This sermon responds to the Gospel for the 1st Sunday after Christmas, John 1: 1-14
“In the beginning was the Word…”
When our patron St. John reached for language to open his Gospel, his vision of the good news of God in Jesus Christ, he or his scribes landed on what in Greek is the concept “logos”, Word.
In our time, we have logos—as in Nike’s flying wing, a simple design that goes far to create recognition while also “saying it all”, speed, thrust, success.
In the vocabulary of that day, “logos” meant more than a word that communicates. “Logos” meant reality, the Word that communicates itself. When the inspired John built his Gospel on the “logos” becoming flesh, he spoke to his time. Who Jesus Christ is, says John, is the very ground of reality, the organizing principle of the cosmos, the One who makes sense of all, the One in whom all things hold together.
How highly we cherish the Word. Lives have been spent shielding sacred scrolls from defiling armies. Lifetimes of hours were invested by monastic scribes minutely lettering sacred texts, in famous examples like the Lindisfarne Gospels or the Book of Kells elaborately illuminating those opening uncials, making each experience of opening those monumental volumes a fresh experience of “In the beginning was the Word…” So precious, these hand-lettered books, that even when printing revolutionized technology, the resulting Bible was still chained to the lectern so it would not be lost to the black market.
Candles burn at the spot where the Word of God is read aloud. “Hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church,” the reader urges at the end, and we respond “Thanks be to God,” for the living Word. First and second lessons are like steps in a ladder lifting us to the Gospel, whose reader steps up to the altar to bring the Gospel Book into the midst of the people. They turn and face the making-flesh that happens in the center aisle, as words handed down over centuries and millennia pass over vocal cords and run across the tympani of hearers’ ears and so spark the mind, thaw the heart, and free the lips to join the transmission of the living Word.
“That which is handed on”, the literal meaning of the Latin word from which we get our word “tradition”. Complete with fingerprints from oily hands, DNA from the spit of debating rabbis and church fathers, smudges of candleblack, marginal scribbles and arguments—the Word handed on is always in subtle reshaping. It is a living Word, indwelt with power to become all that is in the mind of God for it to be. The nature of the Word is not to handcuff us to the confinement of small words and short texts, but rather to train us in right and healthy relationship to God, to neighbor, and to self.
Play out those three and see what the Word of God does: The Word shapes our faith in God by summoning us to God’s mission to redeem the whole of creation. The Word trains us to take our place in the community of covenant love both local and global. The Word frees each of us for ongoing conversion of life as stewards not just of the material, but also of the mystical.
And for Christians, the Word does all this not by piling word upon word into a code of law or a manual of behavior or a book of secrets. The Word does all that it does by having been in the beginning with God, by having been the womb of life and the light of all. The Word does all that it does by yielding that power to create and by becoming created, unimaginably becoming flesh to reveal to us the fullness of God, more, to cause that fullness to dwell within us, grace upon grace.
Whew! Words fail us. The Word does not fail us. In sheer wonder, silence is a fitting response. Better yet are faith, and hope, and love.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Monday, December 22, 2008
To Be Virgin
Scripture appointed for the 4th Sunday in Advent:
II Samuel 7:1-11, 16; Romans 16:25-27; Luke 1:26-38
The mating of scripture lessons in liturgy is assigned in the lectionary (table of readings) in the Book of Common Prayer. At its worst, that means assigned by a committee. At its best, that means assigned by a committee… of men and women who know how to listen with the inner ear, how to employ imagination, people who, like Mary, magnify the Lord.
I am grateful that I do not have to mate our scripture lessons, Sunday by Sunday. That they are assigned puts me in the same boat with you, having to consider points of view not my own. As it is, that takes a significant amount of time and effort each week. If also I had to select the readings, my wife would see less of me than she does. And I suspect I would see less of God.
I say that because the way it is, I don’t get to select scripture that illustrates my pet preoccupations from the-week-that-was. I must listen to voices that, through the liturgy, seek me out, sit me down, and roll over me from two, three thousand years ago; and, in each case, I must do what you must do, “Hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church,” and thank God for it, for that timeless foundational message which is at once so general as to be for us all, and so specific that the Spirit will ride the Word right into the mind, the heart, the gut of one person—as the Spirit entered the womb of Mary—one person who so needs God today, or whom God so needs today, that by that person’s obedience the Word will become flesh, uniquely full of grace and truth.
What to make, then, of today’s mating of the Second Book of Samuel from the Hebrew scripture and the Gospel of Luke? The first of these readings opens with King David comfortably settled in his house after the lengthy battles he has fought, and in gratitude for peace the King proposes to build a house for God. David has a house of cedar—why should God not have a proper sanctuary? The prophet Nathan gets wind of David’s project, and knocks the wind out of it by announcing the Word of God: Am I asking for a house? No! Rather, I will make you a house, O David, a royal house for the sake of my people.
Fast forward many hundreds of years to an unsettling experience for a young woman named Mary. No house as yet for Mary and her fiancé, Joseph, though they want one of their own. Joseph is “of the house of David”, not the kind of house that puts a roof over your head, but evidence that what God promised a thousand years earlier has a very long shelf-life indeed: when God establishes a house, it is established.
Christmas Eve, we’ll get Luke’s full story of just how unsettled life is for this young couple. For now, we glimpse only the beginning: a perplexing visit by a messenger. And it isn’t the UPS man.
Listen to how the poet Rupert Brooke presents the scene:
“Young Mary, loitering once her garden way,
Felt a warm splendour grow in the April day,
As wine that blushes water through. And soon,
Out of the gold air of the afternoon,
One knelt before her: hair he had, or fire,
Bound back above his ears with golden wire,
Baring the eager marble of his face.
