Rector's Annual Report

The Body of Christ.

A parish community is both a place to find the Body of Christ and to be the Body of Christ. I am grateful to be a part of a parish community in which the life of the Body of Christ is so richly shared, both within the parish fellowship and beyond.

For example, just in the last month or so:

Before Christmas the children who participate in the Little Hands ministry invested their spirit, time and creativity to create and deliver Advent gifts for some of our less mobile parishioners. They decorated cookies and made cards and bags which proclaimed both the love of Christ and the care of the children towards the recipients.

Christmas services were full of glory. We welcomed and celebrated the remembrance of Christ’s birth in the majestic and reverent liturgy of the church. The children’s Christmas pageant was the “Best Christmas Pageant” ever. We had the largest number of children participating that we’ve had in recent years. But even more importantly, the children were both happy and proud to be a part of the pageant, to be the evangelists sharing the story of Christ’s birth with the parish. At the late service on Christmas Eve our worship shone brightly in the night like the star that proclaimed Jesus’ birth. Music is surely one of God’s greatest gifts to us. As the choir makes music so richly within worship—especially on Christmas Eve—they enable us all to share in celebration and praise of God’s gifts and presence with us.

Christmas Eve falling on a Friday this year, it just happened to be St. John’s night to staff P.A.D.S. at St. Agnes’ Catholic Church in Chicago Heights. So at the same time that Christians everywhere were celebrating Christ’s birth in a dingy stable because there was no room for the holy family at the inn, lay ministers from St. John’s were helping to offer shelter, in Christ’s name, to individuals in our own community. The Body of Christ reaching out.

For the last several years in early January the vestry has offered a Feast to the parish. The Feast of St. John the Evangelist began out of the vestry’s desire to thank the people of the parish for being the parish, for being the Body of Christ. It is wonderful to see individual vestry members give so generously of their time and creativity, to exercise their ministry of leadership in acts of service. The event itself certainly highlights the gift of fellowship… what a gift it is to share fellowship as the Body of Christ across a wide range of ages and backgrounds.

Over the last six months the vestry has been methodically working to address needed improvements in the physical accessibility of St. John’s. There should be no barriers to participation in the life of Christ. In early January requests for bids were sent to architectural firms. This manifests a care, not only for those within our current congregation who may have various physical limitations, but also a desire to welcome others whom we do not yet know who may be seeking the Good News of God in Christ.

As 2010 ended and 2011 began we also hosted two funerals. Like many others, they were “good” funerals. Good because the Body of Christ was very much in evidence. They were times of sadness and loss, both within Adrienne and George’s immediate families, and within their larger parish family. But the individual faith each of them lived was a lively example to all and worthy of celebration. And the hands and voice of Christ were definitely present within the parish in the many acts and words of kindness shared, in the many individuals who offered their time and help with the receptions, and in the voices and hearts of all those who prayed, and continue to pray, in the confidence of eternal life given by God and shared with the saints in light.

Several new parishioners have become a part of the parish community recently. Again and again they say how strongly they feel at home within this parish community. This speaks both to the welcoming nature of parishioners and also to the presence of Christ, made real and made known among us here. Christ, who yearns to welcome us all home into his presence.

Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany

What Would It Take?
Micah 6:1-8
Matthew 5:1-12

The prophet Micah stood outside somewhere, maybe on a street corner near the temple and cried out, “Hear what the Lord says.” And people stopped to listen. Maybe not everyone, but many stopped, knowing that this prophet spoke God’s words and that God was speaking to them. They accepted the personal immediacy of God’s words for them. But that was a long time ago; times have changed.

The Gospel for today recounts that people drew near to Jesus. Even before he began to speak they gathered around him, yearning to hear God’s words spoken to them. And they knew that Jesus would speak the Word of God with authenticity and authority and potency—to them. But Jesus, the Word made flesh, no longer walks among us in the flesh. Who can speak God’s word so directly into our lives today?

In both of these readings God’s word is spoken with power and authority directly to the individuals who came to hear. Through Micah, God spoke words of rebuke and guidance. Jesus spoke God’s words of blessing. And the people seem to know and accept that God is speaking personally to them. That acceptance of the personal immediacy of God’s word seems to come much harder to us today. We might ask ourselves: What would it take for us to really hear and know God’s word intended personally and powerfully for us? What would it take for me to hear God’s word with such immediacy and potency that I would have to take notice? That it would change my life forever? What would it take for these words on our Scripture inserts to be more than just words on a page about God and become God’s own voice speaking directly to me, to you? The Beatitudes are very familiar and speak to us of a wonderful God who bestows blessing. What would it take for us to experience ourselves personally addressed and blessed by these words?

