"Follow Me" is Risky Business

 

Memorial to Renee Nicole Good, Minneapolis, MN.

Every day, I find myself feeling usually one of three emotions: sad, angry, or depressed. Sometimes it's all of them all at once. And I blame our current regime for my constant state of agitation over anything. They are allowing federal agents to run amok on the streets of Minneapolis, kidnapping children, tear-gassing people, chasing Uber Eats drivers into people's homes, and shooting peaceful protestors at point blank range. 

And the current regime in the White House is not only doing nothing to stop the violence; they're telling these thugs that they'll be protected from prosecution. Go do your worst, boys.

The day before I was to preach this sermon was the day agents with Customs and Border Patrol shot to death a nurse who worked at the VA, Alex Pettri. Pettri was holding his cellphone and recording their actions in the street. One of the CBP officers pushed a woman down onto the icy Minneapolis sidewalk. When Pettri attempted to help her up, the agents swarmed him, beat him, and shot him. Within minutes, those in Washington DC were telling the nation that Pettri, who was licensed to carry a concealed weapon, had a gun and was planning to shoot federal officers and would have killed some but for their bravery to disarm him.

That was a lie. There are multiple videos to refute that.

And so a second person has been killed for opposing these raids in Minneapolis.

My sermon's first sentence remained the same.  But I stayed up late...trying to figure out a way to tell the above story...and where I should put it in the sermon. And finally my journalist self said, "It's the lead, silly!" 

And so, I made it the first two minutes of a 15:30 minute sermon.

See what you think.

Text: Isaiah 9:1-4; Matthew 4:12-23

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"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

The philosopher George Santayana wrote those words in 1905.

It’s become an oft-repeated maxim…especially after events such as war.

It’s a phrase we should be paying attention to right now.

Because the worst parts of the world’s history are being repeated.

What happened yesterday in Minneapolis is contemptable…and sinful.

A 37 year-old man…Alex Pretti…an ICU Nurse at the VA…was shot ten times while he was on the ground after he had been pepper sprayed and beaten by six or seven federal agents.

His crime? Helping a woman up from the sidewalk who had been pushed by one of those agents.

This comes only 17 days after another federal officer shot and killed Renee Good…also 37 years old…American citizen…who was trying to back up her Honda Pilot to avoid the ICE agents when one of them shot her point blank in the face through the driver’s side window.

What’s been happening in Minnesota might feel like it’s a world away…but thanks to television and the internet…it’s closer to home.

And you can hear the terror in the interviews of the city’s residents.

They say it’s like they’re living in 1930s Germany.

They’re scared…confused…angry…and sad.

One woman remarked that she’d learned about Nazi Germany in school. But she never thought she’d live to see her own government turn on its citizens.

Now…I said last week that there’s nothing new under the sun.

And what is happening now is nothing new…even for the Scriptures.

Peter…Andrew…James and John…lived at a time and in a place that was dark…and oppressive…and felt as if nothing was going to get better.

Jesus hears that John has been arrested.

John…who had baptized him….and was practicing a ministry outside the establishment…calling on people to repent and return to God…has been arrested by the puppet King Herod of the Roman Empire and thrown into prison.

John’s arrest puts an end to his public ministry.

And like a relay team…the baton is now passed to Jesus to begin his public work.

Jesus leaves his hometown and goes to the region of Zebulan and Naphtali…a major fishing and trading route with a large Jewish population in this Gentile region.

And it’s a place that has been scarred by turmoil.

We know from Isaiah that the people here have suffered many generations of social and political upheaval with the Assyrian Empire conquering them in the eighth century B-C-E…and now the Roman Empire is occupying the territory.

This history matters to Matthew.

Because Matthew is writing in the fervent belief that Jesus represents the catalyst to break this pattern of conquest and oppression.

Isaiah talks about a people who walked in darkness now seeing a great light.

But Matthew indicates that they’ve been sitting there…as if waiting for this great light to shine.

And now that Jesus comes into the region…calling on people to “Repent…for the kingdom of heaven has come near”…Matthew wants us to hear that finally…here… centuries later and with the people still living under the thumb of another brutal regime…the light has come to the people to lead them to freedom from this rod of their oppressor.

Jesus gets to work…looking for his first disciples.

And he knows this troubled region is likely to have people ready to break free from their life of hardship and misery.

Because there was nothing romantic about being a fisherman on the Sea of Galilee during the First Century.

The fish they caught weren’t for themselves and their family.

The Roman Empire had control over their daily haul.

And the authorities would charge taxes on their catch.

Sure…they’d make some money…but most of it was going to prop up the Empire.

It was an exploitative system.

So when Jesus says “Follow me…and I will make you fish for people” it wasn’t just about joining with him.

He’s disrupting the Empire…and throwing sand in the gears of the system.

Without fishermen…there is no daily catch.

No fish for Caesar.

No taxes to collect.

