Lectionary resources for Second Sunday of Epiphany Year B

God of glory, you nourish us with your Word who is the bread of life: Fill us with your Holy Spirit that through us the light of your glory may shine in all the world. We ask this in the name of Christ our Lord. Amen

Commentary

Who Calls the Changes?
In the books of Joshua and Judges we read about the gradual settlement of the Israelite tribes into Palestine. As threats from other nations materialised these tribes would come together to combat such crises, and in each instance an individual was raised up by God to lead the tribes on that particular occasion. The books of 1 & 2 Samuel, which follow chronologically then tell of the extraordinary change in the way Israel is organised and governed around the end of the 10th century BCE, of how first Saul became king and is commissioned to defeat the Philistines, who by this time had become a significant and real threat to the very survival of Israel. The books describe how the new political and government structures evolve in Israel, how the voices for setting up a monarchy become stronger, and how it fell to Samuel, the last of the judges, to be instrumental in the wrangling between those who wanted a monarch and those who believed that God would continue to raise up leaders as required. At the beginning of 1 Samuel the centre of government was at Shiloh but by the time we get to the end of 2 Samuel, the centre of what is now an empire, has moved to Jerusalem, a fundamental shift in the manner in which God’s rule on earth is made manifest.

With the incarnation of Christ, the manner in which God’s rule on earth is made manifest changes once again. Through Christ, God intervened in our world in human form at Christmas and from then on ‘the government was on His shoulders’. The old regime and covenant was to be superseded by the new, graphically demonstrated at Epiphany as kings come to worship Jesus.

But in both the Old Testament and the New Testament we see a common thread in the rule and intervention of God in our world. God calls individuals. In the Old Testament reading today we see how God called Samuel, even though initially Samuel did not know it was God that was doing the calling. In the gospel reading God calls Philip and Nathanael, just as He had called Andrew and Simon Peter a few verses previously. All through history God has been calling individuals to serve Him; some of whom recognise His voice, others who don’t; some of whom respond to the call, others who don’t. Since that first Christmas, people from kings to stable hands, from the highest to the lowest have been declaring, ‘We have found the Messiah’ as they respond to the call of Jesus. And as He calls and speaks He simply says to follow the example of Samuel and the disciples; to look, to follow, to hear and to act.

The Mildmay website (www.mildmay.org.uk/ChristianEthos.html) informs us that Mildmay’s origins go back to 1866 when a cholera epidemic was raging in the East End of London. It was the vision of a local Anglican minister and the brave response of two young deaconesses that put Mildmay on the map and shaped its future. The minister was The Rev William Pennefather, a social evangelical from Mildmay Park in Islington. His deaconesses shared his sense of duty to the local community and together they braved the slums of Bethnal Green where even doctors had feared to tread. They ventured into the midst of the sick and dying on a mission to ‘heal the sick and preach the gospel’. Thus ‘Mildmay’ was founded.
Sam Cappleman.

Meditation

It is interesting to reflect on the story that unfolds in the books of Samuel in light of the power struggles that often plague the church today and how they can detract from putting all our energy into the task of serving God effectively. It can be very easy in all aspects of life to be too concerned with how we are organised and led rather than focusing on what we should be doing and why we are here.

Hymns

Prayers for Sunday and the week ahead

O God, you have called men and women of every land to be a holy nation, a royal priesthood, the church of your Son: unite us in mutual love across barriers of race, culture and background, and strengthen us in our common task of being Christ and showing Christ to the world He came to save. Amen

Our Father, whose Son came to bring wholeness to the lives of all people, we thank you for the wealth of knowledge brought to us through medical research, and for the healing ministry of doctors, nurses and all those involved in the ministry of healing. We pray that all those who work in different ways for the healing and wholeness of their fellow men and women that they may be inspired for their task and calling by the spirit of Him who is wholeness indeed. Amen

Lord God, whose Word and will are made known in Jesus Christ, inspire in us faith in that Word and obedience to that will, for our salvation and for your glory. Amen

