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.

 

Hope Comes in the Darkness

 

I admit that I am playing catch up tonight with posting my sermon texts. I've been that busy this past week, and it isn't going to let up for at least another week or more. 'Tis the season.

And because it's that season...there are those for whom Christmas is not a happy time. And after the year we've been living in the United States with this horrible regime who have been grabbing people off the streets...with the blessing of the Roberts Court...this has been a really hard year. 

So we offered a "Blue Christmas" service, which included a time for healing prayers and anointing with oil. Here's the message I offered...in light of the Gospel reading from Luke. See what you think.

Text: Luke 2:8-20

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When I first proposed that we hold this Blue Christmas service…the members of our worship committee chuckled…thinking I was proposing some kind of Elvis tribute.

And while this isn’t a gathering we have traditionally done here at St. Barnabas…it’s one that many Episcopal Churches have come to provide to their communities in recent years.

Christmas…especially in this hemisphere…where the days are shorter and the nights are longer… is a time when some are feeling oddly out of step with the expectation of being joyous.

And I couldn’t help but notice that THIS year…more than at any other time that I recall…many of my clergy colleagues across the country seemed to have reached a similar conclusion:

That 20-25 needs a Blue Christmas.

Because 20-25 has been one very hard and difficult year for a lot of people.

Heck…just the past eight days has felt like a particularly trying time…with shootings and murders of Rob and Michelle Reiner…and the ugly words spoken and shared across social media about all of it.

The accusations and anger surrounding the murder of Charlie Kirk this summer got reawakened all over again.

And the prospect of rising costs of healthcare and groceries is lingering in the heads of millions of people.

That pall of sourness and meanness that hangs over all of us and only makes whatever personal struggles we each are wrestling with feel that much worse.

We are…unfortunately…a people sitting in darkness…and not just because this happens to be the shortest day of the year.

And yet…even in the darkest of times…it’s important to remember that darkness is a temporary occurrence.

The light is still out there if we keep our eyes open and searching.

We can hear that message in both the prophecy of Isaiah as well as our Gospel.

Both the prophet and the angel deliver a message to people who are feeling as though they are in a hopeless situation.

The people in Isaiah’s time were afraid of one set of enemies…only to be conquered by a different army.

Mary and Joseph...as well as the shepherds…were living under the thumb of an occupying Roman Empire.

And in both cases…in their troubled times…the promise was there that the future was brighter…and they’d be walking in the light again.

 

A time was at hand when they will be comforted by the presence of a wonderful counselor and prince of peace.

The fact that the angel made this known first to shepherds is that reminder to us today that God seeks out those on the margins for this good news.

Shepherds weren’t the ruling class….(they still aren’t today).

They were the working poor of the First Century…so low on the class strata that they were seen as social outcasts.

These shepherds were minding the sheep at night…in the dark as it were.

Regular sheep herders did their work in the day…so scholars think these shepherds were associated with the Temple…caring for the sheep that would be used for sacrificial purposes that would have needed round the clock observation.

It’s to this group of people…doing the unglamourous work others wouldn’t do for the benefit of the community…that the angel came to deliver the news of hope.

It was this group…not the political…religious or even economic leaders…who received a vision of a great light and saw a heavenly chorus singing of peace and glory coming into the world.

In the darkest hours…the promise of God is to meet those of us who are sitting in gloom and grief…be present with us.

And encourage us to lift up our heads…open our eyes and receive light…love…hope…peace…and yes: even comforting joy.

When things aren’t right in our lives or in the world around us…we have this Christmas story as our reminder that we are not alone.

Psalm 30 says “Weeping may spend the night…but joy comes in the morning.”

Keep the faith.

And may we all come to see the dawning of Christ’s light of Love for us and the world this Christmas.

In the Name of Our One Holy and Undivided Trinity.

 

 

 

 

The Dream of God

It's always so much fun when I am able to connect the stories in the Gospels to the roots of the Old Testament. And Matthew's Gospel makes it easy since he is always wanting us to know that the things happening with Jesus are fulfillments of the prophecies from before. 

So here's the story behind the story of how Matthew wants us to understand the birth of Jesus as the long-awaited answer to right the wrongs of Israel's past. See what you think.

Texts: Isaiah 7: 10-16; Matthew 1:18-25

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Have you ever had a dream that feels so real that when you wake up…you almost have to pinch yourself?

I once had one like that years ago when I was working in radio.

Our half-hour magazine program was pre-recorded.

At that time…we were still in the analog days of reel-to-reel tape machines.

We hadn’t yet made the transition to digital files.

