Christmas Day

Jesus: God's Anti-Whatever
John 1:1-14

Christmas just happens to come towards the end of the calendar year.

One of the many things that gets pondered and listed at the end of the year is words.  Different organizations, especially those that publish dictionaries, pick a most significant word for the past year.  For 2016 Miriam Webster picked “surreal.”  The publishers of the Oxford Dictionary picked “post-truth.”  The Cambridge Dictionary picked “paranoid.”  Dictionary.com picked “xenophobia.”  The current times are not by any measure the worst of times, but especially if you look throughout the world these are certainly unsettled times.  Many people are feeling fear and confusion.

There’s another word that has gotten some year-end attention.  In a poll by the Marist Institute of Public Opinion, for the eighth year in a row, one word has qualified as the most annoying word:  “whatever.”

Whatever.  It is annoying.  Although I expect, it’s as much the tone it’s usually said in as it is the word itself.  It connotes total, even scornful indifference.  Whatever.  I’m indifferent to you, to what you just said, to any choice or decision.  I don’t care.

It was the Christmas Day Gospel, of course, that got me thinking about words.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…. And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

Jesus is the word God says to us.  This year.  Every year.  Every day. 

This may seem an odd Christmas message, but:  God never says whatever.  Jesus is God’s anti-whatever.

The birth of Jesus, the incarnation, express the total opposite of whatever.  God is never indifferent towards us.  Jesus expresses the depth and persistence of God’s caring and compassion.

John tells us that Jesus, the Word, is full of grace and truth.

Grace is one of those words that most of us probably generally understand but would be very hard pressed to actually define.  The catechism in the Book of Common Prayer defines grace: Grace is God's favor toward us, unearned and undeserved; by grace God forgives our sins, enlightens our minds, stirs our hearts, and strengthens our wills.

God’s favor towards us, expressed and active.

We matter to God.  God could have said to human kind:  oh whatever, let them suffer and muddle through life on their own.  But instead he loves us beyond measure and shows that love by coming among us.  To share our lives so that we may share his. To help us know him and find him in an uncertain world.  He came into this world because we matter to him.  And how we live matters.  God yearns for us to know the blessing and peace of his presence, to experience holiness. 

So remember:  even in the most hip of modern Bible translations, Jesus never says, whatever.  To anyone.

He says, grace and peace be with you.  In his ministry and in his words, to each of us he says, grace and peace be with you.  You are God’s own beloved.  I come to bring you grace and truth and peace.

Christmas Eve

Like the Angels
Luke 2:1-14

In an effort to hear the Christmas story anew, over the years I’ve pondered what we have in common with different characters in the Christmas story: the shepherds, the wise men, the stable boy (he must have been there!).  And I’ve explored what we can learn today by thinking about their place in the Christmas story.

This year at the early Christmas Eve service we did the “pageant” a bit differently…  Young people from the parish read reflections written in the voices of those who were there.  Gabriel, preparing to visit Mary; Mary, after Gabriel left; Joseph; a nosey neighbor of Mary and Joseph’s; a very evil, slimy Herod.

Interestingly, the angel who appears to the shepherds and the angels of the heavenly host aren’t in the book we used.

We just heard that part of the story from Luke:  Then an angel of the Lord stood before [the shepherds], and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.’ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,

‘Glory to God in the highest heaven,
   and on earth peace among those whom he favours!’

This year I’m thinking that maybe the characters we’re really most like in this story are the angels.  Your first thought may be, no.  We could hardly be more different.  I don’t feel the least angelic most of the time!  And angels aren’t even human, are they?

But there is one very, very, very important similarity between the angels and us.  They knew the story.  They knew what was happening.  Nobody else did, really, not yet.  But the angels knew who this baby was and what this birth meant.

And so do we.

We know who this child is and what he brings.  We come to this night, this time, this birth, knowing who this child is and what he brings.

He is our Savior.  Come to save us from ourselves.

He is born to make God’s love and healing and peace real in our lives.  So real that we can touch it and feel it and hear it.  He is God come so close that we can hold him to our hearts like we might cradle a newborn child.

Later in Luke, Jesus himself will quote Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free.”

The angels knew who this baby was and what he was bringing into the world.

And we know, too.

So maybe we should look to the angels as models for our actions at Christmas time.  Let’s be like the angels.  Let’s do what the angels do.

They praise God.  That’s pretty much what angels do most of the time.  Praise God.

Let’s proclaim God’s peace to the world.  Do our best to dwell in peace, to bring peace on earth.