A blow to the economy of the Empire.

Jesus’s call to these men also turned their lives inside out.

“Follow me…and I will make you fish for people “forced them to wonder:

Do I want to keep doing this?

Is there something more than working to benefit the Empire?

Jesus’ call opened their eyes to see a life beyond their fishing boats.

His words moved them to leave behind their livelihoods…and seek a new way with absolutely no guarantees of success.

Just the promise that there was a different type of catch to be made. 

A catch of people.

A way of building community on a foundation of Love.

To drop everything and follow is a total act of faith and trust.

But something deep within them knew that this was the way out of the darkness of occupation and oppression that dominated their everyday living.

Jesus has a way of interrupting our lives in that way.

And he doesn’t do it by force or threat.

He does it by an invitation to go in a new direction.

Is it scary? Sure, it is at the beginning.

None of those fishermen knew what was coming next.

Jesus didn’t let them in on the details that they’d be on a journey to confront the Roman Empire…and shake up the status quo in Jerusalem.

And they had no idea the violent opposition their movement was going to encounter.

They hadn’t seen any miraculous healings at this point…or even witnessed the way Jesus used his skillful rhetoric to deal with his detractors.

And he hadn’t flipped over any tables or chased moneychangers with whips.

Still…

Those words Jesus spoke to them contained a vision of hope for an unseen future…one that wasn’t repeating the patterns of the past.

And a voice inside them said “Yes” to making an important change in their lives.

Amazingly…this process has been happening over and over for millennia.

Not just people who go the way of a religious life.

But people who respond to the call to turn away from their fears and things that are different…explore new paths…and take seriously the idea of loving neighbor as much as oneself.

Before this latest shooting this week in Minneapolis…clergy from Minnesota and all over the country gathered with about a hundred thousand people in the streets to denounce the actions of the federal government in its round up of men, women and children…regardless of their immigration status.

They prayed.

They sang.

They marched in subfreezing temperatures.

Businesses closed in solidarity with this action.

Despite characterizations about those who go to protests…it’s likely these demonstrators are not all of one mind ideologically on the question about how best to strengthen our laws on immigration.

But what is driving them to protest is the moral clarity that says they do not want their neighbors…people who have lived side by side with them for five…ten…twenty years… citizens,  refugees and, perhaps, undocumented individuals who helped them cut their grass and raised their families together…they do not want those neighbors pulled out of their homes and sent miles away with no recourse.

These demonstrations also have historical roots in this country.

I recently heard an interview with Jelani Cobb…the dean of the Journalism School at Columbia University…talking about the Fugitive Slave Act of the 1800s.

He said when he teaches about this law that allowed for bounty hunters…the slave patrols…to go after runaway slaves…his students assume that those in the Northern states who protected these escapees were white abolitionists.

But he says…that’s not necessarily true.

He said some were…but not all of them opposed the system of slavery.

But what united them was the basic command: love thy neighbor.

That’s what Cobb says made two thousand people in Boston Massachusetts gather around a single black man and drive away the slave patrol pursuing him.

That’s what motivates people to gather in the streets of Minneapolis in frigid temperatures to demand an end to ICE raids…even at great personal danger.

The connection to the command to love thy neighbor is what has driven people of all walks of life…ages…and ideologies willing to take these risks to protect their neighbors.

It’s what motivates some to stand for hours…singing and praying in front of courthouses and state Capitol buildings across this country.

It’s what has people calling and writing their elected officials…sharing information online with friends…asserting what they believe in…what they see as the just and right way to treat human beings.

It’s what makes ordinary people respond to that still small voice that asks them to look at their lives and make the decision to do extraordinary… even… risky things for the good.

Following Jesus is an unpredictable path.

But it is the way out of the darkness of despair and into the way of light and hope.

It is a journey that takes us beyond what we think are our limits…and may feel like a bumpy ride…but is still worth the trip.

Epiphany is not only a season where we start seeing more of who Jesus is.

It’s also a time for us to start looking at who we are as followers of Jesus…and asking ourselves how we can keep lighting the way to Love in times of trouble and uncertainty.

Listen to that call…that voice within…and trust that the God of Love is leading the way.

In the name of Our One Holy and Undivided Trinity.

 

Shine On!

 

Text: Isaiah 49:1-7

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Music has a special place in our lives.

We probably all can remember certain tunes that we associate with a particular event or time period.

I realized I was getting up in years when the tunes on rotation in the supermarket were the songs that were popular when I was first learning to drive in high school.

Music sets the mood for movies and TV shows.

The right song can get us tapping our feet until we’re motivated to get up and dance.

It helps us to learn and make connections to language in our brains. Think about how we studied our ABCs to the tune of “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.”

And I’ve been told…music lives in the part of the brain that is one of the last things to linger in our heads as our bodies begin to die.

Songs were what enslaved Africans used to communicate with each other as they worked under the watchful eyes of their masters.

