The Light That Illumines the Beginning: Sermon for Christmas Day, 2020

It has been a most unusual year. It is only fitting then, that we begin our Christmas Day worship with the start of the most unusual of the four gospels in the Christian scriptures. While only Matthew and Luke mention anything about Jesus’s birth, Mark begins with events within human history, even if Mark starts with Jesus already being grown. The author of John’s gospel, the last of the gospels to be written, decides to take us back much further in time--- in fact before the beginning of time itself, before human memory, to the start of creation. To the luminous, fertile darkness that was the womb of God’s creative energy and initiative.

For Christmas Day, after hearing the beautiful account of Jesus’s birth from the gospel of Luke last night, we instead hear the beginning of John’s gospel. John’s gospel begins with linking Jesus with the very act of creation. If in the beginning, God was creating, therefore, God was also redeeming.

And indeed, we put a lot of pressure on beginnings. Start out on the wrong path, and by the time you realize it, you are so far off course that the trip may be hopeless. At a beginning of a relationship, everything is fresh, and no one takes the regard of the other for granted, or lets their warts hang out for all to see or acts contemptuous. Consideration is at an all-time high. We treat each other gently, investing in listening, attentiveness, and generosity.

Christmas was placed in the Christian calendar centuries ago not in the spring, when it probably occurred, but just after the time of the Winter Solstice, which can occur anywhere from December 21 to December 23, whenever here in the Northern hemisphere the North Pole is tilted the furthest away from the sun, resulting in the longest night of the year.

On that day, we only have nine hours and 28 minutes of daylight. Once we round the corner of the solstice, we start tacking on minutes at both sunrise and sunset, and the days begin the creep ever longer. Already, here we are 4 days after the solstice this year, and we have added four minutes of daylight—two at sunrise, and two at sunset. The Solstice was celebrated before Christianity as the rebirth of the light—and our gospel we hear today firmly links Jesus with the birth of light as well.

Thus even the earth proclaims the birth of the light again, after months of shortening days. We Christians sometimes ignore the physical proclamation at this time of year of the return of light into our lives. Most of us, living in a post-modern world, have long ago lost touch with the vital importance of the turning of the seasons. We do not anxiously search the skies for signs of when to plant, when to harvest.

But this year, we did have a wonderful excuse to look to the skies during this week leading up to Christmas—the much anticipated reappearance of the so-called “Christmas star” which is actually the alignment of Jupiter and Saturn, two of the largest planets in our solar system. This sight appears ever 20 years, but for the first time in 800 years, this Great Conjunction happened very near the winter solstice—and Christmas. 

The last time this happened, Parisien artisans were building the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. We can imagine their awe as they looked up in the early hours of Christmas morning—and just for once, people all across North America stepped out together to look up at the sky in awe, and remember the story of another time that people saw this light blaze in the sky, and associated it with the birth of a baby who would grow to become the center of billions of people’s hopes and dreams.

Even today, people imagine that the “stars” are portents of events in their lives—even if those stars are comets, or, in this case, planets reflecting the light of the Sun back at us. This year, in the midst of this pandemic, we have been blessed with a reminder of the wonder of the coming of Jesus into the world right up in the sky above our heads. What is usually not even noticed has become a gateway to awe and wonder. And that is a beautiful metaphor for the birth of Jesus if ever there was one.

Now, misleadingly, this year’s “Christmas star” wasn’t in the east. Here in St. Louis it was actually in the southwest for us. Jupiter and Saturn’s conjunction, visible to the naked eye but even better with a pair of binoculars or a telescope, was a living reminder that there actually WAS a star that noticeably and suddenly “appeared” at the time of Christ’s birth. And if you missed seeing it, Jupiter and Saturn are still close enough that you will notice how together they make a brighter object in the sky than they ever could accomplish apart. Rather than making the appearance of the Christmas star LESS magical, our knowledge reminds us of the importance of how we as a community of faith can both magnify each others’ light, but also by our actions lead others to Christ, as humble as we are.

In a year in which we have been separated from the ones we love by the fear of this pandemic, that leading us from dwelling on our separation to our essential unity is a precious reminder, indeed, and much needed. But perhaps the next fact can provide some consolation about the powerlessness of physical distance to truly keep anyone separate. Because here is another fact about the so-called “closeness” of Jupiter and Saturn in the sky: they really aren’t close at all. It is only from our perspective that they appear to draw close.

In reality, Jupiter and Saturn are actually 456 million miles apart. That’s not exactly adjacent. The truth is, this celestial show only works if all THREE of our planets are in alignment. Earth, Jupiter and Saturn are lined up right now. The seeing of this celestial event only happens when we ourselves are in the correct place, with our faces turned toward the darkness, outward. And it is only by the gift of darkness that we can see this light. Darkness and light work together in partnership. During the day, the blazing of this planetary alignment is veiled from our eyes.

The first words of the Gospel of John are the same ones as begin the Bible in Genesis: “In the beginning…” This is deliberate—and also places layers of layers of meaning for our enlightenment. This is the beginning of the Gospel. It echoes the beginning of Genesis, which means “Beginning.” Yet this beginning in John 1 is BEFORE the beginning in Genesis, which does not appear in the prologue until verse 3. John’s beginning roots God’s word, which we understand as Jesus, as existing before creation and thus before the beginning of time.

There is no nativity story in John’s gospel filled with angels and shepherds and cattle. The Word of God, Jesus, does not even become flesh until our final verse, verse 14. Instead, there is a philosophical, mystical song of the Word being rooted not in human time and experience but before creation—indeed as the agent of creation. This Word is described as God’s partner in creation and is strongly associated with creation itself, especially bearing life and light into the universe, much as Wisdom was described in the book of Proverbs.

