The Eye Cannot Say to the Hand

“The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you….’” Those fractious Corinthians! They were certainly a diverse community of Jesus’ followers. Living in a Roman port city, they had heard the good news from both Paul and others. Members of their community included both gentiles and Jews – and remember how difficult it was for them to get along – rich and poor, slaves and free, men and women, all of different origins and ethnicities.

When Paul wrote to these Corinthian Christians in the mid ‘50s AD, it was clear that there was dissension and conflict among them. Paul’s responses suggest some of the things they were arguing about: who had baptized the different members and therefore which faction they belonged to; whether they should eat meat sacrificed in pagan temples – not a trivial matter; whether they should remain married to pagan spouses; how women should dress their hair – also not a trivial matter; and how to regard various spiritual gifts, especially the gift of “tongues.” Paul was especially distressed to learn that when these Corinthian Christians gathered for the Eucharist, their gathering included a meal, in which the rich inclined in an inner courtyard where slaves served them a sumptuous dinner, while the poor were forced to fend for themselves in an outer courtyard.

Last week, this week, and next week, we hear the sections of Paul’s letter, in which he addresses this way of gathering for the Eucharist. Paul’s approach is to provide a theological foundation, and then to provide specific instructions. We won’t hear the specific instructions – they are in chapter 14 – but from the three sections you do hear you can guess what they might be.

Last week’s reading from Paul’s letter to the Corinthian Christians emphasized spiritual gifts. Paul reminded his hearers that whatever gifts we have come from the Holy Spirit at work within us. And, more important, “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”

Now Paul wants to make sure that his hearers understand what he is talking about. So he uses an image that would be very familiar to them: the human body. The image of the human body was actually commonly used in the ancient world to describe society and to justify the hierarchical nature of society. However, here Paul uses the image of the human body to suggest what a Christian community is – or should be. It is a community in which all have been joined to Christ. It is a community that is not stratified, and in which all are full members. All are needed, all are equally valuable, and all share in each other’s joys and sorrows. In such a community social differences are irrelevant, for all are empowered by the Holy Spirit in baptism, and all are nourished by Christ in the Eucharist.

Yet Paul also acknowledges the delicate balance in such a community: “Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” Although the members of a Christian community are united by the Spirit, they retain their individual gifts and talents. Indeed the community is richer for such diversity. All are needed to build up the community, all are needed for wholeness, and all are needed to reflect the diversity and comprehensiveness of God. More important, the community reflects the inclusiveness of God: all are welcomed into the body of Christ. Indeed, not only are all welcomed, all are needed if the body is to function as it should.

Those fractious Christians! Sometimes I wonder if we have learned anything since the first century. We have been reading Paul’s letter to the Corinthians for two thousand years. But are we all that different from those Corinthians who needed so desperately to be reminded of their unity in Christ, who needed to be inspired again to live as God’s beloved children and not as each other’s sworn enemies? Don’t we still see around us deep divisions among those who claim to be followers of Jesus, among those who have been baptized into the body of Christ?

Of course, the divisions that Paul addressed among the Corinthians also existed among other early Christian communities. Certainly, the communities in Ephesus and Galatia struggled to bring together Jews and gentiles. The same was no doubt true for the communities that first heard the gospels of Matthew and John and the book of Revelation. As the church expanded, there were Christians who followed the distinctive teachings of Nestor, or Arius, or Marcion. Alas, there was probably never a period of perfect unity among Christians. Certainly, the great councils of the fourth and fifth centuries did their best to reconcile differences. The wording of the Nicene Creed and the canon of Scripture – the books that make up the Bible – represent the efforts of the early Church to come to some kind of basic unity, despite all their many differences.

The differences among the various Christian bodies continued to grow, especially theological differences. Finally, in 1054, what little unity there was in the church was shattered, as the eastern church, led by the patriarch of Constantinople, and the western church, led by Pope Leo IX, formally separated. There has been much nasty history between the two bodies since then. The Orthodox in particular, who still consider Constantinople, now Istanbul, to be their see city, have yet to forgive the Catholic crusaders for looting Constantinople in 1204. Thanks be to God, Catholics and Orthodox have begun inching back together, and we can continue to pray that this historic breach may yet be healed.

Meanwhile, our mother church, the Church of England, was born in the wake of the great schism of the Reformation. In England and in the rest of Europe, the sixteenth century was a bloody century among Christians. Indeed our wonderful Book of Common Prayer represents an attempt to resolve some of the conflicts among English Christians: if we can’t agree theologically, it was said, at least we can all worship with the same words. Of course the splintering of the church has continued to this day, with myriad denominations and independent Christian communities, each believing that they are following the lead of Christ. And I might say that they conflicts we see in the church are not unique to the church. Deep divisions exist among all the historic faith communities. Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus all struggle with interpreting Scripture, ordering worship, and living within their respective cultures.

All this may be more history than you want, but it does provide a way of looking at recent events in the Anglican Communion and here in Gallipolis. The Anglican Communion currently comprises thirty-eight churches that descend from the Church of England. The Episcopal Church is one of them. Earlier this month the primates of the various provinces met in England under the leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury. In that meeting a majority of the primates voted to ask the Episcopal Church to bow out of certain councils, because of our embrace of same-gender marriage. Needless to say, the primates’ vote reveals differences in interpretation of Scripture and the different social conditions under which these churches, mostly from Africa and Asia, attempt to live out their vision of the Gospel.

As most of you are by now aware, also earlier this month, the pastor of Grace UMC, who served as unofficial convener of the churches that participated in the Community Lenten services, “uninvited” First Presbyterian Church of Gallipolis and St. Peter’s from continuing to participate in these services, ostensibly because of our embrace of same-gender marriage and welcome of lesbian and gay folks more generally. Neither First Presbyterian nor St. Peter’s has done anything illegal or contrary to the canons of our denominations. Nevertheless we were told that we were unwelcome. It appears that the UMC pastor has now gathered together several like-minded pastors and will go forward with Lenten services in some form without us. As I consider both these events, I feel strongly as if the eye has said to the hand, “I don’t need you.”

