B: Last Sunday after Epiphany (2/22/09)

 Mark 9:2-9

Human beings have an ambivalent relationship with large quantities of water—that is, any amount larger than what a bathtub can hold. As Spring approaches the upper Midwest, with the ever-present threat of flooding, we are even more acutely aware of this ambivalence! Under the proper circumstances, we enjoy being on water and in water. 

But we also realize that it can cause great harm, and even kill us, quickly and without warning. So, in our more organized and safety-conscious swimming areas, we employ lifeguards. When we swim under a lifeguard's gaze, we expect and are reasonably confident that if we get in over our head, or get a cramp, and are thereby put at risk, the combination of the lifeguard's desire to help us, and his or her abilityto help us, and our willingness to cooperate in being helped, will result in our being rescued from the peril we find ourselves in. 

Desire + ability + cooperation = deliverance.

Or, to express it theologically, making God the lifeguard:  God's love + God's power + our faith = protection from whatever it is that might harm us.  God will keep me from getting the flu, or God will get me that job I need, and if he doesn't, it must be that my faith wasn't strong enough or I didn't pray the right way, or ... something. 

Don't we sometimes hang on to rather childish views of God?  We make him out to be something on the order of a Saturday morning cartoon super-hero, who, because he is all powerful and all-virtuous, will see that we really need to win the lottery, and that, after we take care of our need, we’ll put the money to really worthwhile uses—unlike all those others who merely want to win the lottery and would just use the money selfishly. After all, I love God, God loves me, and the Bible says that those who love God are destined to live with him in heavenly glory, and, well . . . let's just get on with it, Lord! Why mess around any longer with all these annoying details of life—like friends who disappoint us and family members who betray us and bodies that get old and fat and wrinkled and politicians than lie to us and thieves that rob us and interminable wars that drop bombs on homes and schools and wedding receptions. Let's just forget about this suffering business and get on to the main event. 

About a year from now, the Winter Olympics will be held once again. I can’t say that I particularly enjoy participating in winter sports, but for some reason I really like watching the Winter Olympics. One of the sidebar human interest stories I like has to do with the participation of athletes from countries we don’t normally associate with winter sports.  Now, maybe they’ve tightened the rules so that this doesn’t happen anymore, but most of these winter athletes from climates where a cold front means  having to put on a sweater when the sun goes down are usually the entire “team” from their respective countries, and generally finish last or near last in their events. Some of them had never even competed prior to their appearance at the Olympics. All they've have to do was scrape together the finances for a round-trip ticket, and there they are, shoulder to shoulder with those who have dedicated major chunks of their lives to earning the right to appear on the same ice or ski slope or luge run.  They have sought to participate in the glory of Olympic competition with a minimum of personal investment. 

If you will make a leap with me from the Winter Olympics to an unidentified mountain in first century Palestine, I will suggest that the holy apostles Peter, James, and John have something in common with Sri Lankan speed skaters and Brazilian bobsledders, and with us... in those moments when we want God be a celestial lifeguard or superhero, and just get us out of all this trivial suffering and take us directly to the heavenly banquet, where, during the after-dinner awards presentation, we'll finally get that golden crown. Peter and James and John are on top of the mountain, and Jesus is mysteriously transfigured, revealing the very glory of heaven, and Moses and Elijah—two of the superheroes of Israel's history—show up as well, and, to top it all off, the voice of God himself booms from on high.  The poor disciples think, “Hey, we're rubbing elbows with some pretty impressive company; this calls for a celebration.  Jesus, how ‘bout we build monuments for you and your two guests, and maybe, down the road, we can charge admission, get a T-shirt concession, sell the movie rights—you know, this could really help out your cause.” 

They didn't get it. 

They didn't get it. Peter and James and John were like athletes from the land of sun competing in sports from the land of ice. They didn't quite understand what was going on, and what their place was in it.  Their befuddlement was not because Jesus hadn’t tried to clue them in to what was happening. Just before climbing the mountain, Jesus had said, point blank, “The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days, rise again.” 

And, of course, after they got down from the mountain, back into the real world, that's precisely what happened. Jesus was nailed to a cross by the bad guys and there was no lifeguard or superhero to rescue him. Daddy didn’t make it all better. And two of the three disciples who witnessed the Transfiguration abandoned him when he most needed a friend. 

But there on the mountaintop, with Jesus’ clothing shining more brightly than any cold water detergent with bleach could ever make it, the disciples thought, “This is it!  We've arrived!  The glory of God has been revealed and pretty soon it’ll flow down this mountain and fill the valley and everyone will see what we see and know what we know. The kingdom has come. All that talk about suffering and dying—well, I didn’t hear him say that, did you?” 

Are you blessed to find yourself on a mountaintop in your life today?  Take care that you don’t start thinking and acting like the kingdom has come for you, that you've arrived. 

In your journey through life, are you currently exploring the valley of the shadow of death, the valley of fear, the valley of anger, the valley of despair?  I will not trivialize your suffering by telling you to “cheer up, this too shall pass.” But I will suggest that your position in the valley is the best possible vantage point from which to perceive the meaning of the mountain. What Peter and James and John did not “get”, what you and I often don't “get” when we’re on top of the mountain, is that the glory of the mountaintop can only be understood in the light of...suffering. The splendor of Jesus’ transfiguration is empty apart from the agony of his death on the cross. So if you're in the valley, look up at the cross, and see that you're in good company.

