Hey, wait a minute! It’s Christmas! It’s Christmas for twelve whole days in the church! What happened to the baby, the angels? Where’s the manger? Why, on the day after Christmas, are we hearing the prologue to the Gospel of John? Well, lest we get too mushy and sentimental, lest we focus too much on that adorable baby and his gracious mother, the prologue to John’s Gospel helps us to understand the meaning of the Christmas event. As you know, John’s Gospel is very different from those of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. The writer of this Gospel especially wanted us to understand Jesus’ true identity as God’s Son, and so there’s more explicit theology in this Gospel than in the others. The first eighteen verses, which you just heard, summarize the Gospel for us. And if there’s one verse that summarizes the whole prologue, it’s this one: “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth.” That’s it. That’s the whole Gospel in a nutshell.
Sometimes it’s hard to hear the power in a sentence like that. If we’ve been church members a long time, perhaps the words are too familiar to have any punch left. Or if we’re relative newcomers, perhaps the words are so strange that they have little meaning. So let’s hear these words differently. Some of you know that I like an alternative translation of the Bible. It’s Eugene Peterson’s The Message. So let’s hear how Peterson renders this verse: “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, generous inside and out, true from start to finish.”
I love that translation. The Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood. When I hear the word “neighborhood,” I think of the neighborhood where I grew up and the people there. Think for a minute about where you grew up. Picture it: the people, the houses, your school, your friends, what you did after school. [Query the congregation.] All of us grew up in different neighborhoods, some in rural areas, some in cities, but we can all remember real people living real lives. When I think of “neighborhood,” I think of Levittown, New York. Some of you know that Levittown was built between 1947 and 1951 as the first planned community. That’s where I grew up, and I can still see the modest houses lining both sides of winding streets. I remember the families of postal workers, like my own father, police officers, secretaries, nurses, construction workers, teachers, sales people, and accountants. The father of one of my friends was even a seaman in the Merchant Marine, and he came home only every six months! I remember my friends, almost all of whom lived on my street and rode to school with me. After school and in the summers we kids played tag, or stick ball, or hide-and-seek in the streets, or perhaps we cruised around the neighborhood on our bicycles. “The Word was made flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood.”
The Word was made flesh and blood and moved onto Elbow Lane. The quarters were pretty tight in his house, and his folks didn’t have a lot of money for extras. Hardly where you’d expect the Son of God to turn up. But Jesus moved in anyway. Jesus became one of us. When the Word moved into our neighborhood, he had a special aura about him, a something that everyone could see. He was generous inside and out. He was giving and loving to all of us, no matter who we were. He wasn’t generous and loving because he was trying to impress us or because he wanted to curry favor with those in power. There wasn’t anyone like that in our neighborhood anyway. He was generous and loving because being generous and giving was part of his true nature, the nature he had inherited from God the Father. And he was “true from start to finish.” He had integrity, honesty, and wholeness. He was faithful and sincere, complete and undivided, true from beginning to end. What was most important, he showed us, by who he was, something about God. Because the Word loved us so much, we realized deep in our hearts that God truly loves us. He was – and still is – the best possible neighbor.
And the Word wants to get know us better. He want us to know him well. He doesn’t want to be one of those neighbors we nod to as we head out the door, perhaps only exchanging at best a hurried “How are you?” He wants us to become good friends, just like those best friends we had when we were children. And because he’s such a wonderful neighbor, we want to get to know him too. Do you want to do that? Do you want a closer relationship with him? We’re about to start a new secular year. Instead of your usual New Year’s resolutions, try these: developing a richer, fuller friendship with the Word, through studying the stories of his life, regularly partaking of his Body and Blood in the sacrament, praying, and taking care of all his friends, rich and poor alike.
Because the truth is that Jesus is everyone’s best possible neighbor. Jesus still moves into every neighborhood, from rural farm communities to urban inner cities, from Fifth Avenue to Harlem, from trailer parks to McMansion-land, from Darfur to Dubai. The Word dwells with all of us, whoever we are and wherever we live. And because we know how much he loves us, and because we’ve signed on to his program through baptism and confirmation, we often feel called to follow him wherever he goes, perhaps even into some of those neighborhoods where we don’t feel entirely safe.
I recently read Kent Annan’s book, Following Jesus through the Eye of a Needle. After working with refugees in Eastern Europe, Kent went with his wife Shelley to Haiti in 2003. Kent and Shelley literally followed the Word into the neighborhood. First they spent seven months in rural Haiti living in one room in a small family house. They learned Creole, interacted with their host-family and neighbors, and began to understand how Haitian people live and think. After that, they went to Port au Prince to begin working in non-profit organizations. They could have lived in one of the affluent neighborhoods that foreigners typically live in. Instead, they moved onto one of the mud-covered hills surrounding Port au Prince, into a neighborhood accessible only on foot. They spent many months having a simple house built, a two-room affair, built, in the Haitian way, of concrete, with minimal electricity. They lived side by side with their Haitian neighbors, entering their lives as fully as possible. They only moved back to Florida when Shelley became pregnant. Kent has since founded Haiti Partners to foster education in Haiti and still travels regularly to Haiti. Kent and Shelley followed the Word into the neighborhood.
To what neighborhoods has the Word already gone ahead of us? Into what neighborhoods is the Word asking us to follow him? Are there places even here in Gallipolis where the Word has already gone and is expecting us to follow him? Are there places where we, who have caught a glimpse of God’s great love for us, are called to share that love with others?
