Scripture: Acts 8:18-19
When Simon saw that the Spirit was given at the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money and said, “Give me also this ability so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.”

Reflection: Not for Sale
By Jon Polk

Simon was a big deal in Samaria. They called him “The Great Power,” a title befitting a god, attributing to him divine power. Simon was a sorcerer, a magician. No, not like Gandalf or Harry Potter or David Blaine – magic in the ancient world was generally used in a negative context to describe counterfeit demonstrations of supernatural power, either performed by trickery or by tapping into some evil spiritual source.

Simon was convincingly good and insanely popular. Whether just a persuasive huckster or actually connected with some demonic force, he had captivated the whole city and people were amazed at what he could do.

In yet another example of the Gospel of Jesus reaching the most unlikely of recipients, Simon the Magician, like many of the citizens of Samaria, was captivated by Philip’s preaching. He believed the message of Jesus, was baptized and began to follow Philip around.

However, Simon couldn’t completely shake his past. Magic in the ancient world was utilitarian, viewing the spiritual dimension as a commodity that could be bought or sold and used for one’s own personal gain. A magician sought to control or manipulate spiritual forces.

Sadly, for Simon, the lure of his old life was too strong a temptation. When Simon witnessed Peter and John laying hands on the other believers and delivering the Holy Spirit to them, he offered money hoping to purchase this ability to be a conduit of the Holy Spirit.

Peter’s response calls out the sin in Simon’s heart, the attitude that divine power can be acquired for a price and used to manipulate people and situations. Simon wanted to purchase what was supposed to be a free gift. You don’t pay for a gift. However, the underlying attitude is that when I pay for something, I can control it.

You can’t control the gift of God. You can’t manipulate the Holy Spirit into doing your bidding.

Simon believed in the good news and was baptized but he didn’t completely let go of his old ways of thinking and living. Instead of giving himself completely to serve God, he thought that God’s power existed to serve him. Like Simon, we often want God’s power to benefit us, but God’s power in us is always intended to bless and benefit others.

The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
Purge me from sin, and I shall be pure; wash me, and I shall be clean indeed. — Psalm 51.8

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Ezra 8 (Listen – 5:40)
Acts 8 (Listen – 5:10)

Scripture: Luke 4.25-28
“I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.” All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this.

Reflection: Radical Outreach to Outcasts :: Epiphany
By John Tillman

The backlash that Jesus experienced in response to his Nazareth sermon was sudden and violent. One second they are talking about how well Jesus spoke, and the next they are shoving him toward a precipice, attempting to take his life.

What did Jesus say that was so divisive that the congregation went from friendly hometown crowd to murderous mob in a heartbeat? “God’s blessings are for your enemies, not just you.”

The characters Jesus holds up as examples of the types of people who would experience “the year of the Lord’s favor” represented everything his audience feared as “other.”

The widow of Zarephath was a foreigner, living in Sidon, one of Israel’s great enemies. Naaman the Syrian commander was even more controversial. He served the king who was oppressing Israel at the time he was healed. In today’s terms we would call Naaman a terrorist, a child-kidnapper, a human trafficker, and a war criminal. These are the kinds of outsiders that Christ celebrates as examples of who the Kingdom of God is available to, of who he will manifest himself to.

It is when we are the closest to Jesus that he will challenge us most directly. It is when we know him the best, like the Nazareth crowd, that he can surprise us the most. Everyone is pleased with Christ’s words when we agree with them. When he is blessing us, helping us, healing us, and promising us the kingdom, we listen affectionately. But if we listen long enough, Jesus will say something that makes us want to throw him off a cliff in anger.

He will ask us to allow someone in, whom we would prefer to keep out. He will ask us to accept someone we don’t want to accept. He will ask us to risk our safety to help outsiders who may be dangerous. He will ask us to share our blessings with people who do not deserve them. (Of course we don’t deserve them either…)

Jesus chose to announce God’s kingdom in his backwater hometown that most young men would seek to expunge from their résumés. He chose to go out of his way to reach out to despised people—tax collectors, prostitutes, Samaritans, Roman Centurions, lepers, adulterers, foreigners. If we are to participate in Christ’s Epiphany, we must choose to manifest his same radical love and outreach to outcasts.