And don't be envious of those who are on the mountaintop.  You, after all, can see what they can't. You can see that the light show up on that mountain is not the main event, the coming of the kingdom. It’s just a sneak preview. Only from your position close to the cross can you see that beyond and through the cross is glory and splendor that makes the light of the Transfiguration look like a forty watt bulb! 

If you're on the mountain, enjoy it! And take strength from the experience, because the valley still lies ahead of you.

At the winter olympics, there may yet be a Moroccan ski jumper or two, who only first saw a pair of skis last month, and who yet put on the uniform and march into the stadium for the opening ceremonies.  But in the kingdom of heaven, the only path to lasting glory leads through the valley of the cross.  There's no getting around it,  there's only getting through it.  The beginning of Lent closes in on us now, a season when, as a community, we walk that way more intentionally and more  intensely. We do so in the hope that we will thereby be enabled to grow beyond a childish conception of God as a lifeguard superhero who is there to “make it all better”, to a mature relationship with  a God who has became one of us, who suffered with us and for us, suffering which alone gives meaning to the glory which we also share with him. 

Amen.

B: Epiphany V (2/8/09)

Mark 1:29-39

I enjoy history. I enjoy reading about, and seeing movies about, famous and important events and people. It is sometimes tempting for me, as I suspect it has been for many of you, to fantasize about living in some other time in history. When I get grumpy about the state of the world, or society, or the church …it’s easy to entertain the notion that I would have been more appropriately born in some earlier era. What brings me out of that fantasy, however, is my knowledge of another side of history, which is concerned not with famous people and events, but with the ordinary details of people’s lives in times past. I’m aware that I would be very quickly unhappy with the basic amenities of life—sanitation, heating and cooling, clothing, communication, transportation, and food. But the one factor that would outweigh all others in my decision to not go back in time, if the opportunity presented itself to me, is the quality of medical care. Even going back to the standard of medical practice three or four decades ago, at the time of my own childhood, would be an unacceptable sacrifice. There were too many things that people died of, or were crippled by, throughout most of human history, that are now completely preventable or treatable.

And at no time do I feel more connected to my preference for life in the early twenty-first century than when I read about the earthly ministry of Jesus. That ministry consisted of two activities that almost completely eclipsed all others—teaching and healing. I would venture to speculate that, with his teaching, Jesus had the luxury of being proactive. He could choose where and when he was going to speak, and what he was going to speak about. With his healing, however, as I read between the lines of the gospels, it seems to me that his ministry is more reactive than proactive. Especially in his adopted hometown of Capernaum, Jesus is incessantly confronted with sick people. He can’t escape them. As soon as he heals one, ten more appear. They multiply exponentially. At that time in history, there were a lot more things to make people sick than there are in the developed world today, and a lot fewer resources to make them well.

This is not to say, of course, that sickness isn’t still a major issue with us. It is. In my own pastoral experience, cancer definitely tops the list of life-threatening and anxiety-provoking diseases. In Africa, AIDS has wrought such havoc as can scarcely be imagined, let alone described—along the lines of the bubonic plague in the European middle ages. But our relative freedom from a long list of lesser medical evils simply enables us to pay more attention to more subtle—but potentially just as deadly, from a spiritual standpoint, at least—more subtle forms of illness. Depression, for example, would hardly have been thought of as a disease even a hundred years ago. Yet, we now know that that an actual chemical imbalance in the brain can lead way beyond a blue mood to a whole range of destructive behaviors that, unfortunately, culminate in suicide, and there are hundreds of thousands of people, just in our own country, who are affected by this condition. Then there’s addiction—addiction to alcohol, drugs, nicotine, gambling, sex, work, power—the list could go on and on. Again, just a few decades ago, addiction would have been seen as mostly a defect in one’s moral compass, a flaw in one’s character, and therefore most appropriately dealt with through various punitive strategies. We generally have a more complex understanding of addiction nowadays. We know that addicts suffer from bondage to a power that is beyond their control, and we therefore tend to be more compassionate.

Of course, once we open the gate to a broader perception of “sickness,” it’s easier to look at it from an overtly spiritual perspective. Moral categories—like pride, anger, lust, envy, gluttony, greed, and sloth—come into play. These are, of course, the “seven deadly sins,” and if one or more on that list didn’t pull your chain, then you either aren’t human or you’re already most of the way to perfect sainthood. Most of us—all of us, when we’re completely honest—have some experience of being in bondage to sin in the same way that a cancer patient or an alcoholic is in bondage to those diseases. We would like to be free of it, but we know we’re not. If my neighbor goes out and buys the exact kind of new car I wish I had, and I obsess on that fact and nurture the feelings of resentment toward him that well up inside me, I am in bondage to envy. I have willfully committed a sin, to be sure, but I am at the same time a victim of it; I am sick with envy, and I need to be healed. If I am successful in acquiring something that I need or desire—money comes to mind most readily, of course, but it can be technology or works of art or sports equipment or household knick-knacks or just about anything—if I continue to hoard something long after I have more of it than I could possibly use, then I am sick with greed, and I need to be healed. If I’m constantly anxious about how I look to others, if everything is eventually “all about me,” then I am in bondage to pride, and I need to be healed. If I find it impossible to have a plate of my favorite food put in front of me without grabbing a piece of it, I am sick with gluttony, and need to be healed. If I, as a man, cannot look at an attractive woman without wondering what if would be like to have a sexual encounter with her, then I am sick with lust, and I need to be healed. The same thing applies to anger: Simply feeling the emotion of anger is not in itself sinful, but when we consciously feed that emotion and savor the prospect of revenge on someone who has wronged us, we are sick with anger and need to be healed. And if we consistently pass up opportunities to demonstrate love or compassion or fidelity, then we are guilty of sloth, and need to be delivered from that bondage.

