Weekly Liturgy booklets
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Lectionary Notes
Isa 9:1-4 • Ps 27:1, 5 - 13 • I Cor 1:10 - 13 • Mtt 4:12-23 God’s light penetrates everywhere and many respond to it, is a prominent theme in today’s readings from Isaiah, the Psalter, and Matthew. To-day’s collect, composed for the 1979 Prayer Book, asks that we may answer the call to follow Christ (as did four apostles in today’s Gospel).
The first reading overlaps the chapter of Isaiah which was read on Christ-mas Eve, ”the people that walked in darkness have seen a great light....” Today, however, “unto us a child is born....” is omitted, and emphasized instead is the light’s location in the north, Zebulun and Naphtali, later called Galilee, whither Jesus went as reported by today’s Gospel. “Day of Midian” refers to Gideon’s victory over Midianite raiders 400 years before first Isaiah, when Gideon’s men of Naphtali had repelled men of Midian. “The Lord is my light” begins Psalm 27. It ends, “Your face, Lord, will I seek.” Those sentiments could be expressed by seekers for God in dark Zebulun and Naphtali in the days of Gideon, and in the days of Isaiah, and in the days of Andrew, Peter, and the Zebedee brothers. Other parts of this post-exilic poem sound more like the prayer of a Levite or a priest, promising to offer sacrifices in the Jerusalem temple if God will protect him from his enemies. One could imagine any believer in difficulty, such as Martin Luther King, whose holiday was January. 20, and Paul, whose conversion was marked on January 25, using Psalm 27. Readings of I Corinthians continue through the after-Epiphany season. Paul is trying to heal divisions in the church which he had founded at Corinth, Greece. “Chloe’s people” probably refers to the household of a woman prominent in the church; Apollos is Paul’s learned assistant; Cephas is Peter. You Corinthians were not baptized into factions headed by those disciples, Paul says, rather you were baptized into one Christ. This passage is cited to support the argument that the sacrament of Baptism is valid regardless of who performs it, and ought not be repeated so long as its minister intends it be initiation into the church universal, not into some particular congregation, denomination, or sect. Just as last Sunday we read John’s account of the calls of the first apostles, today we hear Matthew’s account, which is set after Jesus’ temptations, in Galilee, Isaiah’s dim land of Zebulun and Naphtali. Light shines in Galilee as Jesus starts preaching that the Kingdom is nearby. Four fishermen follow Jesus, believing his promise that he will make them “fishers of men;” or in the unmusical English of the NRSV, “make you fish for people.” Like Abraham of old, they leave their parents and their livelihoods for a promise. Rev. Stephen Weissman Asheville, North Carolina Reprinted with permission.
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January 22nd, 2023
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