Would it take hearing them intoned by an extraordinary, modern-day prophet? Would we feel the immediacy of God’s words in our lives if they were spoken by a person of extraordinary power and stature, someone outside our normal sphere of experience? What if we were in the presence, say, of Martin Luther King, Jr? Or, by a very circuitous route, I’ve recently been reminded of Barbara Jordan. That was a voice of extraordinary power and a person of extraordinary authenticity and authority! If Barbara Jordan’s voice spoke directly to you saying, “What does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God,” you truly might feel that God had spoken directly to you.

Is this what it takes? Do we need to hear God’s words spoken, not by the person next to us in the pew or the person with whom we chat at coffee hour, but by an extraordinary, larger-than-life, modern day prophet?

Here in church we are surrounded by God’s word, printed and spoken, read and preached. What would it take to hear those words spoken with immediacy and potency into our individual lives? Maybe it would take an extraordinary church setting. This building is beautiful, but maybe if God’s words came to us in the midst of the awesome majesty of a great cathedral? Or maybe if we heard them preached by a truly extraordinary preacher. Not the one we see at the grocery store on Tuesday, but someone like George Whitfield, whom we’re studying in the adult education class. Someone of truly extraordinary skills of oration, who could evidently move thousands by his words. Or maybe God’s words would become real and powerful for us if we heard them in the midst of an extraordinary parish community, not this one that is so familiar to us, but one of remarkable sanctity where everyone is already half-way to heaven.

Or maybe it takes a time of extraordinary personal crisis before God’s words really strike home in our lives.

Some of you know that one of my favorite comics is Zits. I’ve enjoyed it for years. If you don’t know it, it’s about teenage life. It’s about being a teenager, about living with a teenager, about the high school experience. I think one reason I enjoy it is that it so often reminds me of life in the church. Think about it. We all behave like teenagers a lot of the time in our relationship with God and in our life in the church. In our religious lives, we are all teenagers. The stereotypical teenager is: (1) totally self-absorbed and seemingly indifferent to the external world and (2) totally dependent upon the external world to meet his or her every need. Self-absorbed and entitled. That’s us in our religious lives. Self-absorbed in our personal spirituality, focused on our own spiritual needs, with a powerful expectation that the external world, the church, should meet those needs.

We would like to hear God’s word with personal immediacy, but we look to external, extraordinary events or people to make that possible. We depend upon someone or something other than ourselves to break us open to God’s Word. Ultimately, however, it is not the responsibility of some extraordinary prophet, nor preacher, nor church building, nor church community… it is not their responsibility to make us hear. Nor should we be dependent upon some singular, grave occurrence of personal trial. It is our responsibility to listen. And if we really seek to listen, we will hear. It’s that simple. If we approach God’s word seeking to hear it spoken to us, we will. If we approach life yearning to know God’s presence with us, we will find it.

If we yearn to hear God speaking powerfully, personally to us, we will. In extraordinary voices and events when those are given to us, but also in the very ordinary events of daily life. The beatitudes are addressed to people who yearn… who yearn and hunger for peace, for fulfillment, for righteousness. And those who yearn are blessed, filled by God’s blessing.

I’m reminded of the story of the Wizard of Oz. Part of that story is about Dorothy’s discovery that she did not need the extraordinary intervention of others to make her way home. She did not need the wizard’s magic, nor even the charlatan’s balloon. She did not need the intercessions of the Good Witch. All she needed was a yearning, a longing in her heart, and then the power to go home was within her.

All we need is a yearning for God’s Word and it will be spoken to us. What does it take for us to hear God speaking with personal immediacy and potency in our individual lives? All it takes is a yearning within. If you yearn to hear God’s word, you will.

The Third Sunday after the Epiphany

Follow the Light
Isaiah 9:1-4
Psalm 27:1, 5-13
Matthew 4:12-23

Light is an important theme in the Scripture readings for today. Isaiah, the Psalm and the Gospel all speak of God being light or bringing light into darkness.

Light is a very powerful image throughout the New Testament and one that we use a lot in the church. We speak of the Light of Christ. Jesus is the light of the world. We are awed by the wonder and power of God’s light to dispel both literal and figurative darkness. God’s light brings illumination, enabling us to see God in the world around us. God’s light has the wondrous power to cast out fear and dispel doubt.