Angels fly.  Maybe we can’t literally fly but at least we can let our hearts soar with hope at the birth of this baby.

And then praise God some more.  Sing out these tidings of great joy for all people.

And everywhere we go, let us, like the angels say, “Fear not.”  God is with us.  We are the bearers of the angel’s message to a world today that desperately needs it. Fear not.  God is with us.

The Fourth Sunday of Advent - December 18

Joseph
Matthew 1:18-25

How different might our celebration of Christmas be if we only had Matthew’s account of Jesus birth?

We just head it as this morning’s Gospel.  Matthew starts with several paragraphs of a long genealogy.  “An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.  Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Aram…” and so on and on and on…

Then the brief passage we just heard about the birth of Jesus.  That’s it.  Matthew does mention the magi, but that’s later.

It’s not very Christmas-y.  Not even very Advent-y.  There is not a lot of hope or excitement.  If we had just Matthew, it seems like virtually all of our Christmas carols and Advent hymns would disappear.  The focus is almost entirely on Joseph.  Mary is passive, almost a shadow in the background.  I certainly can’t think of any Christmas carols about Joseph’s struggle with what to do when he finds out Mary is pregnant.

As I understand it, in Mary and Joseph’s day, betrothal was a binding, legal commitment, more significant than an “engagement” today.  Joseph presumably entered into that commitment anticipating a quiet, normal life in Nazareth, surrounded by his and Mary’s extended families.  Working as a carpenter within the community.  Participating in the routines of Jewish life and worship.

We don’t know how Joseph found out Mary was pregnant…  if she tried to tell him about the conversation with Gabriel.  You can imagine how that conversation might have gone!  Or if it became physically obvious that she was expecting.  Either way, when Joseph discovered Mary was pregnant, apparently he had two choices:  accuse her publicly and she would have been stoned for adultery.  Or quietly divorce her.  He chose the latter.

And then an angel came to Joseph and said:  No, you are not to follow either of the options that are religiously prescribed or socially accepted.  You are to marry her and raise this child.  Teach him how to tell the evil from the good.  Keep him safe.  Give him a home.  Later, another angel would come to Joseph and say:  to keep this child safe you need to pack up your wife and child and travel to Egypt and stay there for awhile.

This is what the coming of Emmanuel, God being born into Joseph’s life meant.

For most of us, Christmas is steeped in tradition.  Personal traditions, family traditions, social traditions.  Sometimes keeping up these traditions can feel overwhelming, but I think the predictability, the expectability, of the holiday is a big part of what we like about Christmas.  It is comforting, comfortable.

For Joseph, the first Christmas, the actual coming of Christ was anything but predictable or comfortable.  We look forward to Jesus joining us by our cozy fireplaces.  Joseph reminds us that the coming of Christ into our lives is about a total reorientation of our expectations, the launching of unimaginable change in our lives.

How did Joseph feel when this baby was actually born?  It’s impossible to know.  Did he feel blessed to cradle Immanuel in his arms?  Awed to be a part of God’s plan to come into the world?  I hope so, but…

If there were a Christmas song about Joseph, its refrain would be:  This is not what I signed on for!  This is not what I signed on for.  This is not the life I anticipated.  But I’ll do it.  I’ll raise this child, because God asks me to.  Because God promises he will save people from their sins.

Both Mary and Joseph had a choice.  God asked them if they would take on roles, tasks, that would enable God to fulfill God’s purpose of being born into the world.  Today, looking at Joseph, maybe we see some of the cost that came with accepting God’s purpose.  But both Mary and Joseph said yes.

For that today we may be profoundly grateful.  But Joseph also prods us to ask ourselves:  What task does God ask of us?  What change might be asked of us to fulfill our role in helping to bring the saving presence of Christ into the lives of others in our world today?

The Second Sunday of Advent - December 4

Repentance Begins with Hope

Matthew 3:1-12

John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea preaching repentance.  “Repent, for the Kingdom of God has come near.”

John (along with Mary) is one of the big figures of Advent.  Each, in their own way, points us, leads us through Advent towards Christ’s coming.

John announces that one greater than he is coming and he preaches repentance as a part of preparing for Christ’s coming.  Today’s collect also refers to the role of the prophets in preaching repentance as preparation.  So repentance is not an isolated, stand-alone thing.  It is part of a process of preparation.

I want to talk about repentance.  And maybe reorient the way we think about it. 

