Third Sunday after the Epiphany (Year A, RCL)

Leadership is big these days. And I've become suspicious of our emphasis on what looks more and more like leadership for leadership's sake.

Before his questioning of the doctrine of hell sparked such a (ahem) firestorm, Rob Bell wrote in Velvet Elvis a chapter about yokes.

Epiphany is the season uniquely applicable to us who are Gentiles, the grafted-on branches to the tree of salvation, those who do well to marvel at the magnitude of the grace of God Christ that includes us. This is not common in our religiously pluralist setting, especially in our part of the world where the common assumption is that we're not grafted on at all--we're mainstream.

There are places where Epiphany light shines through people who do the best of things in the worst of times.

To the Ephesians and Philippians, to the Galatians and anyone who would listen, Paul’s message was the same.

Light is light. And only light can bring our fragmented darkness into proper perspective and allow us to see things whole.

I was at a class reunion with several former classmates when one of them, a professor of philosophy, asked an unusual question: “What fears have you conquered over the years and what new ones have you acquired?” Not eager to make our private fears public, each of us waited for someone else to open up the discourse. One person finally listed some familiar fears, including “mice,” “being left out or abandoned” and “the dark.”

In the United States, it is rare to hear someone define herself as belonging to someone else. Here, we belong to ourselves.

When two or more are gathered, factions lurk.