So, even though you and I enjoy a standard of medical care that is vastly superior to that which prevailed in first century Palestine, I think it’s safe to say that, if God had chosen our society in which to become incarnate, if Jesus cruised the highways of northern Indiana with his disciples in a thirteen-passenger van, he would not be any less a sought-after celebrity than he actually was. Yes, there would certainly be some conditions that were presented to him two millennia ago that could now be taken care of with an over-the-counter pill, but there would still be plenty of demand for his healing ministry.

It’s a good thing, then, that Jesus is still a healer! We serve a God who wants us to be whole. God does not wish sickness on anyone—not cancer, not alcoholism, not depression, not any of the seven deadly sins, not even so much as dandruff or bad breath! Jesus brings healing. That was an integral part of his ministry when he walked this earth, and it is an integral part of his ministry even today. When we come to Jesus in faith, and in the sacramental community of his Church, we open ourselves to his healing ministry. We open ourselves to deliverance from bondage—bondage to disease, bondage to fear, bondage to evil. The healing ministry of Christ in the gospels is the token and sign of his ongoing healing presence in our midst. You see, in the time of the gospels, not everybody got healed. We hear about the ones who did, but there were plenty who did not. And the ones who did get healed all eventually got sick again and died. Even those whom Jesus raised from the dead all eventually died again, of something. Jesus, in his mercy, chose to heal some—an extremely high number, in fact, though not all—Jesus chose to heal some as a sort of down payment on what will become the universal norm when his kingdom is fully come.

The coming of Jesus into this world two thousand years ago can be compared to the transitional time between Election Day and Inauguration Day. When Barack Obama won the election on November 4^th of last year, there was no question that he would become the next president of the United States. But it took several weeks, during which time certain arrangements had to be made and certain formalities had to take place, before that election could be turned into an accomplished fact. You and I live, figuratively speaking, in an ongoing time of transition. On the cross, and in the empty tomb, Jesus sealed the fate of sickness and pain and fear. On that holy weekend, God pronounced a death sentence on cancer and AIDS and addiction and all seven of the deadly sins and anything else that might keep us from having life and having it more abundantly. Indeed, He pronounced a death sentence on death itself. During this interim period, we struggle on, and the fighting can get bloody. We await the final consummation of the Kingdom of Heaven, when God’s perfect rule of justice and love and joy will be the only order of the day. The waiting can feel very long, and it is tempting to feel discouraged. I was still a few years from being born at the time, but I suspect that those ten months between the Normandy Invasion in June of 1944 and the surrender of Germany in April of 1945 felt a lot longer than ten months to those who were doing the fighting and those who were praying for their safe return. God knows about discouragement, so He sends us periodic morale boosters in the form of miraculous healings. Healing cannot be produced on demand, but miracles happen every day, to lots of people. Even if we have not experienced a miraculous healing ourselves, we probably know somebody who has, or have at least heard accounts of such healings. Doctors do a final X-ray or ultrasound before a surgical procedure, and find, to their amazement, that the reason for the surgery has inexplicably disappeared. It happens. A person who has spent years as a slave to addiction, and been in and out of treatment several times, prays in desperation for deliverance, and is suddenly released from bondage—I’m not talking about going into “recovery,” but instantly being fully recovered. It happens. Someone else who has had a long and unsuccessful struggle with anger falls before the Lord in contrition and utter dependence, and suddenly finds that burden of anger lifted and replaced with a completely sweet spirit along the lines of what happened to Ebenezer Scrooge. It happens.

It doesn’t always happen. Many times, the answer to our prayer for healing is, “I will heal you, but not now.” That isn’t the answer we hope for, but we must not let it bring us down. Nor should we let the prospect of that answer keep us from praying for healing in the first place, and repeating that prayer often. It’s important that we ask. Asking is, in fact, the first step in the process of healing—whether that healing takes place suddenly, through a miracle; or gradually, through natural processes; or, shall we say, eschatologically, in the world to come. And please know that, as your pastor, I am eager to pray with you and for you, that you may be healed of whatever it is that is holding you in bondage. I want to do that for you.

Then, even if the Lord does not heal us in the way we want Him to, the act of asking is beneficial to our souls. At the very least, it consecrates our illness, and offers it to the Lord as a tool that is now formally at His disposal for the perfection of our holiness. And it is our lack of holiness, of course, that is the ultimate sickness that should concern us. When we have been made holy, when the image of God is fully restored in us, then the job is done. Nothing can hold us prisoner anymore; we find perfect freedom in the service of the One who is the true lover of our souls. Jesus heals. Thanks be to God. Amen.   

B: Epiphany IV (2/1/09)

Mark 1:21-28

It’s still very early in the public ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. At approximately thirty years of age he left the carpentry shop he had inherited from Joseph, went down to the Jordan River to be baptized by John, heard the approving voice of God the Father, and got anointed by the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove.  He formed the nucleus of his band of followers, his disciples—the brothers James and John, and the brothers Andrew and Simon, and according to John’s account, Nathaniel. 

Now he’s ready to go public in a fresh way, and really get things rolling. He walks into the village of Capernaum—which, I can’t resist adding, I visited barely more than a week ago—finds the synagogue, and starts to teach. St Mark tells us that the people who were gathered there that day “were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes.” The scribes, of course, were their usual teachers, but I’m not going to get into what this little comment implies about the quality or content of their teaching because, for Mark, the emphasis is all on Jesus, and the extraordinary quality of his teaching. He taught as one who had authority. What he taught wasn’t secondary, derivative, a summary of somebody else’s wisdom or insight. Rather, it flowed from the center of his being, from his very essence. It was authentic; it had an unmistakable ring of truth. Jesus’ teaching had authority because he was speaking on behalf of the author. 

