Winter 2024

Epiphany Season: Our Stories of God’s Faithfulness

The word “epiphany” refers to a time when someone is given new light and new understanding of the world. Epiphany season is a short season in the church year when we consider old beliefs and practices for the new insights that they bring. As we tell and hear the testimony of our ancestors of faith, we will be listening for God’s word to us as people of God in Binghamton, New York in the 21st century.

This year, we are studying and praying together about what God is calling us to do and be, working to create a vision and mission statement that will guide us for the next five years. As a part of that work, we will be looking closely at who we are as God’s people and what God has already done in us and for us. 

January 7: First Things

Psalm 19
John 1:1–18

Each of us is part of a story that began before we were born and that shapes us before we even know it. When we tell our individual stories, we are always making choices about how much we will include of what has gone before and what our hopes are for the future. Throughout our lives, in every relationship, we tell and hear stories that make us who we are, through memory and hope. As people of faith, we claim that our lives are part of the story of God whose whole being is relational, creative, transformative, and conversational. We are not the center of the story, but we are part of a world that has meaning and purpose, and we all play a role in telling and showing that meaning.

January 14: How did you get here? Where are you going?

1 Corinthians 1:26–31
Deuteronomy 6:4–9, 20–25

How did you get here, and what do you think it means that you are a part of this congregation, this community, and this faith? For each of us, our story begins with our ancestors, biological and cultural. It is both deeply personal and connected to a larger story. The two scriptures this morning give us two different ways of entering the story of Christian faith — telling our story as people who are on a journey with each other and with God. The voice of Deuteronomy calls us to live faithfully and to pass on both the practices of faith and the meaning of those practices. The apostle Paul, writing to believers in Corinth, reminds us that God acts in surprising ways, and God has chosen each of us to be a part of the work God is doing.

January 21: The Bible as Our Story and God’s Story

Psalm 9
Revelation 21:1–7

As Christians, we understand ourselves to be people of the book — specifically the book we call the Bible. Most of the words in the bible were spoken before they were written, in a variety of languages and dialects over a long period of time. It’s kind of like a library, including ancestor stories, histories, poetry, prophecy, and even stories that might be considered fiction if they were created today. Every encounter with a Biblical text is an act of conversation and translation — understanding what it meant to those who heard it first, what it has meant to believers through the centuries, and what it means for us in our time and our context. Every generation hears and understands the Bible stories differently, and the bible stories we tell help us to understand our own story in different ways.

January 28: Memory and Hope

Psalm 137
Isaiah 11:1–9

The Bible tells the story of a God who acts, who transforms, who brings new possibilities to relationships and communities. Remarkably, it also includes stories of times when God seems to be absent or even acting against his people, when hopes are dashed and dreams of abundant life are far away. The way that Christians tell the story, this part of the relationship is almost hidden, yet it is the space in which a new understanding arises and hope is transformed. Today’s first reading take us into the space where God’s people cry out in bitterness and anguish, where the memories of God’s abundance brings only grief. The second reading comes when the grief and sense of loss gives way to a new understanding. Isaiah offers the hope of a world transformed by the God who was hidden but not gone, who has already begun to act to bring about something new.  

February 4: God of Many Names

Exodus 3:1–15
Acts 17:16–34

The testimony of scripture is to a dynamic God, who invites humanity to participate in creating and transforming our world through our relationships with God and with each other. In the first of today’s stories, God sees, God hears, and God acts by calling Moses to lead the people to freedom. When Moses asks, “Who shall I say sent me?” God’s answer is “I am who I am”, or “I will be who I will be”. God’s freedom to act, to change, to be, is shown in God’s activity and boundless generosity. When humans create systems that cause harm and injustice, God acts in and through relationships to bring new possibilities and new hope to individuals and to communities. In his speech to the people of Athens, the Apostle Paul announces that the activity of God is not limited by time and space, and challenges his hearers to join in God’s redeeming activity. We are told that some scoffed, and some decided to travel with him.

February 11 — Transfiguration Sunday: Who Do You Say That I Am?

Exodus 33:12–23
Mark 9:1–8

Every year, we tell the story of the time when the disciples saw Jesus in communion with Moses and Elijah, and their eyes were opened to a new way of seeing Jesus and his ministry. This year, we are also hearing the story of the time when Moses asked God to bring certainty to the people by showing them God’s glory. God’s response to Moses is that such a direct encounter is not possible for human understanding, but that God will grant that Moses can see where God has already passed by. The limits of human vision mean that we cannot know what God is doing now or in the future — we can only see what God has already done. As we remember and re-tell the stories of God’s mighty acts of liberation and transformation, we see the ways in which we are still invited into the story, and God is still acting in and through creation to bring new possibilities and new hope. Mark ends the story that we call Transfiguration by saying that the disciples saw no one but Jesus. In Jesus and his ministry, we can join with the disciples in seeing God’s activity in new ways, as our past and our present are joined together in the work of creating the future that belongs to God.