Paul gives us a different vision of Christian community. Instead of fragmentation and conflict, instead of dissension and “uninviting,” Paul reminds us of our essential unity as followers of Christ. As I think about these recent events, both in the Anglican Communion and locally, and especially as I try to view them charitably, I see them as perhaps reflecting the diversity of the body of Christ. And I pray that we can see that diversity as contributing to the wholeness of the body. I pray that the body of Christ is truly a body where all parts are needed, welcomed, and valued, and where all have their respective roles. I firmly believe that the Episcopal Church takes its lead from Jesus’ embrace of all. I believe we are on the side of justice. I believe that our role now is to witness to the rightness of full inclusion in our life of lesbian and gay folks, including the embrace of same-gender marriage. Most important, I believe that we must continue to remain a hospitable and welcoming community for all, while we continue to do the work in the world to which God has called us.

The Book of Common Prayer can help us with this call – as it has done since 1549. I invite you to turn to page 824 and pray with me, “O God, you have bound us together in a common life. Help us in the midst of our struggles for justice and truth, to confront one another without hatred or bitterness, and to work together with mutual forbearance and respect; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

When Jesus was Praying

“Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened….” Picture it in your mind: Jesus out there on the bank of the Jordan with all the riff raff, all those people on the margins of society – the prostitutes, the tax collectors, the Roman soldiers, probably the pickpockets, swindlers, and adulterers – all those people who had listened to John, had obeyed John’s call for repentance and change of life, and had come out to symbolically wash away all the dirt in their lives. And there was Jesus among them, in solidarity with them, also going down into the water. It could have been John the Baptizer who had led the ritual that included Jesus, but it also might have been one of John’s disciples, since in the verses between John’s speech, and Luke’s allusion to Jesus’ baptism, we learn that John had been imprisoned by Herod. Whoever it was, after Jesus came up out of the water, he must have moved apart from the throngs around him. As Luke tells us, Jesus then began to pray.

Prayer is an important element in Luke’s writings, in both the gospel and the book of Acts, much more so than with Mark or Matthew. Just think about all the times the gospel of Luke mentions prayer. Right in the beginning of the gospel, John’s father Zechariah is praying when he learns that, although he and Elizabeth have been childless, Elizabeth is to have a son. Moreover, Jesus is at prayer at critical moments in his own ministry. He prays after a day spent healing the sick. He spends all night in prayer before calling the twelve. He has been at prayer, when he confronts the twelve and asks who people say he is. He is at prayer when he is transfigured before Peter, James, and John. He prays before offering the model of prayer that we now call the Lord’s Prayer. He prays in Gethsemane before his ordeal. Even in the agony of death, he prays, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” His earliest disciples follow his example and continue to pray. As we heard in today’s reading from the book of Acts, Peter and John prayed that the Samarians might receive the Holy Spirit.

In today’s reading, we catch up with Jesus just at the beginning of his ministry. The birth stories and Jesus’ visit with the scholars in the temple in Jerusalem are behind us. Jesus is now a fully adult male. Indeed in the verse immediately following the end of the today’s reading, verse 23, Luke tells us that, “Jesus was about thirty years old when he began his work.” Having drawn apart some distance from the noise of the crowds, sensing perhaps that his life was about to change, what would Jesus have prayed for? The text invites us to wonder. Would he have prayed for illumination to understand the road that lay ahead of him? Might he have asked God to deepen his trust that God would be with him on that road? Perhaps he prayed for a deeper understanding of God’s self-revelation in Scripture. Perhaps he prayed for discernment as he made his way through the clamor and crowds around him, and for the guidance of God’s Spirit in the choices he would inevitably face. Perhaps he prayed for reassurance. Perhaps he even remembered the verses from Isaiah that we heard earlier and understood that, while these verses originally applied to the exiled Israelites, now they might also apply not only to him, but also to all those who would follow him. And perhaps after all that, Jesus just silently rested in God’s presence.

Of course, Luke tells us none of this. In wonderfully symbolic language, Luke only tells us that Jesus had some kind of epiphany, some “aha” moment, some sense of being in a “thin place,” where the veil between heaven and earth is briefly parted. And in this epiphany, Jesus understood that he was truly God’s anointed one, and that God’s Spirit was indeed at work in him. He knew that he was God’s beloved, and that he was indeed empowered for the ministry and work that lay ahead.

Fast forward to 2016. We have been baptized. We too have been empowered for ministry by God’s Spirit. As followers of Jesus, commissioned to do Jesus’ work in the world, how do we pray? Perhaps as children, we began praying by learning rote prayers, “Now I lay me down to sleep…” or the Lord’s Prayer. Perhaps we learned to say grace before meals or prayers before bedtime. Perhaps we learned prayers in Sunday school or youth groups. Depending on your tradition, perhaps you even learned to pray spontaneously in public.

Of course, for Episcopalians, prayer is what is found in the Book of Common Prayer. We’re a “wordy” bunch, and we have lots of beautiful prayers – the Book of Common Prayer is literally a treasure trove of prayers. Many Episcopalians equate prayer with the Eucharist, or with one of the four daily offices, Morning, Noonday, and Evening Prayer, and Compline. When we learn about prayer, we often learn about the four traditional forms of formal prayer: adoration, contrition, thanksgiving, and intercession.

All of this is important, but all this is only the tip of the iceberg of prayer. When we discover more contemplative prayer – you will have a taste of it at our Lenten Quiet day on Saturday, February 20th – we discover that there are many other ways to pray: breath prayer, lectio divina, centering prayer, Ignatian prayer, prayer with icons, meditative journaling, prayer with music, with dancing, with art, even with mandalas, prayer in nature, and the list goes on and on.

None of these forms of prayer, whether formal or more contemplative, are ends in themselves. They are all simply practices that enable us to sense, as Jesus did, that we too are God’s beloved children, that we are God’s beloved daughters and sons, not by virtue of where we were born, our skin color, our family, our wealth, or even our piety, devotion, and generosity, but simply because we have always been, are, and always will be called into being by a God of love. Our prayer too helps us to remember that all are God’s beloved children, not only those of us privileged to follow Jesus’ way. In prayer we too realize that God’s Spirit is at work within us, that we too are empowered for ministry in the world. In prayer, we realize that God lives and works through us. Ultimately, we sense that our lives have a deeper dimension than we realize, and our prayer becomes a way of life that is centered in God.