Ultimately, that is what this Gospel is all about. Yes, God is powerful. Yes, God created us. But what we need to remember most is that God comes into the neighborhood, your neighborhood and mine, because God loves us. Love and compassion bring God into the neighborhood. The Word was born out of God’s love for us. It is this love for which I am so immensely grateful. It is in praise of this love that I can sing with all my heart, “Joy to the world, the Lord has come.” Joy to the world, the Word has moved into the neighborhood.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Sunday, December 19, 2010
God Took a Risk
Well, what would you have done? What would you have done if you were Joseph? He was betrothed to Mary. He didn’t know her well, but their families had arranged it all. First there was the engagement, then there was the betrothal ceremony that sealed the promises made in the engagement. She was now the right age, fourteen or so. Even though he and Mary were still living with their own families – they would start living together a year after the betrothal -- they were truly promised to each other, really they were as good as already married. Now what? Mary is pregnant for Pete’s sake! And by whom? She can’t say. The baby isn’t Joseph’s, that’s for sure.
What do you suppose Joseph felt? What would you have felt? Wouldn’t Joseph have been outraged? At Mary for doing this to him? At whoever did it with her? Wouldn’t he have been embarrassed? My God, the shame! People would think that either Joseph couldn’t control himself until the actual wedding, or that he’d let himself be betrayed. And how could he raise a child that everyone knew wasn’t his? And then mixed in with the rage and embarrassment, wouldn’t Joseph also have felt deep grief? Grief for the life with Mary that he had been so joyfully expecting? Grief for Mary, for what would await her as an unmarried mother? Why had she done this? And, my God, what was she feeling? Wasn’t she embarrassed too? Was she sorry about what she’d done? Knowing her, most probably she was terrified about what would happen next.
O Mary! O God, what should he do? The law about pregnancy before marriage was harsh. If Joseph remembered correctly, it said something like, “If there is a young woman, a virgin already engaged to be married, and a man meets her in the town and lies with her, you shall bring both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death…” (Deut. 22:23-24). Should he tell people what she had done? But then what? What would happen to her? Maybe he should just divorce her quietly and let her go to her cousin Elizabeth’s house? Wouldn’t that be the right thing to do? As Joseph lay in bed that night, tossing and turning, all his thoughts and feelings swirled around in his head. What should he do? What should he do?
O.K. Let’s stop right there. Let’s think about this. [Turning to the right side of the church] You people, on this side, I want you to think about all the options that Mary had in this situation. Here she was pregnant before marriage, and her fiancé wasn’t the father. What might she have done? [Turning to the left side of the church] Now you folks, on this side, I want you to think about the options that Joseph had in this situation. What could he have done? And both groups: is there anything either of them could have done, or the two of them together, that the Gospel story doesn’t mention? Take a minute or two to think about the various possibilities. [Then query each side as to what they came up with.]
Well, there were some other possibilities, weren’t there? However, we know how Scripture tells us the story came out. In the midst of his tossing and turning, Joseph had a vivid sensation of a visit from a presence. Maybe it was dream, who knows? The presence told him not to do any of the things he’d initially considered, or that were perhaps possible, but to go through with the marriage, and adopt this child as his own. And he did just that. And more. Some months after the child was born, and after those strange eastern politicians had come and gone, Joseph took Mary and the child to safety in Egypt and then later on even brought them safely back home to Nazareth. Was he there for the totally unexpected end to this strange child’s life thirty-three years later? We don’t know. Mary was there, but we don’t know about Joseph. We do know that Joseph followed through on what God had asked of him in this part of the story, and that he played his part with faith, mercy, and courage.
It didn’t have to be that way. God took a risk. God has always taken risks with creation and with human beings, with us unstable and undependable creatures. Think of some of the major players in the Old Testament stories: stuttering Moses, fleeing Jonah, too-young Jeremiah, Rahab the prostitute, Ruth the Moabite Gentile. In making the choice take our flesh, to become one of us, to be Emmanuel, God-with-us, God really took a risk. From first to last, this story is God’s story, but the fulfillment of the story needed the human actors. And God took the risk of depending on human beings to do their part. Scripture makes it look easy for them, but it wasn’t. These aren’t fairy stories. I’d bet there was plenty of tossing and turning for all these people. Fortunately, for God, and, more importantly, for us, the human actors in this story and the others did what God might have hoped they would: they let the Holy Spirit work through them, they accepted God’s plan, and they faithfully carried it out.
Does God still want to work through us risky and undependable human beings to accomplish God’s saving will in the world? Absolutely! Consider this. In about 1350 a group of Jews living in Barcelona had a haggadah made. The haggadah is the book of the liturgy for the Passover Seder, the ritual meal. This particular haggadah was beautifully illustrated with thirty-four scenes from Scripture, and it was lovingly bound in fine calfskin. By God’s grace, and with human cooperation, it also survived many close calls with destruction. When the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, someone managed to smuggle it out. Some marginal notes show that it was in Italy in the 16th century. Again to save it, someone then smuggled it into the Ottoman Empire, where Jews were welcome. Then a man named Joseph Kohen sold it to the National Museum in Sarajevo in 1894. During World War II, the chief librarian of the museum, a Muslim named Dervis Korkut, risked his own life and saved the haggadah from the Nazis by smuggling it out of Sarajevo. Korkut gave it to a Muslim cleric who hid it under the floorboards of a mosque. When Serb forces broke into the museum during the war in Bosnia in the early ‘90s, the haggadah was nearly trashed. However, a local Muslim police inspector, Fahrudin Cebo, made sure it survived by hiding it in an underground bank vault. The haggadah was finally restored in 2001, and has been on permanent display at the museum since December, 2002. But it didn’t have to work out that way, did it? By God’s grace, undependable human beings, Jews, Christians, and Muslims, helped to keep alive a service book for the liturgy that defines the Jews as a people, and for that reason alone, is also important to us as Jesus’ disciples.