Some might argue that this gospel reading we hear takes us too far away from our focus on Bethlehem and a little baby born in the humblest of circumstances, lying in a manger surrounded by animals and shepherds. Calling Jesus “the Word of God” is so… impersonal. Dehumanized. And Christmas is the pre-eminent celebration of the incarnation—of God taking on human flesh. But John also refers to Jesus as “the light.” The light about which John the Baptist will testify and point toward, the same way that star we saw in the sky is described as leading shepherds and Wise men to the humble scene of a young family with a brand new baby.

I am convinced that we are being reminded about how our closeness, our love, the light we shine into the world as disciples of Jesus, has nothing to do with physical proximity. We ourselves can blaze with love, which is the true light of Christ, even while we stay socially distant—and indeed, that distancing provides us with the perspective to see how unified we really are. Here in the time of darkness, we celebrate a rekindling of light—the light of God. May we look with awe and wonder on the joy of the newborn Christ-child, the Son of God entering time, taking on human flesh, opening a new way for God to be revealed to us and to show us the way to live into our full potential as humans. For many of us, that is indeed the best beginning of them all.

Amen.

Preached at the online Morning Prayer service broadcast from St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville, MO, on Christmas Day at 10:30 am in time of pandemic.

Readings:

What Christmas Is All About- Sermon for Christmas Eve, 2020

It usually happened every year of my childhood at the end of November or the first week of December. No matter what else is going on in our lives, we kids would demand that nothing interfere with our ability to take part in this cherished ritual. I'm not talking about Black Friday -- I'm talking about the Charlie Brown Christmas special, which first aired in 1965, just months after my birth. As hard as it is for kids nowadays to believe, this cherished classic was broadcast one time only every year, and until the invention of the VCR that was the only time that you could see it. It was probably the best thing that Coca Cola ever sponsored, in my Pepsi-loving humble opinion.

It was also one of the friendliest and gentlest ways to remind people of the reason for this particular season. The opening scene shows Charlie Brown and Linus walking through town and toward a pond to go ice skating with their friends. Charlie Brown suddenly stops and leans against a snow covered wall, which was a common backdrop in the Charlie Brown comic strip for when Charlie Brown was having a philosophical conversation with Linus, who was always wise beyond his years. Charlie Brown stares off over the wall and says to his friend, “I think there must be something wrong with me, Linus. Christmas is coming, but I'm not happy. I don't feel the way I'm supposed to feel. I just don't understand Christmas, I guess.”

And even all these years later, we know that Charlie Brown is not alone in sometimes feeling stressed, or let down, as much as filled with joy and anticipation during Christmas. In just the last few years, a tradition of blue Christmas services have sprung up mostly across the progressive end of the Christian spectrum to acknowledge and to make space for people who find Christmas to be an experience that can be a struggle as much as it can be a gift.

Charlie Brown's friend Lucy advises him that it might help him get in the Christmas spirit if he directs the Christmas play that the rest of the kids are putting on, even though Charlie Brown is more likely to get things wrong than right most of the time. And over the course of the show, we see that Charlie Brown knows what Christmas is not about: it's not about commercialism, or Christmas decoration contests, or asking for a bunch of gifts—not even real estate, which is what his friend Lucy wants every year. After Charlie Brown brings home a scraggly pitiful little Christmas tree to be the centerpiece of the play, only to be laughed at and mocked by the other kids, Linus steps in to remind everyone what Christmas is really all about.

Standing in the center of a single spotlight Linus recites from memory the King James version of the gospel we heard tonight from the second chapter of Luke, in all its simplicity and beauty. Linus then leaves the spotlight, walks over to Charlie Brown, and says “That's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.”

With all the commercialization of Christmas that has gone on in the last century, especially since the invention of advertising, it's sometimes easy to forget that there's any sort of spiritual meaning of Christmas at all. Christmas has become a holiday that begins after Labor Day and fully occupies 25% of the year. . It’s about Santa Claus, and elves, eggnog, the smell of cinnamon everywhere whether you like it or not, and the mad frantic buying and wrapping and delivering of gifts. Christmas is about debating whether “Baby, It's Cold Outside” is playful or creepy; hearing Eartha Kitt coo at “Santa Baby,” or about whether Christmas itself crowds out other holidays of other faiths that happen to fall at this time of year.

Christmas has become a holiday that too often is severed from its religious anchor as being about the incarnation of Jesus through his mother Mary’s willing cooperation. Too many people can go all the way through Christmas season forgetting about the miracle that, as our reading from Isaiah reminds us, “a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; And he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

What lies underneath Linus’s gentle reminder to Charlie Brown and his friends is that Christmas is about reminding us that God is always active and engaged in the world. The sending of God's only son to live and heal and teach and care for us as one of us is itself a reminder that God always takes the initiative in reaching out to creation, and all our readings today reinforce this point. We do not approach God without God approaching us first.

Our reading from Isaiah reminds us that God brings about God's Kingdom of justice and righteousness -- this does not depend upon our own human abilities alone but trusts us enough to call for our discipleship in helping to bring it about, just as the incarnation could not have happened without Mary’s willingness to be the servant of the Lord. In Isaiah, the required human action comes in seeing: seeing a great light, which actually means seeing the world's cruelties and corruptions , and yet nonetheless insistently perceiving God at work within this world. Even in the smallest things.

Our psalm picks up this thread, observing and noting what God has done an is doing in the world --seeing God's works and blessings, ascribing and naming them specifically as being God’s gifts to us, and then being glad—or being grateful—for what God has done. Even more importantly, our Psalm reminds us that worship is over everything else a call to action.

One does not passively worship God by sitting in pews or by singing praise songs, no matter how catchy the tune. That’s entertainment. Worship goes beyond that—to carrying the meaning and glory God out into the world and making it visible for all to see in how each Christian live their lives.

God is working in the world—and thus this prophecy in Isaiah is as yet complety unfulfilled. Those who expected a great warrior king like the thrilling stories of David with his slingshot are going to be profoundly disappointed with the kind of King Jesus truly is—one who builds up rather than destroys, one who heals rather than wounds, one who comes not to overturn the Law, but to fulfill it, in Jesus’s own words.