Benedictine sister Joan Chittister relates a delightful Sufi story. One night a seeker – who could be any of us – hears a voice saying, “Who’s there?” The Sufi seeker answers with great excitement, “It is I, it is I, Lord! I am right here!” And the voice disappears. Years later, the Sufi again hears the voice calling, “Who’s there?” Excited to hear the voice again, the Sufi answers, “It is I, Lord, and I seek you with all my heart!” Again the voice disappears. Finally, years later, the seeker again hears the voice calling, “Who’s there?” And this time the Sufi replies, “Thou Lord, only Thou!” This is prayer: to let oneself be drawn into the mind, heart, and consciousness of God. God may draw us only very slowly into God’s life, but sometimes, in the silence, when we pray without words, we too can find ourselves in that thin place, when we know ourselves to be irrevocably joined to God.

You might be thinking, in our 24/7, busy, busy, noisy world, can we ever really find ourselves in that place? Sr. Joan would say “absolutely.” She’s a prolific writer and a popular speaker, and yet she maintains a contemplative way of life. Her first suggestion to us is begin to think the way Jesus thought. Think about life, people, issues, everyday incidents the way Jesus might have thought about them. Have an attitude of graciousness and welcome for all, and a willingness to put the needs of those around us before our own. And then follow Jesus’ lead in spending time apart, time with God, so that you slowly, slowly begin to see the presence of God everywhere in the world, so that you are conscious of the presence of God and able to let God work through you.

Spiritual writer Henry Nouwen reminds us that, “The One who created us is waiting for our response to the love that gave us being. God not only says, “You are my Beloved.” God also asks, “Do you love me?” and offers us countless chances to say “Yes.”

In these weeks of Epiphany, I invite you to sit with these questions: what do you truly seek? Do you seek illumination and understanding? Do you seek reassurance and courage? Do you seek a deeper knowledge of God? Do you seek to know in your own heart that God’s love for you is real and true?

I pray that God will enable all of us to know ourselves as truly beloved, and with Jesus, Chittister, Nouwen, and all the holy ones, to let God’s love fill all our nights and days.

Growing in Wisdom and Favor

In 1106 Hildebert and Mechthilde of Bingen gave their eight year-old daughter Hildegard to the church. Hildegard was their tenth child, and her parents gave her as a tithe to the Benedictine community at Disibodenberg, near present day Mainz in Germany. Little is known of Hildegard’s life between then and 1136, although she seems to have been something of a prodigy in the religious life. Unlike most children of her time, she grew and developed within a small closed circle. Indeed, in her first years at Disibodenberg, she was literally “enclosed” with an older nun, Jutta, and interacted with very few people. Later she related that the vivid visions of God that she had throughout her life began during those early years. As she came of age under the Benedictine rule, Hildegard learned how to read and write and studied Scripture and theology. She also learned to play and compose music. In 1136, at the age of thirty-eight, she was named a magistra, a “teacher” of the church, and became prioress of a new Benedictine community.

Hildegard lived until 1179. As an adult, she founded other communities, lobbied princes and senior prelates, including popes, in support of her communities, counseled abbots and abbesses, and travelled widely in Europe. She composed music that is still sung today, invented an alternative alphabet, and wrote three books of her visions, a drama, and a treatise on the physical sciences, all while leading the various communities that she had founded. When she died at the age of eighty-one, Hildegard was one of the best known women in central Europe.

Today’s gospel story suggests that Jesus may also have been something of a religious prodigy, and that Hildegard and he shared similar early experiences. Curiously, Luke is the only one to tell us anything of Jesus’ “hidden years,” the years between his birth, which we celebrated on Christmas Eve, and his baptism at about the age of thirty, which we will celebrate next week. As he relates Jesus’ first spoken words in the gospels, Luke clearly suggests that there is something different about this twelve year-old boy. He can engage in theological debate with religious scholars and impress them. He understands that his true father is not Joseph but God. Most important, he senses, even at this young age, what his true calling is, as he reminds his parents that, “I must be in my Father’s house.”

However, in Luke’s narrative, Jesus is still clearly an adolescent boy. Unlike the other evangelists, Luke emphasizes Jesus’ humanity. Throughout his narrative, Luke wants his readers to understand that Jesus may be the Word made flesh, but he is also fully human. Although he is aware of his calling, Jesus here is also a surly adolescent who causes his parents great anxiety and then arrogantly chides them when they express that anxiety. However, having made his point, Jesus then becomes obedient to his human parents, even if they don’t understand who he is or what his calling might be. To ready himself for his public ministry as an adult, he returns to Nazareth to continue growing. As with Hildegard, none of the evangelists tells us what else happened during these “hidden years,” except that, like Hildegard, Jesus “grew in wisdom and years, and in divine and human favor.”

So what lessons do we take from the life of Hildegard of Bingen and the gospel lesson for today? The first lesson is obvious to all parents and to all who look seriously at their own lives: growth takes time. Hildegard spent thirty years, from eight to thirty-eight, living in the convent at Disibodenberg. Jesus also went through childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood in Nazareth. At least eighteen years elapsed between the time of the story we just heard and the time that Jesus was baptized and began his public ministry, years during which he presumably continued to study Torah, perhaps learned Joseph’s trade of carpentry, and observed his family and friends.

Growth takes time, even if you’re Jesus or Hildegard. Sometimes we want to skip the long phase of growing. Don’t we all know children who are twelve going on twenty? Or we think we have to be fully formed spiritually from the get go. When the priest pours the water on our heads, or the bishop lays on hands, we will understand every sentence of the Nicene Creed! When we learn a new spiritual discipline, we want to do it perfectly right away. When we try a new ministry, we want to get it right immediately. But God is not in a hurry. Instead, God works with us patiently, training us and helping us as we continue to grow. Often God works within us secretly, and we discover that the growth that we long for has actually somehow happened. Indeed, some spiritual writers even suggest that, if we knew God were at work in us, transforming and changing us, we would resist God or try to control the process!

Here’s the second lesson: sometimes in order to grow we have to submit ourselves to our inferiors, or to people who don’t really understand us. Hildegard’s first caretaker Jutta had nowhere near Hildegard’s spiritual abilities, yet she was an able teacher for the little Hildegard. Later, Hildegard was subject to the discipline and teaching of the other nuns, abbots, and prelates. Jesus too was subject to his parents, even though they didn’t understand who their son truly was. Yet, they were able to see that he studied Torah and had the skills necessary for his adult ministry.