A life lived with God is a life into which light shines. Conversely, a life without God is a life lived in darkness, in shadow. It’s a stark dichotomy. The absence of God and darkness verses the presence of God and light.

Especially as I considered Matthew’s Gospel, I became aware of another dichotomy, another set of images coincident with the images of darkness and light.

What happens in the darkness? The people sit. Matthew says it repeatedly. The people sat in darkness. Those who sat in the shadow of death.

And then Jesus comes and says, “Follow me.” Move. Get up off your backsides and move.

So along with the dichotomy of darkness and light is the parallel dichotomy of stasis verses motion; passivity verses growth; inactivity verses an active journey Godwards.

Which is to say: God’s light is not for basking in. It is for guidance. It is meant to lead us as we move closer and deeper in our relationship with God. That’s a wonderful gift, a beacon to guide us in our journey towards God. All of us, I expect want to be closer to God and give thanks for God’s desire to help us move beyond ourselves and our limitations. We affirm and celebrate God’s gift to us of guidance, of motion. In the Eucharistic Prayer we are currently using, we thank God, that in Christ, God has brought us: out of error into truth, out of sin into righteousness, out of isolation into community, out of death into life.

Surely, we are all eager to move out of the darkness, eager to move God-wards. Eager to move….

Except when we don’t want to move anywhere at all.

When we treat being a Christian more like a vacation than a vocation. What is the stereotypical vacation? Sitting around in the sun doing as little as possible. Soaking up the sun, basking in the light, with an absolute minimum of motion. We often seem to think being a Christian is like a vacation. Lord, wash away my sin and doubt and fear with your glorious light, while I just sit here and work on my tan. We think of the church as a sort-of spiritual tanning salon, a place to relax and bask in God’s light.

It doesn’t work that way. The popular hymn (which the choir is going to sing in just a bit) does not say, “I want to sit as a child of the light.” It says, “I want to walk as a child of the light. I want to follow Jesus.”

If you are, spiritually speaking, the same person, in the same place, doing the same thing today as you were yesterday, you are not following Jesus. Jesus is the light of the world. The light does not sit still. Sitting is for the darkness. The light is for following.

Being a Christian is a vocation, not a vacation. A vocation of study, prayer and ministry. A vocation by which Jesus leads us closer and closer to God. Being a Christian is an active vocation of growth, of movement. The light of the world says, Follow me. Where is the light leading you? What vocation of prayer, study or ministry are you being called forward to?

The Second Sunday after the Epiphany

Not a Saint
1 Corinthians 1:1-9

The epistle reading appointed for today comes from the very beginning of Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth. Even if you’re not a student of ancient history or even a Biblical scholar, you may be aware that, at the time Paul was writing, epistles or letters were governed by a formal structure. Especially the opening lines of a letter were formulaic. We hear that formula repeated over and over in Paul’s letters. Because we know they’re formulaic, because they sounds formulaic, we may not always give those opening lines much attention. But we should. The structure follows a set formula, but the words are Paul’s. And they are definitely worth our attention.

“Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes, To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints…”

I was browsing a very scholarly commentary I have on First Corinthians. Very scholarly! Hans Conzelmann devotes a whole page just to verse two. But in the midst of all the academic disputes and minutiae, tucked into numerous references to the original Greek, one sentence absolutely jumped off the page. Paul’s letter is addressed to the Christians in Corinth, whom Paul refers to as those “called to be saints.” Conzelmann writes: “Paul never uses the word [saints] in the singular of the individual Christian.”

Paul never uses the word saint in the singular.
 
Conzelmann elaborates: “Holiness is not a quality of the individual, but a communal state in which we are placed by baptism.” Holiness and saintliness are the same word in Paul’s Greek. The saints are the holy ones. And Paul always uses the word in the plural; he never uses the word saint in the singular to refer to an individual Christian. He never even speaks of aspiring to be a saint himself, and that’s pretty remarkable, if you think about it. He never speaks of a saint.

This is so counter to our general world view and our usage of the word saint, that it’s almost impossible to grasp. It seems in every aspect of our lives we are defined by our individual qualities, our singular aspirations, our personal accomplishments. In this context, a saint, is an individual who is remarkably holy.

