“Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting light.” The baby was born. The angels rejoiced and glorified God. The shepherds came and found the baby, just as the angels had described him. While Mary pondered in her heart her experience of this strange birth, the shepherds returned to their flock, rejoicing at what they had heard and seen. Yes, we heard it all on Christmas Eve – together with a story about an angel that doesn’t occur in Scripture! Yes, Christmas Eve was wonderful! But where is the baby now? Why, on this first Sunday after Christmas, do we not hear more about him and his miraculous birth? Actually, perhaps some of you are heaving a sigh of relief. Perhaps you are like those who toss out their Christmas trees the day after Christmas, saying, “Thank heaven, we’re done with that for another year!”
“Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting light.” Strangely, perhaps, we hear details of Jesus’ birth only in the gospel of Luke. The gospel of Mark, the earliest gospel, begins with Jesus’ adult ministry. The gospel of Matthew prefaces the birth with the wonderful story of Joseph’s discovery that Mary is pregnant, yet of the birth the gospel relates only that Joseph and Mary didn’t have sexual intercourse until after Mary had given birth. We also hear no birth story in the gospel of John, whose opening eighteen verses you just heard. Instead, the writer of this gospel asks us to ponder a much deeper mystery than that of the miraculous birth of a child. We are asked to ponder who it truly was that was born: a precious baby or something much more mysterious and awe-inspiring?
The opening words of this gospel plunge us right into that mystery: “In the beginning….” Do those words sound familiar? The original hearers of this gospel would have recognized them immediately. They are the very first words of the Hebrew Scriptures. The very first words of the book of Genesis, the first book in the Hebrew Bible, are “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Indeed, the very first word of the Hebrew Bible, bereshit, literally means “in the beginning.” The first hearers of John’s gospel would also have remembered that “in the beginning” the first thing that God created was light: God swept God’s spirit over the formless waters and said, “Let there be light.” And there was light. And God pronounced the light good.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The first hearers of John’s gospel would also have recognized the Greek word, logos, which we translate as Word. They would have known that in using that word the Evangelist was reminding them and us that the God in whom we put our trust was not like one of the Greek gods, not like those disdainful deities who looked down on the struggles, heartaches, joys, and fears of this world with supreme detachment. Rather, John was reminding his hearers that the God whom they and we worship was not only unknowable mystery but also the driving force behind all creation. This God was also the construction foreman, if you will, of the whole creation project. And, more miraculous still, this logos, this Word, this God, was so involved, so caring, so loving, so giving, that he deigned to join himself body and soul with humanity, he dared to “pitch his tent” among us.
And more. This construction foreman of creation, this activator of God’s light, this logos who was now inseparably joined to humanity, was the light of the world, that light that “shines in the darkness,” which the darkness has never extinguished. The Evangelist reminds us that John came to testify to that light and to prepare us to receive that light. Because the Word took on human flesh and moved into our neighborhood, into the neighborhood of every living being, we who live in the light that he brought are not only children of God but have received from God more grace than we can ever fathom.
My friends, this is why we celebrate the birth of that baby. We celebrate Jesus’ birth, because, even though we are frail, limited, broken human beings, we do not live in total darkness. Even into our “dark streets” the “everlasting light” penetrates. The light that came into the world with Jesus still shines on us wherever we are. And where are the dark streets in our lives? Do you need me to name them? There are dark streets wherever there is war and conflict: in Iraq, Syria, South Sudan, Afghanistan, the West Bank; on the streets of Columbus, Cleveland, and Cincinnati, in Boston, Newtown, Connecticut, and Aurora Colorado, in shopping malls in Nairobi and Logan, Ohio. There are dark streets wherever there is enmity and conflict. There are dark streets wherever there is estrangement: especially within families, between parents and children, or among siblings. There are dark streets wherever there is addiction. There are dark streets wherever there is sickness, or when people are unemployed, homeless, or despairing.
“Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting light.” The baby was conceived, born, executed, and raised to life again. Now we, who are privileged to be members of his body, are filled with his light. The Word now becomes flesh within us. We too are called to spread the tiny flame of the everlasting light that we carry into the dark streets around us. We too are called to join with others and create new communities of love that continue his ministry into a dark world. For another miracle happens: when the Light of the World shines on the children of God, a new community comes into being. Now we suddenly see those around us as friends. Now we find the night sky dotted with the lights of the homes of neighbors. Now we see a community of love ready to reach out to those in need. When the Light of the World shines on us, we see the truth of Mother Teresa’s reminder: “It is Christmas every time you let God love others through you – yes, it is Christmas every time you smile at your brother and offer him your hand.”
This is a true story. It ran in the New York Times the day after Thanksgiving.1 There was a thirty-three year old cabbie who tied his shoulder-length hair in a ponytail. About five years ago, the cabbie “prayed to God for guidance on how to help the forgotten people of the streets who exist in life’s shadows.” He heard God tell him, “Make eight pounds of spaghetti, throw it in a pot, give it out on 103rd Street and Broadway with no conditions, and people will come.” He did, they came, and now he goes from door to door giving people food to eat.
