Epiphany 2021
Once or twice in a lifetime, something so awful happens, IS DONE, from which there is no way back. Like many, perhaps most Americans, yesterday I watched Fox News live television in horror but not surprise as the president of the United States, leading the crowd he had personally summoned to Washington for the awful day he had promised, in a spew of incendiary rhetoric, preached them into a frenzy, fomenting them to riot, personally incited what some called Insurrection, and, promising to go with them, sent rioters violently to invade the national Capitol, where Congress, an independent Branch of our Three Branch Government, was constitutionally gathered in joint session.
Sickened, in dismay and filled with vomitable revulsion, I watched a national disgrace unfold. Someone called it a coup, but if so it was history's most incompetent coup attempt, and failed coup attempts generally end in charges of treason with a scaffold or firing squad. This will not. It isn't even clear what its purpose was.
Someone else spoke of Days of Infamy. I was only six years old on December 7th, 1941 Pearl Harbor, and I don't remember; Robert remembers but I do not. But I remember watching in disbelief as 9/11 unfolded before me on television; watching it again and again, over and over, and both December 7th and 9/11 are still out there for us to watch. So will Epiphany 2021 be. Those other things were done to us by foreign enemies. Epiphany 2021 was done to us by an enraged fringe of us, deliberately and premeditatedly conscripted and driven to mob violence by the president of us. It WAS indeed a day of infamy.
Sometimes things are done that, like Baptism - - or the arm tattoos of Auschwitz - - indelibly identify who and what we are. What happened yesterday, Epiphany 2021 shows what we have become. The shame is indelible.
Property was destroyed, people were injured, and four people died. Yet it is virtually certain that there will be no reckoning or accountability.
This too shall pass.
Below is this morning's reading from Mark. To write a bible reflection, as I've been trying to do, I need to feel calm and peace and what Schleiermacher called a sense of the infinite. That entirely eludes me in this stunned horror that still holds on from yesterday.
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Mark 3:13-35The Message
13-19 Jesus climbed a mountain and invited those he wanted with him. They climbed together. He settled on twelve, and designated them apostles. The plan was that they would be with him, and he would send them out to proclaim the Word and give them authority to banish demons. These are the Twelve:
Simon (Jesus later named him Peter, meaning “Rock”),
James, son of Zebedee,
John, brother of James (Jesus nicknamed the Zebedee brothers Boanerges, meaning “Sons of Thunder”),
Andrew,
Philip,
Bartholomew,
Matthew,
Thomas,
James, son of Alphaeus,
Thaddaeus,
Simon the Canaanite,
Judas Iscariot (who betrayed him).
Satan Fighting Satan?
20-21 Jesus came home and, as usual, a crowd gathered—so many making demands on him that there wasn’t even time to eat. His friends heard what was going on and went to rescue him, by force if necessary. They suspected he was getting carried away with himself.
22-27 The religion scholars from Jerusalem came down spreading rumors that he was working black magic, using devil tricks to impress them with spiritual power. Jesus confronted their slander with a story: “Does it make sense to send a devil to catch a devil, to use Satan to get rid of Satan? A constantly squabbling family disintegrates. If Satan were fighting Satan, there soon wouldn’t be any Satan left. Do you think it’s possible in broad daylight to enter the house of an awake, able-bodied man, and walk off with his possessions unless you tie him up first? Tie him up, though, and you can clean him out.
28-30 “Listen to this carefully. I’m warning you. There’s nothing done or said that can’t be forgiven. But if you persist in your slanders against God’s Holy Spirit, you are repudiating the very One who forgives, sawing off the branch on which you’re sitting, severing by your own perversity all connection with the One who forgives.” He gave this warning because they were accusing him of being in league with Evil.
Jesus’ Mother and Brothers
31-32 Just then his mother and brothers showed up. Standing outside, they relayed a message that they wanted a word with him. He was surrounded by the crowd when he was given the message, “Your mother and brothers and sisters are outside looking for you.”
33-35 Jesus responded, “Who do you think are my mother and brothers?” Looking around, taking in everyone seated around him, he said, “Right here, right in front of you—my mother and my brothers. Obedience is thicker than blood. The person who obeys God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”
From Eugene Peterson's paraphrase The Message, there's our reading for this morning.
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