<html><body><div>Here's part 1 for Sunday. I hope you're having fun!</div><div><br></div><div>Bob</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>THE HOLY NAME OF OUR LORD JESUS</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>NUMBERS 6:22-27<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>1<sup>st</sup> JANUARY, 2017</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>GALATIANS 4:4-7<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>PSALM 8</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>LUKE 2:15-21</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I came across a book with an intriguing title.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“Photograph God”. <sup>1</sup></span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>What a concept! Of course I looked it up. Who wouldn’t? Even with us firmly in the middle of the Christmas Season, who wouldn’t love to see God? The image of a young baby is already every-so-slightly faded from our minds. I mean, think – a baby – or the Creator of everything that is; a smelly diaper – or the smell of wet grass, or fresh bread baking, or … you choose!</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It seems to be a no-brainer! Nothing would beat a picture of God. But stop a minute. Think. See what all those worshippers have discovered. See what people have placed at the centre of their lives. See and acknowledge what’s at the centre of our faith.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>God became human. </span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>We know “The Human Face of God”, because it is your face; it is my face; it is the face of every person in the world, no matter where, no matter when. God became a human being in the person of the Son of Mary, and took on all our characteristics. God is no longer “out there”, if ever that were true. God is right here, wherever we turn, wherever we look. God is as intensely personal as can possibly be.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>This is what we celebrate today. Not merely the first of January, two thousand and seventeen. Not merely because it is a new year, a new day, as wonderful as that is. But because we recognise God becoming part of our traditions, part of our family life. God, whose Name could not be pronounced, God now has a Name we may utter whenever and wherever we want. And Mary and Joseph, following their inspired intuition, gave this Name to God, and to us.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>It was immersed in the fibre of the being of every Hebrew. On the eighth day after birth, a male child was presented for circumcision and was given – a Name! His Name! His very own Name!</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>God has always been aware of the importance of naming – naming ourselves, naming the other creatures on earth, naming the non-human elements of creation. God was aware – and perhaps teased Moses about this – God was aware of our intense desire to know God by a name. Yet what God offered to Moses at the burning bush, and throughout history, has been an attribute of action. Tell them “I am” sent you. Or Jesus said to those listening, “God is Love. God is Compassion. God is Hope. God is Trust.” Everything describes God as a dynamic Being who is unbelievably committed to interacting with us and drawing us closer and closer. </span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>Thus, when Mary and Joseph went to present their child for circumcision and naming, when he became recognised as a human being and became a member of God’s people, Israel, He was given a name of incredible significance. “Jesus” comes from the Greek form of the Hebrew word for “God saves”, God delivers, comes to our help.”</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>To call this child “Jesus” then, in a time when everything was under the tight control of the occupying Roman forces, when everyone was supposed to look to Rome for the answer to any question, is to make a deliberate point. To call this boy “Jesus” signifies not only to everyone who might meet Him, but to Him Himself that He was God in the midst of the people.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>A few weeks back I was struck by something in our baptismal liturgy which, frankly, hadn’t registered with me before. When we gather together and begin to offer our praise and thanks, all references to the person being baptised are impersonal. In the liturgy of Baptism we use “child”, or “person”, indeed anything but the name of the person to be baptised. It’s only when we come to the act of pouring the water in the Name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit that the name of the baptismal candidate is mentioned. As this happens the officiant says, “I do this, I baptise you, and thus we name and introduce you to the world. Furthermore, we say that as you are named as a child of God, you are marked as Christ’s own for ever. It’s as if God has been waiting for this moment to acknowledge you and me personally and to declare how unique we are.”</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>Naming, then, is like the act of giving birth. It’s the calling forth of a new person whom God has created so imaginatively. Naming is shouting out to the whole world not just one word. It’s telling people about what lies behind that one or those two words. It’s establishing a meaning and a purpose for that person, a meaning which we’re invited to remember throughout our lives.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>One of the devastating possibilities of aging is that people can lose their ability to communicate well. I won’t say that they can no longer think, that they can no longer remember. We’re not exactly sure what happens when Alzheimer’s disease settles over a person, for instance, but some say that the person within somehow remembers, that memory continues. It’s just the ability to express their memories and thoughts that’s short-circuited.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>If that <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>IS</u></b> the case, then not only will the person remember her or his own name, but she or he may well remember the names of others, especially those which have been spoken, which have been expressed excitedly for years, just as Jesus’ Name must have been.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>Somehow, despite the diminishing ability to communicate, the person <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"><u>CAN</u></b> continue to cherish relationships with God and with others. Somehow, the significance of the names that these people were given is retained. The individual can remember her or his parents who made the gift, just as Jesus remembered Mary and Joseph, and the stories they told of the Archangel Gabriel’s visit.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><br></span></p></div><br>Robert P. Morrison<div>St Alban's Episcopal Church</div><div>PO Box 1556</div><div>Albany, OR., 97321</div><div><br></div><div>541-921-1076</div></body></html>