This child who is born to us will grow to be a man who shows us what it is to be fully human—fully made in the image of God. One who will call us out of our own narrow view to a compassionate, passionate engagement with the world and especially with those who are suffering or oppressed in mind, body, or spirit.

Christmas is about hope. Christmas is about faith—faith in God and in each other. Christmas is about love. Love in action. Love found sleeping in a manger, leading us to the way of life we were meant to live from the beginning.

At the end of the Charlie Brown Christmas show, Linus wraps his special blanket around the poor pitiful little stick pretending to be a tree, and the other kids gather around it and decorate it. When they step back, it has been transformed from a scraggly stick to a beautiful, sparkling tree. the gift of love and care has taken something that was ragged and frail and turned it into a delight and a blessing. Just as Jesus taking on our flesh as a human who is also the son of God transforms us and challenges us to ourselves be a delight and a blessing to all whom we meet: all nations, all races, all creeds, all people.

That’s what Christmas is all about.

Amen.

Preached at the 8 pm Christmas Eve online service at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville on December 24, 2020 in Coronatide.

Readings:

Isaiah 9:2-7

Psalm 96

Titus 2:11-14

Luke 2:1-14(15-20)

From Yes to Witness: Sermon for Advent 4B

The angel rode a rope of light down through the stars, and landed lighter than a dust mote right behind the old priest.

Gabriel, whose name means “God is my strength,” watches old Zechariah fussing about with a light in the Holy of Holies in the Temple, glides in behind him and down like a feather and promptly startles a year off the old priest’s life. The angel loomed up out of the shadows like a gargoyle for an instant, but then the radiance that rolled off Gabriel like as an afterglow from the heavenly courts lodged behind the old priest’s left eye and began to grow like a rising moon on the horizon.

The angel told the priest to not be afraid, calling him by name, Zachariah, as if that would reassure the old man that she was friendly, but you might as well tell someone to decide not to breathe. Gabriel relays the message, a prophecy about a child, complete with child’s name, and what the child will mean to the people of Israel. Now other people, when they’ve gotten the full treatment—spotted the wings, the glory, the rising light in the eye—they’ve gone straight to laughing, or singing, or both. Not Zechariah. Despite his fear, Zechariah doubts the words of Gabriel. In return, Gabriel gives Zechariah an affronted version of “Do you know who I am?’ and as a lesson, Zechariah is struck mute for nine months.

Six months later, Gabriel slides down that rope of light again, but this time to Galilee. The angel expects to see a slight young woman, this Mary, gown and hair making her seem larger than she is, near a locked garden to remind us of how pure she is. Gabriel touches down lightly, like a dancer, a dancer who spends most of her time in the air and not earth-bound.

Gabriel takes a step back at the determined light coming from Mary’s eyes as she looks up from her book. A stem of lilies appears in Gabriel’s hand—trumpets to announce that the walls of sin and death will fall before the power of Love Incarnate. Lilies offered-- offered and accepted, and at the moment Mary touches them they become brighter white, and a sweet scent twines itself around the room.

The angel greets her as “O favored one,” and says that the Lord is with her. Although she’s a very young woman, her response is interesting: she’s not afraid, but rather is perplexed and puzzled. When Mary was declared to be God’s “favored one” one wonders if she did not have to fight off the urge to look behind her to see if the angel was talking to someone else. Where are all those signs of “favor?” Is she rich, well-connected?

Yet just as with Zechariah, Gabriel assures her that she shouldn’t be afraid and addresses her by name. In place of being told her prayers are being answered, she is assured once again that she has the favor of God.

And so in these verses we hear in our gospel are the seeds of the so-called “Angelic Salutation,” the Ave Maria, or “Hail Mary:”

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women,
And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
Pray for us sinners now,
And at the hour of our death. Amen.


And Mary considers this. That same light that filled Zechariah’s eye blooms within Mary’s dark gaze, and begins to glow.

But Gabriel explains to her exactly how it’s going to happen—that she will bear her own child. To give credence to this prediction, Gabriel references Mary’s kinswoman Elizabeth’s pregnancy. Where Zechariah scoffed and was made mute, Mary ponders, and gets the last word: Yes. At the moment Mary declares herself a servant of the Lord, violets spring up outside the window where angel and maiden meet.

You would think that she would be the one who would refuse to believe that she had found favor with God, given her lowly station as a probably barely-teenaged peasant girl living literally in the middle of nowhere. God’s call to Mary is an invitation, not a command. It seems impossible. And yet, “Nothing is impossible with God.” As crazy as this all sounds, Mary ponders… and says “Yes,” even though her entire world will be changed in unimaginable ways. In giving her assent, she is the supreme example of cooperation and collaboration with God and human free will.

This is an important point. Mary agrees to do this absolutely of her own volition—she had the ability to say “No,” but the courage and the faith to say “Yes.” Her choice. Her song. Calling us to our own witness.

And yet this week’s gospel reading leaves us hanging. Puzzlingly, in this year we don’t get the record of the longest conversation between two women in the entire New Testament—Mary’s Visitation to Elizabeth, and Mary’s resulting prophetic shout of liberation, The Magnificat. Luckily, the Magnificat is today’s canticle.

It is clear the two prayers—the Hail Mary and the Magnificat—are meant to be considered together. At the Annunciation Mary says yes to God. In the Magnificat she explains why she said yes. She moves for yes to the angel, to joy and proclamation with Elizabeth. She says yes so God’s economy, God’s reign, God’s household, God’s justice can be brought to life and embodied amongst us, starting with Mary. Yes to love, yes to mercy, yes to restoration and stretching all the way to dusty roads running to and from Jerusalem and back again.

The Magnificat erupts from Mary’s throat as a song of joy and triumph the moment Elizabeth and Mary see each other. One young, one old, but these two women share the longest conversation between two women in the New Testament, reveling in a bond not just of kinship or shared expectancy, but of two people who know the power of God in their lives.