In addition to our general focus on the individual, we also tend to think of ourselves as self-made. I am what I work to become. In the church we talk about how the quality of holiness cannot be worked for or earned. It can only be bestowed by the gift of God. Even though we use that language in the church, it’s hard for us to really internalize its meaning. We really think it we pray hard enough or often enough we can make ourselves holy. Maybe if we remember Paul, it will help. There is no such thing as an individual saint. No singular or individual qualities confer sainthood.

For Paul, there are only the saints, plural. The community, which is the church, made holy, sanctified by God’s grace. All who are brought into that community by baptism become holy ones.

This perspective is not unique to Paul. A quick glance at a concordance did not reveal any uses of the word saint in the singular anywhere in the New Testament. No individual is described as a saint. No one is encouraged to aspire to sainthood. Sainthood is only experienced in the plural.

This is in stark contrast to the individualism that is prevalent in our culture. It is also in contradiction to Roman Catholic practice. Just this week the news included stories of Pope John Paul II’s progress towards sainthood. I am not questioning his personal holiness, nor the faithfulness of his papacy. I am criticizing the practice that differentiates individuals… categorizing only those special individuals who appear to possess certain qualities as “saints.” This is not the witness of the New Testament.

The only way I can become a saint is by standing with you. What makes you a saint is praying with me. We are saints only when we are side by side.

This understanding of corporate sainthood is a message worth remembering on this weekend when American society remembers Dr. Martin Luther King and his work for civil rights. Any barriers or exclusivity that divide us one from another are not only morally wrong, they destroy sainthood. They fracture our common holiness.

The understanding that sainthood or holiness is found in the shared life of the church also speaks to those who say they can be better Christians outside the church. I do understand where they are coming from; there are days when I feel the same way. It certainly is possible to be a good person outside the church. It is even possible to be a faithful person outside the church. According to Paul, it is not possible to be a holy person at all. There is no such thing as a holy person, a saint. There are only holy people, plural… those who are part of the fellowship of the Body of Christ.

It’s also worth noting, that the most important way in which the early Christians designated themselves was “the church.” That’s not as self-evident as it may at first appear. They could have focused on a certain tenet of belief, or a religious practice, or a foundational event. But they didn’t. They were a community, a fellowship. The Church of God; those called to be saints.

What might be thought of as the negative side of Paul’s theology is the impossibility of individual sainthood outside the fellowship of the church. But think about the positive side… the generous gift of holiness to all within the church. As the church, part of who we are is the holy ones. It’s God’s gift, given to all, shared in common. It’s a marvelous, unqualified abundance of grace. We are the saints.

The predominant theme of the season of Epiphany is recognition. Our seeing and recognizing what God has already done in the world, in our lives. The usual focus is on recognizing the divine person and glory of God within the human hands and face of Jesus. In the Epiphany proper preface we thank God for the ability to know, or recognize, God’s glory in the face of Jesus Christ.

Maybe we could also pray for the ability to recognize our own holiness, to see and know God’s gift of sanctification, already given to us, the church. God has already done it. We are the holy ones. God help us to recognize our common, shared sainthood.

The First Sunday after Christmas Day

Life Goes On

Quite a few of the holy days of the church have complex titles with headings and subheadings. For example: The Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Colon. Christmas Day. The Epiphany, or, The Manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles. The First Sunday after the Epiphany. Colon. The Baptism of Our Lord.

Today could be called The First Sunday after Christmas Day. Colon. Life Goes On. Officially, of course, it is only the First Sunday after Christmas Day, which this year also happens to be the day after Christmas. Life Goes On.

For those of us who work in the church, it’s not as auspicious arrangement of the calendar when December 26 is a Sunday. The very next day after Christmas, I have to get up early, be “on” again? After all the energy put into three very different Christmas Services—two of which had their own homilies. Even for people not employed in the church, being a Christian is always work. It is much more than that, but it is also work. Life goes on.

Everyone today is surrounded by the aftermath of Christmas. Maybe that’s a warm glow, a lingering feeling of the best of human life and relationships. Maybe it’s pent up tension, the stress of human expectations, fulfilled and unfulfilled. Undoubtedly the aftermath of Christmas includes fatigue. But life goes on.

In England and some other parts of the former British Empire, December 26 is Boxing Day. Technically, I understand that this year the legal holiday will be tomorrow, December 27, because today is a Sunday, but I associate Boxing Day with December 26. A prominent custom of boxing day is for the wealthy, the privileged, to “box up” left over’s from their Christmas feast, or unwanted presents, and pass them along to tradespeople and servants. The “less fortunate.” More generally, Boxing Day is a time to give alms. The day after Christmas, poor are still with us. Life goes on. Life’s injustices go on.