We depended upon an engineer to hit the play button and send our show out over the NPR satellite system.

In this dream…there was some crisis that happened which prevented our program from starting on time.

And for whatever reason…the engineer wasn’t in the control room.

So…I had to rush into the room…quickly fast forward the program to the correct starting place…so that the show would air and time out correctly.

I remember waking up…and the palm of my hands were sweaty from having gone through such a stressful situation in my dream.

Later that week…on that Friday evening when “Capitol Report” was to air…. for all the public radio stations in Florida….there was silence.

The engineer wasn’t in the control room to start the show.

I ran into the room…quickly hit the fast forward button…and pushed play at the exact point we needed to for show to air and time out correctly.

I couldn’t believe that I had had a dream…and in my dream I had already rehearsed this scenario so that I knew what to do.

I was both amazed…and very grateful.

Dreams can be fanciful and weird as our brains process the information they’ve taken in during our waking hours.

And they can be informative and give us messages that will help us see our way through the difficult decisions of life.

Because our conscious egocentric selves are at rest and quiet…this is the perfect time for God to reach us.

We hear in our Gospel about a dream that helped guide Joseph to rethink his decision to dismiss his pregnant young wife.

We can understand the predicament of this couple.

Joseph had probably had another dream about his life’s purpose and direction.

He’d probably fantasized about starting a family with Mary…and making the most of his life as a carpenter.

Instead…he learns from her that she has been visited by an angel and she’s already pregnant.

We can imagine such news would’ve rocked his world as his vision of a simple family life gets completely shattered.

Fortunately…Joseph had enough of a sensitive nature that he understood and had empathy for the precarious situation of Mary.

According to the Torah…Joseph not only would have been in his rights to break off the engagement…but he could’ve brought her before the priest…and made her a public spectacle…accusing her of adultery (Numbers 5:12-28).

That’s when an angel paid him a visit in a dream…and gave him the directive he needed…to carry out a much larger vision.

And the rest…as they say…is history.

And speaking of history…Matthew wants to make sure that we see that connection between the sign given to King Ahaz from the prophet Isaiah and this announcement of Jesus’ birth.

For Matthew…this is the fulfillment of a promise God made to the Jewish community …and to us later as the Christian Church of today.

Who was Ahaz and why does this matter?

Ahaz was the son of Jotham…the ruler of Judah.

He succeeded his father to the throne in the year 735 BCE when he was only 20 years old.

King Ahaz was not remembered as a “righteous” king.

Among his many dastardly deeds was to sacrifice his own son in a pagan ritual.

Ahaz cared more about being in power and had an ego that went on forever…including building altars all over Jerusalem to worship anyone but the God of his ancestors.

This vague sign given to Ahaz…about a young woman giving birth to a child who “will eat curds and honey before he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good” made little impression on him.

He refused to pay attention to this sign.

Because Ahaz refused to listen to Isaiah…and take this sign as a reason to follow God as opposed to looking to human alliances for protection and his own will for greed and grift…he led his people into disaster and their downfall to the violent and repressive Assyrian regime.

Now…we hear Matthew in our Gospel making this historical connection for those descended from the Assyrian exile to see that this vision spoken to Ahaz is now coming to fruition.

This child that Mary is bearing is that long sought-for sign of Jerusalem’s rescue from oppression and the tyranny of a new occupying force…the Roman Empire.

Matthew’s message: Don’t be like Ahaz.

Don’t doubt God’s will acting in the world.

Trust in this sign that we will be delivered from our distress.

And here we are now…so many centuries later…hearing these words and being asked again to trust that God is going to be with us.

We are invited to look to this inbreaking of God…Emmanuel…of God with us…to be reminded that change is coming.

Hope is being born.

Peace is on the horizon.

Joy is ready to be stirred up as Love meets the challenges of our times.

We are at a moment in our collective lives in this country where this Love is desperately needed.

Things are not OK in the world right now.

There are still wars.

There are people so afraid of masked agents of the government that they will not leave their homes.

Farmers are struggling to find markets for their goods.

And our government is involved in scandal upon scandal with no accountability while scapegoating whole segments of the population.

We are once more being beckoned to hear this story of the birth of Jesus and see it as the sign of a change that is coming…a change that stands at a 90-degree angle to the brokenness of our world and demands that we meet these challenges with Love.

Because the world that Jesus came into in the First Century was also full of chaos and corruption.

It was also full of people scared of their governing authorities.

It was also ruled by fear and intimidation.

If there ever was a time when we need to be brought back to the that dream experienced by Joseph…the vision that kept him standing with Mary and helping to bring this sign of Hope and Love into the world…now is the time.