And Mary’s song moves from joy to power, from being full of grace to being full of fire. Mary goes from the Mother of God to God’s disciples with a full-throated roar that would make Elijah, Isaiah, or Jonah weep for envy. Mary creates a song so powerful that its singing has been banned on slave plantations, in India under the British raj. In Argentina during the reign of the dictator Pinochet, mothers of the disappeared were banned from singing the Magnificat as a protest against government terror on its own citizens.

The Magnificat is a threat to unjust regimes everywhere, for it clearly realigns the world and names the work of a God who is not waiting until tomorrow to act. Mary speaks with certainty from the other side of oppression. God HAS pulled down the corrupt mighty from their thrones. God HAS filled the bellies of the hungry. God HAS lifted up the lowly—starting with Mary herself. And God asks us, like Mary, to join in that work, and against injustice anywhere.

As a prophet, as a freedom fighter, Mary herself is suffused with light. After that assent to God’s holy messenger, with the acceptance of the offered lily, Mary is no mere vessel. She offers her very being to God—and to the raising of her son. She says yes, not because she expects that being “favored” bit to translate into being blessed by wealth or renown. She says yes, and then in the Magnificat waves the banner of true equality which is justice and God’s real reign set into motion.

Mary says yes, because she knows that when King David wanted to build a palace for God, David was also trying to domesticate God—to place God within a gilded cage, rather than in the human heart and as the center of the human community, where God longed to reign. With Mary’s yes, God is restored to live among us and within our hearts again. To live as one of us to show us that we can live by not the iron law of devouring each other but in compassion, amity and justice.

She says yes to show us the courage we are given when we say yes to God, when we consent to raise our field of vision from our own navels to the horizons of hope that is God’s invitation to live in a different better way than by our own blindness, brokenness, and prejudice. She says yes to encourage us all to allow the Son of God to grow. Within us, under our hearts, and to bear him forth into a world that STILL does not know the beauty of his gospel. We are all called to give birth to Christ in the world, and mother his gospel to those who need his good news the most.

Mary is a model to all of us who seek to follow in the Way of Jesus. Her story reminds us that we all have the choice to say yes and to see what HAS already happened by the hand of God in our lives. It is up to us to choose to assent—or not. To lift our eyes from our own feet to the horizon of God’s grace that. is waiting to fill us up to overflowing as well.

Our choice is this: will we bear Christ into the world—or not? Do we want to unlock the chains of fear, hopelessness and distrust that bind us to the ways of fear, or do we want to be free-- Free to offer our opened spirits like a bowl to be filled with the promise of salvation, to respond in faith and courage to God’s plea to live not in wood or stone building where human hands can keep God safely locked away, but within our hearts?

How would it change our perspective and our lives to go from confining Jesus inside a box of our own making, and instead to make Mary’s song our own:

My soul overflows with the greatness of God,
My spirit sings unending praise to One Who Saves,
the One who lifts up the lowly servant
who dares to be the instrument of God Most High.
Surely, from now to time unending
All generations will see that I have been blessed.

What would it be like to allow the power of hope and assurance of God’s steadfast presence to make its home with our spirits? What could we do? What could prevail against us?

May we have the courage to say yes. Yes to bearing Jesus in our hearts, and in our lives, in our words, and in our deeds. Yes to our souls magnifying the greatness of our God in our life and in our work. Yes to making ourselves a true home and witness for God, forgiven, healed, and renewed.

Amen.

Preached at the 10:30 am online worship service in Coronatide from St. Marin's Episcopal.  Church, Ellisville, MO. 

Readings:

Psalm 89:1-4, 19-26

2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16

Romans 16:25-27

Luke 1:26-38

Canticle 15

Prayer, day 2886: The Fourth Sunday of Advent

Almighty God, we sing your glory,
joining the joyful song of creation
as our souls sing out your greatness!
How beautiful upon the treetops
is the rising light of morning:
O God, you bless us beyond measure with beauty
and our hearts kneel before you in praise!

Give us your favor, O Redeemer,
in leading us to consent to your will in our lives,
that we may join our hands in unity
in the pursuit of justice and peace,
pulling down oppression from its throne,
filling the hungry with good things from the bounty we have.

Strengthen us to bear you into the world, Blessed Jesus,
as a mother carries her child
close to her heart.

Holy One, place the protection
of your mighty arm and heart
over us this day,
and guide us in paths of gentleness and compassion.
Stretch out the awning of your mercy, Beloved Savior,
over all who rest in your care.

Amen.

Who-- and Whose--Are You? Sermon for the Third Sunday in Advent B

For Joy ©Jan Richardson janrichardson.com

The last six weeks and the last six months have found us in the wilderness of loss. We have interred two of our members, had a delayed funeral for another, and tomorrow there will be another funeral. How much then do we need this Sunday dedicated to hope and joy? But even as we remember our lost loved ones, I am comforted by the fact that the liturgy for funeral rites reminds us of who we are, and whose we are from its opening anthems. “For none of us has life in themselves… If we have life, we have life in the Lord, and if we die, we die in the Lord. So then, whether we live of we die,we are the Lord’s possession.” Even in the midst of wilderness. Even in the midst of trial.

Our psalm is a song of joy and reclamation from the midst of trial. Think how amazing that is. Our psalm is a song of joy, perfect for this Sunday with its theme of Joy—even while the people themselves are in the midst of a crisis. The people can tap into this joy and embody this joy because they know who they are—and WHOSE they are, come what may.

The theme of this psalm is restoration, a jubilee concept. The people are located between two restorations: one in the past, and one that is hoped for in the future. Both of these restorations are celebrated for their impact on the community as a whole. Because they know who they are, they carry the assurance of their past as a predictor of their future. When the past restoration occurred, the people were filled with hope—"like those who dream.” They dared envision for themselves a future.