God is probably not asking us to rush to New York and give out spaghetti. Today, we at St. Peter’s give dinners to the hungry every month. Like the New York cabbie, we offer people dinner with no conditions. And people come. This month we are also offering hats, scarves, and gloves. To what other ministry might God be calling us? Might God be calling us to offer spiritual sustenance to those around us? Is there anything else people need from us besides a free dinner? What else might God be inviting us to act on “with no conditions?” How are you personally and we as a parish being called to be living lights for others?
“Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting light.” Let us pray,
Holy One, sender of the Word made flesh,2
So many in our world still wait in darkness and long for your light.
In the midst of darkness, enkindle our hope.
As we long for lasting peace in the midst of war, be with us.
As we long for families to be reunited, be with us.
As we long for enemies to be reconciled, be with us.
As we long for cures, healings, and freedom from addictions, be with us.
As we long for decent jobs and economic security be with us.
As we long for love and community, be with us.
Fulfill the deepest longings of your people and dispel the darkness in our hearts and in our world. Teach us to take your light into the dark places of our world. And let your Word ignite the hope the world needs to bring to life your love and justice. Amen.
1. www.educationforjustice.org
2. Adapted from “Advent Prayer Service,” Education for Justice, www.educationforjustice.org
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
Are You the One?
What’s going on here? Why did the writer of the Gospel of Matthew show us John the Baptist sending his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” Wouldn’t Matthew’s readers think that John already knew for certain who Jesus was? The gospel accounts showed John and Jesus as cousins. The community of Jewish Christians for whom this gospel was written very likely knew that Jesus had been one of John’s disciples. Moreover, the gospel had already told them that when Jesus asked John for baptism along with everyone else, John said, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” And after Jesus was baptized, the gospel tells us that a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” Was the gospel writer trying to suggest that, lying in prison, John suddenly doubted his cousin’s identity?
Actually, there are at least three questions embedded in this story. The first question is the nature of the relationship between John the Baptist and Jesus, a live and important question for Matthew’s audience. It’s possible that John was a member of the Essenes, an influential ascetic community that wrote and preserved what we now call the Dead Sea Scrolls. Even if he was not an Essene, John was a powerful prophetic voice as Jesus was beginning his own ministry. Many in Jesus’ time wondered how to regard the two of them. The gospel writer voices the consensus the early church reached as to John’s part in salvation history. Quoting from the prophecy of Isaiah, the gospel writer avers that John was a great prophet, perhaps the greatest of the prophets. Even so, quoting from the prophet Malachi, the writer suggests that John’s role was that of a forerunner or messenger, one who prepared the way for the coming of the Messiah, now known to be Jesus.
The second question in this passage is the question of what kind of Messiah Jesus actually was. During Jesus’ lifetime, many Jews had expected God’s anointed one to be a military leader, a “shoot from the stump of Jesse,” i.e.., another David who would free them from the Roman yoke. From their experience of Jesus’ ministry, death, and resurrection, the early church gained a new understanding of God’s Anointed One. Jesus’ answer to John’s disciples reflects that new understanding. Notice that the gospel writer does not have Jesus answer their query directly. Rather, Jesus asks John’s disciples to look around them, see with their own eyes, and draw their own conclusions as to his identity. Then he alludes to the prophet Isaiah. He indirectly claims the Messiah’s mantle by suggesting that, because of him, “the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.” To drive home his point, he tells them that all who understand this new definition of God’s anointed one will be blessed.
And the third question in this passage is an implied question: is it all right to have questions and doubts? The answer? Absolutely! John must surely have had questions about Jesus’ identity. The earliest followers of Jesus struggled for several centuries to come to terms with the impact of his life, death, and resurrection. Ever since, underneath social coercion to conform to the church, thoughtful, serious Christians have struggled with faith, have struggled with the nature of Jesus’ identity, have struggled with who God is, how to trust God, and how to love their neighbors. Having doubts and asking questions are part of the natural cycle of faith. In the end, struggling with questions is the only way to grow spiritually. If you are too content, you may be stagnating spiritually.
The value of struggling with questions is as true for the church as it is for individual Christians. In the early part of the nineteenth century, the Oxford movement within the Anglican Church struggled with reappropriating the liturgies, vestments, paraments, and icons of the pre-reformation church. Later on in the century, churches struggled with the call to support overseas missions. The mid-twentieth century brought us questions of liturgical renewal, the role of women, and the inequities faced by racial and ethnic minorities. Today, we struggle with the fate of our institutions, even as the church seems to be breaking out in new forms of witness and mission.