Can we think of similar examples from our own lives? Can we think of examples of God’s taking the risk to work God’s will through human beings, perhaps even through people who at first glance might not even seem up to doing anything at all for God? I invite you thinki of people that you know. [Pause.] As I look around this church, at the windows and the memorial plaques, I know for a fact that God has been working through risky, undependable human beings, people who could done anything else with their resources but invest them here, in keeping this parish alive. And somehow those people rose to the challenge and generously supported this church. Do we know their stories? Do we appreciate how God worked through them? Will we let God work through us as well?
It’s not a sure thing, is it? God acted marvelously in taking human flesh and coming among us. But the human actors in God’s story also had to show faith, mercy, and courage. As do we, when God shows up in our lives. Make no mistake, God may ask us to do something unexpected. Perhaps we’ll be resistant, angry, embarrassed, sorrowful, perplexed, or all of the above. Perhaps we’ll toss and turn and wonder what we should do. But perhaps when we ponder the story of Mary and Joseph, we can imagine ourselves also acting courageously, even when we really feel like cowards inside. We can trust God’s promises and take the first step forward in faith. When we do respond to God’s requests with faith and trust, even if we’re not sure what’s coming next, God will be with us, God will do the rest, and God will be able to accomplish God’s will through us. Thanks be to God!
What do you suppose Joseph felt? What would you have felt? Wouldn’t Joseph have been outraged? At Mary for doing this to him? At whoever did it with her? Wouldn’t he have been embarrassed? My God, the shame! People would think that either Joseph couldn’t control himself until the actual wedding, or that he’d let himself be betrayed. And how could he raise a child that everyone knew wasn’t his? And then mixed in with the rage and embarrassment, wouldn’t Joseph also have felt deep grief? Grief for the life with Mary that he had been so joyfully expecting? Grief for Mary, for what would await her as an unmarried mother? Why had she done this? And, my God, what was she feeling? Wasn’t she embarrassed too? Was she sorry about what she’d done? Knowing her, most probably she was terrified about what would happen next.
O Mary! O God, what should he do? The law about pregnancy before marriage was harsh. If Joseph remembered correctly, it said something like, “If there is a young woman, a virgin already engaged to be married, and a man meets her in the town and lies with her, you shall bring both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death…” (Deut. 22:23-24). Should he tell people what she had done? But then what? What would happen to her? Maybe he should just divorce her quietly and let her go to her cousin Elizabeth’s house? Wouldn’t that be the right thing to do? As Joseph lay in bed that night, tossing and turning, all his thoughts and feelings swirled around in his head. What should he do? What should he do?
O.K. Let’s stop right there. Let’s think about this. [Turning to the right side of the church] You people, on this side, I want you to think about all the options that Mary had in this situation. Here she was pregnant before marriage, and her fiancé wasn’t the father. What might she have done? [Turning to the left side of the church] Now you folks, on this side, I want you to think about the options that Joseph had in this situation. What could he have done? And both groups: is there anything either of them could have done, or the two of them together, that the Gospel story doesn’t mention? Take a minute or two to think about the various possibilities. [Then query each side as to what they came up with.]
Well, there were some other possibilities, weren’t there? However, we know how Scripture tells us the story came out. In the midst of his tossing and turning, Joseph had a vivid sensation of a visit from a presence. Maybe it was dream, who knows? The presence told him not to do any of the things he’d initially considered, or that were perhaps possible, but to go through with the marriage, and adopt this child as his own. And he did just that. And more. Some months after the child was born, and after those strange eastern politicians had come and gone, Joseph took Mary and the child to safety in Egypt and then later on even brought them safely back home to Nazareth. Was he there for the totally unexpected end to this strange child’s life thirty-three years later? We don’t know. Mary was there, but we don’t know about Joseph. We do know that Joseph followed through on what God had asked of him in this part of the story, and that he played his part with faith, mercy, and courage.
It didn’t have to be that way. God took a risk. God has always taken risks with creation and with human beings, with us unstable and undependable creatures. Think of some of the major players in the Old Testament stories: stuttering Moses, fleeing Jonah, too-young Jeremiah, Rahab the prostitute, Ruth the Moabite Gentile. In making the choice take our flesh, to become one of us, to be Emmanuel, God-with-us, God really took a risk. From first to last, this story is God’s story, but the fulfillment of the story needed the human actors. And God took the risk of depending on human beings to do their part. Scripture makes it look easy for them, but it wasn’t. These aren’t fairy stories. I’d bet there was plenty of tossing and turning for all these people. Fortunately, for God, and, more importantly, for us, the human actors in this story and the others did what God might have hoped they would: they let the Holy Spirit work through them, they accepted God’s plan, and they faithfully carried it out.