Not man’s or woman’s was the immortal grace
Rounding the limbs beneath that robe of white,
And lighting the proud eyes with changeless light,
Incurious. Calm as his wings, and fair,
That presence filled the garden.
She stood there,
Saying, ‘What would you, Sir?’
He told his word,
‘Blessed art thou of women!' Half she heard,
Hands folded and face bowed, half long had known,
The message of that clear and holy tone.”
I’ll stop there. This is just one of countless poems and paintings (and, of course, stained glass windows) considering, imagining, the Annunciation.
The angel’s message? The story’s point? God is making another house, more lasting and yet roomier than the house of David. God’s Word is housed uniquely in the womb of a very young unwed mother who has nothing to call her own except her honest sense of self, her fearless love, and her brave trust in God. This is what God needs to establish a house for the sake of his people. Honest sense of self, fearless love, and brave trust in God.
That she is a virgin seems to unsettle many people, especially those who expect this story to be told in a reasonable way. Madeleine L’Engle addresses that wish in her little poem, “After Annunciation”:
“This is the irrational season
When love blooms bright and wild.
Had Mary been filled with reason
There’d have been no room for the child.”
Suggesting that if we want the good new of God in Jesus Christ to bless and redeem our whole condition, irrationality and all, we’ll do well to consider what “virgin” means, not toss it out.
Thomas Merton, in his book “Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander,” described the true identity he sought in contemplative prayer as a "point vierge", a virgin point, at the center of his being—in his own words, “a point untouched by illusion, a point of pure truth… which belongs entirely to God, which is inaccessible to the fanatasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point… of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us.”
Let’s welcome one more author, Presbyterian Loretta Ross-Gotta, who says that Gabriel summons Mary from a safe place of conventional wisdom into virgin territory where few of the old rules make much sense, to being on her own, at a place where no one else could judge the validity of her experience. Doesn’t that make the Annunciation sound like the call each of us hears, to dare stand on one’s own and make the journey that faces fear and discovers truth?
“To be virgin,” says Ross-Gotta, “means to be one, whole in oneself, not perforated by the concerns of the conventional norms and authority, or the power and principalities. To be virgin, then, is in a sense to be recollected… The wise men had their gold, frankincense, and myrrh… Mary offered only space, love, belief. What is it that delivers Christ into the world—preaching, art, writing, scholarship, social justice? Those are all gifts well worth sharing. But preachers lose their charisma, scholarship grows pedantic, social justice alone cannot save us. In the end, when all other human gifts have met their inevitable limitation, it is the recollected one, the bold virgin with a heart in love with God, who makes a sanctuary of her life, who delivers Christ who then delivers us… The intensity and strain that many of us bring to Christmas must suggest to some onlookers that, on the whole, Christians do not seem to have gotten the point of it… What if, instead of doing something, we were to be something special? Be a womb. Be a dwelling for God. Be surprised.”
Rupert Brooke’s poem “Mary and Gabriel” can be found in Volume II of “Chapters Into Verse”, edited by Robert Atwan and Laurance Wieder (Oxford University Press, 1993). Madeleine L’Engle’s poem appears in her book “The Irrational Season”. Kathleen Norris’s and Loretta Ross-Gotta’s comments can be found in “Watch for the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas” (Orbis Books, 2001).
II Samuel 7:1-11, 16; Romans 16:25-27; Luke 1:26-38
The mating of scripture lessons in liturgy is assigned in the lectionary (table of readings) in the Book of Common Prayer. At its worst, that means assigned by a committee. At its best, that means assigned by a committee… of men and women who know how to listen with the inner ear, how to employ imagination, people who, like Mary, magnify the Lord.
I am grateful that I do not have to mate our scripture lessons, Sunday by Sunday. That they are assigned puts me in the same boat with you, having to consider points of view not my own. As it is, that takes a significant amount of time and effort each week. If also I had to select the readings, my wife would see less of me than she does. And I suspect I would see less of God.
I say that because the way it is, I don’t get to select scripture that illustrates my pet preoccupations from the-week-that-was. I must listen to voices that, through the liturgy, seek me out, sit me down, and roll over me from two, three thousand years ago; and, in each case, I must do what you must do, “Hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church,” and thank God for it, for that timeless foundational message which is at once so general as to be for us all, and so specific that the Spirit will ride the Word right into the mind, the heart, the gut of one person—as the Spirit entered the womb of Mary—one person who so needs God today, or whom God so needs today, that by that person’s obedience the Word will become flesh, uniquely full of grace and truth.
What to make, then, of today’s mating of the Second Book of Samuel from the Hebrew scripture and the Gospel of Luke? The first of these readings opens with King David comfortably settled in his house after the lengthy battles he has fought, and in gratitude for peace the King proposes to build a house for God. David has a house of cedar—why should God not have a proper sanctuary? The prophet Nathan gets wind of David’s project, and knocks the wind out of it by announcing the Word of God: Am I asking for a house? No! Rather, I will make you a house, O David, a royal house for the sake of my people.
Fast forward many hundreds of years to an unsettling experience for a young woman named Mary. No house as yet for Mary and her fiancé, Joseph, though they want one of their own. Joseph is “of the house of David”, not the kind of house that puts a roof over your head, but evidence that what God promised a thousand years earlier has a very long shelf-life indeed: when God establishes a house, it is established.