Fortunately, for us, we are in the right place to ask all kinds of faith questions. The Anglican Church has never been a confessional church. Lutherans, for example, are expected to subscribe to the twenty-eight faith statements of the Augsburg Confession. Presbyterians and other members of Reformed Churches subscribe to the Westminster Confession. Anglicans and Episcopalians have no such confessions. Anglicans and Episcopalians are not expected to hew solidly to certain theological perspectives. What about the Nicene Creed, the affirmation of faith that we recite in our liturgy, you may ask. Agreed upon in the fourth century, the creed is the normative statement of faith for the whole church. Whether any individual understands or even accepts every word of it is another matter. Whether, if we were creating a creed today, we would make exactly the same statements as the Nicene Creed is also an open question. The point is that we are part of a church that welcomes questions. I love the title of a Forward Movement pamphlet: “The Episcopal Church: A Faith for Thinking People.” My friends, that is who all of us are.
So what keeps us grounded as Christians? How do we keep growing and evolving in our understanding of who God is? What do we do when we wonder, “Are you the One?” Anglican spirituality is essentially liturgical. It is grounded in worship and fulfilled in worship. More to the point, Anglican spirituality is grounded in a life shaped by Scripture and mediated to us through the cycles of the liturgical year. Think about it. Day by day, if you read Morning or Evening prayer, or even the Forward Movement meditations, you encounter two or three lessons from Scripture. And not just any random Scripture, but Scripture that is chosen to help us hear a vast part of the Word of God in a logical, orderly way. Similarly, week by week, in the Eucharist, we hear four readings from Scripture, again artfully chosen to enable us to understand who Jesus is and what the good news is.
More to the point, our pattern of readings has remained largely the same for nearly a millennium. If you look at the Epistle and Gospel readings for Advent, for example, you will find that they are the same readings that were used not only in the medieval English church but also in a lectionary that goes back to the fifth century. Each of our texts reflects on the other, and all are chosen to help us deepen our understanding of the one in whom we have put our trust. Anglican reformers saw no need to change the ancient pattern; they only wanted us to “read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest” the Scriptures, so that we would be able to “embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope” which we have in Jesus Christ. As Anglicans, we grow spiritually as we hear and meditate on that proclamation year by year. In truth, we never hear the same Scripture twice, i.e., every time we hear a passage from Scripture it speaks to us afresh. As we mature as Christians, we ask questions, we ponder, chew, and hopefully grow in our understanding.
I invite you to reflect on your own understanding of Jesus and his importance in your life. Are you too asking John the Baptist’s question: “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” Did you begin as a young person with clear ideas about God, Jesus, and the church? What changes have taken place in your understanding of God or Jesus? Do you wonder what you really believe? If pressed against a wall and asked to defend your faith, could you do it? Are you here in church because you think you should be here, or because you really trust God’s faithfulness and want to commit your life to Jesus? How does the way you live reflect your commitment to Jesus? In this time of waiting and expectation, as we prepare once again to ponder the mystery of the Word moving into our neighborhood, you would do well to find a few moments of quiet and meditate on these questions.
My friends, this is good news: it’s always OK to ask John the Baptist’s question. We will rarely get a straight answer to the question. Just like he did with John’s disciples, Jesus will ask us to look around and see the evidence for his presence among us. When we do arrive at some answer, it will always be temporary and tentative, and it will reflect only the next stage in our growth as disciples. But every time we ask that question – “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” – we can be assured that our questions are, in the end, God-given and will eventually lead us deeper into the heart of God.
Actually, there are at least three questions embedded in this story. The first question is the nature of the relationship between John the Baptist and Jesus, a live and important question for Matthew’s audience. It’s possible that John was a member of the Essenes, an influential ascetic community that wrote and preserved what we now call the Dead Sea Scrolls. Even if he was not an Essene, John was a powerful prophetic voice as Jesus was beginning his own ministry. Many in Jesus’ time wondered how to regard the two of them. The gospel writer voices the consensus the early church reached as to John’s part in salvation history. Quoting from the prophecy of Isaiah, the gospel writer avers that John was a great prophet, perhaps the greatest of the prophets. Even so, quoting from the prophet Malachi, the writer suggests that John’s role was that of a forerunner or messenger, one who prepared the way for the coming of the Messiah, now known to be Jesus.
The second question in this passage is the question of what kind of Messiah Jesus actually was. During Jesus’ lifetime, many Jews had expected God’s anointed one to be a military leader, a “shoot from the stump of Jesse,” i.e.., another David who would free them from the Roman yoke. From their experience of Jesus’ ministry, death, and resurrection, the early church gained a new understanding of God’s Anointed One. Jesus’ answer to John’s disciples reflects that new understanding. Notice that the gospel writer does not have Jesus answer their query directly. Rather, Jesus asks John’s disciples to look around them, see with their own eyes, and draw their own conclusions as to his identity. Then he alludes to the prophet Isaiah. He indirectly claims the Messiah’s mantle by suggesting that, because of him, “the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.” To drive home his point, he tells them that all who understand this new definition of God’s anointed one will be blessed.
