The Epiphany of the Mesiah Jesus

From the Pastor’s Desk

As it should be we have celebrated the birth of our Lord and savior, we sang songs to his name, we have praised God, and we have celebrated his coming as well as his returned. This is part of the who we are as people of the way. We have at least two millennia of creating traditions that reminds us about the Christ that was born, lived and minister in our midst, died, and was raised from the dead. Indeed, this month, the first of the year 2011, we are reminded that God has not only revealed God-self once, but we are reminded that God continues to reveal God-self to us still today.

So as we come together to celebrate the Christ’s Epiphany, that is, God’s revelation to the world in the person of Jesus Christ, we are reminded that this God continues to reveal God-self  to everyone who desires or is open to the Holy Spirit.

But this revelation is expressed in a few ways. The annunciation to Mary, the annunciation to the shepherds, the annunciation to the Wise men, the annunciation to Simeon, and the annunciation to Anna. In all these cases these folks were outcast, people who lived in the periphery. Mary a twelve or fourteen year old girl peasant girl who had no standing in Jewish society, a girl whose rights depended on her father or husband, otherwise she had none; she was an outsider. The shepherds, well even more rejected and marginalized than Mary, their word would not have been accepted in any court of the land because they were the lowest of the lowly; they were outsiders. The Wise men enjoyed the reputation of their work but they were not Jewish, and for Jewish sensitivities their practices as astrologers would have been reprehensible. To add insult to injury they were foreigners, they were the Goyim, as disparaging term used to refer to those who were not Jews; they were outsiders.

Then finally, we have Simeon and Anna, two old folks who seemed to have lived too long and had become a bit of a nuisances at the temple, spending way too much time there. Although we think of them very highly, the people around them did not, they were part of that population of older people who were not heard much, maybe they were a little “crazy.” Clearly, they were not part of the in-crowd, they were outsiders.

They all have something in common they were all waiting for the revelation of the Messiah, for his Epiphany. The epiphany came and it came first to the lowly (Mary), the outcast and marginalized (the shepherds), the foreigners (the Wise Men), and the old and forgotten (Simeon and Anna). This Messiah was not adjusting to the expectations of the people, he was not wealthy and powerful, he has not been to the best schools of the land nor had he studied under the best and brightest in the world.

Jesus, the carpenter from Galilee, was revealed to the world among the people to whom he was sent out to reach, not the proud and powerful, but rather, the lowly and despised. The agenda of the Messiah Jesus was clear to witness to the Kingdom of God being inaugurated in our midst through Jesus, therefore: “the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers^* are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them” Matthew 11:5).  Because according to the Messiah Jesus he was anointed for this reason: “‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, ¹⁹to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour’” (4:18-19). Indeed, the revelation of the Father was made crystal clear in the life, death, and resurrection of the Messiah Jesus.

Your servant in Christ,

Rev. Eliezer Valentín-Castañón

The Love Connection

One of the four principles of the Kingdom of God: Love. So we learn from scripture that we are called to love each other as God has loved us! Love is the main principle of Christian life, as it is the main principle of the Kingdom of God. But love must be understood not as something we do out of a feeling of well being but as something we do out of a sense of what is right because in many instances we are going to find that this love of God will lead us to risk our own safety and well being just as Jesus did (Philippians 2:1-8). So this love that our Holy Scriptures speak about it is not a sentimental matter, but rather, a objective and challenging reality.

Love in the Christian community is like the metaphor of mountain climbing. At this year’s Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church Baltimore Washington Conference, Bishop Janice Riggle Huie of the Houston Annual Conference spoke of her family’s love of rock climbing, a metaphor that for me describes the experience of Christian love and Christian living. Rock climbing is something that should be done accompanied with other folks, so it is with our Christian living.

The Christian walk was never intended to be a solitary walk. We know that Jesus walks with us, or carries us when we cannot walk (as the poem suggests), and therefore we are never alone. But it does not mean that we only need Jesus for the walk. That is, from scripture we learn that to live in God’s will, to live in accordance with God’s new covenant it is not sufficient to say that me, my-self, and I (the human trinity) plus Jesus are enough. Our religion is not an individualistic religion, from the time of Creation until the time of Jesus God has been working with a community and in community. From the time of Jesus to the present God continues to work in and with communities, building-up the body of Christ.

As with those who practice rock climbing, if we are going to endeavor to climb the mountain of Christian living, we need those folks that are connected to us through the rope which ties together everyone who is on the climb. And, in a way, the Holy Spirit is the rope that keep us all connected.  