I think repentance is often seen as what you should do if you feel guilty.  Guilt is where repentance starts.  And I will say, it is easy as a preacher to make people feel guilty.  All of us are very aware of the things we’ve done wrong, the many ways we’ve fallen short of the life we know God calls us to live.  It’s easy for all of us to move quickly to that place of guilt. 

Or sometimes repentance is seen as a consequence of fear.  The prophets preach dire consequences for those who do not repent.  In today’s Gospel John the Baptist talks about how the chaff will be burned with unquenchable fire.  Repent or else.  Repentance motivated by fear.

But Advent (and the Advent readings, especially from Isaiah) gives us a new, much better perspective on repentance. 

In Advent, the seed, the source, the motivation for repentance is HOPE, not guilt or fear.  Because God gives us hope, a vision, a promise of something better, we repent.

It’s helpful to remember that, theologically speaking, repentance isn’t just about confession or saying your sorry.  Those are pieces of it, but more importantly , repentance means to reorient.  To reorient the perspective and the direction of your life.  To turn away from and to turn towards.

To turn away from our sins and all of what enslaves us in this world and to turn towards the kingdom of God.  Because God has given us hope that we may be citizens of the Kingdom of God, we repent.  We turn away from the sin of this world and towards the promise of the Kingdom of God.

One commentator (HERE) described the qualities of this world, this wilderness to which John came and in which we live, as characterized by:  idolatry, violence, injustice, exploitation, slavery, and scarcity.

On the other hand, the Kingdom of God is characterized by: love, peace, justice, dignity, freedom, and abundance.  Instead of idolatry, love; instead of violence, peace; instead of injustice, justice; instead of exploitation, dignity; instead of slavery, freedom; instead of scarcity, abundance.

If you are satisfied living wholly in this world, then you don’t have to listen to the rest of this sermon or worry about repentance.  If you have any bit of hope or yearning for that better world, then repentance is the way to get there.

Isaiah gives us a poetic vision of God’s dream for the world, a description of the nature of the Kingdom of God.  It is a place where the meek will know equity and righteousness will reign.  Where “the wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.”  This is the Kingdom of God that is promised.  It is offered to us fully at Christ’s second coming, but it is also made real in our lives, in part, by the birth of Christ among us.  It is the hope that we can live as citizens in that world that leads us to repentance, to turn away from our sins.  Repentance is the bridge, the gift, the way from here to there.

So, rather than starting with guilt or fear, start with hope.  Start with hope.  What do you yearn for in the kingdom of God?  What hope draws you towards the love, peace, justice, dignity, freedom, and abundance of the Kingdom of God.  And what holds you back?  What binds you to this world?  That is the place for repentance.

Many of us need to repent of idolatry, the many gods of this world we cling to for a false sense of security.  Or maybe if you long for the abundance of God’s kingdom, you need to turn away from squandering, wasting so much of what God has given you.

Advent repentance.  David Lose calls it a dream by which to set a course.  Or maybe not a dream because dreams are not true.  A promise, a hope to set the course of our lives by.  God has given us hope for the Kingdom of God and made that hope real in the incarnation of Jesus. 

If you hope for what God offers, if you want to experience the Kingdom of God, repentance is the way to get there.

The First Sunday of Advent - November 27, 2016

Christmas Always Comes

Today is the first Sunday of Advent.  The beginning of a new season in the church year.  The beginning of a new year.

Advent has been probably my favorite of all the seasons of the church year ever since I was young.  It brings with it a feeling of hopeful anticipation. 

Advent, of course, is defined as the season before Christmas.  It doesn’t really have any meaning on its own.  We wouldn’t have Advent without Christmas.  The whole point of Advent is that Christmas lies ahead. Today we light one candle on the Advent wreath.  We will light the second, then the third, then all four candles.  We are on a journey that leads to Christmas, the birth of Jesus.

Christmas will come.  At the end of EVERY Advent.  Certainly this Advent.  Christmas will come.

Christmas will come whether we are “in the spirit” for Christmas, or not.

Jesus will be born anew in our hearts and lives whether or not we are ready.  Spiritually or materially.

Emmanuel, God with us will come.  Whether we actually feel hopeful and expectant, or not.  Either way, he will come.  Christmas will come.

Christmas will come regardless of whether people say Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays in the public sphere.  Christmas will come no matter how early the malls start playing Christmas carols.  Jesus does not need us to say the right words or do the right actions to summon him….  Or else he will not come.  No, Jesus will come.  Christmas will come.  It doesn’t depend upon us.