Then Jesus goes on, in effect, to demonstrate the authority of his words by the power of his deeds. There’s a man in the congregation who is evidently possessed by a demon—what Mark calls an “unclean spirit.” Jesus commands the spirit to come out of the man, and in a rather loud and dramatic fashion, it does. And everybody is amazed.

Now, one of the fascinating things about the Bible, particularly a passage from the gospels like this one, is that what we get out of it depends a great deal on who in the story we identify ourselves with. If you were to put yourself into this scene in the Capernaum synagogue, who would you be? There are only four choices, really: You could be Jesus, you could be an unnamed member of the congregation—one of the amazed onlookers, you could be the man who has an unclean spirit, or you could be the unclean spirit. Right? Have I missed anything? 

So, I think most of us, out of what we would take to be appropriate humility, would probably not identify ourselves with Jesus. And most of us would probably be equally reluctant to see ourselves as the demon. So, given the two remaining choices—the demon-possessed man and anonymous membership in the crowd of amazed onlookers—I think it’s safe to say that the vast majority of us are going to opt for anonymous membership in the crowd of amazed onlookers. After all, the members of the congregation were good, respectable people. They were normal (and we surely do all want to be normal; we all have our “inner child” that just wants to blend in with the crowd and not be conspicuous). They were trying to do the right thing, showing up in the synagogue. They were paying attention, and really liked this young man who was speaking. And when he was able to kick that demon out of that poor fellow—well, it was nothing short of amazing; we’ve never seen anything like it. 

And there’s an added convenience to viewing this story through the eyes of the amazed onlookers: It enables us to sincerely admire Jesus—which is a good thing to do; I mean, who wouldn’t want to sincerely admire Jesus?—but it also allows us to keep him at a safe distance. I’m not the one he’s talking to; I’m not the one he’s touching, because—hey—I’m not the one with the problem. I’m just normal. Keeping Jesus at a safe distance means we don’t have to step outside our comfort zone. We don’t have to change any of our habits or our attitudes or make any life-altering commitments. We can “feel spiritual” without actually being challenged.

But, what if I were to tell you that there’s a whole treasure trove of spiritual and practical benefits that is waiting for us, ours for the taking, if we’re willing to stretch a little bit, willing to step out and do something a little…risky?  What if we were to look at this story, not through the eyes of Jesus, not through the eyes of the demon, and not through the eyes of the normal and respectable—if totally amazed—onlookers in the synagogue congregation? What if, instead, we were to set aside our pride, and put ourselves in the place of the man with an ‘unclean spirit’? What would we see? 

First, we would be in touch with our own brokenness, our own helplessness in the face of the power of sin and death and evil. We would know our need for a savior, a deliverer, an advocate, someone on our side who is not only more powerful than we are, but more powerful than any challenge we might confront. 

Then, we would see a compassionate Jesus whose own heart is broken by the fact that we are “possessed” by a force that prevents us from being the person we were created to be. 

We would see a righteous Jesus who is justifiably angered by the injustice of our being held captive by the power of sin and death. 

We would see a powerful Jesus who speaks and acts with an authority that instills terror in anyone or anything that stands on the side of tyranny and oppression, anyone or anything that would seek to “possess” the beloved children of God. We would know the Jesus who is the model for the lion Aslan in the Narnia stories—a lion who is always good, but not in any way tame, not predictable, not “safe.” 

Most of all, we would know ourselves to have been delivered from that which enslaved us. We would know ourselves to have been set free from that which possessed us. Instead of being chained to the past, we would be able to embrace the future. Instead of being dragged down by guilt or grief, we would be free to organize our lives around hope and purpose.

It all depends on whose eyes we use to read the story.

But the blessings don’t stop there. When we identify ourselves with the man who is demon-possessed and is liberated by Jesus, we not only receive the grace of that freedom ourselves, but our own lives become a blessing to others. When we know ourselves to have been redeemed and made free, we become signs to the world of the inbreaking Kingdom of God, and the world is amazed. The world can “read” our lives—our lives as individual Christians, and our lives communally as the church—people can read our lives and “hear” Jesus speaking with authority and “see” Jesus acting with authority. They can marvel at the power in which God has acted on our behalf, and their hearts can be melted to the same liberating love that has set us free.

It all depends on where you see yourself in the story.

Praised be Jesus Christ. Amen. 

Epiphany I: Baptism of Christ (2009)

Mark 1:4-11

“Who are you?”

That can be either a very simple question, or a very complicated one, can it not? We could answer truthfully by just stating our name, or we could answer truthfully by telling our life’s story. It’s a question of identity, and identity is a very serious question indeed. When we travel abroad, one document that we keep very close to at all times is our passport, because a passport is a fundamental document of identity, and if our identity should ever need to be verified, a passport, and sometimes only a passport, will accomplish that task. Of course, one of the best indicators of how important identity and the documentation of identity are in our society is the burgeoning criminal industry in identity theft—no doubt nearly all of us have either been a victim of identity theft or known a victim.

In one dimension, of course, our identity is fixed at birth. We’re born in a certain place at a certain time. Who our parents are is a matter of record, and one or both of those parents give us a name, which goes on an identity document called a Birth Certificate. For the most part, we can’t change any of these markers; we just accept them as given, though some of them might become more malleable as life goes on.