Christ the Sun of Righteousness shine upon you, scatter the darkness from before your path, and make you ready to meet him when he comes in glory; and the blessing; and the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be among you and remain with you always. Amen

HIV/AIDS is the new apartheid, the new enemy. Let’s stop playing around and roll up our sleeves and invoke the spirit that fought apartheid Bishop Desmond Tutu

Like leprosy in Biblical times and cholera in the 1800s, people experience terrible stigma by virtue of having this disease. Mildmay

AIDS is not a threat against people of a particular group or country or continent; AIDS is a threat against all of us… the world has to wake up to a simple truth: everybody counts. Everybody has a role to play. And we all do better when we help each other. Former US Presdient William J Clinton

Commentary: Listening
Under Moses and Joshua the Israelites had moved into the promised land. There they had spread out as loose confederacy of tribes, each one being governed by a king-like head known as a Judge. These Judges had performed a real service for Israel as they rallied the tribes to resist the attacks of their various enemies, especially the Canaanites who came from across the Jordan.
Now the Israelites faced a real crisis in the form of the Philistines, who had already overcome the tribes of Judah, Dan, Ephraim and Benjamin, and were still on the move.
Israel needed a man of God who could offer both political and spiritual leadership to a people in danger of being totally overrun. Samuel was that man, and he came at a time of real crisis in the history of Israel sometimes not fully appreciated.
Eli, who Samuel came to serve, lived at Shiloh, the central sanctuary of the confederacy, the place where the Ark of the Lord was housed. It was customary for the Israelites to make a pilgrimage each year to Shiloh to make their sacrifices to God. Eli and his sons were the custodians of the Ark, and it would appear that the Israelites tribes looked to unite around their priestly rule.
This was not to be, for, after the call of Samuel, Shiloh and the house of Eli is destroyed and the Ark carried off by the Philistines when Samuel is probably around 20 years old. He emerges some 30 to 40 years later as a prophet of Shiloh, a national priest and the recognised leader of all Israel, as prophet, priest and king. The 40 years of Philistine domination were at an end as Samuel summons the tribes to a national assembly, castigating them for their sins and effectively leading them against the Philistines who ceased to be a trouble for the rest of his life.
Perhaps more importantly, God uses Samuel to give the Israelites the first king, Saul, and a true national identity which was never to leave them.
When the story is resumed, for Samuel to have this position as Israel's leader, indicates that all through the intervening years Samuel must have been travelling around the country speaking God's word and doing His will, perhaps quietly and unnoticed by many. But yielding, as the Covenant prayer suggests, all things to God's disposal during this time, whether rewarded, recognised exalted or not. As such Samuel serves as an example to us all, as a forerunner of the Christ who was to follow 1000 years later, as a true servant of God to be used mightily by Him.
It's easy to overlook Eli in the story of Samuel. The course of history was changed because an old person (Eli) listened to what a young child came and told him. He didn't dismiss Samuel as just a child playing games and imagining things. Eli recognised the voice of God, even when spoken to a young person and encouraged Samuel to go on listening, something which apparently Samuel did for the rest of his life.

Prayers for Sunday and the week ahead.
I am no longer mine but yours. Put me to what you will, rank me with whom you will: put me to doing, put me to suffering, let me be employed for you or laid aside for you, exalted for you or brought low for you: let me be full, let me be empty, let me have all things, let me have nothing: I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things to your pleasure and disposal. And now, glorious and blessed God, Father Son and Holy Spirit, you are mine and I am yours. So be it. And the covenant now made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven. Amen John Wesley 1703-1791

God, of your goodness give me yourself, for you are sufficient for me. To be worthy of you I cannot ask for anything less. If I were to ask for less I should always be in want, for in you alone do I have all. Amen Julian of Norwich 1342-1413

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Woodland Burial at Keysoe

Weekly Bible Notes

Second Sunday of Epiphany - Year B The Baptism of Christ

Liturgical Colour - White or Gold

Introduction

Post Communion Sentence

Commentary

Meditation

Hymns

Prayers for Sunday and the week ahead

Additional Material