koinonia

Shalom Mennonite Church

Sunday, January 6, 2013 -- Epiphany Sunday

Text:  Matthew 2:1-12

Eric Massanari

“koinonia”

I find it difficult sometimes

to move beyond a “manger mentality”

when I hear the stories of this season.

After years of hearing the stories told,

and seeing them reenacted in pageants

and portrayed in art and popular imagery,

it is hard not to feel like a distant observer,

a watcher standing apart from a drama

that unfolds in a distant time and foreign land.

3 kings in their silky raiments,

shepherds in their terry-cloth-towel turbans,

an open faced stable bathed in starlight,

Mary kneeling at a manger,

Joseph silently disappearing in the background,

and of course the special baby--

the extra-special-super-son-of-God-infant--

glowing with a light all his own.

It can be difficult to release these characters

from the caricatures they have become,

confined there in the manger,

waiting to be boxed up again until next year’s revival.

Perhaps more difficult than this

is to actually re-connect, re-join ourselves

to this story, and awaken to the truth that

this is not just about “them back then,”

it is a tale that is about “us right here.”

The coming of God through the Christ child

is God announcing not just one time but for all time:

I am.

I am with you.

I am as you are.

You are as I am.

We are one.

The coming of God through the Christ child

is an invitation of God to all people

to receive, to participate in 

the fullness of God’s own being.

to share in the depths of God’s own love.

There are few more powerful, tangible

ways to express such an invitation

to participate in the fullness of life

than a newly born human being.

To hold an infant is

feel in your arms the

beauty, fragility and resilience of life itself.

It is, in a sense, to find oneself

held by that living mystery

by which we all live

and move and have our being.

Alongside such a gift,

gold, fankincense, and myrrh 

are of no value or consequence.

By coming as a child,

God invites people to 

receive and share in this moment

with awe, wonder and great care.

Ysaye Maria Barnwell, a member of 

the women’s vocal ensemble,

Sweet Honey in the Rock,

wrote of this with these words:

For each child that’s born
a morning star rises
and sings to the universe
who we are.

We are our grandmothers’ prayers.
We are our grandfathers’ dreamings.
We are the breath of our ancestors.
We are the spirit of God.

We are
Mothers of courage
Fathers of time
Daughters of dust
Sons of great vision.

We are
Sisters of mercy
Brothers of love
Lovers of life and
the builders of nations.

We are
Seekers of truth
Keepers of faith
Makers of peace and
the wisdom of ages.

We are our grandmothers’ prayers.
We are our grandfathers’ dreamings.
We are the breath of our ancestors.
We are the spirit of God.

For each child that’s born
a morning star rises
and sings to the universe
who we are.

WE ARE ONE.

• Ysaye M. Barnwell

I am, says God.

I am as you are.

You are as I am.

We are one.

Koinonia is the Greek word that

appears dozens of times in the New Testament

to describe this oneness we share 

with God and one another through Christ.

Koinonia means communion,

finding communion through

intimate participation in life together.

It was not just one child long ago

who deserved the homage of magi,

and shepherds, kings and slaves.

Each child is deserving of such homage.

Through each human life, as it emerges

and joins with the fullness of life in this world,

there is the invitation for full

participation in the life and love of God.

The magi who journeyed,

far from home, responding to dreams

and a deep call from a great mystery,

represent the invitation to all 

to become more than distant observers

or mere reactors to life,

but to share fully in the holiness of being.

And the magi, in their foreignness,

in their strangeness, and outsider-ness,

are a reminder that there are no limits

and no boundaries as to who may 

participate in and share this gift.

There are no limits and no boundaries

as to who may receive, participate in,

and share this gift of life in God.

And to share in it we must simply be,

with great love, who we are.  Amen.