But in another dimension, the matter of identity is not quite so clear and concise. The circumstances of our lives play a huge role in shaping the identity that we eventually settle into. The sort of love and attention we receive from our parents has a tremendous effect. When Brenda and I met our baby granddaughter Charlotte for the first time the week before last, I was struck by how her mother and father are so completely “there” for her in every way, and how she is already privileged, right out of the starting gate, because there are so many other little ones who are not nearly so fortunate, and it will affect their identities.

In yet still another dimension, all of us consciously take actions that shape our identity. We apply ourselves in school, or not; we go to college, or not, and we choose this college and not that college; we choose this line of work and not that line of work; we marry this person rather than that person, or we choose instead to wait for the person we haven’t yet met. When my Baby Boomer generation was young, we were famous for having “identity crises,” and for needing to take time after graduating from college to “find” ourselves. 

So, as we saw three weeks ago, Jesus had a lot of his identity cards played for him before he was even born. The angel Gabriel told his mother that he would be the Son of God, the one through whom the LORD would save his people. The very name Jesus comes to us through Latin and Greek, but ultimately from Hebrew, where it is rendered Yeshua, and it means, literally, “the LORD saves.” How’s that for an identity!  And as we saw last Sunday, by the age of 12, at least, there were signs that Jesus was “living into” that identity by being about his “Father’s business” when he should have been playing video games with the other boys his age.

Today, then, we mark the event at which Jesus’ identity is revealed, claimed, and seized—his baptism by John in the Jordan River. As Jesus comes up out of the water, Mark’s gospel tells us, he immediately sees a hole in the sky, and a dove flying down through it right toward him. And he hears a voice coming out of the hole in the sky saying, “Attaboy! Nice job!” (That’s the MRSV—the Martins Revised Version translation!) This is a picture, an audio-visual snapshot of Jesus’ identity. It reveals his identity as God the Son in relation to God the Father and God the Holy Spirit.  And when we look at this snapshot along with the other photos in the album known as the Gospel according to St Mark, we can see that, even as Jesus is still dripping wet with river water, his future is already being shaped—configured to a particular form that looks a whole lot like a Cross.

As disciples of Jesus, our experience parallels his. In our baptism, our identity “in Christ” places us in that same picture, that same snapshot in our family photo album. In our baptism, and when we re-connect with that baptism like we’re going to do in a few minutes, we “hear” the echo of the Father’s voice as we become and continue to be his “beloved” sons and daughters. In that water, we are gifted with the same Holy Spirit that is represented by the dove that Jesus saw crashing through a hole in the sky. Heck, turn around and look at the font—we’ve got our own photographic record of the event right here at St Anne’s!  

Of course, our baptism, then, also places us on the same glide path that is shaped like a cross, shaped like death and resurrection. Today is a sort of transition point in liturgical times, when we begin to turn our attention away from the birth of Christ and toward his Passion and Resurrection, as we’re about six weeks away from the beginning of Lent. The identity we are given in baptism plants a seed. It provides us with the raw material—raw material that does not immunize us from suffering, but which strengthens our ability to respond with grace and gratitude to the suffering that comes our way. In baptism, we are given an identity that transcends any other identity we may be born with or may later acquire. It is in the water of the font that we learn truly who we are, because it is only on the water of the font that we learn truly Whose we are.

So it’s about time we got our ID document renewed. Please stand. 

(Renewal of Baptismal Vows follows)

Christmas I (2008)

John 1:1-1 Galatians 3:23-25; 4:4-7

St Anselm was a medieval Archbishop of Canterbury who was, and continues to be, renowned as one of the major theologians of western Christianity. One of his treatises was simply titled Why God Became Man.  At this time of year, that’s an appropriate question, one we do well to ask ourselves, over and over again, because, even though we know the answer—in part, thanks to St Anselm—we stand in constant need of being reminded.

Why do we have Christmas?  Why do we celebrate the Incarnation?

Here’s the deal: Even though God loves us, and created us in His image, and wants us to share the very essence of His life and being, we, as human beings, are alienated from God. We are cut off from God. There’s a gulf between us and God that makes the Grand Canyon look like a line in the sand. We are therefore unable to enjoy the life that God created us to have. We are incapable of experiencing our full humanity. Both as individuals, and as a race, we are at cross-purposes with God. God belongs at the center of our being, but we have displaced Him—we have displaced Him with our own ego. We have bowed low before any number of “other gods”—gods like success, power, alcohol, drugs, sexual fulfillment; the list could go on. As we tell God in our corporate worship: “We have not loved you with our whole heart, we have not loved out neighbors as ourselves.”  Or, more dramatically, perhaps: “We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness, which we from time to time most grievously have committed, by thought, word, and deed, against thy divine Majesty, provoking most justly thy wrath and indignation against us.”

Traditional Christianity labels this alienation between God and humankind as Sin—a condition each of us is born with which inclines us to make ourselves the measure of all things, and draws us away from the love of God. You can use that label, or not. Either way, though, it doesn’t change the reality.

”But wait, there’s more.”

 Not only do we have a problem; the problem is getting worse! We can’t just hold onto the status quo, thinking that, while it may not be all we would like it to be, it’s not all that bad either.  The status quo is slipping away. We’re trapped between steadily rising flood waters in front of us, and a deteriorating riverbank behind us. We have no hope, unless we can find a bridge across the gulf—the canyon, the chasm—that divides us from God. And only God can provide such a bridge, only God Himself can bridge the gap. We have no power within ourselves to meet Him halfway. Something must be done on our behalf.  God must come to our aid, or else we are doomed to ongoing misery in this world and oblivion in the next.

