How Do You Know Me?
Psalm 139; John 1:43-51
In times like these, when unemployment is high and many people are financially stretched, many people think about matters of job and career. Finding a job, “making ends meet”, these things seem receive more attention than usual in times of economic downturn. Even when the economy is less troubled, we tend to be preoccupied with matters of career and job. A job, we think, involves paid employment -- or maybe any significant responsibility we take on. A career, we reason, is what happens as a person undertakes a series of jobs over time. Career carries with it a sense of increasing experience, and often-greater responsibility and reward.
This morning we reflect on a third term – a third reality, really. That third term is “calling”. A job might describe paid employment. A career might be described as a series of jobs or experiences in one job that lead to greater responsibility and greater reward. A calling can be a job, and it can be a career. But it is also more than a job and more than a career. The sociologist Robert Bellah sees it this way: A calling links what we do to a larger community where we contribute to the common good. A calling links the person to the world. In his book Economics And The Theology Of Work he writes: “The notion of calling is an effort to make real the reign of God in the realm of work.” When we have a calling, we realize “that we all need each other, and that our real reward is our sense of contribution to the common good.” We can have a job. We can even have a career. When we can make the reign of God real in the realm of work – then we have a calling.
Presbyterian minister and author Frederick Buechner makes a similar point. He writes, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” A calling is found in the intersection between your need for fulfillment and the world’s need for what you have to offer -- where the gifts God gives you and the world’s need for those gifts meet -- where what you can do and what God and the world need you to do meet. That’s more than a job. That’s more than a career. That’s a calling. A job is temporary. A career won’t last all your life. Our question for today is this; How can we hear our calling? How can each of us find that place where deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet?
You’re all familiar with the Verizon Wireless television commercials where the Verizon man walks around speaking into his cell phone, asking, “Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now?” When it comes to hearing our calling, I think God does the same thing. God calls us and asks, “Can you hear me now?” The problem is never with God being silent. The problem is with our being able to receive God’s call.
Think about Nathanael in our Gospel passage for today. One day Philip shows up, waving his arms and exclaiming that he’s just met the one long promised in the law and the prophets. Nathanael’s answer is a sneer. “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” But his own encounter with Jesus redirects Nathanael. He moves from a place of skepticism to a place where he is willing to getup, leave behind life as he knows it, and follow Jesus. Nathanael becomes a disciple. Jesus invites him to follow, and that is what he does. It is not easy, but Nathanael recognizes his calling. The purpose of his life comes to light.
I love Nathanael’s astonishment. When Jesus flatters him, Nathanael says, “How do you know me?” Today’s texts remind us that God really knows us – even better than we know ourselves. The Psalmist expresses it this way, "…it was you, [God] who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made." Our calling comes from God’s special and intimate knowledge of who we are.
God knit you. God knows every stitch of your being. My daughter Zoe recently challenged me to a knit-off. She has taken up knitting. She has made some nice pieces. When she knits meticulously, taking her time with each individual stitch, adjusting the tension and counting the loops. One night I was poking fun at how slow and exacting she was. So she challenged me to a knit off. I don’t know how to knit. So I asked my sister-in-law to give me a five-minute lesson. My practice piece looked like a bushy purple caterpillar with 25 little looped legs. On the day of the knit-off, Zoe measured two pieces of yarn, about 25 feet in length. She put them on the knitting sticks (I later found out they are called needles), had us sit back to back on the floor, and knit until the yarn was gone. Zoe quickly finished – an evenly stitched patch of yarn that could easily turn into a hat or scarf. She worked with ease. My finished project looked like a bushy pink caterpillar with 25 little looped legs. My tense arms and hunched shoulders showed in my work. Zoe glided through. She knew what she was doing (I must say, I came in a close second at the knit off). I think of how God knows us and knits us, creating us with painstaking care and gracious ease. We are indeed fearfully and wonderfully made. Our calling and our discipleship come from God’s knowledge of who we are and what God made each of us to be.
When I read Nathanael’s story, I’m encouraged. There’s hope for the rest of us. Jesus knows Nathanael. He calls this intolerant, sarcastic man to be a disciple. God knows the real Nathanael. And if he gets to be a disciple, then there’s hope that the rest of us can discover that place where “our deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” There’s hope that we can discover the intersection between our need for fulfillment and the world’s need for what we have to offer -- where the gifts God gives us and the world’s need for those gifts meet -- where what we can do and what God and the world need us to do meet.
This weekend I am especially conscious of Dr. Martin Luther King’s special calling, which he described as being a “drum major for the cause of justice.” There are many highlights in Dr. King’s life, such as the march on Selma, the march on Washington, and the passage of the voting rights act. But in his later life he was facing more defeats than victories. Some thought that his opposition to the war in Vietnam would jeopardize government support for programs to end poverty. He struggled to mediate between more radical figures like Stokely Carmichael and more conservative ones like Roy Wilkins. His call for a march to end poverty was not getting much response. He was hounded by the F.B.I. In the weeks and months before his death, he was depressed and discouraged. Yet, he still heard God’s call urging him to be a drum major for justice. In his last speech on the eve of his assassination, he put aside his own doubts and fatigue, cast off the threats against his own life, and rallied the crowd for the cause he had taken up so many years before -- a cause that would see the end of segregation in the South, secure the vote for black citizens, and goad the country as a whole, both North and South, to overcome its prejudices and its past.
He said. “I don’t know what will happen now . . .We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop and I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will, and He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight, that we as a people will get to the Promised Land. So I’m happy tonight; I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”
In April of 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. was arrested and placed in jail in Birmingham, Alabama for his non-violent resistance to segregation. After King’s incarceration eight leading Christian and Jewish religious leaders in that city, released a statement criticizing King’s work and ideas, saying that his activities to end segregation in the South were, “unwise and untimely.” In response to that statement, King wrote these eight men, what has come to be known as his Letter from Birmingham Jail. Listen to some sound bytes of what King wrote: “I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. . . injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.. . Just as the prophets carried ‘thus saith the Lord’ far beyond their villages, and just like the apostle Paul carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco-Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom. . . we must see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.” 1
Martin Luther King was a black man in a white culture that was unable to hear God’s call because of it’s immoral behavior of racism - an immorality that had even corrupted the religious leadership. But King struggled to rise above that deadening culture where people did only what was right in their own eyes. Martin Luther King chose not give in. He chose not to serve the immoral culture and to become separated from God in the process. King chose to follow God’s ways of justice, freedom and love. He chose to move out of the dead zone of racial hatred where God’s call could not be heard, to the life giving zone of justice and love. And because of this, when God said, “Martin, can you hear me now?” King responded to the call.
We can profit from the stories of Nathanael and MLK. We can take courage from how they responded to God’s voice speaking to each of them. Today, we must hear and heed our own call.
Listen because God speaks to us. It might be through a still, small voice. You may hear it in the turmoil of daily events. It’s there if you listen. To hear it is always a moment of grace. You have gifts that God has given you. God calls on you to use them. There are needs in this Church where God may be inviting you to use your gifts and abilities to make a difference. At the very least, God calls us to evaluate our commitment to justice, freedom and love.
I invite you to consider how God might be calling you to respond to the needs in the world around you. There are needs in the community where God may be calling you to use your gifts and abilities to make a difference. The poverty level is high – organizations like the The Council of Churches of Greater Bridgeport, the Bridgeport Rescue Mission, St. Luke’s and Operation Hope, need volunteers and donations. Or you can just look around and see those in need around you. Listen for God’s call. There are needs in the world where God may be calling on you to use your gifts and abilities to make a difference. “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” There is a place like that for you. God knows you. God has a calling for you whether you realize it or not. Listen. And when you hear God’s call, respond.
Sources
http://revbillsermons.blogspot.com/2006/01/john-143-51.html
http://www.stjohntb.org/sermons/01_15_06.html
http://www.allsaintsbrookline.org/sermons/2006/sermons/DK060115.html
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Funeral Sermon for Wells Martin
January 17, 2009
We all know that Wells loved children. He actually treated them like human beings. He would get on their level, and greet them – asking them questions and looking interested in their responses.
That’s not surprising. Children have a positive affect on lots of people. Children are fun to be around, most of the time anyway. Children have, it seems, limitless energy and enthusiasm. They are always amazed at the news things they’ve learned, their joy of life seems a treasure at times. Children see things that adults don’t. They haven’t been conditioned to recognize and interpret reality the way we adults have. A while back someone gave me a bit of advice and told me not to ask children questions during the children’s time at church. They tend to blurt out answers you weren’t expecting. Children see and experience life differently than we adults can imagine, or remember anyways.
One persistent question that children like to ask is; what is heaven like? They hear about heaven in church, or from parents or grandparents if they don’t attend church, and they want to know. The posture children take is so unlike that of adults, who approach the whole subject with a desire for a scientific explanation or with skepticism. But children don’t need these categories. They see the whole subject of death and heaven and God with eyes that still recognize the marvel and wonder of it all.
Now a lot of people, in times of trial and sorrow like these, turn to God and the bible in a quest for meaning and comfort. And part of the search is a quest for concrete answers, some way to understand the whole issue of death and dying and a way to fit it into the way the rest of the world is experienced. Unfortunately no one has ever come back to tell us what it’s like. And when we turn to religion, we find that the bible is strangely quiet with concrete particulars of what happens after we pass from this existence.
There are hints and allusions however, and we’ve heard one in this afternoon’s gospel reading. Jesus tells his disciples, “In my father’s house are many rooms . . . and I go and prepare a place for you.” Imagine what this statement would have meant to a peasant who lived in the heat and the dust of 1st century Palestine. Imagine a person who sweats and labors in someone else’s field 12 hours a day, who worries if he’ll have enough food, because if he doesn’t, one of his children will starve to death. To this person, who live in a one room shack, what Jesus says is incredible. The whole idea of living in a mansion, in a palace, and having a room to yourself is unbelievable. The concept of staying in the Lord’s house would be such a sign of overflowing generosity and abundance. Imagine, a room to yourself in the Lord’s palace!
Jesus helps us understand a little bit more about what heaven is like, not in a literal sense, but rather of the incredible, overflowing richness of what is promised by God -- an overflowing abundance that is based solely on God’s love for you.
It’s because of this love, this seemingly infinite, unending, unimaginable love, the love God has for each and every part of his creation, that we can find some measure of comfort in this most difficult time. The comfort we are given, the promise that can sustain us, the knowledge that can form the basis of meaning in this chaotic time of grief and fog, can be found in the immeasurable love God has for each and every one of us.
God’s love is an unconditional love, a love that triumphs over all pain and sadness and grief and despair. And the promise is fulfilled in the assurance that God has defeated the powers of death and chaos. The separation we endure with the passing of loved ones is only temporary. We are assured, that in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, God’s promise will ultimately be fulfilled.
So we can step back, in this time of confusion and grief, and when the dust settles we can reflect that Wells is in God’s loving hands, we can find peace in the certainty of the promise that Frank is in God’s loving care. Thanks be to God.
We all know that Wells loved children. He actually treated them like human beings. He would get on their level, and greet them – asking them questions and looking interested in their responses.