The spirituals we sing in our churches contain coded messages about the way out of bondage…through the woods and crossing rivers to get to freedom.

In our First Reading today from Isaiah…we’re hearing a song sung to…and for… those who were living in exile and oppression under the Babylonian empire.

These people had been conquered once…and then again.

Their enemies had captured their best and brightest and taken them away to a foreign land.

This reading is a duet….a song between God…and “the servant”…and is the second of four such “servant songs” in Isaiah.

What we hear in this song is a calling…a remembrance…and an encouragement to action on God’s behalf.

The first verses of this duet belong to God….and we can hear God reminding the servant of God’s ways…working quietly in the womb almost like an alchemist or blacksmith…fashioning and preparing the servant to have a mouth “like a sharp sword.”

God is preparing and making one who can speak plainly and directly….a voice to cut through all the noise and the static of the world.

The womb…this safe and warm space pulsing with the sound of a mother’s heartbeat…was symbolic for our Biblical ancestors of the beginning of wisdom.

In here…God has formed and molded the servant to bring God’s glory into the world.

Then we hear the voice of the servant in the next few verses…and—wow—isn’t this a familiar lament.

Even though God has done all this work in the womb…given the servant all the wisdom needed to accomplish great things…the servant hasn’t lived up to the call.

“I have labored in vain.”

“I have spent my strength for nothing and for vanity.”

Put another way:

I am not worthy.

I am tired.

And it doesn’t matter what I do…nothing gets better.

How many of us make these same complaints…do this same self-critique… listen to that nagging commentator in our heads…that voice that reminds us how we have fallen short?

The tragedy isn’t that we don’t always measure up…or haven’t been successful in changing the world around us.

The tragedy is when we stare into that void which gathers all our mistakes…our failures and shortcomings…and allow that internal faultfinder to cause us to lose faith in God’s ability to take those broken parts of ourselves…polish them up…and use them for something even greater than before.

I’m reminded of something that the director of my massage school used to say to us every time we had to take a written exam.

He never used the term “tests.”

He preferred to call them “learning experiences.”

These quizzes on our knowledge of human anatomy were meant as another teaching tool…not a punishment for what we didn’t remember from class.

Our mistakes were an opportunity to reinforce our learning…and keep us improving.

The same thing is happening in this song with the servant.

Despite the ways in which the servant has fallen short…God brings in a harmonic voice…singing with the servant “I am your strength.”

This is a turning point in this passage…where we see the importance of honesty and vulnerability.

The servant is feeling inadequate…trying to maintain faith in a world that doesn’t want to listen or care about things such as love of God…justice for those conquered…mercy for those suffering…and compassion for the needs of the people. 

And it’s into this place of honesty and vulnerability where God has an opening to act.

It’s when we drop our ego…our need to control and determine outcomes and allow ourselves to acknowledge our weaknesses that God moves closer to us.

In this space…God can bolster our spirits…put a new song in our throats…and to take us to the next level.

Because look what follows in this passage.

After the servant has opened up about feeling like a failure…God takes those dry bones and insists on putting them back together…with sinews and ligaments…to be something greater.

It’s not enough for this singing partner to just be a servant.

God is taking all those parts…the servant’s mish mash of joys and sorrows…doubts and all…and now this servant will be given as “a light to the nations that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

Not just to the tribes of Jacob and survivors of Israel.

Not just those taken captive by the Babylonians and the ones left behind to mourn their losses.

This servant…who moments ago was kicking the dirt and looking down cast…talking about everything that he wasn’t…is now going to be the standard bearer to all people…the whole earth…that the God of Love has come near to them.

Instead of dumbing down the assignment…God is elevating the mission…and expanding it.

Again…this was a song of liberation…sung to a people who had felt conquered…defeated…and were living under a Babylonian authority they didn’t recognize.

This was a song for the exiles and the ones who had been left behind… a song of promise that they would again become one body…overcoming the adversity of their times…and that they would bring this mission of Love even further…to all.

As Christians…we know this as the same mission of Jesus…whose strength wasn’t in picking up a sword and dominating others.

Jesus came to live and die as one of us and showed us that the hatred and fear of an Empire could not contain the God of Love in a tomb.

As we heard a few weeks ago from the Gospel of John…”the light came into the world and the darkness could not overcome it.”

That mission of the servant…which was the mission of Jesus…is the still needed today.

There are pundits and columnists who remind us we’re living in unprecedented times of turmoil.

But on this Martin Luther King Jr. weekend…we should recall these words from the Book of Ecclesiastes,

“What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun.” (Eccl.1:9)

We have not always been a nation of E Pluribus Unum.

Dr. King lived in a time of violence and repression…in this country…and not that long ago.

Some of you were alive in the days of legal racial segregation.

Doctor King…a Baptist minister from Atlanta…certainly had his moments as a servant…struggling to keep singing that song of the glory of God while up against the unrepentant forces of division and hatred.