Now for the good news: God has done something on our behalf. God has come to our aid.  First, He gave us the Law—a knowledge of how we ought to live so as to counteract our inborn propensity toward Sin. The Law is written in nature. The Law is written on our hearts—it’s what we call “conscience.” And the Law is written, so to speak, “in stone”; that is, God’s Law made visible in His relationship with the particular nation through whom He chose to reveal Himself—the ancient Hebrews, the Jews.

The Law reveals the true nature and extent of our condition. The Law shows us just how wide the gulf is between God’s holiness—God’s completeness, God’s purity, God’s perfection—the Law shows us the gulf between God’s holiness and our sinfulness—our incompleteness, our contingency, our weakness and fragility, the fragmented and unfocused character of our lives. The Law is like a light shining on a dirty kitchen and revealing the cockroaches. They’re still there when it’s dark—in fact, they’re happier when it’s dark—but the light enables us to see them. We’re still sinners without the Law, but the Law enables us to see our sinfulness.

However, the Law is only a stopgap. It’s a tremendous gift because it shows us our problem.  But it doesn’t solve the problem. We cannot throw the Law into the canyon  and expect it to form a bridge that will take us to God. Something more must be done, and God has done it, and that’s why we have Christmas.  God has thrown, not the Law, but Himself, into the gap that separates us, and has completely bridged that gap. In the mystical language of the prologue to John’s gospel, we encounter our common faith that “…the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.”  The One whom we proclaim in our creed as “God from God, light from light, true God from true God” took human flesh, human nature, and dwelt, tabernacled—“pitched his tent,” literally rendered—the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. In so doing, God completely associated Himself with us, implicating Himself with the human condition.

And he did so completely. This is what St Paul is getting at in his letter to the Galatians when he describes Christ as “born under the Law.” The Law is the perfect symbol for the entirety of the human condition, because it is the vehicle by which we see that condition clearly and fully. To say that Christ was born “under the Law” is to say that, in Jesus, God is thoroughly and unreservedly incarnate. There is no room for half-measures here.

He does not bridge just half the gap—or three-quarters, or ninety percent, or whatever—and expect us to make up the difference.  There were those in the early centuries of Christianity who thought just that.  They asserted that God only appeared to be human in the person of Jesus, that the divine spirit of God dwelt within the human body of Jesus, but did not really become one with that body. It was just a vehicle. These folks were motivated by a commendable desire to protect the honor and uniqueness and utter holiness of God.

But they were wrong. Their views are now known to be heresy. If, in His incarnation, God only partially covers the difference between us and Him, then all is in vain. If God does not become fully human in Jesus, taking our nature upon Him without reservation, then the gulf remains. We are still in our sins, and have no hope.

So do you see why we have Christmas? It is utterly necessary for our salvation. We are people of hope precisely because God did bridge the gap. In Christ, God completely participates in and shares human nature and human life. “Pleased as Man with Man to dwell, Jesus our Emmanuel.” As a result of this unspeakable generosity and love, we have the opportunity to walk in marvelous light, to share and participate in the luminous life of the Blessed Trinity, the eternal life of God. If there is ever any news that should motivate us to “Go tell it on the mountain,” this is surely it! The gap is closed. Heaven and earth are joined.  God has become as we are that we may become as He is.  Alleluia and Amen.

Christmas Eve 2008

I can be something of a grouser and complainer during the weeks leading up to Christmas.  At no other time of year do I find my own inner being quite so much at odds with what’s going on in the secular culture.  But even I have to admit that there is a certain mystique to it all.  The “Christmas spirit,” however we think of it, does encourage us to look for the best in one another, which is remarkable precisely because most of the time we tend to see the worst in each other.  Shoppers see inattentive and snippy sales clerks. Sales clerks see obnoxious and demanding shoppers. We see drivers expressing “road rage” on the highways.  Con artists find a new sucker every day. Bad cops are paid off to look the other way at crime, and office holders, as we have seen so dramatically in Illinois, sell their power and influence to the highest bidder. 

All this tends to make us pretty cynical about human nature. We end up defining people by their behavior: So-and-so is a drunk, someone else is a philanderer, he has a temper problem, she’s a manipulative bully, and so on.  The spirit of Christmas lifts us—even if temporarily—the spirit of Christmas lifts us out of that kind of cynicism and judgmentalism. 

But it is, of course, not merely the “spirit” of Christmas that accomplishes this for us; it is the decisive act of God which lies at the heart of our Christmas celebration.  God has done something that forever disarms our cynicism toward human nature. 

Among the less well-known of C.S. Lewis’ prolific literary output is a trilogy of science fiction novels.  The first one, Out of the Silent Planet, features a self-effacing language scholar named Ransom, who is kidnapped by an evil scientist and his crony and taken in a spaceship to the planet Malacandra. The climactic scene of the story is a meeting between Ransom and a mysterious being whose name and title are both Oyarsa, and who is the ruler of Malacandra. Oyarsa is curious about Ransom’s home planet—Earth. Earth also once had an Oyarsa, Ransom is told, but he became “bent”—you and I might say “crooked”— and turned to evil. So Maleldil, the supreme creator and ruler of the universe, quarantined Earth from all other worlds, and confined its bent Oyarsa there, so he couldn’t do any damage elsewhere in the universe. Since then there has been no contact between Malacandra and Earth, but the Malacandrans have heard rumors that Maleldil has been up to some strange and daring activities in an attempt to redeem what had gone wrong there. Ransom then tells the Oyarsa of Malacandra the Christian story of the Incarnation, how God actually entered human experience, as a human being. Oyarsa is mightily impressed, for of all the worlds and all the races of creatures in the universe, this is the only instance he has ever heard of in which Maleldil has entered one of the worlds which he made and taken the form of one of the species which he created. Oyarsa finally tells Ransom: “You have shown me more wonders than are known in the whole of heaven.”