All of us, of course, were subject to our own parents, even though they often didn’t understand us, and even though some of us did not become the people they expected us to become. Often we find that we must obey employers, spouses, coaches, military commanders, spiritual directors, and others. Read sometime Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi, for a delightful account of Twain’s training as a river boat pilot, and all he had to endure under the various pilots under whom he served. We may feel that those to whom we are subject are not our spiritual, moral, or intellectual equals. Yet unless we experience physical or psychological abuse, we may have much to learn from those who have authority over us.

The third lesson: we need God’s grace. Throughout her life, Hildegard knew herself to be deeply dependent on God’s grace. Although the gospels do not always say so explicitly, Jesus too knew himself to be dependent on God’s grace. We are not alone. We can prepare the way for God’s leading and God’s deepening influence in our lives, but we cannot manufacture growth – any more than a child or a tree can cause itself to grow. Without God we can do virtually nothing; with God we can grow and develop beyond what we might expect or even imagine.

And finally: our growth is always for a purpose. Ultimately, any growth and development for good that we experience, any growth that is led by God, fits us to be stronger partners in God’s mission, in bringing God’s reign closer. Hildegard grew during her “hidden years” and became a great foundress, counselor, theologian, musician, and artist. The church is still benefiting from her legacy. Jesus grew into his public ministry and all that that ministry entailed. He could not stay in the Temple but was eventually sent by God into the world to announce the nearness of God’s reign and to demonstrate in the flesh what God’s reign looks like.

We too are meant to grow into our own ministries. That’s really what Christian formation is all about. Just as almost all of us have continued to mature since we left our parents’ houses, so too are we called to continue to grow in our Christian lives. We are called both to deepen our relationship with God and, through our relationship with God, to be better equipped to minister to others, both inside the church and outside the church, both individually and corporately. How are we doing? Are we growing and maturing as individuals? As a parish? What has God been fitting us to do?

It is a new secular year, and a relatively new church year. Instead of your usual new year’s resolutions, I invite you to take some time to sit with these questions. How do you envision God helping you to grow this year? What do you ask of God to help you as you grow in a new year? What would you like God to teach you?

“I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ … may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for those who believe.” Living and growing in Disibodenberg, Hildegard would have studied these words from Paul’s letter to the Ephesian Christians. As she took these words to heart and grew as God’s servant, may we too be ready to grow in our ability and desire to follow where God leads us.

Is Christmas Only for Children

Is Christmas only for children? Certainly, when we look around us at cultural, secular Christmas, we might think so. Just think of all the effort that goes into providing toys for children at Christmas. We encourage our children to tell Santa Claus what they want, or write a letter to Santa, and then we search for just the “right” toys for our children, just the ones they wanted. And we also make sure that we provide toys for children in need. Every civic group, school, bank, hospital, and office has a drive for toys, to say nothing of the trees in malls with tags that direct shoppers to buy and donate toys. And that’s all good and praiseworthy: as followers of Jesus, we are always called to share with others – and not only at Christmas.

By the same token, when we think of Christmas day, what are our fondest memories? Are they the years when we ourselves were children? When he hung stockings somewhere, left out cookies for Santa, and woke up too soon on Christmas Eve, chasing our weary parents out of bed so that we could root around in our stockings and tear open brightly lit packages? Perhaps it was the year there was a shiny bicycle parked by the tree. Those of us who are older may recall the years when our own children were young, as we watched them replay the rituals of our own childhoods. Or now we watch our grandchildren express their own wonder and delight as they race to the Christmas tree to discover its offerings.

Even in our churches our celebrations seems to revolve around the children. In many churches no Advent 4 or Christmas Eve service would be complete without a Christmas pageant, that annual enactment of the Christmas story according to Luke, with the cardboard stable, baby Jesus doll, children in bathrobes, children toting fleecy sheep, and, of course, an army of sweet-faced angels. Last year, we had such a pageant, and I even preached about a Christmas pageant that went delightfully awry, but was mercifully saved by a resourceful pianist and a gracious, welcoming congregation.

So is Christmas only for children? What about us adults? Do we somehow have to recreate for ourselves that bright anticipation of Christmas morning that we work so hard to create for our own and others’ children? Do we have to believe in Santa Claus? (Of course, it’s perfectly OK to honor the memory of St. Nicholas of Myra, the ancestor of Santa Claus. Although he was a bishop in the fourth century, we can still follow his example and give generously to poor children as he did.) Do we have to take Luke’s account of Jesus’ birth literally, since we have immortalized it in pageants and Christmas carols? Do we have to take it as actual history? If so, then how do we account for the fact that gospel of Matthew gives a quite different version of Jesus’ birth, and even that Jesus’ birth is not even mentioned in the gospels of Mark and John, or in any book of the New Testament?

What happens to faith when we suspect or realize that Luke composed his version of the Christmas story for a particular community, using deliberate rhetorical strategies? What happens to faith when we remember that we celebrate Christmas on this day at least partly because the church inherited from the pagans of Rome a celebration of the return of the sun following the winter solstice? Do we turn our backs on Christmas and declare, “Bah, humbug?” Is it only for the sake of the children who are the future of the church that we go through all this? Is Christmas only for children?

My brothers and sisters, the truth is that Christmas is for adults. Its meaning is far deeper than most of us could grasp as children. Indeed, it takes a lifetime of plumbing the depths of Christmas for most of us to begin to glimpse that deeper meaning. And we are here, because we need to be reminded at least annually, if not more often of that deeper meaning. In fact, in the end it doesn’t’ really matter when and how Jesus’ birth happened – these details are ultimately unimportant. Does it matter for my ministry among you that I was born in Crown Heights Hospital in Brooklyn, New York, and that my mother’s physician was a woman?