In 19-63…as King looked out over the mall in Washington DC…he spoke of a dream.

That dream was the day when all of us…blacks and whites…Jews and Gentiles…Protestants and Catholics…would all sing one song: Free at last! Free at last! Thank God almighty…I’m free at last.

Free from violence.

Free from the economic conditions that kept too many people in poverty.

Free from the powers that sit in the skyboxes of society and have the majority of us trapped in a cage match of “us” vs. “them.”

An assassin’s bullet shortened King’s life…but that dream that he shared in August 19-63…was no less than the dream God has had for this world from the beginning of time….to have a people who shine a light to the nations that all might experience salvation.

We need more of those lights now.

We need to trim the wicks of our internal lamps and keep standing on the side of love…holding onto our faith…in the face of fear.

God is still calling to us…planting a servant song in our heads and our hearts: to see in ourselves that we can be the standard bearers of light…and love.

        Be the light of Christ…take that light out to others…and let it shine…let it shine…let it shine.

In the name of our One Holy and Undivided Trinity.

 

 

Can't Go Back to Herod: An Epiphany Sermon

 

This is the first time we've done an Epiphany service at St. Barnabas since I've been there. Seems odd that we haven't celebrated this major feast before, but with me being part-time, living 80 miles away,  and no one insisting, we just haven't. But we did this year, chalking our door with "20+C-M-B-26."  We are not seeing any children in church right now, so there was no pageant as is sometimes a custom. But we did sing, "We Three Kings" which was the perfect starting point for this sermon...and had an important lesson for us in this time of authoritarianism.

See what you think.

Text: Matthew 2:1-12

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John Henry Hopkins lyrics to “We Three Kings” have set the stage in our imaginations for centuries about these three visitors from the East who followed a star to find the Christ child in Bethlehem.

Hopkins hymn has told us they were kings…and in the stanzas…he’s given each of them back stories.

And tradition has assigned them names based upon the gifts they brought...the gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

We assume there are three of them because there are three gifts.

But maybe there were two….or could there have been more?

Nah…that wouldn’t work.

That would totally mess up the manger scenes.

But then…our traditional manger scenes have already gone off track from the Gospel story.

There is no crib of hay in Matthew’s story.

In fact…these foreign magi enter a “house” to find Mary and “the child.”

And…given the account that happens a few verses later in this chapter of Herod’s jealous rage that leads to the deaths of Jewish boys in Bethlehem who are two years old…we get the idea that these magi have been following that star for a while.

 These “magi”…or as we have translated it…these “wise men” are “from the East.”

They may have been Zoroastrians…an Eastern religion of the Persian Empire…a monotheistic belief system that teaches ethical living and a constant struggle between good and evil.

 They may have been either astrologers or magicians.

And they are on a journey… a euphemism often used when one is talking about seeking God.

They’re following a star…chasing after this sign in the sky…hoping to find a child born King of the Jews…so that they might pay him homage.

In his book “Brightest and Best: A Companion to the Lesser Feasts and Fasts”…Episcopal chaplain Sam Portaro suggests that if these magi were magicians…they may have been something like traveling entertainers.

Portaro wonders how wise they might have been…since they went to Herod to ask where to find this child called “King of the Jews”…a title that Herod proudly had accepted for himself when the Roman Emperor Augustus conferred it on him.

Any wise person would have known better than to tell Herod about this child king given his reputation for killing his rivals.

Maybe they hadn’t fully discerned the politics of the region.

Maybe they were so fixated on following the star that they hadn’t paid attention to the way Herod shifted uneasily when they mentioned they were looking for another king of the Jews.

And Herod…regaining his composure…and in a manner we might see in a classic Disney villain…requests that these wise men serve as envoys for him…

“Oh…please do come back and tell me where I might find this child in Bethlehem so that I…too…may pay homage to him.”

It’s interesting that “paying homage” gets repeated here.

To “pay homage” suggests something more than a simple nod of the head and a “greetings and salutations.”

“Paying homage” is to prostrate oneself…kneel or lay down before an authority.

Herod said he wanted to pay homage to the Christ child…and he should have wanted to do that.

It’s what we say in our prayers of the people…that we look for leaders who will turn away from greed and a lust for power…and to govern from a place of justice and compassion.

To be like the king as described in Psalm 72…

“That he may rule your people righteously…and the poor with justice.” (72:2)

But…of course…he wasn’t sincere.

After all…he is not on a journey.

So when the wise men arrive…we hear that they were overwhelmed with joy.

And when they entered the house…and saw the child with Mary…they paid him homage.

These Zoroastrian strangers immediately see what the shepherds from Luke’s Gospel had seen earlier.

And like those shepherds…they too were amazed…and filled with wonder and joy.

And it brought them to their knees…lying face down on the floor.

Only then…did they remember to break out the gold…the frankincense…and the myrrh.