Christmas Eve, we’ll get Luke’s full story of just how unsettled life is for this young couple. For now, we glimpse only the beginning: a perplexing visit by a messenger. And it isn’t the UPS man.
Listen to how the poet Rupert Brooke presents the scene:
“Young Mary, loitering once her garden way,
Felt a warm splendour grow in the April day,
As wine that blushes water through. And soon,
Out of the gold air of the afternoon,
One knelt before her: hair he had, or fire,
Bound back above his ears with golden wire,
Baring the eager marble of his face.
Not man’s or woman’s was the immortal grace
Rounding the limbs beneath that robe of white,
And lighting the proud eyes with changeless light,
Incurious. Calm as his wings, and fair,
That presence filled the garden.
She stood there,
Saying, ‘What would you, Sir?’
He told his word,
‘Blessed art thou of women!' Half she heard,
Hands folded and face bowed, half long had known,
The message of that clear and holy tone.”
I’ll stop there. This is just one of countless poems and paintings (and, of course, stained glass windows) considering, imagining, the Annunciation.
The angel’s message? The story’s point? God is making another house, more lasting and yet roomier than the house of David. God’s Word is housed uniquely in the womb of a very young unwed mother who has nothing to call her own except her honest sense of self, her fearless love, and her brave trust in God. This is what God needs to establish a house for the sake of his people. Honest sense of self, fearless love, and brave trust in God.
That she is a virgin seems to unsettle many people, especially those who expect this story to be told in a reasonable way. Madeleine L’Engle addresses that wish in her little poem, “After Annunciation”:
“This is the irrational season
When love blooms bright and wild.
Had Mary been filled with reason
There’d have been no room for the child.”
Suggesting that if we want the good new of God in Jesus Christ to bless and redeem our whole condition, irrationality and all, we’ll do well to consider what “virgin” means, not toss it out.
Thomas Merton, in his book “Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander,” described the true identity he sought in contemplative prayer as a "point vierge", a virgin point, at the center of his being—in his own words, “a point untouched by illusion, a point of pure truth… which belongs entirely to God, which is inaccessible to the fanatasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point… of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us.”
Let’s welcome one more author, Presbyterian Loretta Ross-Gotta, who says that Gabriel summons Mary from a safe place of conventional wisdom into virgin territory where few of the old rules make much sense, to being on her own, at a place where no one else could judge the validity of her experience. Doesn’t that make the Annunciation sound like the call each of us hears, to dare stand on one’s own and make the journey that faces fear and discovers truth?
“To be virgin,” says Ross-Gotta, “means to be one, whole in oneself, not perforated by the concerns of the conventional norms and authority, or the power and principalities. To be virgin, then, is in a sense to be recollected… The wise men had their gold, frankincense, and myrrh… Mary offered only space, love, belief. What is it that delivers Christ into the world—preaching, art, writing, scholarship, social justice? Those are all gifts well worth sharing. But preachers lose their charisma, scholarship grows pedantic, social justice alone cannot save us. In the end, when all other human gifts have met their inevitable limitation, it is the recollected one, the bold virgin with a heart in love with God, who makes a sanctuary of her life, who delivers Christ who then delivers us… The intensity and strain that many of us bring to Christmas must suggest to some onlookers that, on the whole, Christians do not seem to have gotten the point of it… What if, instead of doing something, we were to be something special? Be a womb. Be a dwelling for God. Be surprised.”
Rupert Brooke’s poem “Mary and Gabriel” can be found in Volume II of “Chapters Into Verse”, edited by Robert Atwan and Laurance Wieder (Oxford University Press, 1993). Madeleine L’Engle’s poem appears in her book “The Irrational Season”. Kathleen Norris’s and Loretta Ross-Gotta’s comments can be found in “Watch for the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas” (Orbis Books, 2001).
Monday, December 15, 2008
Lighten Up
Scripture mentioned today:
Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11
I Thessalonians 5:16-24
John 1:6-8, 19-28
You will have noticed that we are giving Advent its penitential voice. The poem which gives us our first words in liturgy sets the stage for the same opening penitential rite that we use in Lent. Yes, that’s new this year, a simple recognition that the purple of Advent is the same purple of Lent—while opening with confession is for us a new way to make that point, that point is an ancient one: Advent is a little Lent, a time of honest appraisal of how we need the redemption that we will celebrate soon.
And as Lent has its fourth Sunday, called “Refreshment Sunday”, a kind of “lighten up” day during a season of alleged self-discipline (think of Mountain Day here at Williams College), so Advent has its third Sunday, called Gaudete Sunday in the medieval church, from the first word in the Latin introit, “Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say, rejoice…” That means it’s no accident that our second reading, from another Pauline letter, pushes the same message, “Rejoice always…” It’s on this third Sunday that the pink candle is lit in the wreath, conveying the “lighten up” theme.
It’s worth asking how well that cuts the mustard of our actual Advent. Are you having a penitential season? Do you need lightening-up?
Yes, given the economy, chances are that at least you’re having a more restrained, more reflective, Advent than usual. But is that penitence? What is penitence?
When in doubt, consult the Catechism. Prayer Book, page 857: “What is penitence? In penitence, we confess our sins and make restitution where possible, with the intention to amend our lives.”
I’m not sure how many of the 12 steps of recovery that definition covers, but this question prompted me to get off my duff and go to the parish library to where AA keeps its stack of hardworn “Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions”. Those books are just as loved and dog-eared and loose in the spine as any Prayer Book in your pew. What I read there makes me think that what the church means by penitence embraces most, if not all, of the twelve steps that help restore the health and freedom of addicts.