What matters in what our Scripture stories tell us is the deeper truth that they enable us to glimpse, the deeper truth that Christians have proclaimed ever since Jesus’ followers began to gather after that first Easter. And that deeper truth is no less than this: that God became inseparably joined with human beings, that “God has a mom,” as one writer put, or that God put skin on, as another suggested, that the great, unknowable Mystery beyond all times and worlds came into our midst in the most dependent, vulnerable way possible, first as a fetus inside a woman’s body, and then as a helpless baby. And more: that God came us to us not in pomp and circumstance, not in the glare of social media like the children of British royalty, but in the poorest possible circumstances, in a stable in a poor country ruled by a foreign power that would soon destroy Jerusalem. And even more: that the unfathomable Mystery, the Source of all that was, and is, and is to come, chose to be born to an unmarried teenage mother, and that the first people to hear about the birth were surprised, working class people, who were grubby and smelly by the time they reached the birthplace. This is the truth: that God snuck into our world and took human form while no one was watching and where no one expected God to show up.

And there’s more: there’s another truth embedded in Luke’s account. God may have snuck into our world, but at least some people were aware of God’s coming. They were low-life, working class, despised folks, to be sure, but somehow they had heard the angels’ song of “good news,” somehow they had had a revelation that something had happened. Those grubby folks, who wouldn’t have even gotten close to the gate of Herod’s palace, didn’t just stand there and say, “Wow, that’s nice.” They picked themselves up, followed the angels’ bidding, took themselves to Bethlehem, joyfully praised God, and then shared with others what had happened to them.

And here’s where we come in. We’re in that story too. God continues to sneak into our world. All of us are like Mary in some sense. We’re poor, too young (or too old, as in the case of Mary’s cousin Elizabeth), not yet married, from a small town. Yet God continues to come into the world through us. Jesus continues to be born through us. And all of us are like the shepherds in some sense. We’re poor, grubby, sinful, weary, and tired – especially tired of the long nights of war and injustice. And then we catch the faint echoes of angel song. We hear a rumor of God’s presence in some unlikely place. And we go there and find God: in a quiet church, in our backyard at dawn, in the face of a child, at the altar rail, in a hospital or nursing home room, in the kitchen at Loaves and Fishes.

When we catch a glimpse of God with us, what do we do? Do we shout for joy? Do we dance and sing? Do we ponder the mystery in our hearts? Do we share it with others? Do we care more generously for those around us? Most important, do we remember that the child whose birth we celebrate this night showed and shows us the depth of God’s love for us, and that the adult he became enabled us, through his life, death, and resurrection, to share God’s love with everyone we meet?

Is Christmas for children? Of course it is. And we adults would do well to reclaim children’s spontaneous joyfulness. But Christmas is also for adults. Christmas is for all of us who need to remember, rejoice in, and celebrate God’s coming into our lives. In this darkest time of the year, in the dark times of our lives, when the darkness of the world threatens to overwhelm us, we all need to remember that God came, comes, and will continue to come into our lives. All of us need to remember that God may sneak into our lives, that God may show up when we least expect God to show up, and that God may reveal Godself to or through unlikely people. And when God does show up, all of us are called to share with others the great love that we find in God’s presence.

And because poets are often better than preachers at expressing how we experience God’s presence with us, listen to the last three stanzas of English poet John Betjeman’s poem, “Christmas:”

And is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window's hue,
A Baby in an ox's stall?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me?

And is it true? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,

No love that in a family dwells,
No caroling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare —
That God was man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine.

God give you a most blessed Christmas tide.

What Then Should We Do?

“And the crowds asked him, ‘What then should we do?’” Even the tax collectors and the soldiers asked him, “And we, what should we do?” And the lawyers and judges, the nurses and doctors, the teachers and the stay-at-home moms and dads, even the priests and deacons asked him, “And we, what should we do?”

It’s Gaudete Sunday. We’ve lit the pink Advent candle. We’ve begun to anticipate celebrating Christmas and especially finding the gifts that mysteriously appear under the tree. Why then do we hear John the Baptist’s thundering exhortation? Why do we hear his answers to the plaintive questions of the crowds?

All the other Scripture readings for today tell us to rejoice. Following his recitation of the judgments of God on the people of Israel, the prophet Zephaniah now calls on them to rejoice: “Sing aloud, O daughter Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem!” In the canticle from the prophet Isaiah, which we said in response to the reading from Zephaniah, we hear a similar theme. Looking ahead to the return from the Exile in Babylon, the prophet exhorts the people “Cry aloud, inhabitants of Zion, ring out your joy….”

Most important, we hear the call to rejoice in Paul’s letter to the Christians at Philippi. Written from prison in 64AD, this was Paul’s last letter. We heard the opening section of the letter last week, in which Paul gave thanks for the help and support he received from the Philippian Christian community. Now, at the end of the letter, Paul twice commands the Philippian Christians to rejoice. The Latin for the command to “rejoice,” gaudete, gives us the name for this Sunday.

In seeming contrast to all these commands to “rejoice,” in our Gospel reading we hear John’s pronouncements and promises of judgement. We even hear him fulminate at the crowds who come out to be baptized by him: “Brood of snakes! What do you think you’re doing slithering down here to the river? Do you think a little water on your snakeskins is going to deflect God’s judgment?” And then the evangelist tells us that, “with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.” Good news?

Advent is strange. To begin with, it’s counter-cultural. Out there, we’ve been celebrating “Christmas” since Thanksgiving – or even before – and for many people, the Twelve Days of Christmas begin today, rather than after Christmas day. Moreover, in Advent we live in three time zones at once. We look back to the past, to the past even before the birth of Jesus, we look to the future, to the coming celebration of Jesus’ birth and to Jesus’ Second Coming, and, we acknowledge Christ’s coming to us in the present. But Advent also has two faces, both of which are reflected in today’s readings. It has a joyful aspect, in which we rejoice at the coming celebration and trust in God’s future, in God’s promises of a renewed creation. And Advent also has an aspect of judgement, in which we are called to reflect on how we live our lives as we wait for God’s coming, God’s coming at Christmas, in the future, and in our lives now.

How then are we to live? What do we see in our readings? In John the Baptist’s exhortations, we are asked to recognize that God’s call to repentance, to changing our way of life, is addressed to all of us. While Matthew directs John’s hard words at the religious leaders, here in Luke, John’s exhortations are to the “crowds.” John is not shouting at the Scribes or Pharisees, he is shouting at ordinary people. And not only ordinary people but also the hated tax collectors, who colluded with the Roman occupiers, and even with Roman soldiers themselves, who enforced Roman rule. He was especially critical of those who claimed special status as God’s chosen people, reminding them that “children of Abraham are a dime a dozen. God can make children from stones if God wants.”