It seems the most important gift they offered was not the valuable “things” that they brought along in their treasure chest.

The primary gift was themselves….their bodies…and their desire to seek and find what this wonderous star was beckoning them to discover an incarnation of God’s Love into the world.

This was their epiphany…that moment of “a-ha”….that brought them to Bethlehem.

They have met God…the God that they recognize…the Holy One of Justice and Mercy.

They have found God in this Jewish child.

And God has shattered barriers between cultures.

God has demonstrated that Divine Love is able to reach past all borders…all religions…all labels…and differences to touch us so deeply as to overwhelm us with joy.

If these men weren’t wise before their journey…they are leaving greatly changed.

No wonder their dream told them to travel back a different way.

They are no longer able to go back toward the way of Herod…that world of domination and fear…and the need to have power over others.

They’ve been changed.

The same can be true for us too.

We…too…can travel a different road.

God’s desire for us is not about wealth…or titles…or our precious metals…or other expensive gifts.

The only thing God has ever needed from us is our willingness to open our hearts to God…and allow Love to transform us.

God’s intent is to set us on a road away from the self-centered path that seeks to control others and assert our dominance over other people.

The thing we must do is bring ourselves…our wise and foolish…our perfectly imperfect selves…to God…and be willing to be wowed and changed.

In the name of our One Holy and Undivided Trinity.

 

 

Keeping the Faith in the Face of Tyranny

 

I was only about half done with my sermon when I woke up Saturday morning about 6am to the news that our country was attacking Venezuela. And my heart sank.

The Venezuelean leader, Nicholas Maduro, is no angel. In fact, it's because of corruption and violence inflicted on the people of his country that so many Venezuelans have made the harrowing trip through jungles and swamps, dodging gangs along the way, to reach the United States in a desperate attempt to find freedom....only then to have ICE agents tackling them and deporting them back to their country or (worse) the CECOT prison in El Salvador. 

The timing of all of this in conjunction with one of the Gospel choices for the Second Sunday of Christmas presented an interesting challenge. Hopefully, I met it. See what you think.

Text: Matthew 2: 13-15; 19-23

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The Christmas season always presents us with highs and lows.

We have the joy and celebration of Christmas Day…while still remembering that each Christmas happens in times that are not necessarily bright and cheery.

In the church calendar…the birth of Jesus on December 25^th…is immediately followed on the 26th by the Feast of St. Stephen:

A day in which we honor St. Stephen as the first deacon who was stoned to death for professing his unwavering belief in Jesus as the Messiah.

Just in case we forget that to trust and believe in Love is a costly business.

And our Gospel reading this morning is another reminder that to follow God’s will and commit to being with Jesus is not a path to an easy and carefree life.

But staying on this journey…difficult and challenging as it can be at times…is still a better choice…and one that leads to freedom.

We see once more that Joseph is receiving divine messages through his dreams…giving him the wisdom and guidance of how to move his family to avoid the rage of an insecure tyrant…namely Herod the Great…the head of the whole Herod clan that we read about in the Scriptures.

This Herod started as the Governor of Galilee…and was a shrewd and capable manipulator as the Roman Empire clashed with the Parthians to the East in modern day Afghanistan. Caesar Augustus named him “King of the Jews”…a title his Jewish subjects found offensive as this so-called “king” was really more in league with their Roman oppressors.

He had ten wives…and there was constant turmoil…and jockeying for position of ascendancy… as often seems to plague those who claim supreme kingly power.

If any family member posed too much of a threat to his throne…Herod would kill them.

He tried to ingratiate himself to the Jewish population after the Romans made him king by rebuilding the Temple in Jerusalem.

But his lust for power and supremacy over others was greater than his desire to win approval from the Jewish citizenry.

He added an emblem of an eagle to one of the gates to the Temple…as a nod to the Roman Empire.

The Jews saw this as pagan idolatry and when a group of them pulled it down…Herod the Great had them arrested and executed.

So much for making nice with the natives.

Herod’s brutality is best known to us in the story that our lectionary skipped over in the Gospel reading this morning…a tale that Matthew included and is the basis for another feast day during the Christmas season…the Feast of the Holy Innocents.

The way the story goes…King Herod…upon learning that there was a Jewish baby boy born to be king…decided to round up all the Jewish toddler boys in Bethlehem and had them killed.

This was the dire warning Joseph received in his dream…and why he moved the family with haste to Egypt.

It’s also a story only Matthew tells.

There’s no historical record to back up this tale of a mass murder of infants.

But historic accuracy isn’t really the point of that story.

Matthew wants us to see that Herod had a reputation for wholesale killing of anyone who dared to cross him.

And it also serves the purpose of once more drawing a distinction between an earthly king such as Herod…with his need for power over others through fear and violence…and the kingly power of Jesus…a small…vulnerable baby yet one who already commanded attention and awe by being the embodiment of God’s Love.