And the third question in this passage is an implied question: is it all right to have questions and doubts? The answer? Absolutely! John must surely have had questions about Jesus’ identity. The earliest followers of Jesus struggled for several centuries to come to terms with the impact of his life, death, and resurrection. Ever since, underneath social coercion to conform to the church, thoughtful, serious Christians have struggled with faith, have struggled with the nature of Jesus’ identity, have struggled with who God is, how to trust God, and how to love their neighbors. Having doubts and asking questions are part of the natural cycle of faith. In the end, struggling with questions is the only way to grow spiritually. If you are too content, you may be stagnating spiritually.
The value of struggling with questions is as true for the church as it is for individual Christians. In the early part of the nineteenth century, the Oxford movement within the Anglican Church struggled with reappropriating the liturgies, vestments, paraments, and icons of the pre-reformation church. Later on in the century, churches struggled with the call to support overseas missions. The mid-twentieth century brought us questions of liturgical renewal, the role of women, and the inequities faced by racial and ethnic minorities. Today, we struggle with the fate of our institutions, even as the church seems to be breaking out in new forms of witness and mission.
Fortunately, for us, we are in the right place to ask all kinds of faith questions. The Anglican Church has never been a confessional church. Lutherans, for example, are expected to subscribe to the twenty-eight faith statements of the Augsburg Confession. Presbyterians and other members of Reformed Churches subscribe to the Westminster Confession. Anglicans and Episcopalians have no such confessions. Anglicans and Episcopalians are not expected to hew solidly to certain theological perspectives. What about the Nicene Creed, the affirmation of faith that we recite in our liturgy, you may ask. Agreed upon in the fourth century, the creed is the normative statement of faith for the whole church. Whether any individual understands or even accepts every word of it is another matter. Whether, if we were creating a creed today, we would make exactly the same statements as the Nicene Creed is also an open question. The point is that we are part of a church that welcomes questions. I love the title of a Forward Movement pamphlet: “The Episcopal Church: A Faith for Thinking People.” My friends, that is who all of us are.
So what keeps us grounded as Christians? How do we keep growing and evolving in our understanding of who God is? What do we do when we wonder, “Are you the One?” Anglican spirituality is essentially liturgical. It is grounded in worship and fulfilled in worship. More to the point, Anglican spirituality is grounded in a life shaped by Scripture and mediated to us through the cycles of the liturgical year. Think about it. Day by day, if you read Morning or Evening prayer, or even the Forward Movement meditations, you encounter two or three lessons from Scripture. And not just any random Scripture, but Scripture that is chosen to help us hear a vast part of the Word of God in a logical, orderly way. Similarly, week by week, in the Eucharist, we hear four readings from Scripture, again artfully chosen to enable us to understand who Jesus is and what the good news is.
More to the point, our pattern of readings has remained largely the same for nearly a millennium. If you look at the Epistle and Gospel readings for Advent, for example, you will find that they are the same readings that were used not only in the medieval English church but also in a lectionary that goes back to the fifth century. Each of our texts reflects on the other, and all are chosen to help us deepen our understanding of the one in whom we have put our trust. Anglican reformers saw no need to change the ancient pattern; they only wanted us to “read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest” the Scriptures, so that we would be able to “embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope” which we have in Jesus Christ. As Anglicans, we grow spiritually as we hear and meditate on that proclamation year by year. In truth, we never hear the same Scripture twice, i.e., every time we hear a passage from Scripture it speaks to us afresh. As we mature as Christians, we ask questions, we ponder, chew, and hopefully grow in our understanding.
I invite you to reflect on your own understanding of Jesus and his importance in your life. Are you too asking John the Baptist’s question: “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” Did you begin as a young person with clear ideas about God, Jesus, and the church? What changes have taken place in your understanding of God or Jesus? Do you wonder what you really believe? If pressed against a wall and asked to defend your faith, could you do it? Are you here in church because you think you should be here, or because you really trust God’s faithfulness and want to commit your life to Jesus? How does the way you live reflect your commitment to Jesus? In this time of waiting and expectation, as we prepare once again to ponder the mystery of the Word moving into our neighborhood, you would do well to find a few moments of quiet and meditate on these questions.
My friends, this is good news: it’s always OK to ask John the Baptist’s question. We will rarely get a straight answer to the question. Just like he did with John’s disciples, Jesus will ask us to look around and see the evidence for his presence among us. When we do arrive at some answer, it will always be temporary and tentative, and it will reflect only the next stage in our growth as disciples. But every time we ask that question – “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” – we can be assured that our questions are, in the end, God-given and will eventually lead us deeper into the heart of God.
Sunday, December 8, 2013
Written for our Learning
“Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.”