That’s not surprising. Children have a positive affect on lots of people. Children are fun to be around, most of the time anyway. Children have, it seems, limitless energy and enthusiasm. They are always amazed at the news things they’ve learned, their joy of life seems a treasure at times. Children see things that adults don’t. They haven’t been conditioned to recognize and interpret reality the way we adults have. A while back someone gave me a bit of advice and told me not to ask children questions during the children’s time at church. They tend to blurt out answers you weren’t expecting. Children see and experience life differently than we adults can imagine, or remember anyways.
One persistent question that children like to ask is; what is heaven like? They hear about heaven in church, or from parents or grandparents if they don’t attend church, and they want to know. The posture children take is so unlike that of adults, who approach the whole subject with a desire for a scientific explanation or with skepticism. But children don’t need these categories. They see the whole subject of death and heaven and God with eyes that still recognize the marvel and wonder of it all.
Now a lot of people, in times of trial and sorrow like these, turn to God and the bible in a quest for meaning and comfort. And part of the search is a quest for concrete answers, some way to understand the whole issue of death and dying and a way to fit it into the way the rest of the world is experienced. Unfortunately no one has ever come back to tell us what it’s like. And when we turn to religion, we find that the bible is strangely quiet with concrete particulars of what happens after we pass from this existence.
There are hints and allusions however, and we’ve heard one in this afternoon’s gospel reading. Jesus tells his disciples, “In my father’s house are many rooms . . . and I go and prepare a place for you.” Imagine what this statement would have meant to a peasant who lived in the heat and the dust of 1st century Palestine. Imagine a person who sweats and labors in someone else’s field 12 hours a day, who worries if he’ll have enough food, because if he doesn’t, one of his children will starve to death. To this person, who live in a one room shack, what Jesus says is incredible. The whole idea of living in a mansion, in a palace, and having a room to yourself is unbelievable. The concept of staying in the Lord’s house would be such a sign of overflowing generosity and abundance. Imagine, a room to yourself in the Lord’s palace!
Jesus helps us understand a little bit more about what heaven is like, not in a literal sense, but rather of the incredible, overflowing richness of what is promised by God -- an overflowing abundance that is based solely on God’s love for you.
It’s because of this love, this seemingly infinite, unending, unimaginable love, the love God has for each and every part of his creation, that we can find some measure of comfort in this most difficult time. The comfort we are given, the promise that can sustain us, the knowledge that can form the basis of meaning in this chaotic time of grief and fog, can be found in the immeasurable love God has for each and every one of us.
God’s love is an unconditional love, a love that triumphs over all pain and sadness and grief and despair. And the promise is fulfilled in the assurance that God has defeated the powers of death and chaos. The separation we endure with the passing of loved ones is only temporary. We are assured, that in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, God’s promise will ultimately be fulfilled.
So we can step back, in this time of confusion and grief, and when the dust settles we can reflect that Wells is in God’s loving hands, we can find peace in the certainty of the promise that Frank is in God’s loving care. Thanks be to God.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Sermon for January 11, 2008
Birth of New Creation
Genesis 1:1-5; Mark 1:4-11
We’re accustomed to a gentler notion of baptism. At TCC, the clergy and deacons lead the congregation in a ceremony in which a baptized child is brought into the community of God’s people. Family members, godparents, and congregants promise to be a part of the community of the baptized. The moment is filled with warmth. It’s a sign of our togetherness. It’s our way of saying that we belong to one another and that we are glad to be on this journey with each another. Hardly anything we do in the church community is more affirming of our life together than our celebration of the sacrament of baptism.
Jesus’ baptism is not like this, at least not in the Gospel of Mark. In Mark’s account, the heavens forcefully split open. The phrase only a few times in the Bible. For instance, in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, Abraham splits apart the wood he uses to sacrifice Isaac. Luke and Matthew soften their accounts of the baptism of Jesus and use a word that is more comforting. They say that the heavens were opened or revealed. For them, things are revealed; for Mark the heavens rip.
The only other place that Matthew, Mark and Luke all refer to something ripped apart is at the crucifixion. Mark says “Jesus uttered a loud cry, breathed his last, and the veil of the Temple was ripped in two from top to bottom.” Mark uses this provocative image only twice, when the heavens are ripped apart at Jesus’ baptism and when the Temple veil is torn apart at his death. Mark wants us to understand something forceful and unsettling about Jesus’ baptism.
“Jesus saw the sky split open and God’s Spirit, looking like a dove.” If the heavens split open, one would think that God would appear to everyone. The irony is that the heavens rip apart and no one but Jesus even notices. Jesus sees the heavens split apart and the dove descend. No one else perceives it.
This is the pattern throughout the rest of Mark’s Gospel. People don’t see or hear. They don’t understand. They are not changed. After he is baptized, Jesus goes into the desert where he is tested. Then he begins his ministry of healing. At first, it goes well. People are amazed and his fame spreads. But already in chapter one, some begin to question Jesus. They ask, “What is this, a new teaching?” By chapter two, just barely into his ministry, after Jesus has done nothing but make people better, the scribes charge him with blasphemy. We haven’t even gotten out of the second chapter of the Mark’s Gospel and a plot is already in place. The end is already arranged. The crucifixion looms in the distance. By chapter six, those in his hometown say he is too big for his britches. By chapter eight Jesus has healed countless illnesses from deafness to leprosy, from epilepsy to mental illness, from paralysis to apparent death. He has fed five thousand and then four thousand people on what appeared to be scraps. He has forgiven sins. He has calmed storms. Eventually, the religious authorities can no longer stand this challenge to their authority. More than that, they cannot recognize the fact that Jesus keeps trying to uncover their ears and eyes. Jesus threatens to reveal their hypocrisy, their pretense, their comfort and their denial. So they do what comes naturally. They do the very thing that Jesus had come to change about human ways. They shut him up permanently. They nail him to the cross. And as he breaths his last, the heavens split apart. As far as we know, only a lone Roman centurion was the only one to see it. The rest of the world seems oblivious to what has just happened, except for one representative of empire and military might – one hardened, battle-trained soldier who says, “Surely this man was the son of God.”
Of course, the story isn’t over. Easter comes. Jesus rises. He gets the last word. Ultimately, it becomes the basis for the Christian church. But a funny thing happens along the way. The church that grew out of Jesus’ resurrection falls prey to the same human faults that preceded it. In Jesus’ name, war is justified. Wealth and privilege are seen as gifts of God, while poverty and powerlessness are characterized as God’s judgment. Hatred toward others is attributed to God.
As blatant as those things are, and as much as we ought to unmask them and fight against them, I wonder what Jesus would say if he joined us here this morning. I wonder whether Jesus would ask us to focus on where our ears might be blocked and our eyes closed. I wonder if Jesus would want to know how the heavens were split open at our baptisms. He would want to know what difference our baptisms make. He would remind us that baptism is the start of something new—the birth of a new creation. Today we heard the opening words from Genesis. In the beginning, out of nothing, God creates. Every time God inspects the creation, God sees that it is good. Baptism is the beginning of our transformation. The heavens rip open once again. God creates something new. And it is good. It is beautiful.
This week we had a memorial service for Margaret Pavlik, a long-time friend of this congregation. Her son-in-law Michael spoke about her final days in the hospital. Lying in her hospital bed, she gazed toward some flowers. When Michael asked her if she was looking at the flowers, he heard her whisper one word in response. It was the last thing he ever heard her say: “Beautiful.”
I believe that God sees you and speaks the same word. Listen for God’s first and last words about creation, whispered from the heavens: Good. Beloved. Beautiful.
Garrison Keillor tells the story of Larry the Sad Boy. Larry the Sad Boy was saved twelve times, which is an all-time record in the Lutheran Church. The Lutheran Church has no altar call, no organist playing “Just as I Am,” as people come forward to be born again. These are Scandinavian Lutherans, and they repent the same way that they sin -- discreetly, tastefully, and at the right time. And they bring a Jell-O-salad for afterwards. Keillor writes, “Larry Sorenson came forward weeping buckets and crumpled up at the communion rail, to the amazement of the minister, who had just delivered a dry sermon on stewardship, and who now had to put his arm around this limp, saggy individual and pray with him and see if he had a ride home. Twelve times. Granted, we’re born in original sin and are worthless and vile, but twelve conversions is too many. There comes a point where you should dry your tears, and join the building committee and start grappling with the problems of the church furnace and the church roof and make church coffee and be of use, but Larry just kept on repenting and repenting.”
Keillor reminds us that repentance has a point, and that point is to get about doing God’s work. It begins in baptism. God creates something new and beautiful in order for us to do something new and beautiful.
Jesus would be asking us two related sets of questions. He would be asking, “Do you understand how different the world you have been baptized into is from the world from which you came? Do you understand that in this world into which you have been baptized, love replaces hate, humility replaces arrogance, forgiveness replaces retribution, peace replaces violence? Do you understand that in this world into which you have been baptized these things are not just noble ideals – that they are values by which you are to live your life. Do you realize how difficult these things are?”
And then he would ask the second set of questions. “Do you understand how uncomfortable these things make not just you but other people when you take them seriously? Do you understand how dangerous people will consider them? Do you realize that people will even use the name of God to condemn you for them? Are you of the human tendency to destroy what it doesn’t like? Are you aware that human beings fear those who expose their tendency for destruction and that their knee-jerk response is to destroy that which would expose them? Are you aware that if you share my baptism, you will drink the cup I drank?
The baptism of Jesus is our baptism, and each one is a world-shattering affair. Once the waters of baptism touched you, there is no turning back. In our baptism, in this unmasking of the violence that we justify in our world and justify in ourselves, in this ripping open of the heavens, we can find the dove of peace. Peace within us and between us. Peace that lies far beyond the cycles of violence and retribution we see every day. Peace that comes as the heavens rip apart and we listen for the voice of God. Can you hear it? “Good. Beloved. Beautiful. You are my beloved child -- my new creation. In you I am well pleased.”
Genesis 1:1-5; Mark 1:4-11
John the Baptizer appeared in the wild, preaching a baptism of life-change that leads to forgiveness of sins. People thronged to him from Judea and Jerusalem and, as they confessed their sins, were baptized by him in the Jordan River into a changed life. John wore a camel-hair habit, tied at the waist with a leather belt. He ate locusts and wild field honey. As he preached he said, “The real action comes next: The star in this drama, to whom I'm a mere stagehand, will change your life. I'm baptizing you here in the river, turning your old life in for a kingdom life. His baptism—a holy baptism by the Holy Spirit—will change you from the inside out.” At this time, Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. The moment he came out of the water, he saw the sky split open and God's Spirit, looking like a dove, come down on him. Along with the Spirit, a voice: “You are my Son, chosen and marked by my love, pride of my life.” Mark 1:4-11, The MessageJesus saw the heavens being ripped open. It doesn’t quite come through in most English translation. Most say something like, “He saw the heavens opening and the Spirit descending on him like a dove.” But Mark actually wrote that when Jesus came up out of the water, he saw the heavens being ripped open and spirit coming upon him through the tear in the fabric of the great dome.