A child who will grow to be a man who sought to be with the people…not above them.

A leader who made his company with the poor…the sick…and the disenfranchised.

And a king whose survival depended on his impoverished human family being obedient to God and taking the risk of living as refugees.

This story of the Holy Family fleeing violence and moving from one region to another resonates with our current world crisis of those escaping from war and civil unrest.

The United Nations Refugee Agency reports that last year…there were more than 117 million people who had to flee their homelands due to violence…persecution...human rights violations or other types of conflict.

In most cases…they left for neighboring towns or countries.

But still many others had to seek asylum much farther away from places where war and gang violence made it impossible for them to stay.

We’ve all heard the stories of people coming to the United States seeking a better life…or at least one where they can breathe free and live without the fear of being assaulted or kidnapped.

And we have taken pride in the words of our national anthem…that we are the land of the free and home of the brave.

This is why the imagery of masked government agents grabbing men and women…sometimes pregnant women…and shoving them into unmarked cars…whisking them off to prisons miles from their homes…has shocked the conscience of a majority of Americans.

The reason Venezuelans have been coming here was to flee from chaos in their own country…a country that we’ve attacked …even as we are deporting people back there.

Violence and aggression have always been in the playbook of the tyrants and bullies of the world.

We’ve seen it with Pol Pot in Cambodia and the civil wars in Rwanda and Sudan…and even in Gaza..

For us as Christians…images of people fleeing oppression conjure up this picture that Matthew creates for us of the Holy Family trying to escape the terror that Herod was inflicting on the people of Galilee.

And it’s important for us to keep in mind that for every Herod that has ever lived…there have always been many more like Joseph.

People who have trusted in the voice of God…and kept hope alive in their hearts…stayed faithful to the cause of Love…as they struck out for a better life.

Joseph understood his assignment…that he was to listen to the command of God…even if meant taking a risky trip into Egypt…so that his family would be safe.

Because the child in his care…born into a nightmarish situation…was the fulfillment of God’s dream.

This portion of Matthew’s Gospel shows us what we know to be true.

Tyrants and bullies will die…but God’s Love will find a way and will lead us to freedom.

The name of Jesus…trusted by millions through the millennia…continues to be the foundational strength from which people draw upon to keep putting one foot in front of the other each day….whether it’s crossing a desert or the Darien Gap….or even crossing the street into a treatment center to seek help.

It is a power which rises like the breath in our bodies and helps carry us through the troubled waters and rising tides of our lives.

May we continue to stick to the source of Love which sets us free.

 And once we feel our burdens ease…may we use our freedom to bring peace to others.

  In the name of our One Holy and Undivided Trinity.

 

The Light Shines in the Darkness

 

I'm the first to admit that I am much more of a low Christology priest. I like the Jesus who is closer to his humanity than the high Christology of John's Gospel which makes Jesus seem totally otherwordly. 

But I do love John's prologue...and after spending some time looking at it and considering it through the help of an online offering with Tripp Fuller and Diana Butler Bass...I found a way into this opening passage from John that gave me a deeper appreciation for his take on the life and ministry of Jesus.

How about you? What's your take?

Text: John 1:1-18

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The poet Allen Ginsburg once gave this description of poetry:

“Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It’s that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that’s what the poet does.” 

And that’s what our poet laureate of the Gospels…John the Evangelist…is doing here with his prologue.

Where Matthew and Luke have detailed stories about the birth of Jesus…John uses poetic language to tell a different birthing story.

As the writer and theologian Diana Butler Bass said recently, the whole Gospel of John is one very long birth narrative…moving us from the present age into an evolving age to come.

John takes us back to the beginning…being with God…in God…of God…from the start of all time.

It’s a remix of the story that opens the Book of Genesis in the Old Testament.

“In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth…” becomes “In the beginning was the Word…”

Or…as it is written in the Greek…the  “Logos.”

And “Logos” conveys more than just a simply “a word” as we would understand it.

It’s more than a He or She or They.

The meaning of this Word…this Logos…is reason…a deeper understanding…a consciousness….the sense of that Wisdom or Sophia of God…all brought together.

This is a wise Word that was with God and is holding all things…all the created order…in itself.

For John…this is his moment of lying in bed at night and thinking through in poetic language a way of describing this incarnation of God…how and what it means that Jesus is “this Word became flesh and lived among us.”

It’s some of the most beautiful metaphorical expressions in our Scriptures.

And because it’s poetic in its style…it can either lift us up or for some…it can leave us utterly confused.

So let’s take some time to look closely at this passage…because I think there are some things that may be helpful to us in the 21^st century.

We see that through the Word  “all things came into being.”

All things…the whole of creation.

I think there’s a tendency for us that when we speak about “the creation”…we sometimes shortchange what that means.

We talk about the land and the sea…forests…hilltops…and maybe we’ll mention the animals and the birds.