Does God still want to work through us risky and undependable human beings to accomplish God’s saving will in the world? Absolutely! Consider this. In about 1350 a group of Jews living in Barcelona had a haggadah made. The haggadah is the book of the liturgy for the Passover Seder, the ritual meal. This particular haggadah was beautifully illustrated with thirty-four scenes from Scripture, and it was lovingly bound in fine calfskin. By God’s grace, and with human cooperation, it also survived many close calls with destruction. When the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, someone managed to smuggle it out. Some marginal notes show that it was in Italy in the 16th century. Again to save it, someone then smuggled it into the Ottoman Empire, where Jews were welcome. Then a man named Joseph Kohen sold it to the National Museum in Sarajevo in 1894. During World War II, the chief librarian of the museum, a Muslim named Dervis Korkut, risked his own life and saved the haggadah from the Nazis by smuggling it out of Sarajevo. Korkut gave it to a Muslim cleric who hid it under the floorboards of a mosque. When Serb forces broke into the museum during the war in Bosnia in the early ‘90s, the haggadah was nearly trashed. However, a local Muslim police inspector, Fahrudin Cebo, made sure it survived by hiding it in an underground bank vault. The haggadah was finally restored in 2001, and has been on permanent display at the museum since December, 2002. But it didn’t have to work out that way, did it? By God’s grace, undependable human beings, Jews, Christians, and Muslims, helped to keep alive a service book for the liturgy that defines the Jews as a people, and for that reason alone, is also important to us as Jesus’ disciples.
Can we think of similar examples from our own lives? Can we think of examples of God’s taking the risk to work God’s will through human beings, perhaps even through people who at first glance might not even seem up to doing anything at all for God? I invite you thinki of people that you know. [Pause.] As I look around this church, at the windows and the memorial plaques, I know for a fact that God has been working through risky, undependable human beings, people who could done anything else with their resources but invest them here, in keeping this parish alive. And somehow those people rose to the challenge and generously supported this church. Do we know their stories? Do we appreciate how God worked through them? Will we let God work through us as well?
It’s not a sure thing, is it? God acted marvelously in taking human flesh and coming among us. But the human actors in God’s story also had to show faith, mercy, and courage. As do we, when God shows up in our lives. Make no mistake, God may ask us to do something unexpected. Perhaps we’ll be resistant, angry, embarrassed, sorrowful, perplexed, or all of the above. Perhaps we’ll toss and turn and wonder what we should do. But perhaps when we ponder the story of Mary and Joseph, we can imagine ourselves also acting courageously, even when we really feel like cowards inside. We can trust God’s promises and take the first step forward in faith. When we do respond to God’s requests with faith and trust, even if we’re not sure what’s coming next, God will be with us, God will do the rest, and God will be able to accomplish God’s will through us. Thanks be to God!
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Therefore Be Patient
In 1887 Bishop Henry Codman Potter of the Episcopal Diocese of New York called for the building of a cathedral that would rival St. Patrick's Cathedral, the Roman Catholic cathedral in mid-town Manhattan. Land was found in upper Manhattan, architects created plans for a magnificent Byzantine-Romanesque building, and ground was broken on December 27, 1892, St. John’s day. Little by little the great cathdral of St. John the Divine rose up: first the massive foundation, then the crypt in 1899, then the great central dome in 1909. Excavations for the nave began in 1925, and the building was first opened end to end on November 30, 1941, a week before the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Work on the cathedral stopped almost immediately and didn’t begin again until 1979, when Bishop Paul Moore decided that construction should be resumed, in part to help neighborhood youths by training them in the crafts of stonemasonry. Construction halted again in 1997, and in 2001 fire destroyed part of the organ and the as yet unfinished north transept. Following a massive restoration begun in January 2005, the cathedral was finally rededicated on Sunday, November 30, 2008. Construction and restoration of the cathedral continue, and many affectionately call it “St. John the Unfinished.”
What, a cathedral still unfinished after more than one hundred years? Of course, some of the great European cathedrals took as much or even more time to build, and builders, patrons, monarchs, and all those watching their construction knew that foresight, vision, and patience were all needed to fully realize such magnificent buildings. Perhaps those cathedral builders, perhaps even the builders of St. John the Divine in New York, took to heart the command to “be patient,” that we heard in today’s reading from the Letter of James. Were you startled to hear that command? We Americans are not patient people. We want everything fast and faster. We grumble when the supermarket line has more than three people in it. And now all around us the world has raced to the manger and is celebrating Christmas. Of course, the stores have been celebrating Christmas since before Halloween! But now everywhere the Christmas trees are up, and houses are decorated. In our neighboring churches, choirs are singing Christmas cantatas and hosting Christmas parties. Unlike the world around us, we Episcopalians stubbornly cling to an ancient liturgical calendar and keep Advent – at least on this side of the red doors! Why are we being so deliberately counter-cultural? Why haven’t we raced to the manger along with everyone else? Do we want to ensure the sure and certain demise of our church?
I believe there is a deeper reason why we stubbornly keep Advent, and part of that deeper reason is to be found in James’ counsel. Advent is a time of waiting. What are waiting for? Certainly, we wait – as eagerly as small children sometimes – for the celebration of God’s first coming among us in Jesus. I still like Advent calendars, those loyal companions in the countdown to Christmas Eve. But in Advent the church also asks us to look further ahead, to look beyond ourselves, to have the patience of a cathedral builder who knew that the great building would not be finished in one lifetime. The church asks us to look ahead to the full realization of God’s promises, the completion of the renewal of creation begun in Jesus. And the church also counsels us to cultivate that most important of Christian virtues, patience. The church asks us to live in both uncertainty and hope, waiting patiently for God to bring God’s plans to fulfillment in God’s good time.