We’re accustomed to a gentler notion of baptism. At TCC, the clergy and deacons lead the congregation in a ceremony in which a baptized child is brought into the community of God’s people. Family members, godparents, and congregants promise to be a part of the community of the baptized. The moment is filled with warmth. It’s a sign of our togetherness. It’s our way of saying that we belong to one another and that we are glad to be on this journey with each another. Hardly anything we do in the church community is more affirming of our life together than our celebration of the sacrament of baptism.
Jesus’ baptism is not like this, at least not in the Gospel of Mark. In Mark’s account, the heavens forcefully split open. The phrase only a few times in the Bible. For instance, in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, Abraham splits apart the wood he uses to sacrifice Isaac. Luke and Matthew soften their accounts of the baptism of Jesus and use a word that is more comforting. They say that the heavens were opened or revealed. For them, things are revealed; for Mark the heavens rip.
The only other place that Matthew, Mark and Luke all refer to something ripped apart is at the crucifixion. Mark says “Jesus uttered a loud cry, breathed his last, and the veil of the Temple was ripped in two from top to bottom.” Mark uses this provocative image only twice, when the heavens are ripped apart at Jesus’ baptism and when the Temple veil is torn apart at his death. Mark wants us to understand something forceful and unsettling about Jesus’ baptism.
“Jesus saw the sky split open and God’s Spirit, looking like a dove.” If the heavens split open, one would think that God would appear to everyone. The irony is that the heavens rip apart and no one but Jesus even notices. Jesus sees the heavens split apart and the dove descend. No one else perceives it.
This is the pattern throughout the rest of Mark’s Gospel. People don’t see or hear. They don’t understand. They are not changed. After he is baptized, Jesus goes into the desert where he is tested. Then he begins his ministry of healing. At first, it goes well. People are amazed and his fame spreads. But already in chapter one, some begin to question Jesus. They ask, “What is this, a new teaching?” By chapter two, just barely into his ministry, after Jesus has done nothing but make people better, the scribes charge him with blasphemy. We haven’t even gotten out of the second chapter of the Mark’s Gospel and a plot is already in place. The end is already arranged. The crucifixion looms in the distance. By chapter six, those in his hometown say he is too big for his britches. By chapter eight Jesus has healed countless illnesses from deafness to leprosy, from epilepsy to mental illness, from paralysis to apparent death. He has fed five thousand and then four thousand people on what appeared to be scraps. He has forgiven sins. He has calmed storms. Eventually, the religious authorities can no longer stand this challenge to their authority. More than that, they cannot recognize the fact that Jesus keeps trying to uncover their ears and eyes. Jesus threatens to reveal their hypocrisy, their pretense, their comfort and their denial. So they do what comes naturally. They do the very thing that Jesus had come to change about human ways. They shut him up permanently. They nail him to the cross. And as he breaths his last, the heavens split apart. As far as we know, only a lone Roman centurion was the only one to see it. The rest of the world seems oblivious to what has just happened, except for one representative of empire and military might – one hardened, battle-trained soldier who says, “Surely this man was the son of God.”
Of course, the story isn’t over. Easter comes. Jesus rises. He gets the last word. Ultimately, it becomes the basis for the Christian church. But a funny thing happens along the way. The church that grew out of Jesus’ resurrection falls prey to the same human faults that preceded it. In Jesus’ name, war is justified. Wealth and privilege are seen as gifts of God, while poverty and powerlessness are characterized as God’s judgment. Hatred toward others is attributed to God.
As blatant as those things are, and as much as we ought to unmask them and fight against them, I wonder what Jesus would say if he joined us here this morning. I wonder whether Jesus would ask us to focus on where our ears might be blocked and our eyes closed. I wonder if Jesus would want to know how the heavens were split open at our baptisms. He would want to know what difference our baptisms make. He would remind us that baptism is the start of something new—the birth of a new creation. Today we heard the opening words from Genesis. In the beginning, out of nothing, God creates. Every time God inspects the creation, God sees that it is good. Baptism is the beginning of our transformation. The heavens rip open once again. God creates something new. And it is good. It is beautiful.
This week we had a memorial service for Margaret Pavlik, a long-time friend of this congregation. Her son-in-law Michael spoke about her final days in the hospital. Lying in her hospital bed, she gazed toward some flowers. When Michael asked her if she was looking at the flowers, he heard her whisper one word in response. It was the last thing he ever heard her say: “Beautiful.”
I believe that God sees you and speaks the same word. Listen for God’s first and last words about creation, whispered from the heavens: Good. Beloved. Beautiful.
Garrison Keillor tells the story of Larry the Sad Boy. Larry the Sad Boy was saved twelve times, which is an all-time record in the Lutheran Church. The Lutheran Church has no altar call, no organist playing “Just as I Am,” as people come forward to be born again. These are Scandinavian Lutherans, and they repent the same way that they sin -- discreetly, tastefully, and at the right time. And they bring a Jell-O-salad for afterwards. Keillor writes, “Larry Sorenson came forward weeping buckets and crumpled up at the communion rail, to the amazement of the minister, who had just delivered a dry sermon on stewardship, and who now had to put his arm around this limp, saggy individual and pray with him and see if he had a ride home. Twelve times. Granted, we’re born in original sin and are worthless and vile, but twelve conversions is too many. There comes a point where you should dry your tears, and join the building committee and start grappling with the problems of the church furnace and the church roof and make church coffee and be of use, but Larry just kept on repenting and repenting.”
Keillor reminds us that repentance has a point, and that point is to get about doing God’s work. It begins in baptism. God creates something new and beautiful in order for us to do something new and beautiful.
Jesus would be asking us two related sets of questions. He would be asking, “Do you understand how different the world you have been baptized into is from the world from which you came? Do you understand that in this world into which you have been baptized, love replaces hate, humility replaces arrogance, forgiveness replaces retribution, peace replaces violence? Do you understand that in this world into which you have been baptized these things are not just noble ideals – that they are values by which you are to live your life. Do you realize how difficult these things are?”
And then he would ask the second set of questions. “Do you understand how uncomfortable these things make not just you but other people when you take them seriously? Do you understand how dangerous people will consider them? Do you realize that people will even use the name of God to condemn you for them? Are you of the human tendency to destroy what it doesn’t like? Are you aware that human beings fear those who expose their tendency for destruction and that their knee-jerk response is to destroy that which would expose them? Are you aware that if you share my baptism, you will drink the cup I drank?
The baptism of Jesus is our baptism, and each one is a world-shattering affair. Once the waters of baptism touched you, there is no turning back. In our baptism, in this unmasking of the violence that we justify in our world and justify in ourselves, in this ripping open of the heavens, we can find the dove of peace. Peace within us and between us. Peace that lies far beyond the cycles of violence and retribution we see every day. Peace that comes as the heavens rip apart and we listen for the voice of God. Can you hear it? “Good. Beloved. Beautiful. You are my beloved child -- my new creation. In you I am well pleased.”
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Sermon for January 4, 2009
Jesus the Word
John 1:1-18
I once had a friend who claimed to hear the voice of God. His name was Willie. Willie always made me a little nervous when I was around him because the things God told him were not very pleasant. For some reason, God usually let it be known to him that those who failed to follow God’s commands would receive harsh punishment. It usually involved eternal fire and endless abandonment. Willie wasn’t the kind of guy you wanted around at your New Year’s party. In fact, when he moved to Florida, we were all relieved. For the most part, his messages from God made me nervous for selfish reasons. I was afraid God was going to tell Willie some secret detail of my past, and I didn’t want to be around if the Lord was going to embarrass me in front of my friends.
I had a similar experience at a place called the Church of Brotherly Love. It was a small African American church on a country road in the middle of nowhere. The pastor, Sister Bradley, had been the minister for 30 years. Sister Bradley invited me out to one of her church’s weeknight revival services. Sister Bradley invited a woman from Florida to be the guest speaker. I guess Florida is a hot bed for Christian prophets. Anyway, the woman was known to be a prophet. She preached for an hour and a half, telling us that she was telling us what she was hearing from God as God said it. I thought to myself, “This lady is repeating herself. With a good sermon outline, she could have said the same thing in 20 minutes.” As she wrapped it up, the Prophet Lady began to pray and God started giving her messages about specific people who needed to hear a word. She called specific people whom the Lord wanted to free from various sinful ways. She would say, “There is a woman here with 4 children who can’t pay her bills. She has been drinking a lot to escape her pain. God wants her to know that there is another way to solve her problems, and the answer is Jesus. Where is that woman?” We were supposed to be praying, but I secretly scanned the room, looking for someone to arise. Finally, a tearful woman stood up and walked down the small center aisle of the church. This happened with three or four other people. The Prophet Lady would close her eyes in silence, nod her head in agreement with the voices in her head, call people forward, lay her hands on them and pray over them. Then the people would shake and fall to the ground, filled with the Holy Spirit. That’s when I started praying. I did not want to be called forward. I didn’t want to be exposed. I didn’t know when to fall down. “Lord,” I said, “I know what I’ve done. You know what I’ve done. Let’s just keep it between you and me and not tell the Prophet Lady about it. OK?” Then the Prophet Lady spoke. “You, the young pastor over there.” I was going to be wise and point to someone else behind me, but I knew to whom she spoke. She said, “The Lord has a message for you.” Meanwhile I’m thinking, “God we had a deal here.” Mercifully, I never had to go forward. She gave an encouraging message, and let me sit back down. God is good!
Do you ever wonder if God still speaks to us?
We often walk a fine line when trying to answer this question. If someone claims to directly hear the voice of God, we usually consider the person to be a fanatic or demented. The other side of the line is that we want to hear from God. Many of us desire to hear directly from God. In our age of competing spiritualities, we want to know that the God we worship is real and involved in our lives. We desire God to communicate a message of love directly to our hearts. We often wonder why we can’t hear God’s voice.
The author of John’s gospel had a challenge. He wanted to write an account of the life of Jesus that would appeal to a large audience of Jews and Greeks. There was little good in telling the Greeks that Jesus was the Messiah or the Son of David—they are terms from Jewish Scripture that had no meaning to Greeks. Even the term “Son of God” had different meanings to Jews and Greeks. The Greeks knew all about sons of gods who were products of the affairs of immortals who came to earth and seduced mortal maidens. And in Imperial Rome, the Emperor was the only one called the Son of God. The author of the gospel needed a different vocabulary. So, John referred to Jesus by using the Greek word logos, which means “Word”. In Jewish literature and Greek philosophy, logos refers to the mind of God. Words do things. Through the Word of God, chaos became the ordered cosmos. The logos was seen as God’s instrument of creation. The logos holds the universe together. John took the familiar concept of logos and applied it to Jesus.
Think about what a word is in our own times. We use words to communicate with one another. We choose words that best convey the message we want to speak and we relate those words in ways that another person can understand. On the most basic level, this is what Jesus is for us. Jesus Christ is God’s Word to us. The theological word for this is “incarnation.” God becomes flesh. God takes on human form to tell us something. Jesus is God’s ultimate way of communicating with us. When John calls Jesus the Word, he says that Jesus is God’s way of trying to tell us something crucially important.