In penitence, we admit that we are addicted to being in control (or being out of control), addicted to blaming others (or blaming ourselves), addicted to the practice of too much responsibility or too little.
In penitence, we acknowledge our need for God, for God to make right what we cannot make right, for God to show us what we can make right and by grace make us able to do it.
In penitence, we come out of our shells—out of our subway anonymity, our noses buried in our own preoccupations—to have confirmed for us our need of true community, membership in a body of vital organs each needing the others, each open to the mind of Christ.
All this penitential theme sounds counter-cultural to the Advent agenda set by the world, the flesh, and the devil. But it is the Advent agenda of the Christian Church that hears the Good News of God in Jesus Christ and, trained by the Spirit, wants not just to hear the Word, but do it.
Whether or not you’re having a consciously penitential Advent, you may need lightening up. A little yeast to leaven the lump of your grieving. The flame of the Christ-light to pierce your darkness, if you’re depressed. The courage to let go the old compulsions that drive you into the ground and notice newer simpler ways to exchange a friendly Christmas for a frantic one. Permission to sit still and in the silence know God.
Our readings evoke this Advent lightening. Isaiah sings a hymn of joy at his anointing by God to a life of creative responsibility, the very passage Jesus was handed to read that day he visited the synagogue at Capernaum and announced his public ministry.
And what is promised to us, in this Advent of global recession? “A garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.” Promised in this ancient text that Jesus made his and ours is that there shall never fail in God’s creation the emergence of such power as causes the earth to bring forth its shoots, power of redemption and resurrection that “will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations.”
What is promised to us, in this Advent of facing our responsibilities? St. Paul says it clearly: God does not expect anything of us without making it possible for us. “The one who calls you is faithful, and will do this,” he insists.
And what more is promised to us, this Advent when no one knows the first thing about how to set right a world gone wrong? John’s Gospel gives us a case study in not-knowing today, in John the Baptist: his contemporaries couldn’t figure out who he was. Next Sunday, Luke’s Gospel will give us another case study in not-knowing, when young Mary is puzzled by what is told her by the angel Gabriel and asks, “How can this be?”
We are promised, in Advent, that our confusions are not futile. They are part of a giving-birth, prelude to transition, revealing of what for a time is hidden. Albert Schweitzer catches this promise in what he says about the mystical way of Christ:
"He comes to us as One unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lake-side; He came to those men who knew Him not. He speaks to us the same word: ‘Follow thou me!’ and sets us to the tasks which He has to fulfill for our time. He commands. And to those who obey Him, whether they be wise or simple, He will reveal Himself in the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings which they shall pass through in His fellowship, and, as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience Who He is."
Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11
I Thessalonians 5:16-24
John 1:6-8, 19-28
You will have noticed that we are giving Advent its penitential voice. The poem which gives us our first words in liturgy sets the stage for the same opening penitential rite that we use in Lent. Yes, that’s new this year, a simple recognition that the purple of Advent is the same purple of Lent—while opening with confession is for us a new way to make that point, that point is an ancient one: Advent is a little Lent, a time of honest appraisal of how we need the redemption that we will celebrate soon.
And as Lent has its fourth Sunday, called “Refreshment Sunday”, a kind of “lighten up” day during a season of alleged self-discipline (think of Mountain Day here at Williams College), so Advent has its third Sunday, called Gaudete Sunday in the medieval church, from the first word in the Latin introit, “Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say, rejoice…” That means it’s no accident that our second reading, from another Pauline letter, pushes the same message, “Rejoice always…” It’s on this third Sunday that the pink candle is lit in the wreath, conveying the “lighten up” theme.
It’s worth asking how well that cuts the mustard of our actual Advent. Are you having a penitential season? Do you need lightening-up?
Yes, given the economy, chances are that at least you’re having a more restrained, more reflective, Advent than usual. But is that penitence? What is penitence?
When in doubt, consult the Catechism. Prayer Book, page 857: “What is penitence? In penitence, we confess our sins and make restitution where possible, with the intention to amend our lives.”
I’m not sure how many of the 12 steps of recovery that definition covers, but this question prompted me to get off my duff and go to the parish library to where AA keeps its stack of hardworn “Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions”. Those books are just as loved and dog-eared and loose in the spine as any Prayer Book in your pew. What I read there makes me think that what the church means by penitence embraces most, if not all, of the twelve steps that help restore the health and freedom of addicts.
In penitence, we admit that we are addicted to being in control (or being out of control), addicted to blaming others (or blaming ourselves), addicted to the practice of too much responsibility or too little.
In penitence, we acknowledge our need for God, for God to make right what we cannot make right, for God to show us what we can make right and by grace make us able to do it.
In penitence, we come out of our shells—out of our subway anonymity, our noses buried in our own preoccupations—to have confirmed for us our need of true community, membership in a body of vital organs each needing the others, each open to the mind of Christ.
All this penitential theme sounds counter-cultural to the Advent agenda set by the world, the flesh, and the devil. But it is the Advent agenda of the Christian Church that hears the Good News of God in Jesus Christ and, trained by the Spirit, wants not just to hear the Word, but do it.
Whether or not you’re having a consciously penitential Advent, you may need lightening up. A little yeast to leaven the lump of your grieving. The flame of the Christ-light to pierce your darkness, if you’re depressed. The courage to let go the old compulsions that drive you into the ground and notice newer simpler ways to exchange a friendly Christmas for a frantic one. Permission to sit still and in the silence know God.
Our readings evoke this Advent lightening. Isaiah sings a hymn of joy at his anointing by God to a life of creative responsibility, the very passage Jesus was handed to read that day he visited the synagogue at Capernaum and announced his public ministry.