John also calls the crowds to recognize that immersion in water is a symbolic act that reflects an inner commitment to draw closer to God. But it is a commitment that has to be realized in concrete acts, in concrete individual and communal behavior. So, if those who were baptized were serious about preparing to greet the one who will baptize us “with the Holy Spirit and fire,” they must be generous with their worldly goods, honest in their business dealings, kind and compassionate in their personal relationships, and content with their station in life.

With all these prescriptions, John also asked the crowds to recognize what Barbara Brown Taylor called “an altar in the world.” That is, they were to understand that their ordinary lives, their daily lives, were sacred and holy. Although John himself was a desert ascetic, who wore garments of camel’s hair and ate locusts and honey, he did not ask people to follow him into the wilderness. Instead, he asked them to show their commitment to God’s way in their day-to-day lives. Moreover, they were to trust that God was at work in them and in the world, and that God would deliver on God’s promises.

Don’t we hear a similar message in the letter to the Philippians? After commanding these new followers of Jesus to “rejoice,” Paul also exhorts them. He calls them to “forbearance,” or as The Message puts it, “Make it as clear as you can to all you meet that you’re on their side, working with them and not against them.” Moreover, they are to let God’s nearness change their behavior now, by behaving more compassionately with others, and by trusting that God is aware of their needs. If they do, again quoting The Message, “Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.”

Not surprisingly, our canticle and reading from Zephaniah echo Paul’s call for a deeper trust in God in all that we do. As Isaiah puts it, “I will trust in him and not be afraid. For the Lord is my stronghold and my sure defense….” Similarly, Zephaniah calls the people to trust in God’s promises, most especially God’s promise that, “I will make you renowned and praised among all the people of the earth, when I restore your fortunes before your eyes says the Lord.”

What then should we do? The virtues to which John the Baptizer calls us twenty-first century followers of Jesus are good for all seasons. Perhaps, though, it is especially important to hear John’s message at this time of year, when the “Christmas season,” tends to overwhelm us. Make no mistake: we too are part of the crowds who heard John’s exhortations, and we too must change our lives. First, we too are called to realize that ultimately no human status will save us. We will not be saved through our class, our caste, or our ethnicity. Neither will our possessions, our wealth, or our attainments save us. We will not be saved solely because we are Episcopalians. To paraphrase John, we cannot say to ourselves, “We have Thomas Cranmer as our father,” as if that alone guaranteed us special treatment before God.

Like the crowds who heard John, we are also called to be generous. As we scurry to find the perfect Christmas gift, as we worry if we cannot afford everything on our children’s gift lists, do we remember those who have no coat? Right in this parish, you can be generous with hats, scarves, gloves, and diapers. Can you donate to food banks, the Outreach Center, or Serenity House? National and international charitable organizations abound. Episcopal Relief and Development is an especially worthy organization, as it works in disasters in this country, including one right here in Gallia County, and in partnership with church organizations overseas. Consider supporting them with a monthly donation. Or how about organizations working on environmental issues? Two to consider: the National Parks Conservation Association, which works to protect our own national parks, and the World Wildlife Fund.

Like the tax collectors who heard John, we are also called to be honest in all our dealings. And that includes honesty with ourselves. Self-examination, as twelve-step programs repeatedly stress, is an important practice. I invite you to practice reviewing your day or week regularly. Like the Roman soldiers, we are also called to contentment, to “bloom where you are planted,” as we used to say. Ambition and the desire for transformation, challenge, and growth, are all important parts of maturity. Yet, we are also called to contentment, to staying grounded where we are, doing our best to be Christ for others where we are. And, of course, we are called to kindness and compassion, to gentleness or forbearance with all. Random acts of kindness are wonderful, but the deeper challenge is to see all people as children of God, to see Christ’s face in all those whom we meet and treat them as we would treat Christ.

So is there good news after all in John the Baptist’s message? My sisters and brothers, here’s the good news. We can trust that God loves us so much that God wants to transform us, that God wanted to gift us with God’s son to provide us with a model of how we are to live, and that ultimately God gives us God’s Spirit to guide us in what we do. “The Lord is near.” The Lord is always near, walking beside us, not just at Christmas, but now and forever. What then should we do? “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say Rejoice.”

Questions

“But who may abide the day of His coming? And who shall stand when He appeareth? For He is like a refiner's fire.” These are the lines from an air in part 1 of Handel’s “Messiah.” Although it was actually written to be heard in Easter tide, “Messiah” is now often sung near Christmas. When we do hear it at this time of year, we often listen attentively to the opening tenor air, “Comfort ye, my people.” Then in our minds we rush ahead to “O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion.” We often miss, or we don’t pay attention to, these words from the prophet Malachi. Actually, this is a challenging air to sing. It’s even more challenging to hear. Do we really want to hear the questions it asks?

Actually, three of our four lections for today pose challenging questions, questions that are appropriate for Advent. Our Hebrew Bible reading, which we just heard sung, is from the prophecy of Malachi. Malachi is traditionally considered the last prophetic book. For Christians, it is the very last book in the Hebrew Bible. It is also the last prophetic book for Jews, although Jews place all the prophets in the middle of the Hebrew Bible, between the Torah and the other writings. Traditionally, Jews read this portion of Malachi on the Sabbath before Passover, as they look forward to hearing again the great story of God’s deliverance of the Israelites from slavery.

Malachi was written for those who had returned to Judea from Exile, i.e., after 515 BC. Although the returnees were under Persian rule, they were allowed to restore sacrificial worship and begin rebuilding the temple. The entire book, only four chapters, is actually a dialogue between prophet and people, in which the prophet challenges the people with God’s word, and the people respond. In the section we just heard, the prophet, speaking for God, announces the coming of God’s messenger. He flings challenging questions at the people: can you stand to be in the presence of God’s messenger? How will you respond when God’s messenger lays out all the ways in which you have strayed from God’s covenant with you? The prophet then warns them that God will subject them to cleansing processes that will transform them into the people God wishes them to be. Can you picture those processes? A refiner’s fire can reach 1500 degrees Fahrenheit. Fuller’s soap is an abrasive bleaching soap. The purification process that God desires will be painful indeed. But there’s also a promise. God will accomplish God’s purposes, so that indeed the people may offer appropriate worship as they rebuild the temple. When today’s Jews hear this promise on the eve of Passover, they hear a promise that they may some day be able to build a third temple – the first one, Solomon’s temple, having been destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC, and the second one, having been destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. (The Temple Mount in today’s Jerusalem, sacred to Jews, Christians, and Muslims, is what remains of the second temple.)