In Jesus, we hear how God feels toward us. Some people would have you believe that we humans are rotten to the core without a shred of worth to God. Listen to me when I tell you that these are lies. God would never come to us in Jesus Christ if we were worthless in the first place. In fact, by sending Jesus Christ to live with us, God communicates a message of hope to us. Yes, we sin. Yes, we make bad decisions and operate with misguided motives, but God still loves us. Jesus Christ is God’s love letter to us. Remember for a moment the things that Jesus did while he lived on this earth. He healed the sick and fed the hungry. He comforted the grieving. Jesus was a friend to outcasts and sinners. God would never heal, feed, or comfort those whom he despises. God wouldn’t have bothered if God didn’t care. God would only show such care to those whom he loves with a passionate, all-consuming love. Jesus is God’s message to us that God understands us. God became a human being to walk with us, to experience this world with us, and even to die with us. Incarnation means that God became human so that nothing human would lie beyond God’s experience. Jesus, the Word of God, communicates the heart of God to us.
God is still sending a word of love to us today. At all times, in all places, God is speaking tender words of love and belonging to us in Jesus Christ. Can you hear God’s Word?
Imagine if we were to get a letter from Jesus in the mail and this is what it said:
We hear many messages out there today. Each one is competing for our attention and allegiance. My hope is that we will all hear the strong and clear Word of God’s love for us. May it ring louder in our ears than all other rivals. May Jesus, God’s Word, remind us just how much God cares. May the record of Jesus’ life, and the leading of God’s Spirit lead you. Allow the Word of God to comfort your soul, giving you the assurance that God wants to be close to you.
And in hearing, may you find the ability to trust and obey. Trust that God’s message of love is for all people. Allow God to use you as a messenger of this good news. May you find strength in obedience, and inner-peace in the knowledge that God is using you to being his beloved people closer and closer to God’s Word of love.
John 1:1-18
I once had a friend who claimed to hear the voice of God. His name was Willie. Willie always made me a little nervous when I was around him because the things God told him were not very pleasant. For some reason, God usually let it be known to him that those who failed to follow God’s commands would receive harsh punishment. It usually involved eternal fire and endless abandonment. Willie wasn’t the kind of guy you wanted around at your New Year’s party. In fact, when he moved to Florida, we were all relieved. For the most part, his messages from God made me nervous for selfish reasons. I was afraid God was going to tell Willie some secret detail of my past, and I didn’t want to be around if the Lord was going to embarrass me in front of my friends.
I had a similar experience at a place called the Church of Brotherly Love. It was a small African American church on a country road in the middle of nowhere. The pastor, Sister Bradley, had been the minister for 30 years. Sister Bradley invited me out to one of her church’s weeknight revival services. Sister Bradley invited a woman from Florida to be the guest speaker. I guess Florida is a hot bed for Christian prophets. Anyway, the woman was known to be a prophet. She preached for an hour and a half, telling us that she was telling us what she was hearing from God as God said it. I thought to myself, “This lady is repeating herself. With a good sermon outline, she could have said the same thing in 20 minutes.” As she wrapped it up, the Prophet Lady began to pray and God started giving her messages about specific people who needed to hear a word. She called specific people whom the Lord wanted to free from various sinful ways. She would say, “There is a woman here with 4 children who can’t pay her bills. She has been drinking a lot to escape her pain. God wants her to know that there is another way to solve her problems, and the answer is Jesus. Where is that woman?” We were supposed to be praying, but I secretly scanned the room, looking for someone to arise. Finally, a tearful woman stood up and walked down the small center aisle of the church. This happened with three or four other people. The Prophet Lady would close her eyes in silence, nod her head in agreement with the voices in her head, call people forward, lay her hands on them and pray over them. Then the people would shake and fall to the ground, filled with the Holy Spirit. That’s when I started praying. I did not want to be called forward. I didn’t want to be exposed. I didn’t know when to fall down. “Lord,” I said, “I know what I’ve done. You know what I’ve done. Let’s just keep it between you and me and not tell the Prophet Lady about it. OK?” Then the Prophet Lady spoke. “You, the young pastor over there.” I was going to be wise and point to someone else behind me, but I knew to whom she spoke. She said, “The Lord has a message for you.” Meanwhile I’m thinking, “God we had a deal here.” Mercifully, I never had to go forward. She gave an encouraging message, and let me sit back down. God is good!
Do you ever wonder if God still speaks to us?
We often walk a fine line when trying to answer this question. If someone claims to directly hear the voice of God, we usually consider the person to be a fanatic or demented. The other side of the line is that we want to hear from God. Many of us desire to hear directly from God. In our age of competing spiritualities, we want to know that the God we worship is real and involved in our lives. We desire God to communicate a message of love directly to our hearts. We often wonder why we can’t hear God’s voice.
The author of John’s gospel had a challenge. He wanted to write an account of the life of Jesus that would appeal to a large audience of Jews and Greeks. There was little good in telling the Greeks that Jesus was the Messiah or the Son of David—they are terms from Jewish Scripture that had no meaning to Greeks. Even the term “Son of God” had different meanings to Jews and Greeks. The Greeks knew all about sons of gods who were products of the affairs of immortals who came to earth and seduced mortal maidens. And in Imperial Rome, the Emperor was the only one called the Son of God. The author of the gospel needed a different vocabulary. So, John referred to Jesus by using the Greek word logos, which means “Word”. In Jewish literature and Greek philosophy, logos refers to the mind of God. Words do things. Through the Word of God, chaos became the ordered cosmos. The logos was seen as God’s instrument of creation. The logos holds the universe together. John took the familiar concept of logos and applied it to Jesus.
Think about what a word is in our own times. We use words to communicate with one another. We choose words that best convey the message we want to speak and we relate those words in ways that another person can understand. On the most basic level, this is what Jesus is for us. Jesus Christ is God’s Word to us. The theological word for this is “incarnation.” God becomes flesh. God takes on human form to tell us something. Jesus is God’s ultimate way of communicating with us. When John calls Jesus the Word, he says that Jesus is God’s way of trying to tell us something crucially important.
In Jesus, we hear how God feels toward us. Some people would have you believe that we humans are rotten to the core without a shred of worth to God. Listen to me when I tell you that these are lies. God would never come to us in Jesus Christ if we were worthless in the first place. In fact, by sending Jesus Christ to live with us, God communicates a message of hope to us. Yes, we sin. Yes, we make bad decisions and operate with misguided motives, but God still loves us. Jesus Christ is God’s love letter to us. Remember for a moment the things that Jesus did while he lived on this earth. He healed the sick and fed the hungry. He comforted the grieving. Jesus was a friend to outcasts and sinners. God would never heal, feed, or comfort those whom he despises. God wouldn’t have bothered if God didn’t care. God would only show such care to those whom he loves with a passionate, all-consuming love. Jesus is God’s message to us that God understands us. God became a human being to walk with us, to experience this world with us, and even to die with us. Incarnation means that God became human so that nothing human would lie beyond God’s experience. Jesus, the Word of God, communicates the heart of God to us.
God is still sending a word of love to us today. At all times, in all places, God is speaking tender words of love and belonging to us in Jesus Christ. Can you hear God’s Word?
Imagine if we were to get a letter from Jesus in the mail and this is what it said:
Dear Christians: I came into the world to show you God’s love. I healed the sick, I raised people from the dead. I didn’t do this to show off, but to show you that God, the Father, cares for you. Now I ask you to do the same. Take care of the sick. Befriend the poor and needy. Go to all people everywhere and call them to be my followers. Teach them to obey everything I have commanded you. And don’t forget, I will be with you always, even to the end of the world. I will never leave you nor forsake you. With all my love, Jesus.I can just imagine many churches responding with a letter like this:
Dear Jesus Christ: We acknowledge the receipt of your recent communication. Your proposal is interesting and challenging. However, due to a shortage of personnel, as well as several other financial and personal considerations, we do not feel that we can give proper emphasis to your challenge at this time. A committee has been appointed to study the feasibility of the plan. We should have a report to bring to our congregation sometime in the future. You may rest assured that we will give this our careful consideration, and we will be praying for you and your efforts to find additional disciples. We do appreciate your offer to serve as a resource person, and should we decide to undertake this project at some point in the future, we will get back to you. Cordially, The Christians.God speaks the Word to us because God wants us to respond. That’s what communication is all about. If we really understand God’s love and how God speaksit to us, we will do something to let God know that we understand. We hear the Word, and then we obey it in life and death. As followers of Christ, we are liberators who free others from the shackles of despair with the Word of love. We don’t keep the glorious Word of hope to ourselves. We let it flow from us to touch the lives of the hurting. We are called to live lives that communicate to others the fact that Jesus is the light and life of all people. We can share the word that God understands us because God walked in our shoes.
We hear many messages out there today. Each one is competing for our attention and allegiance. My hope is that we will all hear the strong and clear Word of God’s love for us. May it ring louder in our ears than all other rivals. May Jesus, God’s Word, remind us just how much God cares. May the record of Jesus’ life, and the leading of God’s Spirit lead you. Allow the Word of God to comfort your soul, giving you the assurance that God wants to be close to you.
And in hearing, may you find the ability to trust and obey. Trust that God’s message of love is for all people. Allow God to use you as a messenger of this good news. May you find strength in obedience, and inner-peace in the knowledge that God is using you to being his beloved people closer and closer to God’s Word of love.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Sermon for December 21, 2008 (Advent 4)
Birthing a Promise
Luke 1:26-38
Advent begins in darkness. Sometimes I think the world wishes it was different. Around this time of year, the world asks us to rush into the light. Just hours after we finish the leftover turkey and trimmings from Thanksgiving, the bells start ringing, the carols start playing, and the lights blink in our neighbor’s windows. The malls have been “Christmased” since October. With a world that resists the darkness, it’s even more important to stick to God’s plan. Advent begins in darkness.
And in that darkness, God asks us to do some things that are not part of our nature. Take it slow and steady. Savor the journey. Be honest and acknowledge that how we feel inwardly does not always match how the world insists we feel outwardly. No amount of tinsel or lights can take away the aching loss of a loved one. No amount of caroling can erase a frightening diagnosis or an impending surgery. No person can make you feel merry and bright when the real worries of the world darken your life. Perhaps it is fitting, even healing that Advent begins in darkness. The only place to go from here is toward the ever-increasing light.
For the last couple of months the days have been getting shorter and the nights have been getting longer. But today is the Winter Solstice. That means after today, the days lengthen and the nights get shorter. Advent gives way to Christmas. Darkness gives way to light.
The ancients had many metaphors to explain these cycles of the universe. The ancient Greeks the pull between darkness and light by telling a story about the seduction of Persephone. She was the daughter of Demeter, the Earth Mother. Hades, ruler of the underworld was a lonely bachelor and he wanted a wife. But what woman would marry a man whose kingdom was populated by the dead? Hades resorted to trickery. As Persephone was gathering flowers in the fields in Sicily, Hades suddenly appeared, thundering across the plain in his four-horse chariot. Hades swooped down upon Persephone and scooped her up with one arm. The earth opened up before Hades' chariot as he drove the jet-black horses down into the chasm. Hades and Persephone disappeared into the depths as the hole closed up behind them.
Mother Earth soon came looking for her daughter, but she could not find a trace of Persephone. Distraught and desperate, Mother Earth searched high and low for her daughter. She traveled to the farthest corners of the earth, searching for nine days and nights without ever stopping to eat, drink, bathe, or rest. She was in a fury. She destroyed crops and livestock as she lamented the loss of her daughter. After a full year of famine had plagued the earth, Zeus realized that if he allowed Demeter to persist, all of humankind would starve.
