{"id":1211,"date":"2010-01-06T20:22:33","date_gmt":"2010-01-06T20:22:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=638"},"modified":"2017-08-26T15:26:29","modified_gmt":"2017-08-26T19:26:29","slug":"arise-shine-your-light-has-come-marilyn-zehr-jan-3-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/?p=1211","title":{"rendered":"Arise! Shine! Your light has come – Marilyn Zehr – Jan. 3, 2010"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0 View Archived Sermons\u00a0<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Isaiah 60:1-6; Matt: 2:1-12<\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n

Good morning and Welcome to the New Year. <\/font><\/p>\n

I wonder how it was for you\u00a0 – the holidays?<\/font><\/p>\n

Was it frantic or quiet, leisurely and relaxed, or intense?\u00a0 Did you spend much of the time alone or did your friends and\/or family surround you? <\/font><\/p>\n

Maybe the last couple of weeks included some kind of balance of all or some of those things. I hope that however it was for you \u2026. the presence or Spirit of God may have found its way into or been central somehow to some of these moments. \u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n

However it was for you \u2013 here we are.<\/font><\/p>\n

In the church year and calendar, during the season called Epiphany, we are being invited to continue to ponder the meaning of the entry of the Christ child into the world.\u00a0 We have entered a new year, as we do every year, carrying with us \u201cthe old, old story of Jesus and his love\u201d.<\/font><\/p>\n

And each year we seek to discover somewhere, someway, somehow what impact that story might have on our lives, both individually and corporately.\u00a0 A question that I ask over and over again is how does that story form and transform us as individuals and a community?\u00a0 How and where does that story intersect with the world we woke up to on January 1st 2010?<\/font><\/p>\n

The specific stories that will help us to do that this morning come from Isaiah Chapter 60:1-6 and Matthew chapter 2:1-12.<\/font><\/p>\n

Starting with words from Isaiah,<\/font><\/p>\n

Arise; shine for your light has come!\u00a0 We\u2019re familiar with these words from the NRSV version of the Isaiah passage.\u00a0 We may not be so familiar with the Message version.\u00a0 It says:<\/font><\/p>\n

Get out of bed Jerusalem! Wake up.\u00a0 Put your face in the sunlight.\u00a0 God\u2019s bright glory has risen for you.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The whole earth is wrapped in darkness,<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 All people sunk in deep darkness, <\/font><\/p>\n

But God rises on you; his sunrise glory breaks over you. <\/font><\/p>\n

Nations will come to your light, kings to your sunburst brightness. <\/font><\/p>\n

The Israelites, who have experienced their own share of darkness, the deep darkness of refugee status and exile in the context of Isaiah, are being told that the sun is shining on their faces.\u00a0 God\u2019s light has broken out upon them and this news and this light and this glory is so significant that others will be attracted to this brightness \u2013 nations and kings. <\/font><\/p>\n

Our entire advent series has been about the cosmic significance of the light.\u00a0 It\u2019s shining, it\u2019s brightness, it\u2019s bursting in upon our reality is meant to be so significant that we will not be able to hide it\u2019s attractiveness.\u00a0 But in our reality how does this happen?<\/font><\/p>\n

To reiterate, our worship resources have encouraged us to maintain a kind of \u201cbifocal\u201d vision; to see both the big picture of God\u2019s purpose and action and the immediacy and locality of the path just ahead of us.\u00a0 Both the macro and micro contexts are filled with cosmic significance. <\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The four Sundays of Advent and the Sundays of Christmas, of which this one is still a part, have \u201cexplored and celebrated the unexpected ways God \u2018bursts in\u2019 and \u2018breaks out\u2019 in our experience and in the world. This is a huge agenda with cosmic significance; yet it takes form in the most humble and local and intimate of events, the birth of a child in Bethlehem.<\/font><\/p>\n

