Epiphany Sunday

Our readings for the Mass of Epiphany Sunday are:

1. Isaiah 60: 1-6
2. Psalms 72: 1-2, 7-8, 10-11, 12-13
3. Ephesians 3: 2-3a, 5-6
4. Matthew 2: 1-12

• Mission statement
• Organizations with no articulated mission merely survive.  They might mange to keep the wheels on the bus, the lights still work, but nothing new is emerging.
• Do you feel that you have a mission?
• How successful do you think that you have been at that mission?
• What about your parish?
• What about the entire people of God on earth, yesterday, today, and in the future?

• Finding wisdom
• Most of us look for wisdom as a commodity.  We have a tough decision to make, we don't know what to do, and we crave a dollop of wisdom to get us through the immanent crisis, and then it's business as usual.
• If you had to choose between being wise, and being smart, which would you choose?
• Who are the wise people in your life, those who seem to be able to make sense out of what's going on?
• How do you think that they got that way?
• Do you think that we can ever have too many wise people?
• What would you do with deep wisdom?

• Howdy stranger
• The Gospel of Matthew starts with a genealogy of Jesus.  Through all of those generations, upheavals, revolutions, betrayals, deaths and wars, God was quietly at work bringing about salvation history.  Some see that genealogy as a tribute to God's control.  I see it as a tribute to God's resilience.
• Paul regards with wonder that salvation history includes the likes of you and me, that the fullness of God's glory is reflected in the fact that His grace is ineffably inclusive, broad, deep, boundless, infinite.
• How does that inclusiveness of God's mercy reflected in our worship together?
• How is the boundlessness of his mercy illuminating the way that we treat each other?
• How is the sheer, courage of God's grace changing the way that you look at yourself?

• Watching for I know not what
• Whatever else you might think about the wise men of the east, you have to give them credit for being watchful, observant, seeking, flexible.  Finding God in a child is no mean feat, particularly in that culture.  One lone star might easily go unnoticed, particularly from a distance.  Yet these magi saw, pondered, discerned, and acted.
• When do you typically find time to ponder what happens to you in your daily life?
• What do you typically take away from such meditations?
• Would you call such times prayer?
• Why is that?
• How much of your action is the product of meditation?

• Preparation for Reconciliation:

1. How well am I fulfilling God's mission for me?
2. Where is God teaching me wisdom?
3. How are you welcoming others into God's emerging salvation history?
4. What are you watching for?

Shalom!