2nd after Epiphany B Table Talk Psalm 139__1-17
Almighty God, whose Son our Savior Jesus Christ is the light of the world: Grant that your people, illumined by your Word and Sacraments, may shine with the radiance of Christ’s glory, that he may be known, worshipped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
I Samuel 3:1-10, (11-20)
Now the young man Samuel was ministering to the Lord under Eli. And the word of the Lord was rare in those days; there was no frequent vision. At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his own place. The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was. Then the Lord called Samuel, and he said, “Here I am!” and ran to Eli and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call; lie down again.” So he went and lay down. And the Lord called again, “Samuel!” and Samuel arose and went to Eli and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call, my son; lie down again.” Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him. And the Lord called Samuel again the third time. And he arose and went to Eli and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” Then Eli perceived that the Lord was calling the young man. Therefore Eli said to Samuel, “Go, lie down, and if he calls you, you shall say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant hears.’” So Samuel went and lay down in his place. And the Lord came and stood, calling as at other times, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant hears.”
Psalm 139:1-5, 12-17 Page 794, BCP
Domine, probasti
1
LORD, you have searched me out and known me; *
you know my sitting down and my rising up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
2
You trace my journeys and my resting-places *
and are acquainted with all my ways.
3
Indeed, there is not a word on my lips, *
but you, O LORD, know it altogether.
4
You press upon me behind and before *
and lay your hand upon me.
5
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; *
it is so high that I cannot attain to it.
12
For you yourself created my inmost parts; *
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
13
I will thank you because I am marvelously made; *
your works are wonderful, and I know it well.
14
My body was not hidden from you, *
while I was being made in secret
and woven in the depths of the earth.
15
Your eyes beheld my limbs, yet unfinished in the womb;
all of them were written in your book; *
they were fashioned day by day,
when as yet there was none of them.
16
How deep I find your thoughts, O God! *
how great is the sum of them!
17
If I were to count them, they would be more in number than the sand; *
to count them all, my life span would need to be like yours.
I Corinthians 6:(9-11a), 11b-20
[Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor those who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you.]
But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. “All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be enslaved by anything. “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food”—and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.” But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
John 1:43-51
The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!” Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” Jesus answered him, “Because I said to you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree,’ do you believe? You will see greater things than these.” And he said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”
One theme running through today’s readings from Samuel, the Psalms, to Nathaniel’s response in John chapter 1 is that we are known, thoroughly known by the Lord.. A line from our liturgy addresses God as one “from whom no secrets are hid.” This is both a source of consternation when we feel we deserve judgment and it is a source of confidence when we are alone in a hard place and in need of consolation.
He knows because he created us.
He knows therefore our creativity and aspirations.
Psalm 139 Verse 13
I will thank you because I am marvelously made; *
your works are wonderful, and I know it well.
We need a better view – a vision such as Hagar affirmed. The God of My Vision who hears me.
We have such a one in Jesus the Christ who promised to be with us always, even to the end of the ages.
BE THOU MY VISION
‘Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art
Thou my best Thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.
Be Thou my Wisdom, and Thou my true Word;
I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord;
Thou my great Father, I Thy true son;
Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.
Be Thou my battle Shield, Sword for the fight;
Be Thou my Dignity, Thou my Delight;
Thou my soul’s Shelter, Thou my high Tower:
Raise Thou me heavenward, O Power of my power.
Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise,
Thou mine Inheritance, now and always:
Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,
High King of heaven, my Treasure Thou art.
High King of heaven, my victory won,
May I reach heaven’s joys, O bright heaven’s Sun!
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my Vision, O Ruler of all.
He knows because he sees the End from the Beginning.
HE is Alpha and Omega. He knows the home to which we journey.
Psalm 139 Verse 2
You trace my journeys and my resting-places *
and are acquainted with all my ways.
4
Thou hast kept close guard before me and behind and hast spread thy hand over me.
The Shepherd of Israel knows how to lead us home.
We approach Holy Communion. To some, with empty hearts and no knowledge that the Shepherd of Israel has promised to meet them at this table, it is an empty ritual.
Communion and the other sacraments have been described as sacred mysteries
To some this sounds like the occult, a hidden magical rite open only to a few.
Not so: 1mystery Ultimately came from a Greek word that meant something that had been previously unknown or hidden from mankind had now been revealed. The emphasis is on revealed. St. Paul could speak to the Athenians about the unknown god, and he was revealing the identity of this unknown deity. Could he tell it all? No, but he could communicate truths about the God he had met on Damascus Highway, Jesus.