And what is promised to us, in this Advent of global recession? “A garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.” Promised in this ancient text that Jesus made his and ours is that there shall never fail in God’s creation the emergence of such power as causes the earth to bring forth its shoots, power of redemption and resurrection that “will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations.”
What is promised to us, in this Advent of facing our responsibilities? St. Paul says it clearly: God does not expect anything of us without making it possible for us. “The one who calls you is faithful, and will do this,” he insists.
And what more is promised to us, this Advent when no one knows the first thing about how to set right a world gone wrong? John’s Gospel gives us a case study in not-knowing today, in John the Baptist: his contemporaries couldn’t figure out who he was. Next Sunday, Luke’s Gospel will give us another case study in not-knowing, when young Mary is puzzled by what is told her by the angel Gabriel and asks, “How can this be?”
We are promised, in Advent, that our confusions are not futile. They are part of a giving-birth, prelude to transition, revealing of what for a time is hidden. Albert Schweitzer catches this promise in what he says about the mystical way of Christ:
"He comes to us as One unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lake-side; He came to those men who knew Him not. He speaks to us the same word: ‘Follow thou me!’ and sets us to the tasks which He has to fulfill for our time. He commands. And to those who obey Him, whether they be wise or simple, He will reveal Himself in the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings which they shall pass through in His fellowship, and, as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience Who He is."
Monday, December 8, 2008
Peace on Earth
Scripture cited here includes Isaiah 40:1-11, and II Peter 3:8-15a.
This is our annual Peace Sunday, the Sunday nearest the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize. This year’s recipient is Finnish diplomat and former President Martti Ahtisaari, a man who has stood time and again at the epicenter of the world’s most violent conflicts—Namibia, Indonesia, Northern Ireland, Kosovo—keeping his own balance and teaching those around him to find theirs. In his 72nd year, he is being celebrated as a remarkable mediator. The Nobel Committee hopes that he will inspire yet more outstanding mediators, for we are a world in need of them. You’ll find a photograph of Mr. Ahtisaari in the display cabinet at the back of the church today.
The goal of peace seems to transcend our ordinary sphere of influence. But that is not so, and the best reason we have for annually recognizing the Nobel peace laureate is suggested by the apostle Peter in his letter. I’ll paraphrase him: “Since heaven and earth seem to be shaking in their foundations, we must consider what sort of persons we ought to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness. While we’re waiting for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home, let’s find ways to be found at peace when our Lord Jesus returns.”
Let’s make it our purpose today to so listen to the words, the music, the liturgy that surround us here, that we discover even one way to do the work of peace-making in our world.
Rabbi Harold Kushner, famous for his book Why Bad Things Happen to Good People, writes about peace. Perhaps you will hear something useful in these words.
“A prominent Jewish prayer concludes, ‘May He who made peace in the heavens grant peace to us on earth.’ What does it mean to create peace in the heavens? Ancient man looked up into the sky and he saw the sun and the rainclouds. And he would say to himself, ‘How can fire and water, sun and rain co-exist in the same sky? Either the water would put out the fire, or the fire would dry up the water.’ How do they get along? It must be a miracle. The sun says, ‘If I dry up the rainclouds, as I probably could, the world will not survive without rain.’ The clouds say, ‘If we extinguish the sun, the world will perish in darkness.’ So the fire and the water make peace, realizing that if either one of them achieved a total victory, the world could not endure.
“When we pray for God to grant us the sort of peace He ordained in the heavens, this is the miracle we ask for. How can men and women live together happily? They are opposites; their needs are different, their rhythms are different. It takes a miracle for them to bridge those differences and unite the masculine side of God’s image with the feminine side.
“How can Arabs and Israelis learn to live together? Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants? Black South Africans and white South Africans? It takes a miracle for them to realize that if they won, if they had it all and the other side had nothing, the world could not survive their victory. Only by making room for everyone in the world, even for our enemies, can the world survive.
“May God who showed us the miracle of Shalom, of making room for each other and giving up the illusion of victory in the heavens, grant a similar miracle to all of us who inhabit the earth.”
There are two very reachable disciplines: making room for people, especially whoever appears to be our opposite, and giving up the illusion of victory, the kind our opposites cannot survive.
Each day I live will give me one opportunity after another to practice these disciplines—
--in how I handle interruptions as I do my work
--in how I write an email to any one of you, taking time to listen to myself before hitting Send
--in how I pay attention to my attitude, especially under pressure, in haste, and when dealing with opposition-- whether I’m combating life at that moment or respecting and treasuring life (the choice really is mine)
--and in how I treat the person opposite me when the peace between us is at risk—do I remember that all people are grass, that the grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand for ever? And is standing right there between us, asking to be spoken…
“May God who showed us the miracle of Shalom, of making room for each other and giving up the illusion of victory in the heavens, grant a similar miracle to all of us who inhabit the earth.”
--Rabbi Kushner’s meditation is printed in “Prayers for Healing: 365 Blessings, Poems, and Meditations from Around the World,” edite
This is our annual Peace Sunday, the Sunday nearest the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize. This year’s recipient is Finnish diplomat and former President Martti Ahtisaari, a man who has stood time and again at the epicenter of the world’s most violent conflicts—Namibia, Indonesia, Northern Ireland, Kosovo—keeping his own balance and teaching those around him to find theirs. In his 72nd year, he is being celebrated as a remarkable mediator. The Nobel Committee hopes that he will inspire yet more outstanding mediators, for we are a world in need of them. You’ll find a photograph of Mr. Ahtisaari in the display cabinet at the back of the church today.
