God is with us: A Homily for Blue Christmas

St. Thomas Episcopal, Year A 

12-22-19 Texts: Isaiah 7:10-16, Matthew 1:18-25 

“Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: 

“Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,” 

which means, “God is with us.” When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife,but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.” 

O come, O Bright and Morning Star, and bring us comfort from afar! Dispel the shadows of the night and turn our darkness into light. 

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel. 

In the name of God, who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen. 

“God is with us.” 

After “Do not be afraid” those are probably some of the best and kindest words spoken in the Gospels. And yet...they can also feel like a hollow promise, especially when we are feeling cut off from God, isolated and alone.   

Our gospel reading doesn’t speak directly to these feelings. But if we consider the situation presented, we can rightly get a glimpse of what was happening for the Holy family of Joseph and Mary.  

“Before they were engaged...Mary is pregnant by the Holy Spirit.”  

Not by Joseph. Such a situation was troublesome for Mary, a young woman, who is carrying a child she’s been told will save her people who are living under oppressed and corrupt circumstances. That’s a lot to take in...and having to tell this to your beloved with whom you haven’t had sexual relations. “Joseph...I’m pregnant by the Holy Spirit.”  

Imagine Joseph in this situation. He loves Mary. She has promised to be his wife. But she’s pregnant. And he’s not the father. This is scandalous. He is aware of the danger he will be putting Mary in if he exposes her. This is an honor/shame society they’re living in, and not only will this bring shame upon her and him...it will mean that Mary can be ostracized for this betrayal, put out from her community. And with no knowledge of who is the father, her child would be permanently cut off. Such a life would likely have led to them being beggars and her child may have failed to thrive.   

It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to understand the sense of loss, feeling broken and the fear that is hanging like a cloud over both of them.  

Can Mary trust Joseph to believe her?  

As for Joseph...can he think his way to a resolution of this seemingly impossible situation?  

Can he love her enough to let her go quietly so that she isn’t killed by the cruelty of the culture? 

Enter the angel into Joseph’s dream. We hear the words, “Do not be afraid” and the promise that this child is “God is with us.” Through his own doubt, and sense of feeling isolated and having to solve what he thinks of as a problem...Joseph is reassured that he is not carrying a burden; he’s being entrusted to keep Mary and this child safe.  He follows through...and we learn in later verses in this Gospel that he keeps listening to the visitors in his dreams and hurries his young family off to Egypt to escape persecution. They are refugees...in a strange and foreign land...seeking shelter from a rageful and jealous King Herod. 

And it is into this troublesome, uncertain, and filled-with-worry world in which Jesus is born.   

“God is with us” does not come into safety and security with soft-focus Hallmark lighting.  

“God is with us” in the time when things feel the most off-kilter and out-of-balance.  

“God is with us” and meets us where we are in whatever state of mind or condition that is...and remains with us through the highs and lows of life. This is the Christian hope which comes to us at Christmas time. 

The visual reminder of this promise is in the Advent candles that we’ll be lighting in a few moments. As we look into those flames dancing on the end of the wick, I invite us all to see the promise of light penetrating through the clouds of our conscious minds. This light shines into our hearts the eternal reminder that God is with us...now and always.  

Possibilities and Transformation

Sermon 2 Advent, Year A

12-8-2019

Isaiah 11:1-10; Ps.72; Romans 15:4-13; Matt 3:1-12

(10am: May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be always acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.)

If I were to pick two words that I see as themes of our readings this morning they would be “potential” and “transformation.” 

There is such potential arising from the stump of Jesse…a shoot…a small twig…sprouting up out of dead wood. A light shines upon the shoot…a spirit of wisdom and insight and counsel is present. And then—imagine this? --wolves and lambs, calves and lions, cows and bears are all living together in peace on God’s holy mountain. In our translation, there is a little boy who leads this menagerie. The Hebrew—in some translations—is that the boy will herd them, which might make more sense given this unusual grouping of animals. 

There is even potential harmony in Paul’s letter to the Romans as Jews welcome Gentiles into the fold and the two are grafted together into the love of Christ.

And then there is John the Baptizer calling out in the wilderness: 

“Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight!” 

He’s like a trumpet sounding a blast to alert the populace: a new thing is coming! Come! Repent…which is to say turn over a new leaf in your life… get baptized in the River Jordan and be transformed! 

When the Pharisees and the Sadducees show up…(speaking of odd pairings?!)…John blasts them with some tough love…and yet he tells them to “bear fruit worthy of repentance.” There is still the potential for them…these keepers of the old…to become part of the new. For John, this is a demand that these two groups let go of their fixations on how one is to worship God and transform their “right way to do things” into the task of doing “the right thing” of God’s work: feeding, healing and caring for one another.

