You are an Heir through Christ –– 31 December 2023

Luke 2:22–40

In some congregations, this first Sunday after Christmas is treated as a kind of “student day,” often welcoming home those who have been away at college. Perhaps the question we might ask of them (or at least listen for in their conversation) is how they have grown “in favor with the LORD and with the people” (1 Samuel 2:26) or in “divine and human favor” (Luke 2:52). . . .

While it is easy to either bemoan the separation of church and home so visible today, or to nostalgically yearn for some (imagined) golden age of their unity, we can rightly ask about and explore the ways church and home interact to cultivate holy wisdom in persons of all ages. Where and how is this happening in your community? –– Ron Anderson

Galatians 4:4–7

Faith in the era of Christ lives into the equality of all those baptized. Through all becoming children of Abraham, God's promise is fulfilled (cf 3:15–18). Verse 4:4 references the nativity by which our redemption has come noting Jesus “born under the law” to redeem those already under the law (v 4), all heirs of God's promises (v 7). –– Sara Webb Phillips

Here Paul describes the mechanism by which we are brought into the family of God—baptism. Both those who were born into the covenant (the circumcised) and those who heard and believed (the uncircumcised) are made heirs—not servants of God but daughters and sons. Circumcision is no longer requisite for joining the church; in Paul's eyes, it is an act of obedience to the law from which we have been set free. Jew and Greek, then, are equal and equally members of the Body.

So, too, equality not hierarchy is established along other lines of social differentiation: whether one is a slave or free out in the world, here we are equal; whether one is granted greater deference out in the world because one is male, here male and female are equal. We are to live differently than the world lives—with the confidence of those who have been adopted and so who are guaranteed a great inheritance, with the liberty of those who are no longer subject to the law but free to indulge in acts of radical service.

As Paul concludes, “For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Galatians 5:13–14). –– Scott Halderman

Isaiah 61:10––62:3

The second part of this chapter, following the mission to Zion to bring hope to the exiled and oppressed, rejoices in the salvation of Zion. The confidence in God's rightousness leads to praise of the vindication of Israel with metaphors of beauty and power. –– Sara Webb Phillips

E. Byron [Ron] Anderson is the Ernest and Bernice Styberg Professor of Worship and the Director of the Nellie B. Ebersole Program in Music Ministry at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois.

W. Scott Haldeman is associate professor of worship at Chicago Theological Seminary, Chicago, Illinois.

Sara Webb Phillips is a United Methodist minister serving North Springs UMC in Sandy Springs, Georgia.

Homily Service 40, no. 1 (2007): 73–84.