The goal of peace seems to transcend our ordinary sphere of influence. But that is not so, and the best reason we have for annually recognizing the Nobel peace laureate is suggested by the apostle Peter in his letter. I’ll paraphrase him: “Since heaven and earth seem to be shaking in their foundations, we must consider what sort of persons we ought to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness. While we’re waiting for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home, let’s find ways to be found at peace when our Lord Jesus returns.”
Let’s make it our purpose today to so listen to the words, the music, the liturgy that surround us here, that we discover even one way to do the work of peace-making in our world.
Rabbi Harold Kushner, famous for his book Why Bad Things Happen to Good People, writes about peace. Perhaps you will hear something useful in these words.
“A prominent Jewish prayer concludes, ‘May He who made peace in the heavens grant peace to us on earth.’ What does it mean to create peace in the heavens? Ancient man looked up into the sky and he saw the sun and the rainclouds. And he would say to himself, ‘How can fire and water, sun and rain co-exist in the same sky? Either the water would put out the fire, or the fire would dry up the water.’ How do they get along? It must be a miracle. The sun says, ‘If I dry up the rainclouds, as I probably could, the world will not survive without rain.’ The clouds say, ‘If we extinguish the sun, the world will perish in darkness.’ So the fire and the water make peace, realizing that if either one of them achieved a total victory, the world could not endure.
“When we pray for God to grant us the sort of peace He ordained in the heavens, this is the miracle we ask for. How can men and women live together happily? They are opposites; their needs are different, their rhythms are different. It takes a miracle for them to bridge those differences and unite the masculine side of God’s image with the feminine side.
“How can Arabs and Israelis learn to live together? Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants? Black South Africans and white South Africans? It takes a miracle for them to realize that if they won, if they had it all and the other side had nothing, the world could not survive their victory. Only by making room for everyone in the world, even for our enemies, can the world survive.
“May God who showed us the miracle of Shalom, of making room for each other and giving up the illusion of victory in the heavens, grant a similar miracle to all of us who inhabit the earth.”
There are two very reachable disciplines: making room for people, especially whoever appears to be our opposite, and giving up the illusion of victory, the kind our opposites cannot survive.
Each day I live will give me one opportunity after another to practice these disciplines—
--in how I handle interruptions as I do my work
--in how I write an email to any one of you, taking time to listen to myself before hitting Send
--in how I pay attention to my attitude, especially under pressure, in haste, and when dealing with opposition-- whether I’m combating life at that moment or respecting and treasuring life (the choice really is mine)
--and in how I treat the person opposite me when the peace between us is at risk—do I remember that all people are grass, that the grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand for ever? And is standing right there between us, asking to be spoken…
“May God who showed us the miracle of Shalom, of making room for each other and giving up the illusion of victory in the heavens, grant a similar miracle to all of us who inhabit the earth.”
--Rabbi Kushner’s meditation is printed in “Prayers for Healing: 365 Blessings, Poems, and Meditations from Around the World,” edite
Friday, December 5, 2008
What We Need to Know About Advent
(The Gospel for the 1st Sunday in Advent is Mark 13:24-37.)
All the broken hearts
shall rejoice;
All those
who are heavy laden,
whose eyes are tired
and do not see,
shall be lifted up
to meet with the healer.
The battered souls and bodies
shall be healed;
the hungry
shall be fed;
the imprisoned
shall be free;
all earthly children
shall regain joy
in the reign
of the just and loving one
coming for you,
coming for me
in this time
in this world.
South Korean theologian Sun Ai Lee Park is the poet, and she says three things that we need to hear as we step into the season of Advent.
First, the just and loving one is coming, in this time and in this world. The gist of last Sunday’s Gospel was the good news that Jesus Christ is nearer to us than we know. He is in the homeless man here in the North County I first heard about Wednesday, who is looking for a car—not to drive, but to sleep in. He is in each of the children and parents who will receive gifts from the Giving Tree our middle schoolers invite you to support. He is in the young mom in North Adams who has had doors of hope thrown open to her by fulltime enrollment at MCLA, whom our Outreach to Kids Fund was able to help last week as she couldn’t figure out how to provide winter clothes and school needs for her children after her partner walked out on her.
He is in each of these people because, in the Good News of Matthew, he says he is.
Closer than we know. And each of us is called to know, to recognize, him when he comes in this time and in this world. There’s the second thing we need to know at Advent: he is coming to you and to me.
Enlightenment is an inward state of readiness for outreach. That is good news for all people, because in the mutual flow between donors and recipients, it gets mighty hard to distinguish one from the other. People who “have not” will find it good news when they are blessed by the sharing of people who have; but at the same moment they are themselves a gift to bring to awareness and gratitude and perspective the people who have. Good news flows both ways.
By the Good News of Mark that we hear today, the master of the house will come whenever he’s ready, and we’re to be awake. Coming for you, coming for me, says our poet. We are doorkeepers, left in charge of the just and loving one’s resources while he’s away on his missionary journey. On that journey, he keeps coming to more and more people, communities, homes, churches, schools, workplaces making them his and putting in charge as doorkeepers people who have his resources, charging them with the task of opening to him every time he appears in the hungry, the homeless, the runaway. And at every such doorway, every time having meets not having, how does the poet put it? “ The battered souls and bodies
shall be healed;
the hungry
shall be fed;
the imprisoned
shall be free;
all earthly children
shall regain joy
in the reign
of the just and loving one.”