Malachi’s questions to the people in his prophecy were explicit. In our reading from Paul’s letter to the Christians at Philippi, the question is implicit. This was probably the last of Paul’s letters. It was probably written from a Roman prison about 64 AD. As you heard, Paul thanks the Philippians for their gifts and support. Then he prays for them. As we hear Paul’s prayer, do we ourselves wonder, “Who will be ‘pure and blameless’ in the ‘day of Christ?’” Do we wonder what it will take for us to be “pure and blameless” when Christ comes to us?

There’s even an implied question in our gospel reading. At the moment, of course, we’re getting the story backwards. With the ministry of John the Baptist, we’ve jumped forward thirty years after Jesus’ birth, just before the beginning of Jesus’ own ministry. Here the evangelist shows us the adult John – the story of his birth comes before Jesus’ birth. In fact, in place of our psalm, we said what is called the Benedictus, from its first word in Latin, which is John’s father’s prophecy about John. Instead of becoming a priest like his father, John has become an ascetic. Like the prophets of the Hebrew Bible, he has come out of the desert to speak God’s word, to “prepare the way of the Lord,” as he says, quoting the prophet Isaiah. In preparation for Jesus’ ministry, he has called out the entire community – not isolated individuals, but everyone – to a change of heart, and to be immersed in water to symbolize their readiness to change their way of life. And let’s be clear about this: in the New Testament, “repent” does not mean feeling sorry for your sins. “Repent” means changing your entire way of life. And the questions? Surely as difficult for us as they were for those ancient Judeans. Does God really want us to change our way of life? Are we willing to do more than go down into the Jordan River? What does it really take to live differently? Hard questions all.

Advent is the time for such questions. Prophets often ask us hard questions. And often their questions inspire terror, not joy. We don’t want to hear the challenge in their questions. We certainly don’t want to undergo a painful process of letting go of what keeps us from hearing God’s words more clearly, and we don’t want to change our way of life. Yet that is our call in Advent. Advent is our time for self-reflection. It is our time to ask ourselves the questions we hear in Scripture today. It is a time for self-examination, for opening ourselves to God and allowing God to begin in us the slow work of transformation.

So what kinds of questions am I suggesting that we ask ourselves this Advent? We profess to be followers of Jesus. Does our commitment to Jesus affect our lives as citizens in any way? In the wake of the recent gun tragedies – dear God, yet another – shouldn’t we be asking ourselves whether we are doing all we can as a nation to prevent such tragedies? Or have we let the NRA buy off our politicians, so that assault weapons are freely available, and background checks virtually non-existent? Is it time to ask ourselves as a nation whether all our citizens, regardless of their income or their employer, have access to decent healthcare – like the citizens of every other industrialized nation in the world? As we beat down the doors of our stores or flood the sites of online vendors in our quest for the perfect Christmas gift, do we give a thought to the poor in this country? Ironically, today is St. Nicholas day. St. Nicholas, the ancestor of our modern Santa Claus, was a fourth-century bishop who was known for secretly putting coins in the shoes of the poor. As the climate change talks progress in Paris, are we thinking at all about creation care? Are we trying to pare down, reuse, and recycle our “stuff?”

Advent also challenges us with questions we might ask as a parish. For example, is our worship prophetic? Do our hymns, prayers, and lections enable us to hear God’s word more clearly? Does our worship provide entertainment or edification? Diversion or direction? Amusement or awareness? Most important, does what we do here on Sunday impact our lives? Does worship lead to transformation?

And what about our personal lives? Are we willing to honestly look at what needs changing in our lives and ask God’s help to make those needed changes? Many of you may be familiar with twelve-step programs. Franciscan Richard Rohr, who has had a long prison ministry, has recently been reflecting on each of the twelve steps. They provide a wonderful introduction to the spiritual life! After admitting their need for God and their obligation to make amends to those whom they have harmed, alcoholics are reminded, in step 10, “We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.” Do those of us who are sober need to take such a personal inventory? Advent is a time to do that. Remember that Advent is a gift from the church that enables us to prepare more seriously and more intentionally for receiving Christ at Christmas.

After the first performance of “Messiah” in London in 1741, Handel wrote to a friend: “I should be sorry if I only entertained them. I wished to make them better.” Although by 1751 Handel was blind, until his death in 1759, he continued to conduct “Messiah” every year as an annual benefit for a hospital that served widows and orphans of the clergy. “And he shall purify the sons of Levi.” As we engage in self-examination in Advent, as we ask ourselves hard questions, as we ponder where our lives need to change, we can trust that God is at work in us. We can trust that, if we are open to God, God will fulfill God’s promises to us, in the world, in the church, and in ourselves.

The Days are Surely Coming

We’re an impatient people. We want what we want when we want it. Think about what was once called “mail order.” We pored through the Sears and Roebuck catalog, then we filled out the order form, dropped it in a mailbox, and waited. Now, open a website, point, click, and done, and your order is at your door two days later. Or think about computers. In the late ‘80s, the dark ages, we had little monochrome screens, you could read a novel waiting for programs to load, and polish off another novel waiting for your email messages to come in over a dial-up connection. Now, we’re on instantly, and downloads come in at warp speed. And you just better answer my email or text within twenty-four hours!

We’re an impatient people. Except in Roman Catholic, Episcopal, and a few Protestant churches. Unlike the rest of the world around us, we have not rushed headlong into Christmas. As you see, except for the Advent wreath, there are no decorations or trees here – and we won’t put them up until after the service on Advent 4. We won’t sing any Christmas carols until Christmas tide. And if you came to hear “comfort and joy” in the sermons for next four Sundays, you are in the wrong place. So did the priest-in-charge steal Christmas, like Dr. Seuss’ Grinch? Is she like Mr. Scrooge, stingily dismissing Christmas with, “Bah, humbug?”