They saw their good fortune as coming from God, and gave God the credit, and also realized it made them an exemplar among the other nations. Their restoration was an opportunity to witness to the world about the wonders of God—simply by their mere act of showing their gratitude. They knew they were called to be a priestly people, and priests minister to not just their own, but in the name of God to the world. And that hope and that faith helped sustain them during their current time in the wilderness of occupation and oppression. Hope points the way through the wildernesses we all traverse.

This is an important realization. Crises can bring out the best—or the worst in people. Crises can either draw communities together—or destroy them. We also see that often, the best way to conquer a people is from within.

Again and again, when the people of Israel were conquered, they were literally separated from each other. Sometimes, the leaders were carried off into captivity—where some of them acclimated into the captors’ world, and never returned—leaving behind the people of the land to labor for the benefit of the invading empire. The invaders brought along other people and settled them within the boundaries of Israel, hoping to further dilute the people’s unity and encourage the extinction of the culture, in much the way the governments of Canada, the United States, and Mexico dealt with the indigenous people who lived here before European discovery of the Americas or as the Chinese did in Tibet when they invaded it in 1950. Other times, the leaders capitulated, and openly collaborated with the invader, or the invaders raised up those collaborators as leaders and placed them over the people as was happening in Jesus’s time with the Romans, or as the Germans did in France in 1940.

Crises can bring out the best—or the worst-- in people, especially when they lose sight of their reliance upon God and especially upon community. We see that right now in our own time. In the 1930s and 1940s, this country was faced with two staggering crises, one after the other—or more accurately, one that built on the opportunities of the other. The worldwide Great Depression brought this country to its knees. Providentially, this country was fortunate enough to choose leaders who helped rebuild this country by emphasizing the value of community -- the resources that together a people can muster that they would never be able to take advantage of individually.

Other countries weren't as fortunate, or as wise. They instead, while in the throes of the very same economic forces of destruction, turned to supposed “strong men” who offered easy answers and obvious scapegoats for the people's troubles. The funny thing was that these strong men before this crisis had themselves been failures by all the measures of society at the time. And so they needed to overcome that history of failure in their own lives by huge outward displays of power and ruthless oppression. And these so-called “strong men” wasted little time rallying their followers to oppress those around them who were weaker.

Our country was fortunate in that it had a history of democracy that stretched back over a century and a half, and that we had oceans on either side to shield us from the depredations of tyranny in both Asia and Europe. So when we were finally drawn into the conflict with these deadly dominions, on December 7, an anniversary we observed a few days ago, we were able to use our belief in the power of community and common action to form great alliances across broad swathes of our own population and with our allies abroad. The power and strength of common cause and common action in the defense a freedom, justice, and life, through long and bitter struggle eventually overcame the forces of death, division, and hatred.

We made use of our time of non-involvement to prepare for the day when we would be called upon to help. When we finally did enter the Second World war officially, we continued to rally together, moving ever closer to the ideal of being one American people despite our differences. Millions went overseas and fought. Tens of millions more sacrificed all that they had previously known here at home, upending their lives, giving up food, scavenging for scrap, giving up their former jobs and learning new ones for the good of their community and for the sake of the survival of democracy.

The power of determination not to be defeated—because it was unthinkable—and the understanding that only unified, coordinated action would defeat the enemy at our gates was vital to the defeat of evil. And this can never be a lesson that we in our time forget as we face our own challenges in this time of pandemic. Only by coming together and by honoring each others’ labor and contributions to building stronger communities—communities which themselves are part of a sacred whole—can a people survive times of crisis. Our history—and today’s psalm-- remind us of this. Our national spirit was fueled by a realization of the previous times that we ourselves had persevered and won through unity from our colonial past through the Civil War and beyond. After the war, groups who had previously not been fully allowed at the national table of equality used the idea of common action to themselves fight for their full inclusion within our common life.

Our psalm demonstrates the power of memory, and the power of identity. Knowing who you are, where you come from, and working together for the common good helped the people of Israel survive against repeated attempts to crush them. They know their history enough to know that they have survived, through the grace of God, in the past.

Looking back to those times of salvation, even in the midst of the current crisis, under their current occupation, the people have confidence that restoration can occur again. Even though they labor for the profit of their foreign overlords as a conquered people, they nonetheless continue in planting crops, even if it is with tears that they sow.

The proof that they have faith is this declaration: “The Lord has done great things.”

The importance of remembering and commemorating events in the past is that this gives those past events new life in the present: to “re- member.” The hoped-for restoration is anticipated like a torrent of rain after a long drought, that fills up the baked walls of arroyos and gullies and the baked channels of canyons with water enough to allow flourishing for months afterward. That’s what is meant by the comparison to the watercourses of the Negev.

Because it is not enough for the people of Israel to survive, if they abandon their true role as God’s priestly people. If they abandon their sacred duty to bear witness to the hand of God within their lives, to serve as a light to all the nations of the wonders of their God. This is also a challenge we as Christians—also called to be a priestly people—must meet. It is a challenge that we are being formed to meet. Do we ourselves know who we are—and more importantly, WHOSE we are?

Flash forward to our gospel. Those who are collaborators with the invaders see this wild-looking man come up out of nowhere, and they demand to know who he is. And notice the difference between John and Jesus. When Jesus gets asked who he is, he often turns the question back at his questioners.

John is more straightforward: right out of the box he tells his questioners who he is NOT: Not the Messiah. Not Elijah. Not “the” prophet. Just the one who we heard about in last week’s reading from Isaiah, the one whose voice comes out of the wilderness by the command of God, even when that voice itself doesn’t fully comprehend what direction God’s path through the wilderness is going.

John is in the wilderness because the wilderness is often where God is most near and obvious to us. Who is John? He is the witness to the light—not the light itself. He himself is not the source of salvation. He is sent by God to prepare the way for the One who is.

Once God helps strengthen the people and provides them with a savior, they don’t get to passively sit back and wait for salvation to be handed to them on a platter. They then have harvesting to do, with this harvesting will come with joy enough to turn their tears to shouts of joy. The harvest will be plentiful, and God’s people must continue in the meanwhile to be faithful, to have hope, and to do what they can to maintain the ties of community.