Meanwhile, Persephone had not eaten a single thing since her arrival in the Underworld —whether from sorrow, loss of appetite, or stubbornness. Hades urged Persephone to appease her hunger by eating a single pomegranate seed. Sadly, this apparent act of kindness was a trick. Anyone who tastes the food of Hades must remain in the Underworld. By the rules of etiquette, she had to stay with Hades as his wife for six months out of every year and then return to her mother for the other six. Some claim that Persephone was not happy to be married to Hades. Others wonder whether she ate the pomegranate seed deliberately as a way of breaking free from Mom and her bad temper.
Mother Earth mourns for her daughter during the six month she is in the Underworld and nothing grows during that. But Mother Earth rejoices when Persephone returns to the land of the living and the earth blooms and brings forth its fruits. Until, of course, Persephone has to return to her husband, Hades.
Darkness gives way to light. Winter to Spring. Death to life. The winter months take us into the warmth of our own caves, into the darkness, where only a candle lights our way; into our dreams where visions are formed. Beginning today, as the light begins its slow return, we enter a new phase. Having taken time to prepare a way for the Lord, we now take time to join with family and friends to honor this important turning point. We gather at Christmas time and set the wheels of joy, love and peace into full motion. We light candles, ring bells, sing, spiral and dance to the awakening of joy and enthusiasm in our hearts. We tap into the potential of our souls and create our dreams with confidence. Beginning today, we celebrate the return of the Light!
Christianity doesn’t typically think of history like this. Christian theologians preferred to think about history as having a beginning in the Garden of Eden and an end at the Second Coming of Christ. All of our metaphors and stories focus on this linear view of time. We even think about Christmas that way. Christ comes within a specific chain of events -- in the fullness of time, a savior is born to rescue humans from their sin.
Let’s think about the story another way this morning. Let’s celebrate the cycles of life. After all, life has no meaning except in a pairing with death. Summer has no meaning except in a pairing with winter. Male has no meaning except in pairing with female. The only way any of these terms has meaning is in union with its opposite. The ancients understood that. That is why their metaphors for the Divine, always include both male and female.
Mainstream Christianity removed the female element from the Divine, giving us only half the picture. We ended up worshiping an exclusively male image of God -- a "God of power and might" glorified in our liturgies and creeds. What kind of world could we live in now if the founders of Christianity had acknowledged that the dynamic between male and female and female perspectives.
The birth of Jesus is not just an interruption in chronology. The baby in a manger begins a a new cycle –a new creation. But it’s not all about angels bending near the earth singing songs of joy and peace. Before Mary births a promise, she will go through her own darkness. Mary had to wonder about how she'd survive until the baby's birth, once the village heard of her pregnancy. As in many cultures today, “honor killings” occurred in Mary's culture. If a woman had been sexually violated by a man -- even if it was against her will -- she could be killed, usually by her own father or brother, so the woman and her illegitimate child could no longer bring shame to the family. Joseph knew he wasn't the father of Mary's baby. If a man and a woman engaged to each other had had a baby and the village knew it, they were considered to be married. It was the “consummation” of the union that married the couple, not a religious ceremony. If Joseph intended to stay with Mary, he would have no reason not to acknowledge the child as his, so it's most historically plausible that our stories about Joseph not being Jesus' father stem from historical fact. And that fact had some nasty implications. If Mary's pregnancy became known and her father or brother didn't kill her, the scripture commanded the death penalty both for her and the man who slept with Joseph's fiancée and gotten her pregnant, if his identity were known.
So the odds are against Mary's surviving until the child's birth. And then, there are the words the angel Gabriel speaks about this child: “The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.” If others heard that, odds were against the child surviving. Herod the Great, who ruled as “king” with Rome's support, would not have been supportive of a challenge to his throne and title. And Roman emperors claimed the title “son of god”. Anyone else heralded as a “son of god” was very likely to end up on a cross instead of a throne. The paradox of this is that Jesus of Nazareth gets both, forever linking the two. God's kingdom, the fulfillment of Mary's song that God “has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts,” bringing down the powerful from their thrones and raising the lowly (Luke 1:52-53) will come not with the might of armies, but with Jesus' consistent and nonviolent ministry of reconciliation.
All to say, advent begins in darkness. And in that darkness, God asks us to do some things that are not part of our nature. As we wait for the light, maybe we can think about what it means for us to give birth to the promise – what it means for us to be mothers of God. After all, what good is it to me if this eternal birth of the divine Son takes place unceasingly but does not take place within myself? What good is it to me if Mary is full of grace but I am not also full of grace? What good is it to me for the Creator to give birth to a Son if I do not also give life to him in my time and my culture?
Today we can all think some more about what it means to be mothers of God. A theologian named Sallie McFague thinks about a God who keeps vigil with us through our times of darkness and does everything to bring us some peace. For her, God is like a mother who gives life to the world, nurtures our precious and vulnerable lives, and desires the growth and flourishing of all.
One very modern rabbi, Margaret Moers Wenig, wrote The Book of Women’s Sermons in which she played with the metaphor of God as mother. She imagined: “God is a woman, and she is growing older. She moves more slowly now, sometimes she has to strain to hear, her smile no longer innocent, yet she remembers everything. God sits down at her kitchen table, opens her Book of Memories, and begins turning the pages. There are pages she would rather skip, things she wishes she could forget: her children spoiling the house she created for us, brothers putting each other in chains. She remembers the dreams she had for us that we never fulfilled, remembers the many times she sat by our bedsides weeping that she could not stop the process that she had set in motion. God sits at her kitchen table: ‘Come home,’ she wants to say to us. ‘Come home.’ But she won’t call. She is afraid we will, again, say ‘No.’”
I hear God inviting us all to live and respond to the promises today. Will we say yes or no? Like Mary, we may freely and willingly respond to the Good News and we bear the promise of light, hope, and peace. Be aware this season. God appears more often as a whisper than a shout, in the shadows rather than the flash of light. God comes to us in the simple things, in simple ways, that so often go unnoticed. God appears on the margins where we would never think to look, in a place meager enough to receive the light of the world. As the light comes, so dawns the hope that the coming of the child will rekindle our fragile spirits.
Sources
http://www.sarahlaughed.net/lectionary/2005/12/fourth_sunday_o.html
http://jbotscharow.com/?p=780
http://i.ucc.org/StretchYourMind/OpeningtheBible/WeeklySeeds/tabid/81/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/138/Birthing-a-Promise-Dec-1521.aspx
http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=737
http://www.columbineuuchurch.org/sermons/dace_sermon2.html
Luke 1:26-38
Advent begins in darkness. Sometimes I think the world wishes it was different. Around this time of year, the world asks us to rush into the light. Just hours after we finish the leftover turkey and trimmings from Thanksgiving, the bells start ringing, the carols start playing, and the lights blink in our neighbor’s windows. The malls have been “Christmased” since October. With a world that resists the darkness, it’s even more important to stick to God’s plan. Advent begins in darkness.
And in that darkness, God asks us to do some things that are not part of our nature. Take it slow and steady. Savor the journey. Be honest and acknowledge that how we feel inwardly does not always match how the world insists we feel outwardly. No amount of tinsel or lights can take away the aching loss of a loved one. No amount of caroling can erase a frightening diagnosis or an impending surgery. No person can make you feel merry and bright when the real worries of the world darken your life. Perhaps it is fitting, even healing that Advent begins in darkness. The only place to go from here is toward the ever-increasing light.
For the last couple of months the days have been getting shorter and the nights have been getting longer. But today is the Winter Solstice. That means after today, the days lengthen and the nights get shorter. Advent gives way to Christmas. Darkness gives way to light.
The ancients had many metaphors to explain these cycles of the universe. The ancient Greeks the pull between darkness and light by telling a story about the seduction of Persephone. She was the daughter of Demeter, the Earth Mother. Hades, ruler of the underworld was a lonely bachelor and he wanted a wife. But what woman would marry a man whose kingdom was populated by the dead? Hades resorted to trickery. As Persephone was gathering flowers in the fields in Sicily, Hades suddenly appeared, thundering across the plain in his four-horse chariot. Hades swooped down upon Persephone and scooped her up with one arm. The earth opened up before Hades' chariot as he drove the jet-black horses down into the chasm. Hades and Persephone disappeared into the depths as the hole closed up behind them.
Mother Earth soon came looking for her daughter, but she could not find a trace of Persephone. Distraught and desperate, Mother Earth searched high and low for her daughter. She traveled to the farthest corners of the earth, searching for nine days and nights without ever stopping to eat, drink, bathe, or rest. She was in a fury. She destroyed crops and livestock as she lamented the loss of her daughter. After a full year of famine had plagued the earth, Zeus realized that if he allowed Demeter to persist, all of humankind would starve.
Meanwhile, Persephone had not eaten a single thing since her arrival in the Underworld —whether from sorrow, loss of appetite, or stubbornness. Hades urged Persephone to appease her hunger by eating a single pomegranate seed. Sadly, this apparent act of kindness was a trick. Anyone who tastes the food of Hades must remain in the Underworld. By the rules of etiquette, she had to stay with Hades as his wife for six months out of every year and then return to her mother for the other six. Some claim that Persephone was not happy to be married to Hades. Others wonder whether she ate the pomegranate seed deliberately as a way of breaking free from Mom and her bad temper.
Mother Earth mourns for her daughter during the six month she is in the Underworld and nothing grows during that. But Mother Earth rejoices when Persephone returns to the land of the living and the earth blooms and brings forth its fruits. Until, of course, Persephone has to return to her husband, Hades.
Darkness gives way to light. Winter to Spring. Death to life. The winter months take us into the warmth of our own caves, into the darkness, where only a candle lights our way; into our dreams where visions are formed. Beginning today, as the light begins its slow return, we enter a new phase. Having taken time to prepare a way for the Lord, we now take time to join with family and friends to honor this important turning point. We gather at Christmas time and set the wheels of joy, love and peace into full motion. We light candles, ring bells, sing, spiral and dance to the awakening of joy and enthusiasm in our hearts. We tap into the potential of our souls and create our dreams with confidence. Beginning today, we celebrate the return of the Light!
Christianity doesn’t typically think of history like this. Christian theologians preferred to think about history as having a beginning in the Garden of Eden and an end at the Second Coming of Christ. All of our metaphors and stories focus on this linear view of time. We even think about Christmas that way. Christ comes within a specific chain of events -- in the fullness of time, a savior is born to rescue humans from their sin.
Let’s think about the story another way this morning. Let’s celebrate the cycles of life. After all, life has no meaning except in a pairing with death. Summer has no meaning except in a pairing with winter. Male has no meaning except in pairing with female. The only way any of these terms has meaning is in union with its opposite. The ancients understood that. That is why their metaphors for the Divine, always include both male and female.
Mainstream Christianity removed the female element from the Divine, giving us only half the picture. We ended up worshiping an exclusively male image of God -- a "God of power and might" glorified in our liturgies and creeds. What kind of world could we live in now if the founders of Christianity had acknowledged that the dynamic between male and female and female perspectives.