In his plea for patience “until the coming of the Lord,” James uses agricultural imagery. He reminds us that we are like farmers who must wait until both the early and late rains have arrived, that the fulfillment of God’s promises is not under our control, but that the green shoots of God’s promises will indeed in God’s good time be fully mature. God’s time is not our time, James implies, and God’s “soon” does not mean “tomorrow,” or even “next week.” Indeed, if you think of the age of the earth, of time from God’s perspective, the time between Jesus’ birth and today is a mere blip! Patiently waiting for God’s fulfillment of God’s plans is not easy, and so James also counsels strength of heart. Now just as our physical hearts need exercise in order to stay strong, so do our spiritual hearts. Certainly, we cultivate spiritual strength through regular prayer and worship. But, James tells us, what is more important, is that we cultivate strength of heart through patient acceptance of each other. “Do not grumble against each other,” he commands. In being patient with one another, we also show forth Christ, who accepted all. Finally, if we would know what patient waiting looked like, James suggests that we take the prophets as our models. We have been hearing their voices this Advent, haven’t we, especially those of Isaiah and John the Baptist. We have been hearing their call to hope, and we have seen their visions of a return to Jerusalem of the “ransomed of the Lord” and of a renewed creation. We know that they patiently endured the wrath and imprisonment of those in power who didn’t want to hear their preaching, and we are asked to follow their example.
Now it is unlikely that any of us will be imprisoned or beheaded for speaking about our faith. However, as disciples of Jesus we are commanded to remain as faithful to God’s promises as the exemplary folks of Scripture, or even of our own families, who courageously spoke in God’s name. One writer tells of her grandfather, who worked for justice and once risked his life for a black friend in the segregated South. When the civil rights laws were finally passed, he had been long gone, but during his lifetime he did his best to nurture those green shoots of the hope for racial justice that had poked up through the soil around him.
And so it is for us. As faithful disciples of the one who died and rose again, we too commit ourselves to patient, faithful waiting, to speaking God’s truth, and to envisioning a renewed world truly realized. Especially in this busy, noisy season, when most of those around us have forgotten the need for patience, we take to heart James’ counsel: “be patient until the coming of the Lord.” Shutting your ears for the moment to the clamor of premature Christmas carols, I invite you to hear again James’ words to us, as Brahms set them in his great German Requiem (played for congregation on ipod):
So seid nun geduldig, liebe Brüder, Be patient therefore, brethren,
bis auf die Zukunft des Herrn. unto the coming of the Lord.
Siehe, ein Ackermann wartet Behold, the husbandman waiteth
auf die köstliche Frucht der Erde for the precious fruit of the earth,
und ist geduldig darüber, and has long patience for it,
bis er empfahe den Morgenregen und until he receive the morning and evening Abendregen. rain.
So seid geduldig. Jakobus 5:7 Be patient therefore. James 5:7
So seid nun geduldig. So therefore be patient. And by God’s grace, we are indeed patient, as we live in love until the coming of the Lord.
What, a cathedral still unfinished after more than one hundred years? Of course, some of the great European cathedrals took as much or even more time to build, and builders, patrons, monarchs, and all those watching their construction knew that foresight, vision, and patience were all needed to fully realize such magnificent buildings. Perhaps those cathedral builders, perhaps even the builders of St. John the Divine in New York, took to heart the command to “be patient,” that we heard in today’s reading from the Letter of James. Were you startled to hear that command? We Americans are not patient people. We want everything fast and faster. We grumble when the supermarket line has more than three people in it. And now all around us the world has raced to the manger and is celebrating Christmas. Of course, the stores have been celebrating Christmas since before Halloween! But now everywhere the Christmas trees are up, and houses are decorated. In our neighboring churches, choirs are singing Christmas cantatas and hosting Christmas parties. Unlike the world around us, we Episcopalians stubbornly cling to an ancient liturgical calendar and keep Advent – at least on this side of the red doors! Why are we being so deliberately counter-cultural? Why haven’t we raced to the manger along with everyone else? Do we want to ensure the sure and certain demise of our church?
I believe there is a deeper reason why we stubbornly keep Advent, and part of that deeper reason is to be found in James’ counsel. Advent is a time of waiting. What are waiting for? Certainly, we wait – as eagerly as small children sometimes – for the celebration of God’s first coming among us in Jesus. I still like Advent calendars, those loyal companions in the countdown to Christmas Eve. But in Advent the church also asks us to look further ahead, to look beyond ourselves, to have the patience of a cathedral builder who knew that the great building would not be finished in one lifetime. The church asks us to look ahead to the full realization of God’s promises, the completion of the renewal of creation begun in Jesus. And the church also counsels us to cultivate that most important of Christian virtues, patience. The church asks us to live in both uncertainty and hope, waiting patiently for God to bring God’s plans to fulfillment in God’s good time.
In his plea for patience “until the coming of the Lord,” James uses agricultural imagery. He reminds us that we are like farmers who must wait until both the early and late rains have arrived, that the fulfillment of God’s promises is not under our control, but that the green shoots of God’s promises will indeed in God’s good time be fully mature. God’s time is not our time, James implies, and God’s “soon” does not mean “tomorrow,” or even “next week.” Indeed, if you think of the age of the earth, of time from God’s perspective, the time between Jesus’ birth and today is a mere blip! Patiently waiting for God’s fulfillment of God’s plans is not easy, and so James also counsels strength of heart. Now just as our physical hearts need exercise in order to stay strong, so do our spiritual hearts. Certainly, we cultivate spiritual strength through regular prayer and worship. But, James tells us, what is more important, is that we cultivate strength of heart through patient acceptance of each other. “Do not grumble against each other,” he commands. In being patient with one another, we also show forth Christ, who accepted all. Finally, if we would know what patient waiting looked like, James suggests that we take the prophets as our models. We have been hearing their voices this Advent, haven’t we, especially those of Isaiah and John the Baptist. We have been hearing their call to hope, and we have seen their visions of a return to Jerusalem of the “ransomed of the Lord” and of a renewed creation. We know that they patiently endured the wrath and imprisonment of those in power who didn’t want to hear their preaching, and we are asked to follow their example.