As we heard last week, the Way of God is the Way of fearlessly testifying to the power of God in our lives. God promises a way through the wilderness, not an exemption from the wilderness. God calls us back from the exile we have put ourselves in, through fear and faithlessness. If we choose the way of God, the path that is shaped not by our own fears and blindness but by the powerful, redeeming Law of Love, we will take a step toward working alongside God in building a new creation, a new hope that will now burst forth, in which all will be level and even and equitable. This is a song of relief, of joy at deliverance, and a renewed covenant between God and the people.

God reminds God’s restored people that salvation is now—not decided after our deaths, but offered to us as a gift and a blessing right NOW.

Eternal life is now. What we do today in this time is the most powerful testimony we can give to the power of God in our lives. It is in times of crisis and darkness that our witness shines as brightly as John’s did. Many around us are losing hope. It is our calling to remember that we are a people of hope, of resurrection, and to lift that message high before us for the sake of all.

Today’s reading from Isaiah roots salvation in the time in which we live. Salvation is the kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven, and requires not just our grasping it for ourselves but our making it visible to. those around us by how we live. Salvation looks like good news, healing, liberty, release, and comfort. It is what the reality of this world looks like by God’s command-- a restored city, better and brighter than it had ever been, restored to the glory it was intended but never achieved. It orients our attention precisely AWAY from our own selfish concerns as individuals AND as members of the Church, from our own self-preservation to a grander purpose: to working for the freedom, liberation, and healing of those who are marginalized in our society. Working for the removal of all barriers that stand between those around us and the life of blessing.

On this third Sunday in Advent, we are drawn to ask ourselves who we are—and whose we are. Can we give ourselves over to our part in pointing the way? Are we willing to strengthen this community of faith so that it may care not just for our own needs but the needs of others? Are we witnesses to the active, powerful love of God in the world, especially to those who have lost sight of the light? Are we beacons of hope who exist for the sake of those who have lost their way? Are we living embodiments to the economy of God, willing to give of ourselves to embody the values of equality and compassion?

Advent reminds us of the urgency of “Now” and what we do with it while we wait for the coming of the light. Together, may we declare that the Lord has done great things—and is doing them still, right here among us. Our witness moves that dream to a reality, for we know whose we are.

Amen.

Preached the 10:30 am live-streamed service at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville, MO, in time of COVID19.

Readings:

Psalm 126

Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11

1 Thessalonians 5:16-24

John 1:6-8,19-28

Prayer, day 2879: Third Sunday in Advent (Gaudete Sunday)

Rest upon us, Spirit of God,

that we may proclaim your Truth
by lifting up the lowly
and caring for the hungry
as our Messiah taught us.

Make us mighty oaks of righteousness,
that we may sink our roots deep
into the soil of lovingkindness and charity
you have prepared for us to walk in with joy.

Let our souls proclaim
the beauty of our God and Savior
who is creating the heavens and the Earth,
that true justice and hope
will draw the world to redemption and peace.

Help us to point not to ourselves,
but to You, O God,
as the Source and Ground of our being
to embody your light of faith into the world.

Unite us to each other
as we hold fast to your promises of mercy, O God,
and make us worthy
to be filled with your compassion, grace, and mercy.

Blessed Jesus, we rest in your embrace;
set the seal of your redemption and love
upon those who call upon You in hope.

Amen.

Prayer day 2878- Advent Wreath Prayer

Come, Lord Jesus,
and illuminate our hearts and minds with wisdom
as we come before you to worship.
Encircle us in your arms of mercy,
for we know that your love has no end.
Kindle a flame within us that never goes out,
and join us together to be a beacon for your gospel.
Preserve us from all folly and hardness of heart,
and make us one people with song and rejoicing.
Rescue us from our wandering in the dark,
and open our eyes to behold your light.
Come, O Savior,
and bring light and hope to your people,
especially those we now name.

Amen.

The Wilderness Way of God: Sermon for Advent 2B

In the Wilderness Prepare the Way, ©Jan Richardson janrichardson.com

This is a story of three prophets and three roads.

The first road is actually a crossroads. And poor tiny Israel --or what's left of it, the southern Kingdom of Judah --lies right at the connection of several major roads that tied Asia, Europe, and Africa together. Israel, already a small country, divided herself by inner bickering and made herself vulnerable two division by conquering armies, armies that often passed through Israel and the pinch point that she occupied on their way to take on their rivals at this juncture of three continents. That's where the book of Isaiah begins: Disaster looming on the horizon, disaster that the prophets believe is recompense for the people’s waywardness and faithlessness. Thirty-nine chapters later, that disaster arrives, and the elites are carried off into captivity.
Then a silence falls. One hundred and sixty years of silence. Years in which, undoubtedly the captive priests and rulers felt God’s silence deeply, and the people of the land left behind struggled mightily under the harsh expectations of their foreign overlords to produce food for their captors. As Psalm 137 describes it, years in which the people carried off into captivity mourned,

By Babylon’s streams,
   there we sat, oh, we wept,
      when we recalled Zion.

On the poplars there
   we hung up our lyres.
For there our captors had asked of us
   words of song,

and our plunderers—rejoicing:
   “Sing us from Zion’s songs.”
How can we sing a song of the LORD
   on foreign soil?(1)

Chapter 40, which begins a prologue to the second part of Isaiah, starts sixteen decades later. A new prophet has taken up Isaiah’s mantle, but reluctantly. We start with a silence, and then a conversation. Because the verses we hear are not spoken by one voice, but by three different voices: God, the heavenly hosts, and the second prophet to call herself-- yes, there is evidence that points to her being female—Isaiah.

God speaks first—as God always does. God speaks to the heavenly court, commanding them to deliver comfort to God’s people, communicating to Jerusalem, who had been completely leveled by her enemies, that she has been released from her shame of faithlessness. The double command (Comfort, O Comfort) adds extra urgency. Yet the focus is not on punishment (a sentence), but forgiveness.