The first news of Advent is that he is coming. The second news of Advent is that he is coming to you and to me, making us his doorkeepers. The third message of the season is about his nature: he is the healer. That nature of his must be front and center in all we make of these 25 short Advent days that prepare us for Christmas, and then Christmas must be about his healing us, his healing all.
Put that into the apocalyptic vision we hear in Mark’s Gospel today, and hear good news for winter 2008: Read the times, don’t hide from the headlines even when they report that heaven and earth appear to be passing away. But even in days of suffering when the sun is darkened and the stars are falling from heaven, riding all this chaos as if he were walking on the clouds above is the just and loving one. Understand that he’s on his missionary journey, and his mission is to turn towards healing all this flow of having and not having. So read the papers—and read your Bible. Watch the news—and look for him to be close at hand. Consult your financial advisor—and cast your care upon God, who, says our Gospel today, is the only one who knows the full truth of what’s happening and what needs to happen. Seek God’s truth and be open to God’s healing.
The Advent news is, first, that he is coming. Second, he comes to you and me and makes us doorkeepers in charge of his resources. And third, his nature is that of healer, and his healing is not limited by what we have or have not. He is able to use the mutual flow of giving and receiving because people who have and people who have not are equally precious, equally useful, equally in need of healing.
That is mighty good news for all people. Enlightenment is an inward state of readiness for outreach. I love it about St. John’s that we are enlightened enough to turn our liturgies to the purposes of the healer. We do not receive communion without also giving opportunity for all who seek healing to take part in prayer, the laying on of hands, and anointing for healing. And that in turn gives to all who are within arm’s reach moments of grace to enter that mutual flow.
Today as we step into Advent, the coming of the healer, we gratefully recognize the roles played by parishioners who make up our healing team, and by clergy who assist in the sacramental act of unction, anointing for healing.
One of those priests is Charles O’Brien, and this first Sunday in Advent is his 50th anniversary of being made a priest. A Roman Catholic priest, for Charles was a Jesuit when he was ordained in the Chapel of Holy Cross College in Rome, Italy, on November 30, 1958. That he was received as a priest in the Episcopal Church 21 years later tells the story of a journey. Perhaps he will tell us that story, one day.
In this season, I love it about St. John’s that we turn our liturgy, our community gathering, to outreach by the Giving Tree early on, and later on by our Christmas Offering, and during Advent by several homegrown ways to purchase gifts through compassionate commerce. Let me say more about each.
First, the Giving Tree. Our middle schoolers are taking over this annual projoect, and this year we’ll be providing gifts for two young families from Healthy Families, two single-parent families from Louison House, and a 23-year-old man. I’m sure we’ll get our marching orders later this morning.
Second, our Christmas Offering. The Outreach to Kids Fund (nicknamed the OK Fund) gives St. John’s the ability to provide relief when any of our local agencies (Northern Berkshire Community Coalition, Healthy Families, Department of Social Services, MA Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, to name a few) calls us with a family in crisis, a situation where a gift of $200-300 will prevent eviction, keep the gas or electricity connected, prevent the breaking up of a family, provide clothing or equipment for a newborn. Two or three times a month we’re asked to do this, and the OK Fund lets it happen.
Third, alternative gifts. Our homegrown compassionate commerce does two things at once: pleases the recipient, and transforms the gift into outreach. Every Sunday is Fair Trade Coffee day at our coffee hour, when you may buy a bag, beans or ground. Every Advent Sunday, we’ll also be marketing at coffee hour lentil soup mix to support schools and schoolchildren in Sudan, through out interchurch Sudan Relief Task Force. And a matchless Christmas ornament auctioni is set for Monday evening, December 16, in our upper room when special ornaments donated by parishioners and friends become even more special as they’re auctioned to raise money to buy who knows what kind and how many animals for poor farmers through Heifer Project International. That’s an event for all ages.
By our liturgies and gatherings, by our solitary daily keeping, and by our family kitchen-table observances this Advent and Christmas, we grow in enlightenment as an inward state of readiness for outreach.
All the broken hearts
shall rejoice;
All those
who are heavy laden,
whose eyes are tired
and do not see,
shall be lifted up
to meet with the healer.
The battered souls and bodies
shall be healed;
the hungry
shall be fed;
the imprisoned
shall be free;
all earthly children
shall regain joy
in the reign
of the just and loving one
coming for you,
coming for me
in this time
in this world.
All the broken hearts
shall rejoice;
All those
who are heavy laden,
whose eyes are tired
and do not see,
shall be lifted up
to meet with the healer.
The battered souls and bodies
shall be healed;
the hungry
shall be fed;
the imprisoned
shall be free;
all earthly children
shall regain joy
in the reign
of the just and loving one
coming for you,
coming for me
in this time
in this world.
South Korean theologian Sun Ai Lee Park is the poet, and she says three things that we need to hear as we step into the season of Advent.
First, the just and loving one is coming, in this time and in this world. The gist of last Sunday’s Gospel was the good news that Jesus Christ is nearer to us than we know. He is in the homeless man here in the North County I first heard about Wednesday, who is looking for a car—not to drive, but to sleep in. He is in each of the children and parents who will receive gifts from the Giving Tree our middle schoolers invite you to support. He is in the young mom in North Adams who has had doors of hope thrown open to her by fulltime enrollment at MCLA, whom our Outreach to Kids Fund was able to help last week as she couldn’t figure out how to provide winter clothes and school needs for her children after her partner walked out on her.
He is in each of these people because, in the Good News of Matthew, he says he is.