The question for us: Are we ready to receive this gift of God?

We know the beginning…middle and end of the Jesus story.

We also know that with each time we encounter this narrative we are getting that nudge to do our part to be more like Joseph…and less like Ahaz.

To trust that God’s purpose will be worked out through us doing our part to live into the reality that Love is a greater force for change…that faith can help us overcome fear…and that we have a role to play in making this a better world for everyone.

Our former Presiding Bishop Michael Curry was fond of reminding us that the dream God had for this world was one where the mountains of problems we see in front of us are lowered…and the valleys of despair are drained and raised up.

That dream is still possible…if we keep looking…and noticing…and seeking the helpers in the world.

It can be the reality if we trust in the teachings of Jesus to lead us toward building up our communities.

It will come about with our leaning into our faith that God is with us as we serve the Christ in each other.

God is with us…and in us…to be the light and the love in the world.

In the name of Our One Holy and Undivided Trinity.

 

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To get the full story of Ahaz, look at Isaiah Chapter 7 and 2 Kings 16. 

 

 

 

 

Live into the Questions

 

I am a big fan of John the Baptizer. And so I am always happy to have him show up in Advent to kick our butts.

But as I was thinking about things at St. Barnabas, where we have had to say good bye to multiple people who are moving away, and the general malaise that seems to be hanging over the nation as we grapple with more and more outrageous news every day, I found myself thinking about John's ranting at the Jordan River as not just a dressing down of those who talk a good game about their faith, but don't show much for it, but also as an invitation to figure out why we don't live up to our ideals, and then what do we need to do to change that. 

The end result was this sermon. See what you think.

Texts: Isaiah 11:1-11; Matt 3: 1-13

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If you’ve ever gone shopping for Christmas cards…you know that you have basically two choices.

You can go either the route that emphasizes secular images of Santa Claus and reindeer….snowflakes.

Or you have the Christian images of the Holy Family and usually a very white Jesus in the manger.

Perhaps you might find some with a bright star of Bethlehem…but that’s pretty much the gamut of the Christmas card rack.

What we never see are Advent cards.

Probably because no one wants to open up a card with John the Baptizer in his camel’s hair shirt and leather belt greeting them with a hearty “Blessed Advent You Brood of Vipers!”

Not the friendliest of holiday greetings.

And for John…he’s not interested in being warm and fuzzy.

Let’s remember who he is.

He’s the son of Elizabeth and Zechariah…a pastor’s kid.

If we recall…his mother was an older woman.

The angel Gabriel told Zechariah while he was in the Temple that his wife was pregnant.

She was going to have a son…and they were to name him John.

 Zechariah was like…

“Hmmmm….I dunno about this. I’m old and she’s old…so…hmmm”

That’s when Gabriel mutes Zechariah…until the time that John is born and at his circumcision…the people wanted to know the child’s name.

Elizabeth told everyone, “His name is John.”

But nobody else in their family line had that name…so the crowd turns to Zechariah.

And Zechariah gets a tablet and writes down that the child’s name is John…and…miracle of miracles…he gets his speech back.

Finally able to speak again…he launches into a proclamation…which we have in our Book of Common Prayer…. the Song of Zechariah….which y’all can find on page 92 if you want to look it up.

It’s one of the many canticles we use weekly in Morning Prayer services.

It’s a loving tribute of father to son…as he makes this prediction about John’s future:

“You, my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way, to give the people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins.”

Now…I don’t know if Zechariah knew that his son…having grown up with a priest for a dad…was going to become a rebel.

John saw the ways in which the religious institution and those wishing to preserve the institution under a hostile power like the Roman Empire…had been…in his opinion…letting things get corrupted.  

John saw the way that those embedded and invested in the system had not lived up to expectations and he wanted a more pure religion.

This would lead him to start another branch of Judaism…the Essenes.

John went out into the wilderness…to the outskirts of Jerusalem…west of the Dead Sea.

He called upon people to come out to the Jordan River to be baptized…or immersed…in the waters and confess that they’d turned away from keeping God front and center in their lives.

And I don’t know if Zechariah or Elizabeth knew their son would be yelling at other Jewish leaders and calling them a “brood of vipers”….which is a pretty ugly slam on the Sadducees and Pharisees.

A brood is a group of newborn vipers…and newborn vipers were known to eat their way out through the stomachs of their mothers…killing off their mamas in the process.

When these leaders…make an appearance before John for a baptism… John rails against them…accusing them of having eaten away at Judaism in favor of their own comfort and power.