Now it is unlikely that any of us will be imprisoned or beheaded for speaking about our faith. However, as disciples of Jesus we are commanded to remain as faithful to God’s promises as the exemplary folks of Scripture, or even of our own families, who courageously spoke in God’s name. One writer tells of her grandfather, who worked for justice and once risked his life for a black friend in the segregated South. When the civil rights laws were finally passed, he had been long gone, but during his lifetime he did his best to nurture those green shoots of the hope for racial justice that had poked up through the soil around him.
And so it is for us. As faithful disciples of the one who died and rose again, we too commit ourselves to patient, faithful waiting, to speaking God’s truth, and to envisioning a renewed world truly realized. Especially in this busy, noisy season, when most of those around us have forgotten the need for patience, we take to heart James’ counsel: “be patient until the coming of the Lord.” Shutting your ears for the moment to the clamor of premature Christmas carols, I invite you to hear again James’ words to us, as Brahms set them in his great German Requiem (played for congregation on ipod):
So seid nun geduldig, liebe Brüder, Be patient therefore, brethren,
bis auf die Zukunft des Herrn. unto the coming of the Lord.
Siehe, ein Ackermann wartet Behold, the husbandman waiteth
auf die köstliche Frucht der Erde for the precious fruit of the earth,
und ist geduldig darüber, and has long patience for it,
bis er empfahe den Morgenregen und until he receive the morning and evening Abendregen. rain.
So seid geduldig. Jakobus 5:7 Be patient therefore. James 5:7
So seid nun geduldig. So therefore be patient. And by God’s grace, we are indeed patient, as we live in love until the coming of the Lord.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Water for Repentance
On the day after Thanksgiving, columnist Leonard Pitts announced good news: “An average of 17.7 percent of Americans were at times unable to feed themselves in the 12 months prior to September of this year.”1 How on earth could this be good news, Pitts asked. The answer: the percentage of hungry Americans was down from 18.5 percent at the end of 2009. Pitts went on to remind us that we don’t have to go to Kenya or Haiti to find hunger. In this season of “gorging on turkeys and hams and yams and greens, potatoes by the mound, dressing by the mountain, and groaning tables of puddings, pies, cookies, and cakes,” hunger endures in this country. Even though the lieutenant governor of South Carolina likened children who receive free and reduced price lunches to “stray animals you feed at your back door,” hunger endures. Even though we work hard at providing free meals to people, even though we participate in the distribution of food, hunger endures. Is it because of the recession that we have so much hunger? Well, we had hungry people before the recession. Are hungry people lazy or dishonest? Maybe a few are, but many hungry people are disabled, mentally ill, or poorly educated. Some have lost their jobs, some will never find a job in their community, and some have a job that doesn’t pay enough to live on. (Read Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickle and Dimed for more on that last reason.) And truth be told, any of us could be poor and hungry. Even middle-class people can lose their jobs and find themselves suddenly poor. Many of us are one health-care crisis away from poverty. Did you know that the majority of people who file for bankruptcy do so because of medical bills not covered by insurance?
At this point, you’re probably thinking, “What does this have to do with me? And what on earth do hungry poor people have to do with today’s Scripture lessons?” The answer is: everything! In our Old Testament reading from the prophet Isaiah, and in our psalm, we have a vision of what God intends our world to look like, of what a future of shalom, the well-being of all, might look like. In God’s shalom, all creation lives in harmony and peace. In God’s shalom that peace is a peace founded on justice, and especially justice for the poor. Hear Isaiah describing the ruler of God’s future: “He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear,” i.e., he won’t be impressed by the trappings of high status or by elegant language, but “with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth.” The psalmist also looks forward to a future of harmony and peace: “There shall be abundance of peace till the moon shall be no more.” And the psalmist reminds us that the ruler of God’s peaceful kingdom will “rule your people righteously and the poor with equity,” and that “he shall defend the needy among the people; he shall rescue the poor and crush the oppressor.” Clearly the God whose word Isaiah proclaims has a special heart, a special preference, for the poor. Could these be the same poor people about whom Pitts was writing?
Our Gospel lesson strikes a slightly different note. Standing squarely within the prophetic tradition of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah, Ezekiel, and all the rest, John the Baptist also proclaims God’s word. But John proclaims that a great change in people’s lives is about to occur, that the ideal king, the messiah, the just ruler proclaimed by earlier prophets, is indeed about to appear. In preparation for the coming of God’s anointed one, John calls out, “Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” As a token of their repentance he charges people to be baptized, i.e., to be immersed in water, in a symbolic cleansing. John also has harsh words for the religious leadership – and we’ll hear a lot of this in Matthew’s Gospel. John warns them not to take refuge in their standing as children of Abraham, i.e., as heirs to God’s promises, but themselves repent and bear good fruit.