Today, the story of the three kings, or wise men or magi, or magicians, or astrologers (all of these titles are legitimate attempts to describe who these people were) give us one more powerful glimpse into the macro and micro contexts into which the birth of Jesus, Immanuel, or God with us, was and can be experienced.\u00a0 In this sermon I want to let this story of the three astrologers or wise men dance with another story \u2013 a CBC documentary entitled – the philosophy of pig which is a documentary about a woman who made a shift from being an environmental policy advisor in Ottawa to being a farmer who now raises a heritage breed of pig known as the large black pig.\u00a0 At first glance there may seem to be no connection between these two stories, but I invite you to let the two stories dance in your imagination and let\u2019s see where they take us.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The first story \u2013 the one we know well\u2013 is the story of the three wise men or astrologers or kings and their successful search for the newborn King of the Jews.\u00a0 During the politically brutal reign of King Herod, these three men travel from a distant Eastern country, we don\u2019t know from where exactly, led by the appearance of a star \u2013 a cosmic sign \u2013 and their own desire to confirm their astrological knowledge that a special King of the Jews has been born.\u00a0 In an article I read by D. Mark Davis in the Journal \u201cInterpretation\u201d he reminds us that the plain reading of this story is that the magi found the Christ by way of a star. With that simple story line, Matthew makes one declaration clearly and leaves another set of questions unanswered. The child Jesus is the one who is born king of the Jews. How that kingship is inaugurated and exercised is answered in the next twenty-seven chapters [of Matthew], but this initial story proclaims the message of Jesus as the promised one.\u201d <\/font><\/p>\n

Whatever one thinks of the source of their knowledge, astrology, it did lead them to the Christ child and the story of their encounter with the current ruler of Israel, King Herod, unfolds a bit like the storyline in a dramatic film.\u00a0 Their innocent inquiry of the notoriously brutal and narcissistic King Herod incites such anxiety in him that he slaughters innocent children in response. The macro context of this story is the larger violent policies of a tyrant.\u00a0 The micro context of the story is the influence of these politics and policies on the lives of families in Bethlehem.<\/font><\/p>\n

The macro context of this story is also the message that was
\n written in the stars for the astrologers to read, the micro context is the moment they fell on their knees in adoration and worship before the child and his mother Mary.\u00a0 On Christmas Eve, Ratnam Kanakaratnam told us this portion of the Christmas story, and in his telling of it when he literally fell on his knees before the Christ child he brought me into the core of this story. The \u201clight\u201d cut through the darkness for me in a new way in that moment. Thank you Ratnam.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The movement between the Macro and the micro contexts of a story is one of the links to the next story I wish to share \u2013 the CBC documentary entitled \u201cthe Philosophy of Pig.<\/font><\/p>\n

In this story a woman named Barbara Schaeffer who worked as an environmental policy advisor for the government in Ottawa, one day found herself without a job.\u00a0 She was laid off.\u00a0 She had strongly believed in the value of her job and at a macro level \u2013 government policy and advisement \u2013 there is no question that her job and others like hers is valuable.\u00a0 But when this job loss occurred she took an unexpected leap.\u00a0 She decided to apply her 25 years of training and employment in environmental concerns and apply them to farming a rare and endangered breed of pig \u2013 the one simply called the large Black Pig.\u00a0 This type of pig is both rare and endangered because it no longer fits into the categories of the lean, fast growing and cheaper hogs that can be produced for food in North America. <\/font><\/p>\n

The documentary was first aired on CBC\u2019s Radio 1 in October and you could look it up online and listen to it if you wish.\u00a0 Maybe you\u2019ve already heard it.<\/font><\/p>\n

In any case, the reporter Neil Morrison, interviews her on her farm.\u00a0 You can hear the pigs in the background.\u00a0 As Barbara tells Neil her story, she often interjects her storyline by addressing the pigs and the piglets in her care with words of endearment or reassurance.\u00a0 You can hear the pigs snorting and grunting and when Neil tries to get close to the piglets, you can hear without question the anxious reaction of the sow (or mother pig).\u00a0 Barbara cautions Neil about getting any closer by saying \u2013 she\u2019s not sure \u2013 and Neil who is clearly getting it (you can hear the slight anxiety in his voice), agrees.\u00a0 Barbara proceeds to calm the pig in question.\u00a0 Neil notes that the moment between Barbara and the pig is touching to be sure, but not sentimental because Barbara does need to sell these pigs for meat \u2013 to ensure the livelihood of her family and to preserve the breed.<\/font><\/p>\n

So what\u2019s going on here?\u00a0 Why tell this story?\u00a0 What does it matter that Barbara is doing her tiny bit to preserve a rare domesticated animal? What is going on here at a micro level?\u00a0 Neil asks these questions directly in the documentary?\u00a0 Why does it matter? An excel spread sheet can tell us the usefulness or uselessness of a certain breed of animal, and it can tell us in cost analysis terms the cost savings involved in feeding people with breeds that are leaner, faster growing and cheaper.<\/font><\/p>\n