The birth of Jesus is not just an interruption in chronology. The baby in a manger begins a a new cycle –a new creation. But it’s not all about angels bending near the earth singing songs of joy and peace. Before Mary births a promise, she will go through her own darkness. Mary had to wonder about how she'd survive until the baby's birth, once the village heard of her pregnancy. As in many cultures today, “honor killings” occurred in Mary's culture. If a woman had been sexually violated by a man -- even if it was against her will -- she could be killed, usually by her own father or brother, so the woman and her illegitimate child could no longer bring shame to the family. Joseph knew he wasn't the father of Mary's baby. If a man and a woman engaged to each other had had a baby and the village knew it, they were considered to be married. It was the “consummation” of the union that married the couple, not a religious ceremony. If Joseph intended to stay with Mary, he would have no reason not to acknowledge the child as his, so it's most historically plausible that our stories about Joseph not being Jesus' father stem from historical fact. And that fact had some nasty implications. If Mary's pregnancy became known and her father or brother didn't kill her, the scripture commanded the death penalty both for her and the man who slept with Joseph's fiancée and gotten her pregnant, if his identity were known.
So the odds are against Mary's surviving until the child's birth. And then, there are the words the angel Gabriel speaks about this child: “The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.” If others heard that, odds were against the child surviving. Herod the Great, who ruled as “king” with Rome's support, would not have been supportive of a challenge to his throne and title. And Roman emperors claimed the title “son of god”. Anyone else heralded as a “son of god” was very likely to end up on a cross instead of a throne. The paradox of this is that Jesus of Nazareth gets both, forever linking the two. God's kingdom, the fulfillment of Mary's song that God “has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts,” bringing down the powerful from their thrones and raising the lowly (Luke 1:52-53) will come not with the might of armies, but with Jesus' consistent and nonviolent ministry of reconciliation.
All to say, advent begins in darkness. And in that darkness, God asks us to do some things that are not part of our nature. As we wait for the light, maybe we can think about what it means for us to give birth to the promise – what it means for us to be mothers of God. After all, what good is it to me if this eternal birth of the divine Son takes place unceasingly but does not take place within myself? What good is it to me if Mary is full of grace but I am not also full of grace? What good is it to me for the Creator to give birth to a Son if I do not also give life to him in my time and my culture?
Today we can all think some more about what it means to be mothers of God. A theologian named Sallie McFague thinks about a God who keeps vigil with us through our times of darkness and does everything to bring us some peace. For her, God is like a mother who gives life to the world, nurtures our precious and vulnerable lives, and desires the growth and flourishing of all.
One very modern rabbi, Margaret Moers Wenig, wrote The Book of Women’s Sermons in which she played with the metaphor of God as mother. She imagined: “God is a woman, and she is growing older. She moves more slowly now, sometimes she has to strain to hear, her smile no longer innocent, yet she remembers everything. God sits down at her kitchen table, opens her Book of Memories, and begins turning the pages. There are pages she would rather skip, things she wishes she could forget: her children spoiling the house she created for us, brothers putting each other in chains. She remembers the dreams she had for us that we never fulfilled, remembers the many times she sat by our bedsides weeping that she could not stop the process that she had set in motion. God sits at her kitchen table: ‘Come home,’ she wants to say to us. ‘Come home.’ But she won’t call. She is afraid we will, again, say ‘No.’”
I hear God inviting us all to live and respond to the promises today. Will we say yes or no? Like Mary, we may freely and willingly respond to the Good News and we bear the promise of light, hope, and peace. Be aware this season. God appears more often as a whisper than a shout, in the shadows rather than the flash of light. God comes to us in the simple things, in simple ways, that so often go unnoticed. God appears on the margins where we would never think to look, in a place meager enough to receive the light of the world. As the light comes, so dawns the hope that the coming of the child will rekindle our fragile spirits.
Sources
http://www.sarahlaughed.net/lectionary/2005/12/fourth_sunday_o.html
http://jbotscharow.com/?p=780
http://i.ucc.org/StretchYourMind/OpeningtheBible/WeeklySeeds/tabid/81/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/138/Birthing-a-Promise-Dec-1521.aspx
http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=737
http://www.columbineuuchurch.org/sermons/dace_sermon2.html
Friday, December 19, 2008
Sermon for December 21, 2008 -- Advent 3
Finding Joy in the Season
Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11
In an early October evening in 1843, Charles Dickens stepped from the brick-and-stone porch of his home near Regent’s Park in London. The cool air of dusk was a relief from the day’s unseasonal humidity as the author began his nightly walk. Dickens was deeply troubled. The 31-year-old father of four had thought he was at the peak of his career. The Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby had all been successful novels. But now the celebrated writer faced serious financial problems. Sales of his the new novel were not what had been expected. It seemed his talent was being questioned. Dickens supported a large, extended family and his expenses were already nearly more than he could handle. His father and brothers were pleading for loans. His wife, Kate, was expecting their fifth child.
All summer long, Dickens worried about his mounting bills, especially the large mortgage that he owed on his house. He knew that he needed an idea that would earn him a large sum of money, and he needed the idea quickly. But in his depression, Dickens found it difficult to write. On one of his nightly walks, he ventured from his upscale neighborhood and neared the Thames River. Only the dull light from tenement windows illuminated the streets, now litter-strewn and lined with open sewers. The elegant ladies and well-dressed gentlemen of Dickens’s district were replaced by bawdy streetwalkers, pickpockets and beggars. The dismal scene reminded him of the nightmare that often troubled his sleep: A 12-year-old boy sits at a worktable piled high with pots of black boot paste. For 12 hours a day, six days a week, he attaches labels on the endless stream of pots to earn the six shillings that will keep him alive. The boy in the dream looks through the rotting warehouse floor into the cellar, where swarms of rats scurry about. Then he raises his eyes to the dirt-streaked window, dripping with condensation from London’s wintry weather. The light is fading now, along with the boy’s young hopes. His father is in debtors’ prison, and the youngster is receiving only an hour of school lessons during his dinner break at the warehouse. He feels helpless, abandoned. There may never be celebration, joy or hope again...
The nightmare was no scene from the author’s imagination. It was a memory from the impoverished days of his childhood. Fortunately, Dickens’s father had inherited some money, enabling him to pay off his debts and get out of prison -- and his young son escaped a dreary fate. Now the fear of being unable to pay his own debts haunted him. Wearily, he started home from his long walk. As he neared home, he felt the sudden flash of inspiration. What about a Christmas story! He would write one for the very people he passed on the black streets of London. People who lived and struggled with the same fears and longings he had known, people who hungered for a bit of cheer and hope.
But Christmas was less than three months away! How could he manage so great a task in so brief a time? The book would have to be short, certainly not a full novel. It would have to be finished by the end of November to be printed and distributed in time for Christmas sales. He would fill the story with the scenes and characters his readers loved. There would be a small, sickly child; his honest but ineffectual father; and, at the center of the piece, a selfish villain, an old man with a pointed nose and shriveled cheeks.
As the mild days of October gave way to a cool November, the manuscript grew page by page, and the story took life. The basic plot was simple enough for children to understand, but evoked themes that would define the meaning of Christmas for the next 150 years: After retiring alone to his cold, barren apartment on Christmas Eve, Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserly London businessman, is visited by the spirit of his dead partner, Jacob Marley. Doomed by his greed and insensitivity to his fellow man when alive, Marley’s ghost wanders the world in chains forged of his own indifference. He warns Scrooge that he must change, or suffer the same fate. The ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Yet to Come appear and show Scrooge poignant scenes from his life and what will occur if he doesn’t mend his ways. Filled with remorse, Scrooge renounces his former selfishness and becomes a kind, generous, loving person who has learned the true spirit of Christmas.
As he wrote, something surprising happened to Dickens. What had begun as a desperate, calculated plan to rescue himself from debt soon began to change the author. As he wrote about the kind of Christmas he loved, his depression lifted. A Christmas Carol captured his heart and soul. Dickens grew excited and impatient to begin the day’s work. “I was very much affected by the little book and was “reluctant to lay it aside for a moment,” he later wrote a newspaperman. Dickens told a professor in America how, when writing, he “wept, and laughed, and wept again.”
The first edition of 6000 copies sold out by Christmas Eve. Despite the book’s public acclaim, it did not turn into the immediate financial success that Dickens had hoped for, because of the low price he placed on the book. Nevertheless, he made enough money from it to scrape by and A Christmas Carol’s popularity revived his audience for subsequent novels, while giving a fresh, new direction to his life and career.
Although Dickens would write many other well-received and financially profitable books, nothing would equal the soul-satisfying joy he derived from A Christmas Carol. Dickens popularized many aspects of the Christmas we celebrate today, including great family gatherings, seasonal drinks and dishes and gift giving. Even our language has been enriched by the tale. Who has not known a “Scrooge,” or uttered “Bah! Humbug!” when feeling irritated or disbelieving. And the phrase “Merry Christmas!” gained wider usage after the story appeared.
Dicken’s life story and his famous Christmas story have familiar plotlines. We hear it in most Christmas stories, including the original from the Bible. A person, poor in wealth or poor in spirit, desperate and hopeless, encounters the true meaning of Christmas, finds joy and is changed. How about you? Is this your story this Christmas? I mean – it’s Christmas, after all. We are supposed to be happy. This is the season when the themes of joy and happiness are trumpeted at their loudest. It is also a season of commercialism, greed and debt. This year people are losing jobs, losing homes, and unable to feed their families. For many, this is a season of fear, a season of sadness, a season filled with anxiety, a season of loneliness. How dare we trivialize their aches by offering joy as a cheap antidote!
However, maybe there’s something to be heard in those worn out plotlines of joy, peace on earth and good will to all. Instead of becoming indifferent to our pain and the hurting world around us, we take some time to gain perspective. Christmas is a time of joy, not because we receive and give gifts or because we get to eat our favorite foods, but because in it humankind's deepest yearnings are fulfilled. Advent is about the hopes and fears of all the years, the triumphs and tragedies of all the years, the joys and griefs of all the years and in all of our lives... coming into a healing focus in the person of God’s Messiah. The great images of Advent are of darkness giving way to light, grief to faith or even joy, the barrenness of a desert to the beauty of paradise - paradise restored, longing to hope and the arrival of God’s salvation - especially in the advent of the Messiah, Jesus our Lord, then and now.
It’s all here in our Isaiah text. Jerusalem had been leveled to the ground in 587 B.C. by the armies of Babylon. The victors marched the captive Israelites into exile where they lived for the next fifty to seventy years. When Cyrus of Persia came to power, he granted the opportunity for the people of Israel to return home. As the grown grandchildren and great grandchildren of the original exiles arrived at their homeland, the mood turned gloomy. They returned to a forsaken and abandoned city in ruins. With limited financial resources, meager food supplies and harsh weather conditions, the people found the task of rebuilding their homeland next to impossible. God felt distant. God promised a new beginning for the people and they believed it. Their new life fell far short of what the prophets had promised. Israel had no word from God and nowhere to go. Then comes the word of hope that they need.
God speaks a word of faith, reminding them that God has actually come into humanity’s situations of misery and pain and grief.