They’ve come to the Jordan for baptism…but he says they haven’t done anything to show they’re ready to turn themselves in a Godward direction…and drop their ego-driven ways and their need for power and self-satisfaction.

John isn’t playing.

Because he knows there’s yet another one coming…one with a baptism that is greater than his own.

A baptism not of water but of fire.

Not a wildfire…burning out of control and scorching the earth.

But more like the fire of blacksmith…melting and warming and refining the people’s souls and refashioning them in the image of God.

Just as Zechariah had a vision of his son’s future…John has a vision of a future that will come with this One whose so great that John doesn’t feel worthy to carry his sandals.

This is the coming of Jesus…the second person of the Trinity…coming to be in the world…living as one of us…and putting into motion a work of teaching us to live into Love.

This is what’s at play during this season of Advent.

While the world around us is encouraging us to buy more stuff…go to more parties…and listen to holiday music as we move around the grocery store…John is yelling at us to prepare our inner house…our hearts…for a greater gift…the gift of God coming to us through Jesus and realigning our lives to God’s will.

To take care of one another.

To pay attention to those around us.

To show kindness…mercy…and compassion to ourselves and those who are on this journey with us.

That’s what “repentance” really means.

Like it’s sister season of Lent…Advent is the invitation for all of us to step back and do a self-assessment and take stock of how we’re doing during this time…what are the things that are feeding us and leading us in the direction of that peaceable kingdom we heard in the Isaiah reading.

What are those prejudices…jealousies…and desires to control others that are interfering with us living into a life where we model the love of God as known to us through the life of Jesus?

John’s voice in the wilderness is an echo to us here in the 21^st century to slow down and pay attention and not treat this inbreaking of God into the world as a one-off or a fad.

But to see this as a chance to do some reflecting on where we might not be living up to our promises made at baptism…those ideals of “seeking and serving Christ in all people” and…”striving for justice and peace among all people.” This is our chance to do a course correction.

Now that might feel like…”Sheesh! Yet another thing during this hyper busy time of the year!

But it’s really not meant to be taken that way.

Advent is about a beginning.

This is the season to ask those questions of ourselves…and to ponder them…and NOT to answer them right away…but rather to live into those questions as we progress along toward Christmas.

During this season…we can receive this message from John the Baptizer…and hear it as an invitation.

Consider it as an opportunity to do some weeding and pruning of those things that keep us from experiencing that Love which comes to us each year.

Use this as a time to sit with questions…and pray for the guidance we need to bear that good fruit of our lives and to be the best versions of our beloved selves.

Ponder and prepare…as we draw nearer to this Love of God in Christ.

In the name of our One Holy and Undivided Trinity.

 

The Hope of Advent

 

Well, here we are again at the beginning of another cycle. And as bleak as things are in the nation, with our Secretary of Defense on the defensive for ordering the extrajudicial killing of two people whose fishing boat the U.S. had bombed on suspicion that they were drug smugglers...I am not hopeless.

I feel something is coming...which is strange to have that feeling in a true sense about our nation at the same time that we, who believe in the story of Jesus and determination of God to get us to come back to Love, are in the season of Advent. Advent is about beginning. It's about the build up and anticipation of God with Us...Emmanuel. 

Even as things are not all positive and happy, I still sense that we are moving toward a turn toward a truly new thing in the United States as more and more people are getting fed up with the status quo that leaves them in the status of NO.

Buckle up. Here we go! 

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Happy New Year!

Yes…it is a new year…a new season…as we move into this time called “Advent”…a time of expectation and waiting.

We also transition into hearing more readings from the Gospel of Matthew.

We will be getting a little more Luke…and a smattering of the Gospel of John toward the end of the month.

But in this new cycle of the church year…the primary evangelist we’ll be hearing from is Matthew.

Like all our Gospels…Matthew has a particular way of looking at the life and ministry of Jesus.

Where Luke wants to give an orderly account of our Messiah…and has a keen focus on God’s concern for the disenfranchised and the poor….Matthew’s Gospel wants us to know that Jesus is most definitely the fulfillment of all the dreams of the Jewish prophets.

Matthew will remind us that whatever we hear and read about Jesus and the things Jesus is doing…it’s because Isaiah or Jeremiah told us so first.

Matthew also wants us to be good students…as he emphasizes Jesus as a teacher.

The Sermon on the Mount is the master class in how we are to live and move and have our being.

The Jesus of Matthew gets into many arguments with the Pharisees over interpretation of the Torah.

In that way…we might understand that Jesus really is a rabbi’s rabbi.