Webster defines mystery first of all as a 1 a : a religious truth that one can know only by revelation and cannot fully understand b (1) : any of the 15 events (as the Nativity, the Crucifixion, or the Assumption) serving as a subject for meditation during the saying of the rosary (2) capitalized : a Christian sacrament; specifically : EUCHARIST
c (1) : a secret religious rite believed (as in Eleusinian and Mithraic cults) to impart enduring bliss to the initiate (2) : a cult devoted to such rites2 a : something not understood or beyond understanding :
So a mystery, is not to describe a secret rite, but something that is profound.
We aren’t saying we can contain God in some hidden compartment inside the wafer or in the cup. This is not natural science, or something that can be described by the popular notion of transubstantiation. It is not alchemy changing one thing into another.
Then what is going on here? One approach is to think of it as table talk. From the very beginning, according to the unknown ancients who handed on the story of Adam and Eve, God walked and talked with Adam in Eden. Adam knew God immediately, directly. It is obvious that Adam found God to be profound, not fully comprehensible, but yet one with whom he could walk and talk and know at least partially. He could know blessing and he could know curse – cursed is the ground for your sake you will have to earn your bread by the sweat of your brow. Adam could come to know boundaries. He could also know blessings – Eve, the companion, the helper, the other person; Cain and Abel and of course his work.
In the entire course of Israel’s history and of Christian history, it is this communication with God that is the mystery of our faith. We trust, believe and live according to the revelation, the unfolding of knowledge of God that comes through communication with him.
From the first days of the Church, it is written in Acts that the disciples after Pentecost continued steadfastly in the apostles teaching, the breaking of bread and prayers.
Now look back to the Psalm we read today.
You trace my journeys and my resting-places *
and are acquainted with all my ways.
3
Indeed, there is not a word on my lips, *
but you, O LORD, know it altogether.
4
You press upon me behind and before *
and lay your hand upon me.
5
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; *
it is so high that I cannot attain to it.
We consider dinner to be an important meal because we gain the sustenance to reconstruct the cells of our body, but the table talk is critical for the welfare of the family.
When Western Civilization stopped looking upon marriage as a sacrament in which the mystery of God is revealed, the horrors of family break-ups and disaffected children became normal for half our population. When holy family ceases to be a sign of God’s goodness in common life, then our civilization become less civil.
If marriage is not a sacrament, a means by which God reveals his presence and the meaning of our life, if there is no real presence of Christ in that sacred place, then it is no longer sacred; it is god-forsaken. Through the common round of chores and carrying for one another, and table talk, a man and woman come to know the many dimensions of that other and can come to understand what St Paul describes as the mystical Body of Christ, and the relationship of the Church to Christ as His Bride. In marriage where two become one, we can begin to understand the mystery of the relationship between Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
At he Eucharist the transformation is in the communicants. Table talk with our Heavenly Father in which we make Christ present. Remember the Emmaus appearance where Jesus reveals Himself in the breaking of bread and I Cor 11:25: “Do this in remembrance” in the Greek can read “Do this to make me present”. The meal is more than commemoration, it is recognition that Calvary extends through time. The sacrifice of Christ is an eternal truth and during our table talk we offer our lives to the Father in union with the sacrifice of Christ. At this our we transcend this earth as we ascend to the Father.
The cup and loaf are signs of Christ’s presence with us, as well as a sign of our union with Christ. Paul said, we are one body because we feed on the one bread. That bread of course is Jesus Christ, the bread of life come down from heaven.
Christians, until the renaissance, the reformation and the enlightenment, accepted sacraments, that is signs of God working in this world, as a normal thing, and that had a profound effect on civilization. The thought that marriage is a sacrament of God’s presence, a sign of his working elevated the position of women and children. The theought that the state had leaders who were to be the servants of God in bringing justice to the land made a difference in the way in which people viewed the state and one another. There was a sense of sacred duty in government and daily life.
And what about the church and its leadership? As the effect of the enlightenment led to a de-sacralization of the state, it had the same effect in the church. Is the church more than a mere social club; a meeting of friends; a religious society of friends? We hope it is that, but is it more?
If Holy Orders are not a sacrament, then we have men walking around in strange looking costumes using the language of the faith, yet with no special anointing from God, no gift of the spirit to enlighten them and no essential trust in the truthfulness of the Christian Gospel. Thus there are Bishops and other clergy in various denominations who say marriage is not a sacrament, there is nothing happening in anointing, confession of sins and the pronouncement of forgiveness is not a sacrament, after all, there is no such thing as sin.
Some have taken the vows of ordination and yet affirmed that Christ is not God’s Son and that there was no incarnation. Just as denying that Christ is present in marriage makes marriage God forsaken, so also denying that Christ is specially present in the Church and its ministry makes the Church a God-forsaken place, and her ministry, liturgy and sacraments a farce.