There is so much potential in all of these readings, so much promise. So much opportunity to hit the reset button and live differently and be renewed. 

And yet…these visions are not fully realized. The peaceable kingdom of Isaiah forecasts an amazing future…in this case a future for a post-war people of Israel. But it is only a vision.

The fledgling Jewish Christian communities of the early church will undergo many breaks and accusations of who can be a real follower of The Way.

And while the prophet Isaiah paints such a hopeful and shiny portrait of tranquility in the future, John is prophesying something wild and definitely disruptive. His is the potential of upending the current world order, one in which the religious authorities of the Temple, the Sadducees, and the keepers of the Law, the Pharisees, are considered “a brood of vipers.” And we all know snakes pose a threat in the Biblical story. John is predicting the arrival of someone wilder, woolier, more radical than himself who will bring a fire of baptism of the Holy Spirit. And that Spirit is going to burn away all the rot. Just wait and see!

In many ways, our biblical theme of seeing a future of what could be, what might be, what ought to be shouldn’t feel that foreign to us. Humanity always seems to be on the cusp of turning a corner and overcoming the things that ail us. We always seem to have great potential…but are full greatness lies just ahead of us. In this country, we have mass production of food and yet we have children who are hungry.  More women are in the professional work force with a third of all lawyers now being women and yet wage inequality between the sexes still exists. We support our troops, and yet too many veterans end up in homeless shelters. We promise racial equality…yet the systems remain in place that undercut that pledge. Oh, yes: The kingdom of heaven is near…and yet it has not arrived. 

Is there hope for ushering in a new heaven and new earth? 

Yes!

Because there is a shoot…a twig…growing out of the old stump of Jesse.  New life is coming and is possible. It begins with following the call of John the Baptizer for us…each of us…to enter into a time in the wilderness and do the work of inner transformation. A time to reconsider priorities, and remember the mission of God, so that we can go about the task of healing, caring, and freeing our community to receive God’s gift of abundant and unconditional love that God so wants to bestow upon us. When we become reformed and reshaped…our transformation manifests in the spaces we inhabit. A prime example? Right here.

Just in the few months I’ve been with you I am seeing this image of this shoot as a perfect metaphor for St. Monica and St. James. 

This parish family has certainly known challenges over the past decade. Two congregations have become one body in Christ. Pruning has had to happen with the sale of the rectory. And the construction and refurbishing of the physical space has led to some periods that might have felt a little bit like venturing out into the wilderness. And yet something such as the installation of an elevator points to the potential of full access for all people to our newly painted worship space. 

At the town hall meeting two weeks ago, Father William noted some of the changes in our parish hall and the office area downstairs. The remodeling has such potential to bring in new life into this space and make this building a place of meeting God both in the quiet of worship and in active community engagement. 

All these grace-filled possibilities, all this God-given potential…lies ahead of us. Something new can happen…if we dare to dream it into reality. And it all begins with us tending to ourselves, welcoming in what is new, and allowing for the transformation to happen. 

We’re not there yet. But the possibilities lie before us.

May this Advent be a time for us to strive for our greater potential through our own transformation both in our hearts and in our house of worship. And let us do this so we can prepare the way for those who are seeking Christ in our community.

Bullies and Tyrants Beware: Christ the King Sunday

Last Sunday After Pentecost (Christ the King), Year C

Luke 23:33-43; Jeremiah 23:1-6; Ps. 46; Col. 1:11-20

St. Monica and St. James, Capitol Hill

Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” 

In the name of God…Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The Church has been calling this last Sunday after Pentecost “Christ the King Sunday” since the early part of the 20^th century. Yet nothing about this situation in our Gospel seems fitting for a king.

Let’s consider this scene for a moment. The man Jesus hangs bloodied and bruised between two criminals. “Leaders” are shouting at him. And in their taunting, they are calling into question his healing works and undermining faith in his teachings: 

“You saved others; save yourself!” 

Soldiers are making fun of him and laughing as they take articles of his clothing like they are party favors at this execution. The people stand by watching. We don’t know who they are, what they are thinking or feeling. We can imagine that if they are fellow Jews living in this Roman-occupied state, they might be angry, dejected, hopeless in the face of tyranny, and quite probably afraid. That was the purpose of crucifixion: to instill fear into the hearts of anyone who might dare to stand up to the authority. Terrorizing people who are powerless is a favorite tactic of bullies and authoritarians. It’s the way to keep people anxious, uneasy, silent. 

What kind of a King dies in such a horrible way, stripped down with his arms outstretched and pinned high above his chest and his head dropping to one side? How can a king be hung up on hard wood like a common criminal? If he’s a king, why are the leaders mocking him? As our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry once noted, the man called “The King of the Jews” was nailed to a cross by the unholy alliance in First Century Palestine of the political, religious and economic powers out to protect the status quo. Sadly, we know that such unholy alliances continue to remain in force in our world today and are ready to crush any attempts to change things. 

