least try to live out, we’ll pass on a distorted version of the Lord’s message and give people a distorted idea of what it means to be a Christian. Poor, unfaithful disciples can only, ever, make for poor, unfaithful apostles.
And yet isn’t this what we so often see? Because what are our arguments about denomination and tradition other than arguments between people who are putting their own ideas about ritual before the words and ways of the Lord? And don’t the people who do this, quite openly and knowingly, pass on their ideas about these things as the truth, as the message and even as the Gospel? But aren’t the people who do this ignoring the Lord’s words about love and forgiveness and unity and encouraging others to do the same?
How many people believe that they’re Christians simply because they come to Church?
And how many people like this pay little, if any, attention to the Lord’s words and ways either when they’re in church or in their daily lives? How many people have we met who are like this but who think they’re so much better than other people who go to church? People who say things like,
‘Oh, I don’t go to a parish church, I go to the cathedral.’
And
‘WE don’t just have a vicar; OUR vicar is a canon.’
What is this but spiritual pride, the very first sin which Jesus himself implicitly warns us about in the first Beatitude and so often condemned in the scribes and Pharisees? What kind of distorted version of the Lord’s message do these people pass on to those who hear and see them and the way they speak and act?
How many people deliberately distort the words of the Lord, or ‘re-interpret’ them so that they make the Lord say what they want the Lord to say? But aren’t those who do this making their words and their ways the Lord’s rather than making the Lord’s words and ways theirs, as good, faithful disciples should? What kind of distorted version of the Lord’s message are these people passing on to others? In fact, doesn’t the Church we belong to seem to be in danger of following this way as a Church? Doesn’t the Church we belong to seem, as a Church, to be in danger of re-interpreting the Lord’s message in the light of world, rather than taking the light of the Lord’s own message to the world? What kind of Christ do those who do all these things, and many others that are in keeping with neither the Lord’s words nor his ways, really reveal to the world? And if the Christ who’s being revealed to the world is not the Christ who came into the world to save it, how can any of this be to the glory of God?
As Christians, we’re called to shine as lights in the world and to proclaim the Gospel to all nations, to all people. So in this season of Epiphany, this season of revelation of Christ to the nations, lets try to remember that the Christ we reveal to the world will be the Christ who’s words and ways live in our hearts. If we have a distorted image of Christ and his words and ways in our hearts, that’s the distorted image of Christ we’ll proclaim and reveal to the world. We’re called to be Christ’s disciples so that we can be his apostles. So let’s be good and faithful disciples, followers who listen to his words and obey his commandments, so that we can be good and faithful apostles who carry and deliver his message, and his message alone, to the world.
Amen.
The Propers for the 2nd Sunday (Epiphany 2) can be viewed here.
Parish Church of St Mark Chadderton 