Closer than we know. And each of us is called to know, to recognize, him when he comes in this time and in this world. There’s the second thing we need to know at Advent: he is coming to you and to me.
Enlightenment is an inward state of readiness for outreach. That is good news for all people, because in the mutual flow between donors and recipients, it gets mighty hard to distinguish one from the other. People who “have not” will find it good news when they are blessed by the sharing of people who have; but at the same moment they are themselves a gift to bring to awareness and gratitude and perspective the people who have. Good news flows both ways.
By the Good News of Mark that we hear today, the master of the house will come whenever he’s ready, and we’re to be awake. Coming for you, coming for me, says our poet. We are doorkeepers, left in charge of the just and loving one’s resources while he’s away on his missionary journey. On that journey, he keeps coming to more and more people, communities, homes, churches, schools, workplaces making them his and putting in charge as doorkeepers people who have his resources, charging them with the task of opening to him every time he appears in the hungry, the homeless, the runaway. And at every such doorway, every time having meets not having, how does the poet put it? “ The battered souls and bodies
shall be healed;
the hungry
shall be fed;
the imprisoned
shall be free;
all earthly children
shall regain joy
in the reign
of the just and loving one.”
The first news of Advent is that he is coming. The second news of Advent is that he is coming to you and to me, making us his doorkeepers. The third message of the season is about his nature: he is the healer. That nature of his must be front and center in all we make of these 25 short Advent days that prepare us for Christmas, and then Christmas must be about his healing us, his healing all.
Put that into the apocalyptic vision we hear in Mark’s Gospel today, and hear good news for winter 2008: Read the times, don’t hide from the headlines even when they report that heaven and earth appear to be passing away. But even in days of suffering when the sun is darkened and the stars are falling from heaven, riding all this chaos as if he were walking on the clouds above is the just and loving one. Understand that he’s on his missionary journey, and his mission is to turn towards healing all this flow of having and not having. So read the papers—and read your Bible. Watch the news—and look for him to be close at hand. Consult your financial advisor—and cast your care upon God, who, says our Gospel today, is the only one who knows the full truth of what’s happening and what needs to happen. Seek God’s truth and be open to God’s healing.
The Advent news is, first, that he is coming. Second, he comes to you and me and makes us doorkeepers in charge of his resources. And third, his nature is that of healer, and his healing is not limited by what we have or have not. He is able to use the mutual flow of giving and receiving because people who have and people who have not are equally precious, equally useful, equally in need of healing.
That is mighty good news for all people. Enlightenment is an inward state of readiness for outreach. I love it about St. John’s that we are enlightened enough to turn our liturgies to the purposes of the healer. We do not receive communion without also giving opportunity for all who seek healing to take part in prayer, the laying on of hands, and anointing for healing. And that in turn gives to all who are within arm’s reach moments of grace to enter that mutual flow.
Today as we step into Advent, the coming of the healer, we gratefully recognize the roles played by parishioners who make up our healing team, and by clergy who assist in the sacramental act of unction, anointing for healing.
One of those priests is Charles O’Brien, and this first Sunday in Advent is his 50th anniversary of being made a priest. A Roman Catholic priest, for Charles was a Jesuit when he was ordained in the Chapel of Holy Cross College in Rome, Italy, on November 30, 1958. That he was received as a priest in the Episcopal Church 21 years later tells the story of a journey. Perhaps he will tell us that story, one day.
In this season, I love it about St. John’s that we turn our liturgy, our community gathering, to outreach by the Giving Tree early on, and later on by our Christmas Offering, and during Advent by several homegrown ways to purchase gifts through compassionate commerce. Let me say more about each.
First, the Giving Tree. Our middle schoolers are taking over this annual projoect, and this year we’ll be providing gifts for two young families from Healthy Families, two single-parent families from Louison House, and a 23-year-old man. I’m sure we’ll get our marching orders later this morning.
Second, our Christmas Offering. The Outreach to Kids Fund (nicknamed the OK Fund) gives St. John’s the ability to provide relief when any of our local agencies (Northern Berkshire Community Coalition, Healthy Families, Department of Social Services, MA Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, to name a few) calls us with a family in crisis, a situation where a gift of $200-300 will prevent eviction, keep the gas or electricity connected, prevent the breaking up of a family, provide clothing or equipment for a newborn. Two or three times a month we’re asked to do this, and the OK Fund lets it happen.
Third, alternative gifts. Our homegrown compassionate commerce does two things at once: pleases the recipient, and transforms the gift into outreach. Every Sunday is Fair Trade Coffee day at our coffee hour, when you may buy a bag, beans or ground. Every Advent Sunday, we’ll also be marketing at coffee hour lentil soup mix to support schools and schoolchildren in Sudan, through out interchurch Sudan Relief Task Force. And a matchless Christmas ornament auctioni is set for Monday evening, December 16, in our upper room when special ornaments donated by parishioners and friends become even more special as they’re auctioned to raise money to buy who knows what kind and how many animals for poor farmers through Heifer Project International. That’s an event for all ages.
By our liturgies and gatherings, by our solitary daily keeping, and by our family kitchen-table observances this Advent and Christmas, we grow in enlightenment as an inward state of readiness for outreach.
All the broken hearts
shall rejoice;
All those
who are heavy laden,
whose eyes are tired
and do not see,
shall be lifted up
to meet with the healer.
The battered souls and bodies
shall be healed;
the hungry
shall be fed;
the imprisoned
shall be free;
all earthly children
shall regain joy
in the reign
of the just and loving one
coming for you,
coming for me
in this time
in this world.
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