Yes, human nature is horribly “bent,” and we experience that “bent-ness” every day of our lives. But yet, God has greatly dignified human nature by taking it up into his own divine nature. And that act of love established the means by which that bent and twisted nature of ours can be placed back in the fire, like a blacksmith would do to a damaged horseshoe, where it can be softened up, and re-fashioned straight and true.

Each celebration of Christmas has the potential to change us. When we experience the “spirit of the season,” we have an opportunity to become more loving, more generous, maybe even more religious. More than once have I heard conversion stories that begin or culminate at the celebration of the Eucharist on Christmas Eve. Maybe this celebration tonight will be that turning point of conversion for somebody here, that watershed moment of insight that will be looked back on gratefully many years from now.

But that, wonderful as it all is, is just frosting on the cake. The real cause for Christmas rejoicing is that it is the festival of the Incarnation. The scandal of the Incarnation is that God himself is forever changed by it. He who is by nature pure spirit now has a human face, and the name of that face is Jesus. The human face of God was first revealed to an obscure Jewish couple in a remote corner of the Roman Empire, then to some humble and unsophisticated sheep   herders and some strange astrologers and magicians from un-heard of lands to the east. Finally, that human face of God was revealed most completely as Jesus looked down from the cross on his mother and his disciples and his persecutors.

In his dying and rising, and in the sacred ritual meal by which we remember that dying and rising—the meal which we celebrate tonight—the human face of God is revealed to you and to me. Eventually, we will all see that face when he returns as a just and righteous, but loving and compassionate, judge.

It is a venerable Christian custom, particularly at this time of year, during the Nicene creed, to bow deeply or even genuflect—go down on one knee—at the words which speak of the Incarnation: “...he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made Man.” I invite you to join me in this gesture of adoration and acknowledgement of the Incarnation, and what a sign it is of the depths of God’s love for our fallen race. The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. Come, let us adore him. Amen.

 

Year B: Advent IV (12/21/08)

Luke 1:26-38

Romans 16:25-27

II Samuel 7:8-16

She was an ordinary girl, this Miriam. Her parents, Anne and Joachim, were good people, though not remarkable. Her home town, Nazareth, was a decent enough place to live, though it had never won any “most livable city” awards. She’d had a good Jewish upbringing, pious, synagogue-attending, respectful of the history and traditions of her people. Oh, and now she was engaged. Her parents had arranged it all, of course, but they had not done too badly by her. Joseph had steady work, he was a carpenter, and it looked like he would be able to support her comfortably. Miriam was sure she would grow to love him over the course of time. Their betrothal was now official, a legal contract, and soon she would move in with him as his wife.

Life was not stress-free for anyone in Nazareth at that time, of course, including for Miriam. (Her namesake, by the way, was the great heroine of Israel, Moses’ own sister, and Miriam was proud of this fact; the Greeks and Romans would have called her “Maria.”) The village of Nazareth, and the province of Galilee, had been annexed into the Roman Empire about a hundred years earlier, and it was not an entirely happy arrangement. In fact, there was a good bit of political unrest in the air, and anxiety about the future. But that very fact is itself testimony to the ordinariness of Miriam’s, or Mary’s, life and times. How many eras in human history have been devoid of political unrest and anxiety about the future? Everyone lived one day at a time, hoping for the best, praying that everything would somehow just all work out.

Which doesn’t sound all that different from the way you and I live. We work and play and shop and try to have relationships and raise families. We try to experience joy in life, but sometimes it seems like sorrow is all there is. We try to stay healthy, but we all get sick. We have times of depression and times of elation, times of alienation and times of unity. At times we’re overwhelmed by guilt, and at times we’re overwhelmed by forgiveness. All of which is to say, we lead ordinary lives. We are tempted to despair, and we are tempted to hope.

And if we are indeed tempted to hope, invited to hope, we owe a portion of that invitation to Miriam, to Mary, and to her people. They were good at hoping. They had perfected hoping into a fine art. They had been promised, and were hoping for, a deliverer, one who would free them from the oppressor’s yoke, and lead them into a time of peace and justice and prosperity. This deliverer would be known as “messiah”, the anointed-one of God, cut from the same mold as the heroic messiah—King David. Indeed, the prophecies were that this messiah would descend from David’s own royal lineage. The prophet Nathan had promised David that 

“...the Lord will make you a house. When your days are fulfilled, and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. …Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me; your throne shall be established forever.”

So Mary, ordinary Mary, had a special hope, an extraordinary hope. She hoped that her generation would be the one to see the messiah, who would be not only the deliverer of her people, but a light to the nations, an ensign to the peoples, a beacon who would draw the whole world into God’s gracious reign of righteousness and justice.  Perhaps Mary, ordinary Mary, allowed herself to fantasize on what it might look like if her extraordinary hope were to be fulfilled. The Hebrew scriptures, the Law and the Prophets, certainly did not lack for vivid pictorial representations, both frightening and comforting, of the Day of the Lord, the coming of the messiah. In her fantasy, Mary could have drawn on this rich supply of images. Would the advent of Messiah be preceded by troops of angels doing battle with and defeating the legions of Rome?  Would there be an awesome celestial light show and a spine-tingling chorus of trumpets in the heavens as the storm clouds parted and Messiah descended to earth in a flaming chariot as he claimed his kingdom in an unmistakable public display?