Christmas, Emmanuel, God with us, will even come if we have not “made him room”. The arrival of Christmas is not dependent upon our preparation.  (Although our own experience of Christmas is certainly richer if we’ve done some preparation, but that’s another sermon.)

Christmas WILL come.  At the end of every Advent.  The experience of Advent is the promise that Christmas will come.

As I’ve said before each season of the church year teaches us something about our lives as Christians that is timeless.  Although in worship, we experience the season one after another, each one shows us something that is always true.  Advent teaches us that Christmas will come…  God will come to dwell with us. 

Whenever we find ourselves in the dark, or lost, or confused, we may be confident that Jesus will come to us.  It is no accident that the season of Advent falls in the darkest time of the year.  But we can experience darkness at any time.  And Christmas always lies ahead.   Whenever we are seeking or yearning…  looking for meaning or direction...   whether it is this time of year or the height of summer…  the promise of Advent will guide us to Christmas, to Jesus.  Advent always leads to Christmas.

Advent is often described as a season of hope, and that was my childhood experience of it.  But we miss the point if we focus too much on our feelings.  Advent has not failed if we don’t feel hopeful.  It’s not about our feelings; it’s about God’s promise.  And maybe, it’s also about God’s hope.  Not our hope, but God’s hope.

Christmas will come, because God has hopes for us and for this world.  God will come to be among us because God has hopes for us.  God will come to bring holiness into our lives to literally show us God’s love and forgiveness that heal us and make us whole.  That is God’s hope for each of us.  And Christmas will come because God has hopes for the transformation of this world.  This world in which we live.  God has hopes for this world.

Thanksgiving - November 24, 2016

Saying Grace

I don’t know if anyone has ever done a study, but I imagine that a higher percentage of people and families say grace over their meal on Thanksgiving than on any other day.  In fact, I expect that quite a few people say grace only on Thanksgiving and not at any other time or occasion.

If you think about it, it’s actually kind of a funny phrase: to say grace.  If you asked a ten year old to say grace, wouldn’t the natural response be “grace?”  What the phrase means, of course, is to say “a” grace.  And a grace is a prayer.  A prayer of thanksgiving or praise.  A prayer invoking God’s blessing or grace.

Incidentally, the dictionary definition describes a grace as a short prayer, something to remember at the Thanksgiving table.

As I was browsing information on graces I came across one that said:  May God’s grace hover at our table this day.  Hover.  I like that tangible, visible image of God’s grace or blessing as something we can see.

Because, although we ask God to bless, to lend his grace, we don’t really need to summon or conjure God’s grace.  It is already with us.

What we are doing when we say grace is making ourselves aware, opening ourselves to the action of God’s grace, tuning our ears to hear and our eyes to see God’s blessing.  The action or change that we pray for is not in God, but in us.  We are not saying:  Hey, God, I know you weren’t going to come to our Thanksgiving dinner, but now since we’ve said grace, we know you’ll change your mind and show up.  Rather, we are saying:  Change us, transform our hearts to see your grace with us, that we may live more faithfully and more gratefully.

It’s too bad that we say grace so infrequently.  Think how gloriously we might be changed if we said grace at more meals, or even at other times in our lives.  If we could open ourselves to see God’s grace hovering over us, enfolding us, in other daily activities as well as eating.

I have a book that is an anthology of prayers (The Oxford Book of Prayer, ed. Appleton).  It contains a group of prayers written by Chinese Christian women and men.  I don’t know anything about the origin or history of the prayers.  But they are written to accompany the tasks of daily life.

A prayer, a grace when opening a door:

A pray thee, Lord to open the door of my heart to receive thee within my heart.

Help me to see your blessing and grace with me as I open a door.

On pruning a tree:

I pray thee, Lord, to purge me and take away my selfishness and sinful thoughts, that I may bring forth more fruits of the Spirit.

A grace while posting a letter:

I pray thee, Lord to add to me faith upon faith, that I may always have communication with thee.

When planting, or sowing seed:

I pray thee, Lord, to sow the good seed of virtue in my heart, letting it grow by day and night and bring forth a hundredfold.

When drawing water, or, as we would say, turning on the tap:

I pray thee, Lord, to give living water to quench my thirst, and wash away the stains from my heart.

A prayer when boiling water for tea:

I pray thee, Lord, to send down spiritual fire to burn away the coldness of my heart and that I may always be hot-hearted in serving thee.

Think about saying grace more often.  Praying for the awareness of God’s grace and blessing with us and giving thanks in all of the activities throughout our daily lives.