Do you recognize this collect? In our present prayer book we hear it on the next to last Sunday of the Church year. This year we heard it on November 17th. However, in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, it was the collect for today, the Second Sunday in Advent. As a prayer, it actually dates back to 1549 and our very first Book of Common Prayer. It reminds us that study of Scripture must be an integral and ongoing part of our lives, so that we may truly understand what God has done and is continuing to do for us.
It’s not surprising that the church heard this collect on the second Sunday of Advent. As a prayer, it reflects the first words of the portion of Paul’s letter to the Roman Christians that we just heard: “Whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, so that by steadfastness and by the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope.” The “scriptures,” of course, that Paul was talking about were the Hebrew Scriptures, since Paul’s letters antedate any of the Gospels, and since the writings that we now call the New Testament were declared canonical only in the fourth century. Now at the end of his letter, in his final exhortation to the Roman Christians, Paul reminds them that the covenants and promises that God made to the Israelites now, through Christ, also include the gentiles. More to the point, he tells them that diligent study of Scripture will enable them to maintain their hope of Christ’s coming, as they work out their differences and learn how to live in harmony with one another.
Paul challenges the Roman Christians to remember their scriptures by embedding references to those very scriptures in his exhortation. Quite likely, the “steadfastness” which he commends to them alludes to the endurance of Christ, especially his endurance of insults, shame, and death. Many think that in the allusion to Christ’s endurance, Paul echoes Ps. 69:9, a verse that for Christians describes Jesus’ travail: “It is zeal for your house that has consumed me; the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.” To emphasize God’s inclusion of the gentiles in God’s promises, Paul alludes to Psalm 18:50: “For this I will extol you, O Lord, among the nations, and sing praises to your name.” He also quotes Psalm 117:1 “Praise the Lord, all you nations! Extol him, all you peoples!” Finally, Paul quotes the end of the passage from Isaiah which we just heard: “On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious.”
Paul’s acknowledgement of the importance of the Hebrew Scriptures finds an echo in the Gospel of Matthew. We are now at the beginning of the first year of our three-year Revised Common Lectionary, a set of readings from Scripture that Roman Catholics, Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians, and other denominations share. Between now and next Advent, most of our Gospel readings will come from the Gospel according to Matthew. Written after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, possibly in Antioch, this Gospel was most likely composed for a community of Jewish Christians. As such it highlights the Jewish origin and identity of Jesus and his earliest followers. For Matthew, Jesus is God’s anointed. He is a teacher as exalted and as authoritative as Moses, who was considered to be the author of the Hebrew Law.
What is more important, Matthew takes great pains to show that Jesus is the fulfillment of both the law and the prophets, and that in him all of God’s promises are fulfilled. To drive home his point, Matthew opens his account of Jesus’ life with a genealogy that firmly establishes Jesus as one of David’s descendants, thus alluding to the “stump of Jesse,” i.e., David’s father. Thereafter, he often either directly quotes from the Hebrew Scriptures or alludes to passages from Scripture. In the twelve verses we just heard, Matthew has embedded references to Abraham, and to the prophets Amos, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Zechariah. A few examples. He alludes to the prophet Isaiah to characterize John the Baptizer: “A voice cries out: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.’” With John’s ascetic lifestyle, wearing camel’s hair and eating honey, he alludes to the way of life of traditional prophets, especially that of Elijah. His calling the Pharisees and Sadducees a “brood of vipers” is an indirect allusion to the passage from Isaiah we heard today, in which the asp and the adder were acknowledged as former enemies of human beings. At the end of the passage, the “chaff,” an allusion to the wicked who will be destroyed in fire, is a recurring image in the Hebrew Scriptures.
Paul of Tarsus knew the Scriptures. The writer of the Gospel according to Matthew knew the Scriptures intimately. Do we? Do we have any sense of the historical contexts of our various books of Scripture? Have we encountered Jesus’ own understanding of his mission, as the Gospels characterize it? Do we know what the content of our hope as Christians really is? Do we have any clue as to what the “reign of God” or the “Kingdom of Heaven,” that has now come near us, really is? Do we know what Scripture has to tell us about living together in harmony?
Scott Gunn, the editor of the publication Forward Day by Day, tells us that a “recent study revealed that Episcopalians are about the most spiritually content people around.” For Gunn, this is not good news. People who are spiritually healthy, he suggests, are not content with what they learned of God in confirmation class, especially when that event was decades ago. Rather, he tells us, “People who are spiritually healthy want to grow and learn, to always look for the next step in their journey.” That includes us. You say you’ve already read the Bible from cover to cover? You say you’ve been going to church as long as you can remember, and you’ve heard these passages from Scripture hundreds of times? Scott Gunn reminds us – and I would strongly second his observation – that “every time I study any passage in the scriptures, even one I’ve read dozens of times, I grow and learn.”1
Advent is a time a think about the promises and prophecies that God has made to us and to all people, prophecies we hear first in the Hebrew Scriptures and prophecies that are restated in the Christian scriptures. Advent is a time to wonder who the one more powerful than John the Baptizer really is. Our understandings of Jesus and God should change and evolve as a result of our life experiences. Ideally, Advent is a time to take stock, and to see whether we are growing in an appreciation of God’s love and mercy, towards ourselves and towards all people. Advent is a time to make a fresh start and a new commitment, a commitment to renewing our cooperation with God and to hearing again what God is telling us through Scripture.