God speaks a word of justice for the oppressed and for captives -- ‘good news’ that those sold into slavery through war or debt can legally be freed, those with confiscated lands can have them back; a gift of hope that the future is as secure as God’s promises; that a covenant of justice will prevail between God and God’s people
God speaks a word of mercy -- God comes with tenderness to bind up the broken-hearted, comfort those who mourn, giving joy to God’s people like that of a bride on her wedding-day. We still rely on those promises today. Our message insists that Jesus sets us free, and when God sets us free, we can respond with joy. We could use to let some of that joy into our hearts at this time of year.
Try to imagine this picture. It is a photograph taken by Henri Cartier-Bresson, who pioneered modern photography as an art form. He was kno
wn for photographs that left mysteries unexplained He shot one of his famous photographs in a poor section of Spain in the 1930s. Peering through a hole in a concrete barrier, we see a run-down alley surrounded by decaying walls, strewn with thick piles of rubble and riddled with bullet holes dotting gray walls. The setting evokes feelings of sadness and despair. But then the contradiction. Within the grim alley children are playing. They wear dirty and tattered clothes, as one might expect, but like playing children everywhere, they laugh with carefree joy. In the foreground, a tiny boy on crutches hobbles away from two other boys, his face lit up with a broad grin. One boy is laughing so hard he has to hold his side. Others lean on the cracked walls, beaming with delight. It is easy to spot the contrast -- and the point. Joy amidst the rubble of life. Laughter among its ruins. We cannot avoid pain, however hard we try. But we can avoid joy. We cannot escape hardship and trouble, but we can miss much of life’s joy and laughter.
If your heart aches this Advent season for any reason -- the loss of love in a marriage, the memory of someone you love who is now with God, concern about a child, concerns about your health, worries about money -- don’t let despair defeat you. Take a moment and really appreciate something this season . . . anything. Let it soak in. Breathe in, breathe out, be thankful. Let yourself laugh a little. I know it’s difficult. It may be hard to see any goodness around you. But there IS goodness all around you, I promise!
Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11
In an early October evening in 1843, Charles Dickens stepped from the brick-and-stone porch of his home near Regent’s Park in London. The cool air of dusk was a relief from the day’s unseasonal humidity as the author began his nightly walk. Dickens was deeply troubled. The 31-year-old father of four had thought he was at the peak of his career. The Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby had all been successful novels. But now the celebrated writer faced serious financial problems. Sales of his the new novel were not what had been expected. It seemed his talent was being questioned. Dickens supported a large, extended family and his expenses were already nearly more than he could handle. His father and brothers were pleading for loans. His wife, Kate, was expecting their fifth child.
All summer long, Dickens worried about his mounting bills, especially the large mortgage that he owed on his house. He knew that he needed an idea that would earn him a large sum of money, and he needed the idea quickly. But in his depression, Dickens found it difficult to write. On one of his nightly walks, he ventured from his upscale neighborhood and neared the Thames River. Only the dull light from tenement windows illuminated the streets, now litter-strewn and lined with open sewers. The elegant ladies and well-dressed gentlemen of Dickens’s district were replaced by bawdy streetwalkers, pickpockets and beggars. The dismal scene reminded him of the nightmare that often troubled his sleep: A 12-year-old boy sits at a worktable piled high with pots of black boot paste. For 12 hours a day, six days a week, he attaches labels on the endless stream of pots to earn the six shillings that will keep him alive. The boy in the dream looks through the rotting warehouse floor into the cellar, where swarms of rats scurry about. Then he raises his eyes to the dirt-streaked window, dripping with condensation from London’s wintry weather. The light is fading now, along with the boy’s young hopes. His father is in debtors’ prison, and the youngster is receiving only an hour of school lessons during his dinner break at the warehouse. He feels helpless, abandoned. There may never be celebration, joy or hope again...
The nightmare was no scene from the author’s imagination. It was a memory from the impoverished days of his childhood. Fortunately, Dickens’s father had inherited some money, enabling him to pay off his debts and get out of prison -- and his young son escaped a dreary fate. Now the fear of being unable to pay his own debts haunted him. Wearily, he started home from his long walk. As he neared home, he felt the sudden flash of inspiration. What about a Christmas story! He would write one for the very people he passed on the black streets of London. People who lived and struggled with the same fears and longings he had known, people who hungered for a bit of cheer and hope.
But Christmas was less than three months away! How could he manage so great a task in so brief a time? The book would have to be short, certainly not a full novel. It would have to be finished by the end of November to be printed and distributed in time for Christmas sales. He would fill the story with the scenes and characters his readers loved. There would be a small, sickly child; his honest but ineffectual father; and, at the center of the piece, a selfish villain, an old man with a pointed nose and shriveled cheeks.
As the mild days of October gave way to a cool November, the manuscript grew page by page, and the story took life. The basic plot was simple enough for children to understand, but evoked themes that would define the meaning of Christmas for the next 150 years: After retiring alone to his cold, barren apartment on Christmas Eve, Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserly London businessman, is visited by the spirit of his dead partner, Jacob Marley. Doomed by his greed and insensitivity to his fellow man when alive, Marley’s ghost wanders the world in chains forged of his own indifference. He warns Scrooge that he must change, or suffer the same fate. The ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Yet to Come appear and show Scrooge poignant scenes from his life and what will occur if he doesn’t mend his ways. Filled with remorse, Scrooge renounces his former selfishness and becomes a kind, generous, loving person who has learned the true spirit of Christmas.
As he wrote, something surprising happened to Dickens. What had begun as a desperate, calculated plan to rescue himself from debt soon began to change the author. As he wrote about the kind of Christmas he loved, his depression lifted. A Christmas Carol captured his heart and soul. Dickens grew excited and impatient to begin the day’s work. “I was very much affected by the little book and was “reluctant to lay it aside for a moment,” he later wrote a newspaperman. Dickens told a professor in America how, when writing, he “wept, and laughed, and wept again.”
The first edition of 6000 copies sold out by Christmas Eve. Despite the book’s public acclaim, it did not turn into the immediate financial success that Dickens had hoped for, because of the low price he placed on the book. Nevertheless, he made enough money from it to scrape by and A Christmas Carol’s popularity revived his audience for subsequent novels, while giving a fresh, new direction to his life and career.
Although Dickens would write many other well-received and financially profitable books, nothing would equal the soul-satisfying joy he derived from A Christmas Carol. Dickens popularized many aspects of the Christmas we celebrate today, including great family gatherings, seasonal drinks and dishes and gift giving. Even our language has been enriched by the tale. Who has not known a “Scrooge,” or uttered “Bah! Humbug!” when feeling irritated or disbelieving. And the phrase “Merry Christmas!” gained wider usage after the story appeared.
Dicken’s life story and his famous Christmas story have familiar plotlines. We hear it in most Christmas stories, including the original from the Bible. A person, poor in wealth or poor in spirit, desperate and hopeless, encounters the true meaning of Christmas, finds joy and is changed. How about you? Is this your story this Christmas? I mean – it’s Christmas, after all. We are supposed to be happy. This is the season when the themes of joy and happiness are trumpeted at their loudest. It is also a season of commercialism, greed and debt. This year people are losing jobs, losing homes, and unable to feed their families. For many, this is a season of fear, a season of sadness, a season filled with anxiety, a season of loneliness. How dare we trivialize their aches by offering joy as a cheap antidote!
However, maybe there’s something to be heard in those worn out plotlines of joy, peace on earth and good will to all. Instead of becoming indifferent to our pain and the hurting world around us, we take some time to gain perspective. Christmas is a time of joy, not because we receive and give gifts or because we get to eat our favorite foods, but because in it humankind's deepest yearnings are fulfilled. Advent is about the hopes and fears of all the years, the triumphs and tragedies of all the years, the joys and griefs of all the years and in all of our lives... coming into a healing focus in the person of God’s Messiah. The great images of Advent are of darkness giving way to light, grief to faith or even joy, the barrenness of a desert to the beauty of paradise - paradise restored, longing to hope and the arrival of God’s salvation - especially in the advent of the Messiah, Jesus our Lord, then and now.
It’s all here in our Isaiah text. Jerusalem had been leveled to the ground in 587 B.C. by the armies of Babylon. The victors marched the captive Israelites into exile where they lived for the next fifty to seventy years. When Cyrus of Persia came to power, he granted the opportunity for the people of Israel to return home. As the grown grandchildren and great grandchildren of the original exiles arrived at their homeland, the mood turned gloomy. They returned to a forsaken and abandoned city in ruins. With limited financial resources, meager food supplies and harsh weather conditions, the people found the task of rebuilding their homeland next to impossible. God felt distant. God promised a new beginning for the people and they believed it. Their new life fell far short of what the prophets had promised. Israel had no word from God and nowhere to go. Then comes the word of hope that they need.
God speaks a word of faith, reminding them that God has actually come into humanity’s situations of misery and pain and grief.
God speaks a word of justice for the oppressed and for captives -- ‘good news’ that those sold into slavery through war or debt can legally be freed, those with confiscated lands can have them back; a gift of hope that the future is as secure as God’s promises; that a covenant of justice will prevail between God and God’s people
God speaks a word of mercy -- God comes with tenderness to bind up the broken-hearted, comfort those who mourn, giving joy to God’s people like that of a bride on her wedding-day. We still rely on those promises today. Our message insists that Jesus sets us free, and when God sets us free, we can respond with joy. We could use to let some of that joy into our hearts at this time of year.
Try to imagine this picture. It is a photograph taken by Henri Cartier-Bresson, who pioneered modern photography as an art form. He was kno
wn for photographs that left mysteries unexplained He shot one of his famous photographs in a poor section of Spain in the 1930s. Peering through a hole in a concrete barrier, we see a run-down alley surrounded by decaying walls, strewn with thick piles of rubble and riddled with bullet holes dotting gray walls. The setting evokes feelings of sadness and despair. But then the contradiction. Within the grim alley children are playing. They wear dirty and tattered clothes, as one might expect, but like playing children everywhere, they laugh with carefree joy. In the foreground, a tiny boy on crutches hobbles away from two other boys, his face lit up with a broad grin. One boy is laughing so hard he has to hold his side. Others lean on the cracked walls, beaming with delight. It is easy to spot the contrast -- and the point. Joy amidst the rubble of life. Laughter among its ruins. We cannot avoid pain, however hard we try. But we can avoid joy. We cannot escape hardship and trouble, but we can miss much of life’s joy and laughter.If your heart aches this Advent season for any reason -- the loss of love in a marriage, the memory of someone you love who is now with God, concern about a child, concerns about your health, worries about money -- don’t let despair defeat you. Take a moment and really appreciate something this season . . . anything. Let it soak in. Breathe in, breathe out, be thankful. Let yourself laugh a little. I know it’s difficult. It may be hard to see any goodness around you. But there IS goodness all around you, I promise!