There is a line in Shakespeare that keeps me aware of my limitations, my boundaries.
Shakespeare wrote the meditation of the King who was praying while Hamlet watched, planning the death of the King.
My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Words without thoughts never to heaven go." (ACT III) HAMLET
In that moment at the altar as together we offer the prayers to the Father, if I am concentrating more on what is going on around me, or on my words and actions than on the Heavenly Father to Whom I am speaking, then I know I have left the throne of grace; like the King, my words may fly up, but they go no higher than the ceiling. When one, whether parson or parishoner ceases to believe prayers are addressed to a Divine Person, they go nowhere.
At Eucharist, you and I are engaged in table talk with our Lord and one another. We have transcended for a time eating and drinking, we have left this world and ascended with Christ. Like Adam, we have conversation with our Lord.
The same can be said about the other sacraments. Anointing, Confession and Absolution and confirmation. If there is no meeting with Christ at these appointed times, then there is no mystery, no revelation of God.
Jesus promised, “I will be with you always, even to the end of the age.” One place He specifically said He would meet us is at this table. On the night in which he was betrayed, he said, “I will not drink this wine again until I drink it new with you in the Kingdom.”
The Apostles continued steadfastly in the breaking of bread and prayers because this was the place where they knew they would again see the Lord, even as the two on the way to Emmaus had the Lord revealed to them as they broke bread, and as He appeared to the first church in the upper room after His resurrection.
In Hebrews 10:19-25 The Apostle urges all of us to enter into the heavenly sanctuary, because we have a great priest set over the household of God – Jesus Christ. So, as we gather here Sunday after Sunday, you and I are offering our selves, souls and bodies back to the father through the priesthood of Christ, we are his body making this offering, and acknowledging that we can make this approach to the Father because of the sacrifice Christ made on Calvary.
The Apostle then says, “so let us make our approach in sincerity of heart and full assurance of faith, our guilty hearts sprinkled clean, our bodies washed with pure water. Let us be firm and unswerving in the confession of our hope, for the Giver of the promise may be trusted. WE OUGHT TO SEE HOW EACH OF US MAY BEST AROUSE OTHERS TO LOVE AND ACTIVE GOODNESS, NOT STAYING AWAY FROM OUR MEETINGS, AS SOME DO, BUT RATHER ENCOURAGING ONE ANOTHER, ALL THE MORE BECAUSE YOU SEE THE DAY OF THE LORD DRAWING NEAR.”
The attraction at the Church is not those who preside nor the ornaments, nor the building. The reason we come is to ascend with the Body of Christ to the throne of grace.
In his discussion of the Eucharist in I Corinthians 11, after reciting the words of Jesus, “This is cup of the new covenant sealed by my blood, whenever you drink it, do this as a memorial of me, for every time you eat this bread and drink the cup you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.” It is important for the whole body of Christ to celebrate this giving of thanks together, to enter into this table talk for it is an opportunity for all of us to proclaim the Gospel, the Good News that God has visited and still visits His people.
He further says that we need this regular examination of ourselves to eat and drink in a worthy fashion, for if we do not do this then we eat and drink judgment on our selves, being hypocrites. He says, “That is why many of you are feeble and sick, and a number have died (milder translations say sleep). But if we examed ourselves, we should not fall under judgment. When however, we do fall under the Lord’s judgement, he is disciplining us, to save us from being condemned with the rest of the world. “ Just as baptism is a Christian rite signifying the entry into a new life and forgiveness of a misspent past, so the Eucharist is a place where we can find forgiveness for the past week and begin anew each Lord’s Day.
There are dozens of things the church should be doing. Daily, Morning and Evening Prayers, which you can do in your homes since we are not doing it here. Deeds of love and mercy, which I know you do daily. We should be providing more opportunities for teaching of the youth in this community. Many, many things we should be doing.
Some complain that we do the same thing every Sunday at Eucharist. This is the one thing the Lord asked us to do regularly so that we could have table talk with Him. We can and should add other things, but St. Paul says we risk falling asleep, dying if we substitute something else in place of the meeting with our Lord.
We sing,
“Here, O my Lord, I see thee face to face, here touch and handle things unseen, here grasp with firmer hand the eternal grace and all my weariness upon thee lean.”
This is the hour of banquet and of song;
This is the heavenly table spread for me;
Here let me feast, and feasting, still prolong
The hallowed hour of fellowship with Thee.
Here would I feed upon the bread of God,
Here drink with Thee the royal wine of Heaven;
Here would I lay aside each earthly load,
Here taste afresh the calm of sin forgiven.
I have no help but Thine; nor do I need
Another arm save Thine to lean upon;
It is enough, my Lord, enough indeed;
My strength