And Matthew’s Gospel gives us the birth narrative as seen through the experience of Joseph.

We hear the story of the Holy Family as refugees…and a father following messages in dreams to take his young family into a foreign land and away from the danger of the bullies and tyrants of the Roman Empire.

Matthew gets placed first in the roster of the Gospels …largely because Matthew’s version of Jesus’s life was the most popularly shared by the very early Christian church.

And that very early Christian church…the one of 80CE…was so moved by the First Advent of Jesus…his birth and life among them…that they anxiously were awaiting Jesus’s return.

Which brings us back around to this season of Advent…and today’s odd Gospel reading on this First Sunday of Advent.

It’s a little strange that as we are preparing for Christmas….what we heard this morning was a reading where Jesus is in one of his teaching moments…preparing his followers for the dangerous trek into Jerusalem.

This talk of staying awake…being prepared…people being taken and others left behind…sounds more like an ending than a beginning.

We’re starting this new year not with a baby shower…but with a reminder of what was the experience of God’s people…what now is…and what will be.

For those of us sitting here today…this all may sound strange.

But this was important to those first hearers of this Gospel… a people who had been conquered multiple times…and are now reeling from yet-another war and the destruction of their main institution: the Temple of Jerusalem.

They’ve been waiting and wondering what’s been taking Jesus so long to come back?

When is the Messiah coming to help us?

I think we can relate to those feelings.

How many of us at one time or another have looked at things happening around us….the news reports that come to us every night…the realities of wars happening around the world…our own country’s participation in violence…and senseless shootings on the streets and in public spaces… that have us asking that question:

“How long, O Lord, how long?”

When chaos seems to be the rule of the day…we can feel our faith getting tried and tested.

That’s where Matthew’s Jesus steps in.

Jesus is here to remind us that God is aware…and is not idly standing by…and will make things right…by us…through us…and with us.

God hasn’t forgotten the covenant made with humanity…the promise to Noah not to drown us,

Jesus didn’t fail in teaching us to love and care for one another…if we…you and me together…trust and keep putting forth the effort to seek and serve Christ in each other….and strive for justice…peace…mercy and compassion.

That’s the encouragement we hear in this Gospel message.

We don’t know when Jesus’ Second Coming…the Second Advent…will come.

And we aren’t supposed to know.

And we also aren’t supposed to sit around….parsing ancient texts and developing formulas to figure out when Jesus is coming back.

We have all heard and seen the countless stories of people predicting Jesus’ return.

And in the words of the great theologian Rocky the Flying Squirrel…”That trick never works.”

Instead…we are to take in a reality that has already been…that Jesus came into the world…ministered to the needs of a beleaguered and oppressed people…taught and showed those who would listen how to love…died for committing the crime of love…and ultimately proved that death doesn’t defeat God’s purposes…and Love always wins.

And Love shows up in our lives in the most unpredictable ways.

There’s a story that the theologian Howard Thurman tells about the time when he was heading off to a boarding school.

Because Thurman was black…there were no educational opportunities available to him in Daytona Florida during the early part of the 20^th century.

Schooling for black children ended at the eighth grade.

But his teachers saw something in him and he was given this chance to go to a high school and live with relatives in Jacksonville..

He had the money to buy his train ticket.

But when he arrived at the station with his trunk…he found out that he would also have to pay a fee for his luggage.

The fourteen year-old Thurman was crushed.

He had no money.

He sat on a bench weeping as he thought about his dreams fading away.

That’s when a stranger dressed in overalls came along.

He saw Thurman and asked him why he was so distressed.

And when the stranger heard that Thurman was penniless and couldn’t pay the fee to put his luggage on the train….this stranger pulled out his wallet and paid the fare.

That act of kindness was all it took to help Howard Thurman live into his dream of getting an education which led him to follow his calling to become one of the influential religious thinkers of the 20^th century.

Not only did that stranger help a distraught teenaged Thurman…his generosity benefitted all of us.

It’s these types of small but consequential actions that help to bring more light into the world.

Advent invites us to into considering how we…doing our best each day to live into that hope and that trust in Love…can help shed light back out into our broader communities.

Our Jewish relatives have a term for this: tikkun olam: the repairing of the world.

And it’s a constant task set before us.

It’s what we mean when we pray “thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.”

By living into the way of Love and hope…we are doing our part to keep building a better future and a more just society…both in the giving and the receiving.

In this season of expectation and preparation…may we stay awake to ourselves and those around us…as we continue our journey in grace…peace and love.

In the name of our One Holy and Undivided Trinity.