On January 6th, tomorrow, the church celebrates the Feast of the Epiphany — the manifestation or revealing of Christ to the Gentiles. May we celebrate the manifestation of Christ, not as a national conqueror who strikes down our human enemies, but as a personal liberator who strikes down the enemy of sin within each of us.

The Call to Prayer
Search for the Lord and his strength; continually seek his face. — Psalm 105.4

– From Christmastide: Prayers for Advent Through Epiphany from The Divine Hours by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Ezra 5 (Listen – 3:02)
Acts 5 (Listen – 6:49)

This Weekend’s Readings
Ezra 6 (Listen – 4:24) Acts 6 (Listen – 2:35)
Ezra 7 (Listen – 4:39) Acts 7 (Listen – 8:49)

Scripture: Luke 4.18
…to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor….

Acts 4.18-20
Then they called them in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John replied, “Which is right in God’s eyes: to listen to you, or to him? You be the judges! As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.”

Reflection: Liberty for the Oppressed :: Epiphany
By John Tillman

Totalitarian regimes tend to pile up political terms in their names that belie the actual political realities within their borders—for example, People’s, Democratic, and Republic. If all three of these words are in the name of a country, you don’t want to live there. In a similar way The Pax Romana is a bit of a misnomer.

The Pax Romana has, at times, been spoken of in glowing terms by historians and theologians, as if Caesar was doing the world a favor so that the Prince of Peace could be born in a time of peace. But Christ wasn’t born during a time of true peace, but a false peace built on government oppression and enforced by atrocity.

God didn’t need Caesar to clean up the world for Jesus to enter it. He entered it just as it was—a corrupt, violent land, defined by disparity. Jesus was born in the midst of a forced government migration that was enacted to better enforce a crushing tax burden. He fled to a foreign country to escape an army that without compunction murdered children at the whim of their dictator. He worshiped in a Temple in which it was not uncommon for soldiers to slaughter worshipers among their sacrifices.

Christ’s audience for his Nazareth sermon was quite familiar with oppression. Western Christians, as much as we may think we are being oppressed, know little about it.

In the past ten years, Western governments and culture have become only marginally less friendly to Christianity, yet we have become anxious and desperate, willing to sign any political bargain in order to prevent losing cultural sway. We seem to care more about our influence in culture than Christ’s influence in us.

To manifest Christ, we must declare freedom for others who are oppressed, not declare that our oppression must cease. We need to make the drastic change of focus that the Apostles made. In Acts chapter 4, before the Sanhedrin, we see that Peter and John’s selfish focus on political gain has completely vanished. As often as they spoke truth to power, as often as they stood their ground despite threats of imprisonment and even death, not once do we ever see them bargaining with a politician.

The Apostles never ask for, nor receive political freedom. They simply carry out the actions that Christ calls them to—actions that caused the city to rejoice. The road back to societal influence for the church doesn’t run through elected officials, it runs through doing the work of Christ to lessen the burden on the oppressed.

The Call to Prayer
Sing to the Lord and bless his Name; proclaim the good news of his salvation from day to day.
Declare his glory among the nations and his wonders among all peoples.
For great is the Lord and greatly to be praised; he is more to be feared than all gods. — Psalm 96.2-4

– From Christmastide: Prayers for Advent Through Epiphany from The Divine Hours by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Ezra 4 (Listen – 4:27)
Acts 4 (Listen – 5:15)

Scripture: Luke 4.18
…recovery of sight for the blind…

Luke 7.22
So he replied to the messengers, “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.

Reflection: Sight for the Blind :: Epiphany
By John Tillman

Jesus often analogized his healing of people’s physical diseases to his mission of healing all of us of our spiritual disease of sin. In his sermon at Nazareth, the only specific healing mentioned is that of blindness but other diseases often serve as teaching moments in Christ’s ministry.