Today is also St. Stephen’s Day. The day we commemorate the church’s first martyr. The day after Christmas, the day we remember and celebrate Christ’s birth, we remember Stephen, stoned to death for being a Christian. The ugliness of life goes on.

I understand that the retail industry in America has very high hopes for today. One headline I saw said, “Stars are aligned for a super Sunday.” Never mind the Magi’s star. Today is all about the post Christmas sale and exchange shopping extravaganza. And it’s a weekend! Yippee. American life goes on.

Life goes on.

For us today is the First Sunday after Christmas Day. It is the second Day of Christmas season. We are still celebrating the birth of Emmanuel, God with us. Life goes on with Jesus in it. This is the life Jesus was born to share, to transform and to redeem.

Life goes on with Jesus in it. I hope that makes a difference. For you. For the world.

Life goes on—with Jesus in it.

Christmas Day

Jesus' Grandparents

Over the river, and through the wood,
To Grandmother’s house we go;
The horse knows the way to carry the sleigh
through the white and drifted snow.

Did you know that that song was originally written as a Thanksgiving poem? (The wonders of Wikipedia!) It’s an easy transition to Christmas. For some reason, Grandfather’s house in the original becomes Grandmother’s house at Christmas. And a few specific references to Thanksgiving Day are changed to Christmas. But in either case, it captures the joy and excitement of a shared holiday, especially shared between grandparents and grandchildren. It captures some of the special goodness in that very special relationship.

Over the river, and through the wood—
It is so hard to wait!
Over the river, and through the wood—
Now Grandmother's cap I spy!
Hurrah for the fun! Is the pudding done?
Hurrah for the pumpkin pie!

Last night was all about the herald angels and a wondrous star, as we remembered Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem. This morning, the day after, the grandparents showed up to see the new baby. We have absolutely no evidence that Jesus’ grandparent actually did show up. In fact, most likely they did not. But it’s fun to imagine that, like grandparents today, they did show up right after the birth to welcome their new grandchild. Over the last few days I’ve had fun imagining what they might have been like. Sort of an amalgamation of Leave It to Beaver America and the stereotypical Jewish grandmother, clucking and fussing, with a little bit of my own thrown in as well.

We know virtually nothing of course. Tradition gives names to Mary’s parents. Out of deference to her, stories were created in the second century to supply a fuller account of her birth and family. The stories are woven from Old Testament cloth, not historical reality. But we might borrow their names, Anne and Joachim, as we imagine Jesus’ grandparents.

I know that not all human families embody the ideal relationship between grandparents and grandchildren. But what is that ideal in our minds? Grandparents are those who bestow extravagant love. Not encumbered by the need or guidance or discipline that parents rightly feel, grandparents are free to pour out unlimited and extravagant love.

And to cherish the gift of this grandchild as a wondrous and miraculous gift. From a practical perspective, grandparents can only see themselves as indirectly responsible (at best) for the birth of their grandchildren. So the child is a gift. A gift to be cherished. In fact, if grandparents could directly cause the birth of a grandchild, I know quite a few—grandmothers especially—who would do so. But they can’t. The child is a gift. To be wondered at and treasured.

We do well to remember what this child does for us. How he was born to redeem us from sin and transform the darkness into light. But maybe this morning we might also remember what we can do for him. Perhaps we might imagine ourselves in the role of Jesus’ grandparents. We are like Jesus’ grandparents. A new baby has been born, a wonderful gift for us. Let us shower upon him extravagant and unfettered love. Cherish him. Treasure him. Hold him close.

Christmas Eve

Merry Christmas

Do you have some particular activity you turn to to cheer yourself up? Or maybe even in times when you don’t feel like you need cheering up, still it’s an activity that always makes you feel good, lightens your heart.

The cliché used to be that a woman would go out and buy a hat when she needed to cheer herself up. Women don’t wear hats as much as they used to, but shopping still works for many. Or maybe you eat a hot fudge sundae. Or call and talk to a special friend. Go to a favorite place. Watch a heart-warming movie? (Or depending upon your temperament maybe an action movie serves better to raise your spirits.)

Most of us have some sort of activity that our experience has taught us has the power to cheer our hearts.