For those who claim earthly power, both then and now, 

Jesus is a joke. 

Encouraging an ethic of love, 

loving the stranger as your neighbor, 

forgiving the wayward one who comes home and says, “I’m a screw up and am not worthy,” 

healing people struggling with all kinds of demons; 

that’s not how a powerful person lives their life. By earthly standards, such caring and compassionate behavior shows weakness and vulnerability.

But then isn’t it interesting that even though there are three people being crucified, only Jesus draws out the ire of the powerful. 

There is something about Jesus that makes them so bitter that they make a spectacle of his death. Something about him has a strange pull on them. He seems to be such a threat to their comfort at the top that they feel they must not only inflict punishment and shame on him; they have to kill him in order to remain strong. Perhaps deep inside their hearts they are also afraid. 

Maybe they sense that he is stronger than them and his strength might expose their own weakness. 

That is the paradox of being a bully, isn’t it? It’s because they are weak, the bullies and tyrants of the world act out in destructive ways to mask their own vulnerability. 

In this whole scene there is only one person who sees through all the horror and the mayhem and can fix upon the truth of Jesus. 

And it’s not a soldier. 

Not a leader. 

It’s one of the criminals, another rejected member of society. 

In his own dying moments, this condemned convict looks to Jesus, and in his suffering, he pleads: “Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom.” This man knows that Jesus is innocent. And in his request to be remembered into Jesus’ kingdom he is signaling to us that he has seen below the skin level of Jesus and is perceiving something more. He is seeing God made incarnate in the flesh. Realizing this, he knows this is the one who came into the world to 

“preach the gospel to the poor, 

heal the brokenhearted, 

free the captives, 

give sight to the blind, 

and liberate the oppressed.” 

It takes one who is among the broken, one who has been brought low himself, to know the divinity of Christ shining through that bruised and battered skin. It is one without earthly power who can perceive the real power hanging in agony with him.  

Here again we see the wonderful and un-worldly way that God’s grace works. Because it is not the prestigious and powerful or the bullies and tyrants who recognize Jesus. It’s the one who’s been banished to die. The one who might otherwise have been intimidated into silence. The one who, realizing that he has done wrong, begs Jesus: remember me. Remember me when you come into your kingdom. 

What this man sees in Jesus is what so many who have ever found themselves on the margins of society throughout history have seen in Christ. 

This is the king who can maintain compassion in the face of violent opposition. 

A king who can resist anger and can keep loving all the way to the end. 

A king being unjustly crucified by a corrupt system and yet can still maintain dignity enough to promise Paradise to the repentant criminal. 

If social media had existed in the First Century, Jesus would have been vilified by all those hiding behind their avatars. Because he is type of king whose power of love and true righteous justice intimidates and topples the bullies who feed on fear and hatred. 

We proclaim Christ as King because…in his dying and then his rising again… Jesus makes a pledge to one on the lowest rung of society that he will restore and liberate him from his worst self…and deliver him from his separation from God. 

If Jesus can say this to a criminal, how much more so do his words apply to us? How much more is he bringing us into his mission to face the injustices of our time which keep people in poverty, keep them captive to their fears and addictions, and press down upon those who yearn to breathe free?

This promise of being “re-membered” into God’s kingdom is renewed each time we come to this Eucharistic table and receive the body and blood of Christ. We are being renewed and reinvigorated with a life force, grounded in love, to resist the powers of this world that want to break us. When we take in Christ we are being given the strength to meet the needs of our community in the mission of God to love those who are lost, alone, or afraid. 

It is through us and our resilience to live into that love that we wear the crowns of our royal priesthood. And it is in this way…working through us… that Christ reigns as a true king on earth as in heaven. 

The Difficult Work of Forgiveness

Sermon for 17 Pentecost, Year C

October 6, 2019   SMJEC

Texts: Hab. 1:1-4; 2:1-4; Ps. 37: 1-10; 2 Tim 1:1-14; Luke 17:5-10

Increase our faith! That’s what the apostles are demanding from Jesus, but why are they asking this question? I feel as though I have just walked up in the middle of a conversation. Because…well…I have. 

For whatever reason…maybe to save time…or to reign in the preacher…our lectionary diviners decided to simply pick up basically in mid-thought with our Gospel passage. So I looked a little further back in Chapter 17 to see what exactly made the apostles so concerned that they would need to increase their faith.