But can an excel spread sheet tell us about all the valuable things that go on in the connection between humans and animals and humans with each other as they care for these animals and as they care for other parts of the earth.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 On the micro level of daily interaction where Barbara gets her hands dirty she is connected both to the animals and to her neighbours.\u00a0 She learned many of her skills of animal husbandry from her farming neighbour, friend and teacher, a man named John Ashby who was also part of the documentary. And it is on the micro level that Barbara daily carries on centuries of an entwined heritage and complex partnership between humans and domesticated animals.\u00a0 I can tell you about the value of these things but you\u2019d probably have to spend a day with Barbara and her neighbour John to truly appreciate the value of what they do.\u00a0 It defies explanation on a spreadsheet.\u00a0 It might even defy rational logic, but the sounds and the interactions on the radio documentary \u2013 began to give me a glimpse \u2013 just a glimpse of the light that many strands of our current economic trajectory threaten to plunge into darkness.<\/font><\/p>\n

In Isaiah \u2013 a darkness covers the earth and thick darkness the peoples.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The whole earth is wrapped in darkness,<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 All people sunk in deep darkness, <\/font><\/p>\n

But God rises on you; his sunrise glory breaks over you. <\/font><\/p>\n

Nations will come to your light, kings to your sunburst brightness.<\/font><\/p>\n

And if you continue to read on in Isaiah it says, \u201cLook up! Look around!\u00a0 Watch as they approach you.\u201d<\/font><\/p>\n

And then the list of all who approach\u00a0 – sons, daughters, exiles, streams of camel caravans from Midian and Ephah and Sheba loaded with gold and frankincense, large herds of flocks from Kedar and Nebaioth, all bearing gifts for the altar in Jerusalem.<\/font><\/p>\n

Nations will come to your light and Kings to your sunburst brightness. <\/font><\/p>\n

All coming to worship \u2013 attracted to the light of the glory of God\u00a0 – the manifestation of God\u2019s presence among people.<\/font><\/p>\n

Today I\u2019ve shared two stories, a biblical story and a modern story that I hope will dance in your imagination because they point to the micro stories of light in our lives.\u00a0 Astrologers or wise men who looked to the stars for their knowledge were brought to their knees before the true object of their search \u2013 a child born in Bethlehem who was evidence of the light and glory of God in the world – destined for the rise and fall of many.\u00a0 The macro significance of this micro event the birth and life of Jesus in a poor family in Bethlehem, was not lost on the wise men, the woman Mary who gave him birth, or the kings or rulers of his day. <\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 What are the micro stories in your life that threaten to have that kind of macro significance? What tiny part of your story casts so much light, you won\u2019t be able to hide its attractiveness?\u00a0 As I ask this question, I remember a quote by Nelson Mandela:<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.\u00a0 Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.\u00a0 It is our Light, not our Darkness, that most frightens us.\u00a0 We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?\u00a0 Actually, who are you NOT to be?\u00a0 You are a child of God.\u00a0 Your playing small does not serve the world.\u00a0 There is nothing enlightening about shrinking so that other people won\u2019t feel unsure around you.\u00a0 We were born to make manifest the Glory of God that is within us.\u00a0 It is not just in some of us; it is in eve
\nryone.\u00a0 As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.\u00a0 As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s not likely that any of us will become pig farmers of rare endangered breeds, but you never know.\u00a0 Where has the light of Christ broken into and threatens to burst out of your life in a way that is only possible here at the beginning of 2010?\u00a0 As you think about this question, I encourage you to consider sharing your response to it during our sharing and prayer time.\u00a0 The light and Glory of God actually is all around.\u00a0 When we recognize it and are drawn to it we may find that we need to fall on our knees and worship. <\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0View Archived Sermons\u00a0<\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0 View Archived Sermons\u00a0 Isaiah 60:1-6; Matt: 2:1-12 Good morning and Welcome to the New Year. I wonder how it was for you\u00a0 – the holidays? Was it frantic or quiet, leisurely and relaxed, or intense?\u00a0 Did you spend much of the time alone or did your friends and\/or family surround you? Maybe the last couple of weeks included some kind of balance of all or some of those things. I hope that however it was for you \u2026. the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons-a-worship-audio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1211"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4012,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1211\/revisions\/4012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}