Maybe for you going to midnight mass on Christmas Eve always raises your spirits. Hearing the Christmas story. Hearing the story from Luke’s Gospel has wondrous power to bring hope and cheer. Whether it’s me or, even better, Linus reading it…

And there are all of the traditions that have accreted onto the Christmas story. In theory, at least, we do them because they, too, have the power to make us happy. That’s why we do Christmas traditions. To cheer ourselves. Visiting the storefront Christmas windows. Watching reruns of It’s a Wonderful Life and the Christmas Story. Decorating the tree. Sharing good food. All of these accessories for the Christmas story… We do these things knowing—or hoping—that they will instill the “Christmas spirit” in us.

We look to the Christmas story to make us happy. Think of all the adjectives that go with Christmas. Merry Christmas. Happy Christmas. Have a holly, jolly Christmas. Even if the Christmas story and all of its accessories doesn’t always, in our experience, make us merry, we think it should. And we feel even betrayed by the story, betrayed even somehow by life is Christmas doesn’t cheer us. It’s as though we’ve been robbed of a tonic that we think of as guaranteed to work.

The power that this story has to make us happy is a wonderful gift. But Christmas is more than a story. And when we think of it as only a story—a story whose specific purpose is to make us feel better—we’ve robbed God’s action of its true power. We have reduced it to entertainment. Sacred entertainment, but still entertainment.

If Luke’s story is just a story we hear or watch, no different from Dicken’s A Christmas Carol or a holiday movie, then we are casting God as just an author. A damn good author, but just an author. And we have missed the real purpose of God’s action.

I’m reminded of a scene in the first Harry Potter book and movie. I remember it particularly from the movie. Harry is living with his Aunt and Uncle, the Dursley’s. They are all at the zoo looking at a large, exotic snake through the glass. Harry’s very obnoxious cousin, Dudley Dursley, is banging on the glass, trying to get the snake to entertain him. Harry doesn’t yet know he has magical powers, so everyone is astonished when Dudley magically passes right through the glass. To his immense distress he finds himself all-of-a sudden-actually in the snakes’ world.

So often we look at the Christmas story through the glass. Watching, observing, expecting to be entertained. What if we were to magically pass through the glass and find ourselves literally in the stable, next to the manger? I’m not sure that experience would be a merry one.

It would be dark, cold, smelling like animal dung. In the broader would we would find ourselves in a world where people struggling just to survive. A time of political instability and economic uncertainty. Kind of like the world we live in.

Dudley Dursley found himself wet, unhappy and face to face with a terrifying snake. We would find ourselves in the dark and cold, frightened and confused and face to face with Jesus. We would find ourselves in an unsettling situation, in an often unpleasant world. And face to face with Jesus.

Christmas is not a “story” designed to help us emotionally escape the trials of this world. Christmas isn’t about “creating” happiness.

Christmas is about coming face to face with Jesus. Here in the middle of the trials of this world. In good and bad times. Maybe especially when you we feel dark and unhappy, God’s actions at Christmas ensure that we are never alone. Our lives are shared with God. The whole point of Christmas is that we do not look at God through a glass or read about him in a story, or watch him at the movies. We meet God face to face and know God in the reality of our own lives.

Whether we are happy or sad, God is with us. Whether we are struggling or rejoicing, we are never alone. We are face to face with Jesus in times of wonder and in times of despair. Whether our hearts are filled with confusion or peace, still God shares our human lives with us. No matter what your mood, that’s immeasurably better than the alternative. And a life shared with God, no matter what the circumstances, no matter what your mood… a life shared with God is immeasurably better than one without God in it.

God chose to share our human lives with us. That’s what happens at Christmas. There’s one more way to think about what that means. In the proper preface for the Christmas season we say that Jesus, “by the mighty power of the Holy Spirit, was made perfect Man… so that we might receive power to become [God’s] children.” God’s action in becoming fully human gave us human beings the power to become full children of God. The African-American folk singer Odetta made a recording of Christmas spirituals. Not the songs you’re hearing at the malls these days. They come out of the African-American experience, not always a “merry” or “happy” life. One of them is called “If anybody asks you who you are.” If anybody asks you who you are, tell them you’re a child of God. It’s not always clear as Odetta sings whether her voice is Mary’s talking to Jesus… If anybody asks you who you are, tell them you’re a child of God. Or if she’s singing to us… or if speaking for herself… And that’s the miracle of Christmas. It’s all the same… Jesus, you, me, Odetta. If anybody asks you who you are… tell them you’re a child of God. This wondrous night, or any night. Any time, any place. If anybody asks you who you are, tell them you’re a child of God.