Not really. We have begun a new church year, and with it, the holy season of Advent. It’s a quiet, solemn, and serious season. You can see that seriousness reflected in the color of our vestments and paraments – they’re a subdued blue. We’re using our liturgy with the old seventeenth-century language, honoring our history as we pray in more solemn tones. Even the settings of the sung parts of our liturgy are simpler.

While the world outside us may be in the throes of the “Christmas season,” the church gives us a valuable gift in the quieter season of Advent. We can slow down, take a deep breath, and listen for the stirrings of the Holy Spirit. More important, we can take the time for quiet reflection on what God has done, what God is doing among us now, and what God will do in the future.

Advent initially was a forty-day season of fasting, to prepare for the baptisms that would take place on Epiphany, January 6th. In fact Orthodox Christians, who emphasize Epiphany rather than Christmas, still keep a forty-day fast to prepare for Epiphany. Western Christians like us keep Advent for the four Sundays before Christmas. Our lessons for the first Sunday in Advent focus on God’s promises for the future. John the Baptist thunders his message on the second and third Sundays. Only on the fourth Sunday do we look ahead to Christmas, when we hear Mary’s response to the Annunciation. In this season of Advent, the lectionary readings and the special devotions that the church invites us to undertake are meant to awaken us, to make us more aware of the surprising ways God comes to us, and to enable us to wait patiently and attentively for God to continue to act.

All our readings for today remind us of our call to wait patiently and attentively for God. Jeremiah’s prophecies were first written in the midst of the chaos and despair that followed the sack of Jerusalem and the exile to Babylon in 586 BC. To remind people of God’s covenant with them, the prophet uses an image familiar to the people of his time, viz., a king who would victoriously lead them out of exile. He exhorts his hearers to remember God’s promises, especially the covenant that God made with the Israelites after the Exodus. In that covenant, God declared that Israel would be God’s people forever. The prophet also reminds his downcast people to remember God’s promises to David, which we heard last week in David’s last words, and especially David’s confidence that God had made an everlasting covenant with him. As a response to the reading from Jeremiah, Psalm 25 also calls us to remember God’s promises and to trust God to deliver on God’s promises.

Paul’s letter to the Christians in Thessalonica was Paul’s first letter, written about 50 AD, to one of the earliest of the new communities of Jesus’ followers. Christians in this community were earnestly waiting for Christ to return, and they believed that they would see his return before they themselves died. We don’t know whether Paul himself believed that Christ’s return was imminent. Even so, Paul clearly exhorts these new believers to wait for Christ, whenever he comes, with gratitude, love, and holiness.

The gospel according to Luke – we will be hearing a lot from Luke in this third year of the Revised Common Lectionary – was written in the ‘80s AD, after the fall of Jerusalem, and the destruction of the Jewish Temple by the Romans. Here too the evangelist uses symbols his hearers would appreciate. This part of Luke’s gospel is apocalyptic, like the book of Revelation, i.e., it is symbolic writing that looks ahead to the future. In using apocalyptic symbols, the evangelist reminds his hearers that despite the chaos and destruction that they see all around them God is at work. As faithful followers of Jesus, they are therefore called to “stand up and raise your heads,” i.e., they are to be watchful for further signs of God at work, and they are to trust that God’s reign is near. More important, they are to trust that they are already living in God’s realm, despite what they see around them. As Jesus himself had proclaimed, “The Kingdom of God is at hand,” i.e., it is here already. Even as they trust that God has already inaugurated God’s realm, even as they wait for its final culmination, they are to use God’s gifts to them wisely, not squandering God’s gifts in indulgence, drunkenness, and worldly cares, but watching and waiting patiently and attentively for signs of God at work.

And so, in this first Sunday of the new church year, in this first week of Advent, we wait patiently, with hope and holiness. We look attentively for signs of God’s presence, trusting that God is at work and seeking ways to partner with God in God’s work. In our personal lives, we savor the gift of Advent, the gift of time to reflect on the ways that God was, is, and will be present to us, changing and shaping us into the people God created us to be. Can you use this gift of Advent to find time for more intentional prayer? I invite you to use, for example, the Forward Movement meditations in the booklet we are giving you. I also invite you to light your Advent candles, perhaps at the same time that you use the booklet. Can you take some time for self-reflection? Perhaps at the end of the day? Can you see God at work in your own life?

Can you see God at work in our parish? I recently learned that someone who had once been connected to this parish left us, because it seemed to this person that St. Peter’s had no future, and that the parish was dying. That’s not what I see. Yes, the parish is smaller than it was in twenty-five years ago, but so are many Episcopal parishes, especially in small towns. Even so, this is not a dying parish. God is at work here. I see a parish that has begun to grow again, especially with people deeply committed to prayer, worship, and mission. I see a parish that has kept the red doors open, raised up a deacon, and been given a resident priest-to-be. I see a parish that is even now discerning the new ministries into which God might be leading us. Can we wait patiently and attentively for what God might do next among us?

It’s hard to miss the chaos and destruction in the world outside our parish. Paris, Beirut, Mali, Charleston, Oregon, Colorado, Phoenix. As I wrote this, a gunman had wounded several people and was holed up in a Planned Parenthood facility in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Meanwhile, global warming is playing havoc with our planet and causing ever more severely destructive weather. Is God at work? Are there signs of hope? There are. On Friday, for example, we learned that all the women kidnapped by Boko Haram in Nigeria have been released. And today, as we turn our hearts to God in this peaceful, sacred space, after only two weeks since the attacks in Paris, 147 world leaders have arrived in the city for a mega-conference on climate change. God willing, the talks will produce solid agreements among all these nations that will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. And I see other signs of God at work. I see community gardens, solar panels and other forms of renewable energy, composting and recycling, thirty-mile meals and farmers’ markets, and more fuel-efficient cars. I see a Habitat for Humanity group that built a house in honor of three Muslims who were murdered in North Carolina. I see The National, a Scottish newspaper, welcoming Syrian refugees with the banner headline, “Welcome to Scotland.”

So in this holy season of Advent I wait. We wait. We trust in God’s promises. We wait patiently for God for fulfill God’s promises. We watch for signs and wonders, in our own lives, in the lives of this parish, and in the world around us. And we attentively seek God’s leading in our work to bring God’s realm ever nearer.