Healing is a marker of Jesus’ identity as the Christ. When the imprisoned John the Baptist doubts who Jesus is, he sends disciples to ask Jesus directly, “are you the one?” Jesus answers first with action—performing a large number of healings of many kinds. Then he tells John’s messengers to report what they saw and uses language that echoes his declaration at Nazareth. “The blind see…good news is preached to the poor…”

It is hard to appreciate the Epiphany of Christ—literally the manifestation or appearing—if you are blind. Before we can share in and become part of Christ’s Epiphany to the world, we must be healed of our blindness so that we can say with the blind man from John chapter nine, “I was blind but now I see!”

But too often we are like the Pharisees who investigated the healing of the blind man. The Pharisees are easy for us to dislike when we read about their opposition to Jesus in the New Testament, but modern Christians share much more in common with the Pharisees than with Christ’s disciples.

We are so full of confidence in our scholarship, in our knowledge of history, of our faithfulness to religious traditions, of our moral uprightness, that we cannot imagine or accept that it is us who needs to be healed of blindness. Christ’s words to the Pharisees after they kicked the blind man out of the synagogue should be convicting to the Pharisees inside each of us.

“For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind…If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.” — John 9.39, 41

It is not until we recognize that we are blind and experience Christ’s healing touch, that we can see. It is not until we acknowledge that we live in a land of darkness that the light of Christ can dawn in our lives. Only then can we guide others to see the manifestation, the Epiphany, of Christ.

The Request for Presence
Save me, O God, by your Name; in your might, defend my cause.
Hear my prayer, O God; give ear to the words of my mouth. — Psalm 54.1-2

– From Christmastide: Prayers for Advent Through Epiphany from The Divine Hours by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Ezra 3 (Listen – 3:01)
Acts 3 (Listen – 3:33)

Scripture: Luke 4.18
…He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners…

Matthew 12.28-29
But if it is by the Spirit of God that I drive out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. “Or again, how can anyone enter a strong man’s house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man? Then he can plunder his house.

Reflection: Freedom for Prisoners :: Epiphany
By John Tillman

Just a few chapters after his Nazareth sermon and his declaration of “freedom for the prisoners” Jesus travels to the region of Gerasenes to free an unusual prisoner. The demoniac of the Gerasenes could not be captured or detained. He could break any chains that were put on him, yet remained captive to the evil inside of him.

Addiction is a prison similar to the demoniac’s. Addicts often maintain freedom of movement but are enslaved in every other possible way. Substance addictions, sex addictions, pornography addictions, gambling addictions, and technology addictions damage all of us, including the addicts, their family members, and their victims.

In some cases we commercialize addicts, building an economy on supplying their fix. In some cases we criminalize addicts, locking them away from society. In some cases we sympathize with them, treating them as having a medical problem. In some cases we stigmatize them, dismissing their addiction as just an excuse for bad behavior.

Our human concept of freedom has a prerequisite of innocence or at least, nobility. Jailbreak movies and television shows nearly always include as the main character a wrongfully accused, innocent man who we long to see freed.

But in reality we, like the people of Gerasenes, fear those escaping prison and those who would help them escape. We fear Christ partly because the freedom Christ brings is undeserved and is not merely for the noble.

Make no mistake. The Gospel is a jailbreak. Jesus is a thief in the night, robbing the possessions of the strong man, Satan—stealing away with captives who foolishly, yet willingly sold themselves to the debtor’s prison of sin.

Make no second mistake. We are not noble captives or innocents. We, who are escaping, do not deserve to see the light of day as free men and women. Sin is our crime, our addiction, and our prison. Yet Jesus comes to free us nonetheless.

And what would our liberator Christ, have us do? He gives us a choice. We can, like the townspeople, exile Christ, and the freedom he brings from our land, preferring to manage our addictions rather than be cured. Or like the demoniac we can go, living in radical freedom, to tell others.

To manifest Christ, we must show what Christ has done for us as what it is—a radical jailbreak setting prisoners free.

The Prayer Appointed for the Week
O God, who wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully restored, the dignity of human nature: Grant that we may share the divine life of him who humbled himself to share our humanity, your Son Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

– From Christmastide: Prayers for Advent Through Epiphany from The Divine Hours by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Ezra 2 (Listen – 5:25)
Acts 2 (Listen – 6:35)