So here’s my challenge to you: let’s study the Scriptures together. It’s a new Church year. Let’s make a new year’s resolution to study the Bible together. Here are some possibilities. They’re not mutually exclusive. One is an online study of a commentary on the Gospel of Matthew. A second is a face-to-face bi-weekly meeting to do the same, i.e., to study the Gospel of Matthew. For example, we could meet two Tuesday afternoons a week. Another would be a period of Bible study either before the Eucharist or after coffee hour. Yet another possibility would be to make 2014 our year for the Bible Challenge, in which we commit to reading the entire Bible during the calendar year. During our potluck, I will ask you how ready you are to renew your commitment to letting Scripture instruct you.
Studying the Bible is not an end in itself. We don’t get special treatment or brownie points from God because we can quote Scripture. The Sadducees could quote the Torah, and the Pharisees knew both the Torah and the other writings. Even the devil could quote Scripture, as we learn from the stories of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness.
So here’s the good news. Our Scriptures are a gift from God! They were written, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, to reinforce our trust in God and our hope for the realization of God’s future. They equip us to live holy lives and to share the good news with others. Most important, they enable us to show forth our praise of God, “not only with our lips, but in our lives.” May God enable us to “read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest” our scriptures, and may the Word that we hear become flesh in us.
1. Forward Day by Day (Cincinnati: Forward Movement, 2013), Thursday, December 5.
Sunday, December 1, 2013
Put on the Armor of Light
“… the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light ….”
Why do we light candles on a wreath of greens? Although the Advent wreath has been part of our tradition as Episcopalians for a long time, no one quite knows its origin. Some think that pre-Germanic people used wreaths with lit candles during December as a sign of hope for the warmth and light of spring. Others think that Scandinavian people lighted candles around a wheel and prayed to the god of light to turn “the wheel of earth” back toward the sun and bring back longer and warmer days. By the Middle Ages, Christians had adopted this tradition and used Advent wreaths to help prepare for Christmas.
Actually, it’s not hard to see why the Advent wreath became a Christian symbol, and why we still use it today. The greens of the wreath – evergreens – remind us of continuing life. The circle, which has neither beginning nor end, symbolizes the eternity of God, the immortality of our own souls, and the new life of the resurrection. The purple candles symbolize the prayer, sacrifice, and good works that are part of this season. The pink candle, which we light on the third Sunday in Advent, Gaudete Sunday, or Rejoice Sunday, symbolizes joy and hope, joy for the celebration of Jesus’ first coming and hope for his expected second coming to judge the world and renew creation. Finally, the light of the candles signifies Christ, the Light of the World, the light that dispels darkness, the light of the new day that is already dawning.
It is just this wonderful image of the light of the dawning of a new day that we heard in our reading from Paul’s letter to the Roman Christians. Unlike his other letters, Paul was not writing here to a community that he had personally founded. And this may well have been his last letter, as it sounds something like his “last will and testament.” If you read it through – and I encourage you to go beyond the snippets of the letter that we hear in the lectionary – you will discover that Paul spends much of it wrestling with the implications of the transformed – and transforming – way of life to which he understands disciples of Jesus to be called. Although Paul respects the way of life of the Jews around him, as a follower of Jesus he has come to realize that the ritual requirements and dietary restrictions of Hebrew law no longer bind followers of Jesus. Rather, Jesus’ disciples are called to a life epitomized by love.
We hear this call clearly in the verses immediately preceding our lection: “Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet’; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law” (Rom. 13:8-10). Do you hear the commandment in this kind of love? Love here is not a sappy, sentimental, or romantic feeling; it is a way of behaving that wants only to benefit another person. Paul’s charge here then? As followers of Jesus we are called to a transformed way of life that is grounded in love.
In the piece of this wonderful letter that we just heard, Paul uses the images of night and dawn to emphasize his point. In effect, he is telling the Roman Christians – with some urgency – to get up and get dressed for a new day. Whether or not the second coming of Jesus is imminent – and it’s not clear what at this point in his life Paul believed about Jesus’ second coming – it is clear that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus brought about a turning point in time, a “new day.” From now on, Christians are called to dream with God of a new heaven, a new earth, a new way of being human beings made in God’s image. As those baptized into his body, the Roman Christians are now living in a new time. Just as those who were baptized took off their old clothes and put on new white robes, the Roman Christians – and we – have entered a new time, a time in which we are called to exchange the nightgowns and pajamas of the old life for the “armor of light,” for Sunday clothes, for the clothes of newly transformed people.