These are just a few of the visions that may have danced in the head of an ordinary young Hebrew woman on the eve of her marriage to an ordinary Nazarene carpenter at the time when Caesar Augustus ruled the Roman empire and Quirinius was governor of Syria. But the imminent fulfillment of Israel’s hope also has meaning for us who are not genetically of the house of Israel. For us, the content of our hope in the advent of the messiah is summarized by St Paul in the concluding paragraph of a letter he wrote to the Christian community in the city of Rome, when he spoke of the

…mystery which was kept secret for long ages but is now disclosed and through the prophetic writings is made known to all nations, according to the command of God, to bring about the obedience of faith…

From a Gentile perspective, the significance of the Messiah’s coming is not merely national, but  cosmic.  God’s motivation for sending his messiah among us was, in the words of the ancient Latin hymn,

In sorrow that the ancient curse should doom to death a universe…

God himself had pronounced the curse on Adam and Eve when he banished them from the Garden of Eden, but it was not within his heart of love to see that curse come to fruition. The mystery kept secret for long ages is a plan of salvation, a plan of redemption from the ancient curse, a plan to “no more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground…”, but, rather, to “make his blessings flow far as the curse is found.” It is a plan to deal definitively with violence and oppression and injustice and cruelty and even natural disasters. Yes, even earthquakes, fires, and floods are signs that the ancient curse, the curse that threatens to doom to death a universe, is indeed found far and wide.

And it all hangs . . . it all hangs on the ordinary obedience of ordinary Mary, from ordinary Nazareth, engaged to ordinary Joseph. The angel Gabriel was sent by God, not with a police escort, not in a horse-drawn carriage, not in a Cadillac limousine with a full media contingent, but, it would seem, rather inconspicuously. There’s no indication that he had any contact with anyone other than the intended recipient of his message, Mary herself. Her ordinary life would never again be quite so ordinary. Oh, she had intended to become pregnant, probably pretty soon after her marriage, but this was just a bit…too soon. It was a lot to ask of ordinary Mary.

 Yet, she was well-trained. She realized that to be chosen to be the mother of the messiah was indeed to be “highly favored.” For a moment, everyone’s fate was in her hands, the fate of captive Israel mourning in lonely exile, the fate of a universe doomed to death by an ancient curse. But in that moment, Mary chose to recognize God’s claim on her, she chose to obey. And in her obedience, Mary chose hope, Mary chose life. “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” 

Let it be to me according to your word. From that brief declaration of consent flows everything that we know as Christmas. From that brief statement of ordinary obedience by an ordinary young lady, issues the extraordinary fulfillment of every human hope. The glory of Christmas, the revelation of the mystery kept secret for long ages, came about through the willingness of an ordinary woman to obey God’s claim on her life. And in that light, we may well ask ourselves, what other glories might God be ready to reveal in response to the ordinary obedience of his ordinary disciples? Mary is unique in the particular nature of her vocation, and for that all generations will call her blessed. But she is not unique in the fact that God has a registered claim on her life. Through the death and resurrection of the messiah, God’s son and Mary’s son, God has “redeemed” us for himself. We belong to him.

So Mary is exemplary. Her response to God’s move to exercise his claim as our redeemer is an example to us. If we, in our ordinariness, were to make Mary’s words our own—“I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word”—if we were to make these words our own, what results might we expect to see? As individuals, we might well experience great awkwardness, virtually unbearable awkwardness, at first. Mary certainly did. Despite the euphoria of her angelic visitation, it was never easy to explain her pregnancy to her family and friends, let alone to Joseph! And it was not easy, several years later, to watch the one who has been born as a messiah-king die in disgrace as a criminal. But when we say “yes” to God, we experience the kind of peace that protects us, not from the storm, but in the storm. We know ourselves to be securely grounded, and experience profound wholeness and joy.

What might it look like if, as the parish of St Anne, we said in a concerted way, “Behold the servant of the Lord; be it unto us according to your word.”?  In the near term, there would be some moments of panic, as we experience the pain of being close to the pain of others. But before long, I believe, we would find ourselves in the midst of resources—human, financial, and material—more abundant than we can imagine. I suspect that God’s philosophy of inventory control is “just in time,” and he will not release his blessings upon us until we are committed to putting them to use. That same results would accrue, I believe, on a diocesan level. If, as the family of the Diocese of Northern Indiana, we declared in a united way, “Behold the servant of the Lord; let it be to us according to your word”, I would expect to see us blessed with courage and confidence, together with our bishop, to make our witness to the rest of the church and to the world with clarity and peace.

And as a result of such re-commitment to God’s claim on our ordinary lives, I would expect to see blessings overflow into secular society, with an impact on the level of violence and ethnic and cultural animosity and social disintegration in our cities and towns, and an impact on the level of suspicion and fear with which we approach this economic recession. In short, by saying “yes” to God, in emulation of blessed Mary, we lay the foundation for the fulfillment of all our hopes. So let us not hold out for a chorus of trumpets and a celestial light show. Our ordinary angel is greeting us and telling us that we are highly favored. Let us “just say yes,” and allow Christ to be formed in us, that we may give birth to his kingdom of justice and righteousness. Come, Lord Jesus. Amen.