John was speaking to the people of his own time, to first-century Jews who were awaiting the coming of God’s anointed. Is he also speaking to us? Our collect for today asks for God’s grace to heed the warnings of the prophetic messengers whom God has sent and to forsake our own sins. So, yes, the Hebrew prophets, the prophets of our own day, and John the Baptizer are also addressing us. As a pastor and teacher, I especially hear John’s harsh words to the religious leaders as addressed to me, and I do challenge myself to repentance, and I ask God’s grace to bring forth the good fruit that God would have me bear. But ultimately John’s harsh words are addressed to all of us. All of us baptized Christians are also heirs to God’s covenant, along with the original descendants of Abraham. And like the religious leaders who first heard John’s accusations, we too cannot think that we are immune from any further attention to the demands of God. We too are called to repentance, and especially in this season, when we too wait eagerly for the appearing of the Prince of Peace.
“Repentance.” Now what does this word really mean? One thing it does not mean is a trip down the aisle at a revival. It does not mean solely renouncing evil in our baptisms and thinking we are done with repentance forever. No, repentance is a lifelong process, something we need to do continually. Nor does repentance mean putting ourselves on a guilt trip. Certainly, confession and absolution are good and necessary processes. But repentance really means turning around, changing direction, changing our mind-set, aligning ourselves with what God is up to in the world. And repentance is not only for individuals. Parishes, communities, even nations can repent. All of us, individually and collectively, can change course, can turn away from our own selfish desires, and begin heading in God’s direction.
How does such change come about? Ultimately, all change of heart is the work of the Holy Spirit within us. However, the Holy Spirit has many different ways of working. Sometimes we change as a result of new experiences, sometimes through getting new information, sometimes in response to prayer that God will show us the road that God wants us to travel. Most of us don’t need to “invite Christ into our lives” – we’ve probably already done that, or we wouldn’t be here today. What we do need to do is change how we think and how we act.
Can we change our thinking and our action with respect to issues of hunger in the U.S.? Dear God, you may say, I do believe that all your people, even your poorest people, should have enough to eat. How are you asking me to change my mind? What are you asking me to do? Everything you are currently doing, the Lord may say, and more! Yes, continue feeding my people in Loaves and Fishes. Yes, go across the street and help out at the Lutheran Social Services mobile food pantry. Yes, help people access benefits through the Ohio Benefit Bank. And there’s more. Consider educating yourself about hunger nationally, through organizations like Bread for the World, a Christian hunger advocacy organization. Some of you may have read in Friday’s paper, for example, that Congress passed the Child Nutrition bill to increase access to free and reduced-price meals for children. Bread for the World members educated themselves about the bill and then pressed their elected representatives to vote for it. The Ohio Hunger Alliance does the same kind of work on a state-wide level, also asking people to educate themselves about local hunger issues and to take appropriate political action. These are all good things to do, and as Christians we do these things because we understand ourselves as charged to partner with God in the bringing in of God’s future.
But one more thing I ask of you, the Lord says. Love those who are hungry as I love them. Bob Erickson was a volunteer at a free breakfast. Assigned coffee-pouring duty, he drifted from table to table “warming up cups for persons who often embody a ‘down and out’ slice of society,” people from shelters or, literally, off the streets and even from under bridges. Some were physically disabled, some had mental health issues. Few could get or hold a job. At one table, Bob tells us, he met Ben, “who had recently been freed after 25 years in prison. Gradually warming to my interest in talking with him, he told me a predictably sad story: he has no money for rent, is alienated from family, has lost his previous friends, and is aware of few resources in this or any other community, except a homeless shelter where he lives and this once-a-week service….” Yet Ben was confident he could make it, because at some point he had met someone who had accepted him unconditionally as a person, who had enabled him to feel truly loved and able to surmount the many obstacles in his life. Meeting Ben shook all of Bob’s assumptions. Bob realized that, important as our material support of people is, extending the hand of love and friendship, embodying Jesus for them, may be more important. “That someone cares enough to offer themselves -- their time, their attention, and most importantly, their heart -- may be the greatest gift we ever give…. Seeing beyond all that is obvious to criticize about the messiness of how they happen to be standing in front of us, can we accept them as they are as the starting point for who they might become? And by more than ‘bread alone,’ may we have the grace to love them and they, to accept it!”
Repent, change course, make a personal connection with the poor and needy. This is a tall order! Give us grace, O God, to heed the messages of your prophets, and to change our ways. Enable us by your grace to love those whom you love and to be the people you are calling us to be.
________________________________
1. “Amid amber waves of grain, hunger thrives,” Worthington Daily Globe, published November 26, 2010, accessed at http://www.dglobe.com/event/article/id/43356/, 11/29/2010.
2. Hunger Network in Ohio Newsletter, Fall 2010.
At this point, you’re probably thinking, “What does this have to do with me? And what on earth do hungry poor people have to do with today’s Scripture lessons?” The answer is: everything! In our Old Testament reading from the prophet Isaiah, and in our psalm, we have a vision of what God intends our world to look like, of what a future of shalom, the well-being of all, might look like. In God’s shalom, all creation lives in harmony and peace. In God’s shalom that peace is a peace founded on justice, and especially justice for the poor. Hear Isaiah describing the ruler of God’s future: “He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear,” i.e., he won’t be impressed by the trappings of high status or by elegant language, but “with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth.” The psalmist also looks forward to a future of harmony and peace: “There shall be abundance of peace till the moon shall be no more.” And the psalmist reminds us that the ruler of God’s peaceful kingdom will “rule your people righteously and the poor with equity,” and that “he shall defend the needy among the people; he shall rescue the poor and crush the oppressor.” Clearly the God whose word Isaiah proclaims has a special heart, a special preference, for the poor. Could these be the same poor people about whom Pitts was writing?