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Sermon for Sunday, December 7 (Advent 2)
Messengers of Hope
Mark 1:1-8
More housecleaning will be done at this time of year than any other. You know it if you have a live Christmas tree, because you’ve already vacuumed the floor about 6 times this morning. We clean because holidays mean company. Company means you have to move the stacks of gifts, fold or hide the piles of clothes, and clean or hide the stack of dishes in the sink before anyone comes over and finds out what your house looks like most of the time. When people come, we like to prepare for them–we clean, we cook and serve food, we decorate, and do what we can to make the visitor feel welcome. In the ancient Middle East, there was a practice much like our own: people would clean and to get ready for the visit of a dignitary. When the dignitary was a king or emperor, the cleaning included improving the roads leading to the city. It was kind of like an ancient New Deal. All kinds of jobs were instantly created, and the citizens of the area would be conscripted into service filling potholes, moving stones out the way, and smoothing out the road. The Prophet Isaiah and John the Baptizer refer to this practice.
Isaiah offers these words of comfort as he thinks about preparing the way for God, who is coming like a king. God the King is going to lead the people of Israel out of their captivity and back home to the Promised Land. Listen to what Isaiah says:
Robert Frost’s poem entitled Desert Places reminds us of where our work needs to begin:
· Leveling the potholes of sin with the filling of newness
· Straightening paths that we made crooked by our bad decisions
· Moving the stones and barriers out of the way that we put in our hearts to keep others out.
If we can stop and listen, the voice of John the Baptizer will sound as loud and clear as ever. His is the voice speaking out in the lonely wilderness of our hearts saying, “Repent!”
Let me tell you about what I do when I’m feeling called to get serious about straightening up my spiritual life. I get swept up in the moment. I plan major improvements in my life. I say “I’m going to read a chapter of the Bible every day. I’m going to set time aside to pray. I’m going to study, and journal and I don’t even like to journal. But I’ll do it for you, God.” I really do it, too–for three or four days. Maybe you do the same thing. In a burst of sincere commitment, we may actually read the Bible; we may actually find the time to say a few prayers (and, because we are Congregationalists, if we can’t think of any on our own, we read some that somebody else has written already – it’s OK.). And what happens? Well, if you are like me, nothing happens...nothing at all. We try it for a week and nothing seems to be happening. Where’s God? We’re building this highway ... where’s God? We want some action! We want things to go fast! Where’s God? We want to hear the voice from Heaven; we want the choirs of angels to sing; we want our souls to soar! But it seems to take so long ... things go so slowly!
Having lived in New England most of my life, I can say that the roads are torturous if you are trying to get somewhere quickly. The pavement is in good condition, but it is very hard to find a straight path from point A to point B. The roads meander along rivers, or through crooked valleys and small villages. If you drive around long enough, you begin wishing for a straighter path, or a wider road, from point A to point B so that you don’t have to continually be wandering behind congested traffic on winding roads. But the roads don’t change. It would cost too much to change. It would use to many resources. The highway department would actually slow traffic down. When travel becomes too inconvenient, people get angry! Some people shout! Some people honk their horns! Some people curse! Some people do some mighty interesting things with sign language!
The same is true in our spiritual lives. We recognize the problem, we recognize the need for a straight path to God. We begin the process of spiritual growth. And then we think of the risks and costs. Bible study and prayer take too many precious minutes out of our busy days. There are no immediate results. We are determined but we are not patient. We’re ready to go and we want to see some results, even when what we’re doing is responding to God’s call for change. We decide how we’re going to respond ... set aside this amount of time to read our Bibles, schedule these minutes to say our prayers ... and then say, “I’ve read my Bible readings, I’ve prayed my prayers, I read my meditation from The Upper Room, and I’ve said the Lord’s Prayer. Why isn’t anything happening?”
OK, you worked on Jesus...but did you allow Jesus to work on you? That’s the question. Did you allow Jesus to work on you? Did you let the Word of God move in you unhindered? For the call to repentance is more than just a call for us to recognize the need to say, “I’m sorry,” and set aside a few minutes a day to engage in “spiritual stuff.” The call to repentance is the call to turn our lives around, to change directions. Repentance begins by turning from the crooked way and walking the straight highway that connects us with the risen Christ. The Holy Spirit begins the process by inviting us to join in the unhurried process of building a better and stronger relationship with God, a straight and level highway allowing the two-way traffic of love.
Repentance, the turning around of our life is not a quick fix. The construction team headed by Holy Spirit does not do careless work. It takes determination on our part, to be sure...it takes a plan! And it takes patience. God works in God’s time, not our. We must be patient as God works within us to bring our construction projects to a new level of completion.
Road construction can last a long time...it’s even been known to take all of one’s life. But far better for you and I to be even the slowest of construction than dejected wanderers in the desert. God has already taken the first step to building that two-way highway. When you sense God’s work in you this season, you will become a messenger of hope – one who senses God’s presence and proclaims that God is here, straightening crooked lives and preparing hearts for God’s reign.
I opened with Robert Frost’s poem about Desert Places. Let me close Hank Anderson’s poem entitled The Glory Road.
Mark 1:1-8
More housecleaning will be done at this time of year than any other. You know it if you have a live Christmas tree, because you’ve already vacuumed the floor about 6 times this morning. We clean because holidays mean company. Company means you have to move the stacks of gifts, fold or hide the piles of clothes, and clean or hide the stack of dishes in the sink before anyone comes over and finds out what your house looks like most of the time. When people come, we like to prepare for them–we clean, we cook and serve food, we decorate, and do what we can to make the visitor feel welcome. In the ancient Middle East, there was a practice much like our own: people would clean and to get ready for the visit of a dignitary. When the dignitary was a king or emperor, the cleaning included improving the roads leading to the city. It was kind of like an ancient New Deal. All kinds of jobs were instantly created, and the citizens of the area would be conscripted into service filling potholes, moving stones out the way, and smoothing out the road. The Prophet Isaiah and John the Baptizer refer to this practice.
Isaiah offers these words of comfort as he thinks about preparing the way for God, who is coming like a king. God the King is going to lead the people of Israel out of their captivity and back home to the Promised Land. Listen to what Isaiah says:
A voice cries out: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.” (Isaiah 40:3-4)Mark quotes Isaiah when he talks about John the Baptist. Mark writes:
“See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’” ( Mark 1:2-3).I’m wondering if there are some road improvements to be done in our hearts this Advent. I wonder if the desert places in our lives need to be made ready for God to come into our lives.
Robert Frost’s poem entitled Desert Places reminds us of where our work needs to begin:
Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fastI appreciate his words after I took a little walk this morning in the snow. White Plains Road was deserted. The blanket of snow muffled all sounds, except the cry of a seagull looking for food near a dumpster. I know soon enough, the traffic will start and people will make their lives busy -- some to escape the emptiness that they feel inside of them. The desert places exist inside our own lives. They aren’t out there some place. We inhabit our desert places in our hearts. If we quiet ourselves and let ourselves think, we know that the place where the straight highway must be built is in our own hearts, in our own lives. We know that it is in our own desert places that we must do some road work:
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last.
The woods around it have it--it is theirs.
All animals are smothered in their lairs.
I am too absent-spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares.
And lonely as it is that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less--
A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
With no expression, nothing to express.
They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars--on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.
· Leveling the potholes of sin with the filling of newness
· Straightening paths that we made crooked by our bad decisions
· Moving the stones and barriers out of the way that we put in our hearts to keep others out.
If we can stop and listen, the voice of John the Baptizer will sound as loud and clear as ever. His is the voice speaking out in the lonely wilderness of our hearts saying, “Repent!”
Let me tell you about what I do when I’m feeling called to get serious about straightening up my spiritual life. I get swept up in the moment. I plan major improvements in my life. I say “I’m going to read a chapter of the Bible every day. I’m going to set time aside to pray. I’m going to study, and journal and I don’t even like to journal. But I’ll do it for you, God.” I really do it, too–for three or four days. Maybe you do the same thing. In a burst of sincere commitment, we may actually read the Bible; we may actually find the time to say a few prayers (and, because we are Congregationalists, if we can’t think of any on our own, we read some that somebody else has written already – it’s OK.). And what happens? Well, if you are like me, nothing happens...nothing at all. We try it for a week and nothing seems to be happening. Where’s God? We’re building this highway ... where’s God? We want some action! We want things to go fast! Where’s God? We want to hear the voice from Heaven; we want the choirs of angels to sing; we want our souls to soar! But it seems to take so long ... things go so slowly!
Having lived in New England most of my life, I can say that the roads are torturous if you are trying to get somewhere quickly. The pavement is in good condition, but it is very hard to find a straight path from point A to point B. The roads meander along rivers, or through crooked valleys and small villages. If you drive around long enough, you begin wishing for a straighter path, or a wider road, from point A to point B so that you don’t have to continually be wandering behind congested traffic on winding roads. But the roads don’t change. It would cost too much to change. It would use to many resources. The highway department would actually slow traffic down. When travel becomes too inconvenient, people get angry! Some people shout! Some people honk their horns! Some people curse! Some people do some mighty interesting things with sign language!
The same is true in our spiritual lives. We recognize the problem, we recognize the need for a straight path to God. We begin the process of spiritual growth. And then we think of the risks and costs. Bible study and prayer take too many precious minutes out of our busy days. There are no immediate results. We are determined but we are not patient. We’re ready to go and we want to see some results, even when what we’re doing is responding to God’s call for change. We decide how we’re going to respond ... set aside this amount of time to read our Bibles, schedule these minutes to say our prayers ... and then say, “I’ve read my Bible readings, I’ve prayed my prayers, I read my meditation from The Upper Room, and I’ve said the Lord’s Prayer. Why isn’t anything happening?”
OK, you worked on Jesus...but did you allow Jesus to work on you? That’s the question. Did you allow Jesus to work on you? Did you let the Word of God move in you unhindered? For the call to repentance is more than just a call for us to recognize the need to say, “I’m sorry,” and set aside a few minutes a day to engage in “spiritual stuff.” The call to repentance is the call to turn our lives around, to change directions. Repentance begins by turning from the crooked way and walking the straight highway that connects us with the risen Christ. The Holy Spirit begins the process by inviting us to join in the unhurried process of building a better and stronger relationship with God, a straight and level highway allowing the two-way traffic of love.
Repentance, the turning around of our life is not a quick fix. The construction team headed by Holy Spirit does not do careless work. It takes determination on our part, to be sure...it takes a plan! And it takes patience. God works in God’s time, not our. We must be patient as God works within us to bring our construction projects to a new level of completion.
Road construction can last a long time...it’s even been known to take all of one’s life. But far better for you and I to be even the slowest of construction than dejected wanderers in the desert. God has already taken the first step to building that two-way highway. When you sense God’s work in you this season, you will become a messenger of hope – one who senses God’s presence and proclaims that God is here, straightening crooked lives and preparing hearts for God’s reign.
I opened with Robert Frost’s poem about Desert Places. Let me close Hank Anderson’s poem entitled The Glory Road.
Remember what Isaiah and John had to say,
About building the Lord a straight highway.
But how’s a poor poet to make every hill low,
And exalt every valley, I’d like to know.
We’ll write poems with the faith of the mustard seed,
To move all the mountains we’re apt to need.
We’ll fill every pot hole with poems and prayer,
And have it smooth as silk when the Lord gets there.
Ours will be a Glory Road never needing repair,
bringing joy to the needy and those in despair.
And while we’re at it, let’s make it plenty wide,
‘Cause there’s lots of us that want to walk by God’s side.
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