As we begin preparing to enter into that new day, as we lay out the armor of light, what, we might ask, are the night clothes that we must first take off? One way to answer that question is that we are told – commanded – to give up all those old habits that dull our senses and all those uncaring behaviors that destroy our relationships. Here’s another way of thinking about what night clothes we might remove. To put on the joy of the new day, the true joy of this season, first we might remove “the fears and pains that weigh us down, that we carry around like heavy wool coats, that we try to wrap up in festive themes” during this “holiday season.”1 Perhaps what we really need is an oasis of silence, a place to be quiet for a few moments, a place where we might open our hearts and share with God all that is really on our minds. .
Second, we might take off our feelings of isolation. Although our culture encourages our hyper-individualism, as Christians we are never only single cells. We are called to be members of a community, always in relationship with others, in families, workplaces, parishes, villages, and communities across the globe. While we are enjoying our full refrigerators and warm houses, this is the time to take off our blinders. This is the time to see that there are many people – some right here in this town – who have no parties, no warm clothes, no heat, and no reason for joy or hope. And third perhaps we might take off our guilt. Putting on the armor of light, the clothes of a new day, does not require us to be ashamed of what we have. Rather, we are always called to share with others some of the many gifts with which God has blessed us.
We too are included in Paul’s commandments. We too are called to take off night clothes and put on the clothes of a new day. What might that look like at St. Peter’s? Perhaps if we wish to live into a new day as a parish we might continue to ensure that our worship truly reflects our tradition and is true to the people we are today, in 2013. Our life as a Christian community in the Anglican tradition did not stop in 1549 or 1662 or even 1928. We must also continue to grow in our faith and Christian practice, both as individuals and as a parish. You have all continued to grow as people since middle school and high school. Has your understanding of your faith similarly continued to grow? More to the point, are we helping each other grow as mature, faithful people? Finally, we must also grow in our understanding of ministry. To what new ministries in this new day is God calling us? Do we have the courage to take off old ways of doing things and put on new responses to the needs of those around us? Are we far-sighted enough to see on the horizon God’s reign breaking in?
I spent the summer of 2006 doing a chaplaincy internship at Children’s Hospital in Columbus. Nine times during the ten weeks I was there I was called to be on call for twenty-four hours. One of those nine nights I waited with three generations of an anxious family while a newborn infant was in surgery. The prognosis had not been good. Indeed, after some time, the surgeon came out and told the family that the surgery had not helped, and that the infant would be taken off artificial life support. At the request of the family, I baptized the infant and waited with them until he died. Then we wept and prayed together. It was a long night. As I was returning to my little room on an upper floor of the hospital, the first streaks of dawn were already appearing. As I prayed one last time for the child and his family, I did so with a heavy heart, but also with the certainty that God would receive him, bless his grieving family, and eventually bring us all to that day when grief and crying are no more.
It’s still dark out. But the first streaks of dawn are already appearing on the horizon. We the followers of Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, continue to pray for his coming, into our own lives today, and into the future of which he has already shown us a glimpse. As we light our Advent candles, as we enjoy their glow, we remember the light that is coming. We rejoice in God’s gifts to us, and, with the Roman Christians, and all of Christ’s faithful disciples, we put on the new clothes of that glorious day.
1. Catherine A. Caimono at faithandleadership.com (11/23/10), quoted in Synthesis December 1, 2013; and following. well.
Why do we light candles on a wreath of greens? Although the Advent wreath has been part of our tradition as Episcopalians for a long time, no one quite knows its origin. Some think that pre-Germanic people used wreaths with lit candles during December as a sign of hope for the warmth and light of spring. Others think that Scandinavian people lighted candles around a wheel and prayed to the god of light to turn “the wheel of earth” back toward the sun and bring back longer and warmer days. By the Middle Ages, Christians had adopted this tradition and used Advent wreaths to help prepare for Christmas.
Actually, it’s not hard to see why the Advent wreath became a Christian symbol, and why we still use it today. The greens of the wreath – evergreens – remind us of continuing life. The circle, which has neither beginning nor end, symbolizes the eternity of God, the immortality of our own souls, and the new life of the resurrection. The purple candles symbolize the prayer, sacrifice, and good works that are part of this season. The pink candle, which we light on the third Sunday in Advent, Gaudete Sunday, or Rejoice Sunday, symbolizes joy and hope, joy for the celebration of Jesus’ first coming and hope for his expected second coming to judge the world and renew creation. Finally, the light of the candles signifies Christ, the Light of the World, the light that dispels darkness, the light of the new day that is already dawning.