Our Gospel lesson strikes a slightly different note. Standing squarely within the prophetic tradition of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah, Ezekiel, and all the rest, John the Baptist also proclaims God’s word. But John proclaims that a great change in people’s lives is about to occur, that the ideal king, the messiah, the just ruler proclaimed by earlier prophets, is indeed about to appear. In preparation for the coming of God’s anointed one, John calls out, “Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” As a token of their repentance he charges people to be baptized, i.e., to be immersed in water, in a symbolic cleansing. John also has harsh words for the religious leadership – and we’ll hear a lot of this in Matthew’s Gospel. John warns them not to take refuge in their standing as children of Abraham, i.e., as heirs to God’s promises, but themselves repent and bear good fruit.
John was speaking to the people of his own time, to first-century Jews who were awaiting the coming of God’s anointed. Is he also speaking to us? Our collect for today asks for God’s grace to heed the warnings of the prophetic messengers whom God has sent and to forsake our own sins. So, yes, the Hebrew prophets, the prophets of our own day, and John the Baptizer are also addressing us. As a pastor and teacher, I especially hear John’s harsh words to the religious leaders as addressed to me, and I do challenge myself to repentance, and I ask God’s grace to bring forth the good fruit that God would have me bear. But ultimately John’s harsh words are addressed to all of us. All of us baptized Christians are also heirs to God’s covenant, along with the original descendants of Abraham. And like the religious leaders who first heard John’s accusations, we too cannot think that we are immune from any further attention to the demands of God. We too are called to repentance, and especially in this season, when we too wait eagerly for the appearing of the Prince of Peace.
“Repentance.” Now what does this word really mean? One thing it does not mean is a trip down the aisle at a revival. It does not mean solely renouncing evil in our baptisms and thinking we are done with repentance forever. No, repentance is a lifelong process, something we need to do continually. Nor does repentance mean putting ourselves on a guilt trip. Certainly, confession and absolution are good and necessary processes. But repentance really means turning around, changing direction, changing our mind-set, aligning ourselves with what God is up to in the world. And repentance is not only for individuals. Parishes, communities, even nations can repent. All of us, individually and collectively, can change course, can turn away from our own selfish desires, and begin heading in God’s direction.
How does such change come about? Ultimately, all change of heart is the work of the Holy Spirit within us. However, the Holy Spirit has many different ways of working. Sometimes we change as a result of new experiences, sometimes through getting new information, sometimes in response to prayer that God will show us the road that God wants us to travel. Most of us don’t need to “invite Christ into our lives” – we’ve probably already done that, or we wouldn’t be here today. What we do need to do is change how we think and how we act.
Can we change our thinking and our action with respect to issues of hunger in the U.S.? Dear God, you may say, I do believe that all your people, even your poorest people, should have enough to eat. How are you asking me to change my mind? What are you asking me to do? Everything you are currently doing, the Lord may say, and more! Yes, continue feeding my people in Loaves and Fishes. Yes, go across the street and help out at the Lutheran Social Services mobile food pantry. Yes, help people access benefits through the Ohio Benefit Bank. And there’s more. Consider educating yourself about hunger nationally, through organizations like Bread for the World, a Christian hunger advocacy organization. Some of you may have read in Friday’s paper, for example, that Congress passed the Child Nutrition bill to increase access to free and reduced-price meals for children. Bread for the World members educated themselves about the bill and then pressed their elected representatives to vote for it. The Ohio Hunger Alliance does the same kind of work on a state-wide level, also asking people to educate themselves about local hunger issues and to take appropriate political action. These are all good things to do, and as Christians we do these things because we understand ourselves as charged to partner with God in the bringing in of God’s future.
But one more thing I ask of you, the Lord says. Love those who are hungry as I love them. Bob Erickson was a volunteer at a free breakfast. Assigned coffee-pouring duty, he drifted from table to table “warming up cups for persons who often embody a ‘down and out’ slice of society,” people from shelters or, literally, off the streets and even from under bridges. Some were physically disabled, some had mental health issues. Few could get or hold a job. At one table, Bob tells us, he met Ben, “who had recently been freed after 25 years in prison. Gradually warming to my interest in talking with him, he told me a predictably sad story: he has no money for rent, is alienated from family, has lost his previous friends, and is aware of few resources in this or any other community, except a homeless shelter where he lives and this once-a-week service….” Yet Ben was confident he could make it, because at some point he had met someone who had accepted him unconditionally as a person, who had enabled him to feel truly loved and able to surmount the many obstacles in his life. Meeting Ben shook all of Bob’s assumptions. Bob realized that, important as our material support of people is, extending the hand of love and friendship, embodying Jesus for them, may be more important. “That someone cares enough to offer themselves -- their time, their attention, and most importantly, their heart -- may be the greatest gift we ever give…. Seeing beyond all that is obvious to criticize about the messiness of how they happen to be standing in front of us, can we accept them as they are as the starting point for who they might become? And by more than ‘bread alone,’ may we have the grace to love them and they, to accept it!”
Repent, change course, make a personal connection with the poor and needy. This is a tall order! Give us grace, O God, to heed the messages of your prophets, and to change our ways. Enable us by your grace to love those whom you love and to be the people you are calling us to be.
________________________________
1. “Amid amber waves of grain, hunger thrives,” Worthington Daily Globe, published November 26, 2010, accessed at http://www.dglobe.com/event/article/id/43356/, 11/29/2010.
2. Hunger Network in Ohio Newsletter, Fall 2010.
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