A voice in the heavenly court cries out a word of hope, describing a scene of victory in which the exiled leaders of Jerusalem return from their bondage –but not along the terrible road upon which they were led away, but upon a new road. God’s highway, along which God’s glory will be revealed. Then another voice commands the prophet, who has been listening in disbelief, to cry out herself. The prophet objects, pointing out that humans are too fleeting in their existence to be able to join in this discussion; she has been worn down by the trials of exile alongside her people.

The heavenly host respond, yes, human life is fleeting, but God’s promises are not.

And so, the prophet takes up the words of reassurance, convinced by her encounter with God, and moved from despair to proclamation of that same comfort that at first was only expressed by the heavenly court. The prophet then calls the people to join her in seizing that hope and proclaiming the faithfulness of God. To proclaim faith and hope and strength where previously they have only bemoaned their abandonment. There is always a time for grief. But that time for grief is passed, and now is a time to renew their faith. So this conversation concludes. Point and counterpoint. And eventually the voice from the wilderness becomes one bearing tidings of tender care from the shepherd who cares for us all.

Haven’t we all felt like we have been in a wilderness at various points in our lives? And haven’t we felt lost and forsaken when all the neat, straight paths we’ve made for ourselves have ended up leading us astray?

In the most hostile of environments --wilderness and desert --the word of God comes to offer comfort, respite, and safety, despite Israel’s sinfulness and fault. It is in these most unlikely of places that God's comfort is offered and maintained. God’s comfort is a gift of grace in a time when all hope had been lost, when the fear of abandonment was seemingly permanent. Yet God’s promise remains true, and doesn’t depend upon human measurements of time to come to fulfillment. It is in this light that we read our gospel introduction of John the Baptist, who similarly is called to cry out from the wilderness to proclaim the comfort that is to come, comfort from the presence of God Godself taking on human flesh and living among the people.

Once again, it is God who takes the initiative. At last, the light appears at the end of a long night. The Babylonian Exile stripped the people of everything that mattered to them. Our own exile—from faith, from compassion, from dedication to community and true justice and equality—has also left us longing for meaning, for purpose.

We think we can make our own pathways straight to success, to crushing our opponents. It’s part of the modern myth of independence that ignores how much we depend upon each other, and upon God.

Yet our paths to God don’t have to be straight. It is often the most indirect, wandering stop-and start journeys that end up being the truest, because they don’t fool us into thinking that the life of abundance can actually be acquired. The broken road is often the road that leads us to God, because it strips away all our defenses and resistance to God.

The wilderness is no barrier to God-- God loves the wilderness just the way it is. And God spends a lot of time in the wilderness with us. It is us who want the wilderness leveled, not God.  Since when does God see the wilderness and respond with a construction crew and truck full of asphalt? God’s time is NOT our time, and God’s schedule is not our schedule. God likes to take the long way home, reminding us once again that God’s home is everywhere, wherever God is but not limited to one place.

A friend of mine shared these words earlier this week: “I imagine God taking one look at the straight paths we’ve scarred into the wild earth and either laughing or weeping or both, wondering if what we wanted was a tamer God or just one on speed dial who is always waiting to pick up. But isn’t God perpetually going out into the wilderness, out with the wandering Israelites or searching out a lost sheep, out beyond the cell towers, voicemails, and text messages?”

Instead, God walks in the opposite direction our straightened paths lead, just to see if we want a God who follows us or if we want to follow God.” (2)

The life of abundance that God offers to us starts with opening ourselves to the wonder of God’s creation all around us, and of celebrating our place in a web of relationships that each offer us a chance to ourselves bear the light of God into the world. Have you ever heard anything more absurd than the idea of anyone making a path straight for God to amble down?

It is in the midst of the wilderness that the people are urged to faith. And the kind of faith the people are being urged to embrace is not an easy faith. It is faith that seems to fly in the face of all evidence. The people are being asked to sing joyful songs even from the chains of exile and oppression. Being challenged to take up this confident proclamation of God’s presence even when all evidence points otherwise is a call to faith that doesn’t deny fear but responds to fear by proclaiming the power of unity and community over those forces that attempt to use division and loss as levers of control.

We, too, may feel like there has been a long silence, these last many months as this pandemic has stretched on here in 2020. For us, who expect instantaneous responses, eight months certainly can feel like an eternity. In the face of that pause, two doubts commonly arise to plague our spiritual lives: we either believe that God is powerless to change our suffering, or that God is indifferent to us and possibly even inflicts the silent treatment upon us. None of these take into account, as we are reminded in our epistle, that God’s time is not our own, and that God doesn’t wander from us. When we feel God’s absence, it is when we have wandered from God, allowed ourselves to drift, or believe that God is punishing us when we go through trials.

We may feel that we do not know the way out, the way of God’s highway—and how can we be blamed for that? Even Jesus’s own disciples and apostles cried out the same plaintive plea when they couldn’t follow the path he walked right before them toward wholeness, wellness, and peace.

The wilderness is where God’s word will be proclaimed, by Isaiah and by John the Baptist and Jesus. It’s a place that strips us bare of all our illusions and vanities and pretended pride. It’s a place where are defenses against admitting our wrongdoing are shredded, but not so that we can be punished. So that we can be moved to repentance—to the turning joyfully to a new life that is more pure and truer to God’s commandments. And this awakening to our own waywardness, our own privilege—that has become such a loaded word but it is a word that MUST be spoken if we are ever to move to reconciliation and healing in our world. That acceptance of our own benefit from injustice is there, and it must become visible by looking at life through the perspectives of others when they offer us their truth. has to be seen not as a source of shame but as a starting point for accepting the relief of God’s incomprehensible grace.