Too often we forget that we…the human race…are also part of the creation story.

We also evolved from all of that creative activity of the birthing of the world and are interconnected with all the species and all life on the planet.

John asserts that “without him not one thing came into being.”

Without God and God’s Word…none of creation would have happened.

This isn’t about denying the science of anything like the Big Bang Theory.

But rather this is recognizing that God lit the spark and was in that creative mix.

“And what came into being in him was life…and the life was the light of all people.”

Take just a moment to breathe in that pronouncement.

“The life was the light of all people.”

Again…I think it can be too easy for us… a people who have the benefit of living in today’s world…to separate ourselves from the idea that there is a divine spark that is in all of us.

We tend to downplay not only our connection to the rest of creation…but we don’t see that connection as a line back to God…to Jesus…and to the Holy Trinity.

And yet…that seems to be what John wants us to see.

We are also bearers of the light…as adoptive children of God through Christ.

Remember what we prayed at the beginning of the service in our opening collect:

“Grant that this light, enkindled in our hearts, may shine forth in our lives.”

 And that leads to another important part of this Gospel reading:

“The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.”

There is a lot of hurt both in our own lives and out in the world around us.

The end of the year holidays always seem to bring a mix of the joyful celebrations and sadness and grief about those whom we no longer see.

Dreams that were not fulfilled.

And we know that not all is right in the world around us.

But even in the moments of loss and when things look their bleakest…the light shines on and does not burn out.

No matter what may seem heavy and weighty…that light of Christ within us…doesn’t fade.

I think about the response this community made to the scare over SNAP benefits ending as proof of that enduring light.

When the government was shut down and those who depended on food stamps to feed themselves and their families was under threat…the people here responded and have continued to respond…with canned food goods.

And our contributions have been noticed and very much appreciated.

At a time of great need…the light from this community shined into the darkness.

Just as the Word became flesh and lived among us….the Word continues to live through the flesh and blood that is us.

And the more we live into the teachings of Jesus…the more we look to his ministry and the way he cares for people…the bigger and brighter the light of Christ will shine through us and cut through the darkest corners of our world.

John’s Gospel text is not only telling us how Jesus came into this world.

John is calling on us to see ourselves in a new way…and to transform our lives and live into this mission of Jesus…as God’s adopted children…understanding that it won’t be an easy life.

That’s not the promise.

In fact…John makes it clear that even though the Word is the light to enlighten everyone…not everyone wanted a part of that light.

Rejection…disappointment…even abandonment are still part of the story.

And yet…the light shines on.

The purveyors of fear don’t stand a chance when the people of light commit to the Work of Christmas…which happens to be a poem by the theologian Howard Thurman…and seems like the appropriate bookend to John’s poetic Word:

When the song of the angels is stilled,

When the star in the sky is gone,

When the kings and princes are home,

When the shepherds are back with their flock,

The work of Christmas begins:

To find the lost,

 To heal the broken,

 To feed the hungry,

To release the prisoner,

To rebuild the nations,

 To bring peace among others,

 To make music in the heart.

May we all continue to build upon the light of Christ and carry it in our hearts and into our communities and commit our lives to this holy work.

In the name of our One Holy and Undivided Trinity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

To Be Like God: A Christmas Eve sermon

 

I know I gave this sermon a different title on our St. Barnabas YouTube channel, but it occurs to me this title fits better with my overall message. 

I used this same Grimm Brothers story in an entry on my Substack, and as I was writing that entry...and as I discussed the story with my spiritual director, I realized that this anti-fairy tale had a theological as well as a moral message for us. 

See what you think. And Merry Christmas!

Text: Luke 2:1-20

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As a child…I enjoyed being read to at bedtime.

And it was often my dad who would read me to sleep.

One of my favorite stories was by the Grimm Brothers.

It was called The Fisherman and His Wife.

It’s an anti-fairy tale… the story of two people living in abject poverty by the sea.

One day…the fisherman goes out to the water…and he catches this tremendous flounder.

The fish pleads with the fisherman to please let him go…he’s not just a fish but a prince.

The fisherman was pretty amazed to have found a talking fish…so of course he releases him…and the fish dives deep into the sea.

The fisherman goes back to his wife and tells her all about this amazing talking fish.

But his wife was wondering why her husband hadn’t thought to ask for something from this fish.

The fisherman shrugs and says he wouldn’t know what to ask for.

The wife looks around.

“We’re living in a pig sty. You could have asked for a nice cottage. Go back to the sea and ask for a cottage.”

The fisherman reluctantly goes back and he notices that the sea has become a strange murky green color.

He calls out to the fish:

“O man of the sea! Hearken to me! My wife Ilsabill will have her own will and hath sent me to beg a boon of thee!”

The fish comes swimming to the surface, “What does she want?”

The fisherman tells him she wants a nice cottage.

The fish tells him this request has been granted and to go home.