It is just this wonderful image of the light of the dawning of a new day that we heard in our reading from Paul’s letter to the Roman Christians. Unlike his other letters, Paul was not writing here to a community that he had personally founded. And this may well have been his last letter, as it sounds something like his “last will and testament.” If you read it through – and I encourage you to go beyond the snippets of the letter that we hear in the lectionary – you will discover that Paul spends much of it wrestling with the implications of the transformed – and transforming – way of life to which he understands disciples of Jesus to be called. Although Paul respects the way of life of the Jews around him, as a follower of Jesus he has come to realize that the ritual requirements and dietary restrictions of Hebrew law no longer bind followers of Jesus. Rather, Jesus’ disciples are called to a life epitomized by love.
We hear this call clearly in the verses immediately preceding our lection: “Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet’; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law” (Rom. 13:8-10). Do you hear the commandment in this kind of love? Love here is not a sappy, sentimental, or romantic feeling; it is a way of behaving that wants only to benefit another person. Paul’s charge here then? As followers of Jesus we are called to a transformed way of life that is grounded in love.
In the piece of this wonderful letter that we just heard, Paul uses the images of night and dawn to emphasize his point. In effect, he is telling the Roman Christians – with some urgency – to get up and get dressed for a new day. Whether or not the second coming of Jesus is imminent – and it’s not clear what at this point in his life Paul believed about Jesus’ second coming – it is clear that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus brought about a turning point in time, a “new day.” From now on, Christians are called to dream with God of a new heaven, a new earth, a new way of being human beings made in God’s image. As those baptized into his body, the Roman Christians are now living in a new time. Just as those who were baptized took off their old clothes and put on new white robes, the Roman Christians – and we – have entered a new time, a time in which we are called to exchange the nightgowns and pajamas of the old life for the “armor of light,” for Sunday clothes, for the clothes of newly transformed people.
As we begin preparing to enter into that new day, as we lay out the armor of light, what, we might ask, are the night clothes that we must first take off? One way to answer that question is that we are told – commanded – to give up all those old habits that dull our senses and all those uncaring behaviors that destroy our relationships. Here’s another way of thinking about what night clothes we might remove. To put on the joy of the new day, the true joy of this season, first we might remove “the fears and pains that weigh us down, that we carry around like heavy wool coats, that we try to wrap up in festive themes” during this “holiday season.”1 Perhaps what we really need is an oasis of silence, a place to be quiet for a few moments, a place where we might open our hearts and share with God all that is really on our minds. .
Second, we might take off our feelings of isolation. Although our culture encourages our hyper-individualism, as Christians we are never only single cells. We are called to be members of a community, always in relationship with others, in families, workplaces, parishes, villages, and communities across the globe. While we are enjoying our full refrigerators and warm houses, this is the time to take off our blinders. This is the time to see that there are many people – some right here in this town – who have no parties, no warm clothes, no heat, and no reason for joy or hope. And third perhaps we might take off our guilt. Putting on the armor of light, the clothes of a new day, does not require us to be ashamed of what we have. Rather, we are always called to share with others some of the many gifts with which God has blessed us.
We too are included in Paul’s commandments. We too are called to take off night clothes and put on the clothes of a new day. What might that look like at St. Peter’s? Perhaps if we wish to live into a new day as a parish we might continue to ensure that our worship truly reflects our tradition and is true to the people we are today, in 2013. Our life as a Christian community in the Anglican tradition did not stop in 1549 or 1662 or even 1928. We must also continue to grow in our faith and Christian practice, both as individuals and as a parish. You have all continued to grow as people since middle school and high school. Has your understanding of your faith similarly continued to grow? More to the point, are we helping each other grow as mature, faithful people? Finally, we must also grow in our understanding of ministry. To what new ministries in this new day is God calling us? Do we have the courage to take off old ways of doing things and put on new responses to the needs of those around us? Are we far-sighted enough to see on the horizon God’s reign breaking in?
I spent the summer of 2006 doing a chaplaincy internship at Children’s Hospital in Columbus. Nine times during the ten weeks I was there I was called to be on call for twenty-four hours. One of those nine nights I waited with three generations of an anxious family while a newborn infant was in surgery. The prognosis had not been good. Indeed, after some time, the surgeon came out and told the family that the surgery had not helped, and that the infant would be taken off artificial life support. At the request of the family, I baptized the infant and waited with them until he died. Then we wept and prayed together. It was a long night. As I was returning to my little room on an upper floor of the hospital, the first streaks of dawn were already appearing. As I prayed one last time for the child and his family, I did so with a heavy heart, but also with the certainty that God would receive him, bless his grieving family, and eventually bring us all to that day when grief and crying are no more.
It’s still dark out. But the first streaks of dawn are already appearing on the horizon. We the followers of Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, continue to pray for his coming, into our own lives today, and into the future of which he has already shown us a glimpse. As we light our Advent candles, as we enjoy their glow, we remember the light that is coming. We rejoice in God’s gifts to us, and, with the Roman Christians, and all of Christ’s faithful disciples, we put on the new clothes of that glorious day.
1. Catherine A. Caimono at faithandleadership.com (11/23/10), quoted in Synthesis December 1, 2013; and following. well.
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