But perhaps God is calling us to embrace a long pause, a resetting of our priorities away from our worship of the god of our unending appetite for more, and is calling us to see creation ongoing all around us. We are reminded that the arc of human experience is short, and that for all our technology the processes of nature-- the mutation of a virus, in this case, that has always been around us in one form or another—can call us to an accounting that we cannot just wave away every challenge in an instant.

After the long pause, God promises a way through the wilderness, not an exemption from the wilderness. God calls us back from the exile we have put ourselves in, through fear and faithlessness. The story of the Exodus reminds us that we cannot allow our fears to master us: when that happens, we often end up longing for the familiar chains of slavery rather than taking up the hard work of the journey to equality and true justice, which can only be found when we proclaim community and insist upon it.

The closing image of our reading from this section of second Isaiah is the image of God not just as a mighty warrior, but also as a tender shepherd—a shepherd who endures all things alongside their sheep. This is one of the most common claims about true leadership that runs throughout scripture. A leader is called to unify the flock, not scatter it. The flock itself is called to observe this tender care for the weakest of its members, and likewise stand in solidarity with them. God calls us to order our societies in such a way that the leaders share in the burdens of the flock, knowing their needs intimately because that leader is not aloof to them but intimately familiar with those needs. God will act as a shepherd, and calls each of us to take up our duty and responsibility to each other likewise—to order our lives so. That we too will carry the youngest or the frailest in our arms. God as our shepherd calls the flock to likewise never abandon the least of their members to the wolves that prowl often in the shadows and out of sight of the most privileged among the flock.

Perhaps we can listen and hear God calling us to embrace the way of mercy and steadfast love, the way that lies straight and true before us, if only we will put our feet to the path and our shoulders to the wheel of mercy and compassion. And once we embrace that pause, seize hold of the chance to cleanse ourselves of all that draws us from love and faith, perhaps we, too, could then hear a word of comfort, and embrace a promise of renewal and resuscitation, of God’s Loving coming down and walking among us, teaching us to walk in the Wilderness Way of God.

Amen.

Preached at the online 10:30 am Morning Prayer service at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville, MO. during Coronatide.

Readings:

Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13

Isaiah 40:1-11

2 Peter 3:8-15a

Mark 1:1-8

Sources:

1) Robert Alter, The Hebrew Scriptures, Volume 3: the Writings

2) The Rev. David Henson, quoted by my friend the Rev. Anne Lane Witt

Prayer 2871: A Litany for Wisdom and Unity

God of Abundant Grace,
your love is the foundation for the world,
and we stand in wonder and gratitude before You
joining the song of all creation in praising You.

We are clay in your hand, O Merciful One:
mold us and shape us into worthy vessels
that we may bear your light
into the darkest recesses of our common life,
and may work for the support and healing of all.
When we see a chance to repair the wounds in society,
or prevent the suffering of the vulnerable,
let us reach out eager hands to each other in love.

When we forget that You have called us
to love of friend and enemy,
reorient our hearts, Lord Christ.
When we harden our hearts
against the suffering and exploitation of others,
reorient our hearts, Lord Christ.
When we confuse hearing what we want to hear
with hearing what is right and good,
reorient our hearts, Lord Christ.
When we seek our own profit
while discounting the workers' right to bread and home,
reorient our hearts, Lord Christ.

Spirit of Hope, set us to work with joy
as we enter the fields of the Lord,
and help us seize every opportunity
to admit our wrongs rather than persevere in contempt.
Beloved Savior, bend near,
and press the kiss of your blessing
upon those for whom we pray.

Amen.

Prayer 2870

Guardian of Creation, God of Heaven and Earth,
we praise you beneath the bluest awning of sky,
and give thanks for your manifold mercies.

Help us to rededicate ourselves to your gospel, Lord:
to tend the sick,
to feed the hungry,
to stand with the overlooked,
to give voice to the silenced.
Your commandments enshrine
our call to live and work together
as kindred and companions,
to see You, Lord Jesus, as standing in our midst
and calling us to the values of love and community.

Give us a thirst for wisdom and kindness, O Spirit of Peace,
that we may walk in integrity if the Way of Jesus,
laying down our lives to take up your reconciling work.
Gather those for whom we pray
in the hollow of your hand, O Holy One,
and grant the blessing to rest upon those we name.

Amen.

Prayer, day 2869

Most Merciful God,

You are are home and our refuge:
we gather in peace to worship and praise You.
Before You, O God, we bow our hearts,
and center ourselves in your goodness and grace;
accept our prayers and praises, in your mercy.

For the gift of companions of the heart,
and loving embraces at journey's end,
we give thanks to You, O God.
Strengthen all who seek to serve You, Blessed Savior,
and prosper their labors to the glory of your kingdom, we humbly pray.
Pour out your wisdom upon us, O Holy Spirit,
that we may be united in seeking the common good,
and stand alongside all who suffer want or any other injustice.
Make us loving, compassionate guardians of your creation,
that we may be filled with wonder
at the imprint of your beauty all around us, O Creator.

Hold us within the hollow of your hand, Lord Jesus,
and gather us within your healing embrace.
Hear our prayers, O Holy One,
and shelter all who call upon your Name.

Amen.

Prayer 2868

Most Merciful One,
we lift our eyes to the radiant East,
and give thanks for this day you have gifted us.

Inspired by your example, Lord Christ,
may we look with clear eyes on the wounds of the world,
and seek healing and reconciliation with all our hearts,
remembering your call to wholeness and contentment for all.

May we rejoice with those who receive mercy and freedom
and demand justice for the oppressed,
throwing off the blinders of insularity
and opening our hearts to empathy for the forgotten
and the suffering of the desperate.

Creating God,
you made the earth of stardust,
and made humankind from the blessed earth:
help us to be both grounded and kind,
hands clasped with our kindred creatures,
praising You with one accord.

Enlighten our hearts
with wisdom, forbearance and generosity,
and set our should ablaze with holy love,
O Spirit of the Living God,
and bless and comfort all those
who stand in need of your healing touch
as we pray.

Amen.