The fisherman goes home and finds his wife in a beautiful cottage with a couple of rooms…a nice kitchen…a garden with chickens and other animals.

This is a big step up from the pig sty.

His wife is delighted…..for a week.

But then she wants more.

She wants a stone castle.

She tells her husband to go back to the sea and ask the fish for a castle.

Again…he goes…even though he’s not really feeling great about all of this.

The sea is looking darker…and choppier. He gives the same bidding for the fish to hear his wife’s plea for a castle.

The fish again tells him to go home and he’ll find his wife waiting for him.

And sure enough…there’s now a stone castle and she has a throne with diamonds and gold.

But she’s still not satisfied.

Next she wants to be the Empress.

The fisherman is sent back to the angry sea…and the fish grants her the wish of being the Empress.

Certainly…that should satisfy her needs.

But no.

She wants to be the Pope.

The fisherman protests that she can’t possibly be made Pope…but she demands that he go to fish and tells him she wants to be made Pope.

The fisherman drudges back to the now very stormy sea…makes the request… and the fish makes her the first female pope in the history of Roman Catholicism.

She’s still not satisfied.

It only takes her a few hours to be bored with being Pope. It’s not grand enough.

She wants to be God….to rule over the Sun and the Moon.

The fisherman is really not wanting to go back and ask for this…but his wife thunders that he must go ask the fish to make her God.

So he goes back…to a sea with dark waters and lightening flashing everywhere as the waves are crashing onto the shore.

The fisherman makes his standard plea for the fish to come to the surface and hear his wife’s latest request.

“What does she want,” asks the fish.

The fisherman trembling tells the fish that she wants to be God.

So the fish grants this wish too.

And when the fisherman goes home…he finds that the couple has been returned to their lowly estate of living in a pig sty.

The Grimm Brothers story is one about the dangers of greed…and how it can consume and warp a person.

But I think if we consider the ending…it also makes an interesting point about God.

When the wife wants to be God…she assumes this is going to grant her powers beyond all powers…to give her more wealth and prestige than even stature of royalty and the papacy.

But to be like God in this story is to be poor.

Seems the Grimm Brothers not only understood the way greed distorts the human soul…they also knew something about the nature of God.

Because we know from our stories in the Gospels…when God enters the world through the birth of Jesus…it happens not in a grand palace to the super rich and famous.

God arrives in the form of a baby…a vulnerable child born to a carpenter and his very young fiancé.

And when the angels come to sing and trumpet the good news of Glory to God and Peace on Earth… they didn’t bring these glad tidings to the Herods of the region…or any of the other tetrarchs or even to the Roman Emperor…Caesar Augustus.

They found the shepherds…those who were among the lower working class…tasked with spending their nights watching over the sacrificial sheep belonging to the Temple…to hear this incredible news.

I think this is one of the important messages to us here in the 21^st century as we revisit this story and welcome this season of Christmas.

God loves and seeks out those who are on the margins of society…and God takes those who the rest of the world ignores and puts them into the center.

Because for God…borders are meaningless and people are not to be put into figurative boxes.

Each of us has a life that is important and meaningful to God…no matter who we are…or what labels we own.

And let’s face it: God isn’t about being tidy either.

Think about it.

Childbirth is risky and bloody…even in our modern world with sterilized equipment and trained medical staff.

And what we’re told is that Jesus was born amidst the hay and the animals because there wasn’t enough room for this poor couple to be lodged with other humans.

I read an article recently that described the terrain of Bethlehem.

That unlike our nativity scenes that make it look as if the Holy Family was in a farmhouse barn… Bethlehem is a lot of very rocky terrain and mountains and caves.

The “inn” would have been in the front opening of the cave…while the animals were kept in the back at night.

So in these cramped stony quarters…with the stench of animals in the air… and hay bales for a birthing bed…this is how Jesus…the God with Us…came into the world.

It is into a messy…dangerous…noisy and chaotic world that God meets humanity on our level.

And the ask is simply that we receive and allow God into the fray with us.

Allow God to meet us in whatever circumstances we’re in…whatever joys or sorrows we’re holding…whatever fears hang over our heads…and whatever hopes we have in our hearts…on this night we’re asked to take a pause to realize that God cares enough about all of it…that God trusted a vulnerable couple…and a ragtag bunch of shepherds to be the ones to tell the story.

God is still counting on us today to be the ones who are willing to share this wonder…to see that the true power to transform this world is not given to the the well-heeled and famous.

And true power isn’t about domination and diminishing others.

God gives agency and power to the average person…to  you and me…to be the ones who can meet the needs of this world…because God has met us and loved us on our level through the life and ministry of Jesus.

On this Holy Night….we look to this new life that we celebrate each Christmas…as the one who came to show us that Love…Mercy…and Compassion is the way to live our lives.

To follow that path is the way to peace…and joy…which we can share with others as our gift to the world.

In the name of our One Holy and Undivided Trinity.