Bishop Huie said: “Rock climbing is risky. Lots of slippery places. Some climbers aren’t experienced enough, not skilled enough, and they run out of energy.” This is why we need each other to climb the mountains of hate, despair, oppression, and abuse. This is why we need each other, and the love of God that has been poured in our hearts, a love that sometimes requires sacrifices. As Christians we cannot run the race alone we need each other, so that when one gets tired the other can pick up and help us get to our destination.

This is the reality of living in the Church. It is not the size of the church that determines how close we are to each other. It is the love of Christ that has been shed in our hearts that makes our walk in the Lord possible, that makes our work in the Church possible. Christianity is not about saving individuals for a heavenly Kingdom. Christianity is about building up the body of Christ in order to make a reality God’s Kingdom on earth. As the Lord’s prayer suggest: “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Christians are the ambassadors of this Kingdom, as I mentioned last month in the newsletter:

So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God (2 Co. 5:20).

 
We must love each other is order to make rock climbing of faithful living a possibility, we need to love each other in order for the Kingdom of God to be made a reality in the world. For this work to be successful we need the right equipment and the right support, as Bishop Huie suggested in her sermon. We all need to be equipped (prepared) and each other’s support to make God’s kingdom a reality in this world. This is the task of ALL believers.

First Reflection for My Blog

From the Pastor's Desk

There are so many topics that one can choose to write about in the church, in personal life, in the life of the nation. There are so many happenings in the Baltimore Washington Conference of the in the State of and in the Nation. We have many decisions to make at the personal, local, and national levels in order for our communities to continue to move forward. Some decisions will be bad, and some will be good. We can only pray that the decisions we (and our leaders) will make will be based on ethical values that are consistent with the ethics of the of the Kingdom of God. We must always keep in mind that our lives must reflect the image of God so that those who look at us can see not only us but the one who had transformed our lives.

If we believe that God is with us and in us, if we believe that Jesus Christ leads our lives, that we are moved by the Holy Spirit, then our way of being must be congruent with the Gospel that Jesus preached and taught; the Good News that Paul preached and taught. There are some basic principles we must keep in mind when making decisions that are inspired or guided by the ideals of the of the Kingdom of God. The first principle is love: to love God with all our hearts, with all our strengths, and with all our minds. Of course, an integral part of this principle is to love every human being as we love ourselves, even better, as God has loved us. The second principle is justice: to act justly, to be just. In our dealings with everyone around us we are called to see all human beings as equal in the sight of God, which means that we are to treat everyone without regards of race, national origin, immigration status, gender, class, or sexual orientation. We do not have to agree with people’s behaviors but must make sure that everyone be protected by the laws of our land, and be treated with the same care and concern we want people to treat us. Of course, our actions and attitudes are not always going to be on par with the laws of the land, this will be a tension that Christians in any country in the world must confront because our final allegiance must be to our God.

The third principle of the Kingdom of God is hope: to live with a sense that a better world is possible according to the will of God. A world where human relations are based on people’s needs instead of people’s desires, a world where people care for everyone because they see in each other the image of God, the promise that a better world is possible because God is in the world. The fourth principle is peace: to do and to promote peace in the world but not just any peace. The Lord wants that the peace we promote in the world community be a peace that looks at the needs of all human beings and not a peace that will benefit some at the expense of others; a peace that promotes security and development, a peace where everyone has work which promotes self sufficiency and independence.

With this in mind, we must strive to make decisions that are Godly and righteous using the Wesleyan Quadrilateral (Scripture, Reason, Experience, and Tradition) and the General Rules of our Church as our guide. In the General Rules, our church describes what believers must do in order to evidence their fruits of salvation: first, by doing no harm, and by avoiding evil of every kind. Secondly, by doing good, by being in every kind merciful after your ability, doing good of every possible sort, and, as far as possible, to every human being. And, thirdly, by attending upon all the ordinances of God: public worship, study of God’s holy word, regular prayer time, fasting, and partaking of the Lord’s supper.

Our journey as disciples of Christ leads us to open the doors of our churches to everyone. But not only that, by being disciples of Christ we are called to go further, we are called to go out into our communities and invite people to come in, to reach out to people in our neighborhoods and invite them to be part of our faith communities. To share the grace and love of God with everyone we meet.

Dear brothers and sisters, remember that success is a journey, not a destination, and in this journey we are all together. If we want to enlarge our communities we must share with those around us the Good News we have received from Christ: there is no longer room for distinctions based on race, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, class, or religion, in the household of God there is room for everyone.

We must be reminded again and again that faithfulness to God is not based on mere orthodoxy (or right belief) but in orthopraxis (or right praxis, Isaiah 1:10-20; Micah 6:8; Matt. 25:31-46). You might be concerned with beliefs but I rather be concerned with fruits because it is by our fruits (Matt.7:16a, 21) that the world will know who are true disciples of the incarnate living God.

Eliezer Valentín-Castañón