Here’s a quick summary of verses one through four:

Jesus lays down some hard truths about what it is to be one of his followers. To draw nearer to God through Jesus we must realize that we are going to fall short of perfection…a lot. And while we are apt to stumble along the way…anyone who causes another to trip and fall and falter in their journey with God…that one might as well be prepared to die because a great millstone will be tied around their neck. That’s harsh. But then Jesus goes on to tell the apostles that if a person does them wrong…and then that same person repents and asks for forgiveness…the expectation is that the offended one will forgive their offender. And if the offender then sins against them again…and again…oh, and again and again and again and again and again? If the offender turns around and asks for forgiveness…the offended has to forgive. Not “ought to.” They have to.

I think we can now see why this might cause the apostles to swallow hard. In the days of Luke’s writing…the way of justice was one of retribution and revenge, not repentance and mercy. Even in our own litigious society, we would rather haul someone into court and seek judgment against the wrong doer than to engage in an act of forgiveness. Think about it: we’re less than a mile from the Capitol Building and the U.S. Supreme Court. Can you imagine if every contentious debate would invoke this Jesus model of forgiveness and mercy? 

If you have been following the news in Dallas with the trial of the white police officer who shot and killed her black neighbor, you might have heard that Officer Guyger broke down in tears and admitted that she had shot an innocent man. In her initial phone call to 9-1-1, she had openly worried that her actions would cost her in her career. That doesn’t exactly sound remorseful for the fact that she shot a guy who was in his own apartment eating ice cream because she had mistakenly thought she was at her own door. But at the trial, she expressed sorrow and openly wished that she had died. The jury found Amber Guyger guilty of murder. The victim’s family members were then allowed to give testimony about the life of Botham Jean which had been cut short. He was a happy man. He sang beautifully and was a member of his church choir. He loved people and they loved him. His death was like a crater in their lives. I’m sure many of us can relate to that feeling when a sudden or unexpected death plunges us into the numbing other worldliness of grief.

But then in one of those rare instances that happens in a murder case, Botham Jean’s brother, Brandt, looked at his brother’s killer and forgave her in open court. He did not excuse her crime. But what he expressed later is that he did not want to spend the rest of his life saying, “I hate you.” He wanted to free himself and his heart knowing that he had settled this matter with her conviction. And he hoped that she would find Christ. He then asked the judge if he could hug her. The two bee-lined toward each other and embraced. How much faith did that take for him to offer forgiveness to his brother’s murderer and to believe her repentance? How much faith did it take for her to embrace his act of mercy? Meanwhile, outside the courtroom, the protestors, who were deeply hurt and angry at the 10-year sentence in this case, chanted “No Justice! No Peace!”  And yesterday, news broke that one of the key witnesses who helped to convict Officer Guyger…one of Botham Jean’s neighbors…was shot to death. “Increase our faith.”

The ability to acknowledge that we’ve done something wrong, that we have caused hurt to another person… and to say we’re sorry requires humility. And the act of having the compassion to offer mercy also requires us to step down from a seat of judgment and stand on that floor of forgiveness. 

Increase our faith indeed!

I can imagine on most days, when we’ve been wronged or violated we might feel more like the prophet Habakkuk. Rather than asking for more faith, we wail to God “Where are you?! Why are you making me witness this?!”  

I know I am upset every time I hear of yet another shooting, or when I hear the newscaster say that each month is “the hottest we’ve had on record” as scientists confirm that—yes--the temperature of the planet is rising. Yes, we are losing more species of birds. 

Such tragedies and hardships can leave us feeling powerless and hopeless in the face of what seems to be a cruel and unjust world.  In the words of the theologian Howard Thurman, “Why does the evilness of evil seem to be more dynamic than the goodness of good?”  Such a force can feel too difficult for us to handle.

Here’s the thing: it is too difficult for us to handle! That’s what Habakkuk realizes in his complaint. God answers him: “There is still a vision for an appointed time.”  God is not going to say when that time is, but he is telling the prophet Habakkuk to have faith and keep watch. In other words: stick with me and I will get you to the other side of this troublesome time. 

Spoiler alert: the book ends with Habakkuk singing a victory hymn and declaring God’s glory.

All the evil and the brokenness in the world is too much for us, but it is not too much for God. That’s Jesus’ point when he answers the apostles.  Note that he tells them they don’t need to have faith the size of a boulder; just faith the size of a mustard seed…just a jot of faith…just a small amount of humility to trust in God. 

Putting trust in God is a way of finding inner peace and strength in times of difficulty. Wecan’t solve all the problems of the world or our community. But if we gave even one ounce of our energy to connecting to the Source of Light and Love that became Flesh through Jesus Christ…the promise of God is to meet us and strengthen us for God’s service to free our hearts to bring more love into our world. It’s about making our faith so strong and free that we could uproot a mulberry tree and toss it into the sea. 

There’s a closing sentence in our daily morning office that I have found to be a helpful reminder of this as I head out the door to start my day: 

“Glory to God whose power working in us can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine. Glory to God from generation to generation and in the church and in Christ Jesus forever and ever.”