On Things Ludicrous and Holy…

Tags

best, Christmas, church, division, humble, indignation, joy, light, love, pandemic, praise, resurrection, separation

Photo credit: https://loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=18-P13-00051&segmentID=1

My children are preparing for their winter socially distanced holiday recital, and we have been flooded with a flurry of details, items to purchase, things to organize.  One of the flyers that came this week was for a t-shirt they could buy promoting the recital and the cause that will benefit from the proceeds.  The shirt says, “Best Christmas Ever.”

I was glad my children were not around when I saw the flyer because my immediate response was to scoff – out loud, in my house, looking at a piece of paper with indignation.  Best Christmas Ever?!?  Had the dance studio lost their minds?  What about this Christmas could possibly be the “best”?  Families are separated, some of whom have not seen each other in over a year.  The Coronavirus is rapidly spreading, with the death toll in the United States now over 300,000.  And despite a transition in political power, we remain as divided as ever, struggling to find peace among our brothers and sisters. 

After recovering from self-righteous indignation, I began to think about the approaching Christmas season, and what the Church, and I as her priest, have invited people to do.  We are still inviting our parishioners, friends, and neighbors to join the Holy Family on Christmas Eve and sing songs of praise and thanksgiving.  Although we honor grief and suffering at our Blue Christmas service on December 21, we are still making a claim for hope, for light, and for love.  Even with our church buildings closed again, we are still encouraging the church to gather in their cars for a drive-thru, or by their hearths with their devices to join with the shepherds as we go to see this thing that has come to pass.  Perhaps to an outsider, the work of the Church this next week seems as ludicrous as claiming this Christmas is the Best Christmas Ever.

This week, I find myself humbled.  I know the Church is going to ask a lot of you over this next week.  You may not feel like singing carols, or hearing the familiar story, or watching candles flicker as we pray.  And that’s okay.  But, if it is alright with you, we are going to keep doing it anyway.  The Church has always been full of resurrection people.  We cannot help ourselves once we know the Risen Lord.  And so, when the Christ Child comes next week, we will keep holding on to light, to joy, and to love.  We will keep holding on to the promise that Christ is with us always, even to the end of the age.  We will keep shining the light of the Christ Child, reflecting his light to all.  And we will keep believing and trusting for you until you can come to the place where you can believe and trust yourself.  You do not need to rush.  We will keep holding the light until you are ready to take it up yourself.

Sermon – John 1.6-8, 19-28, A3, YB, December 13, 2020

Tags

Advent, baptism, community, Gaudete Sunday, Jesus, John, John the Baptist, joy, light, Sermon, witness

Yesterday the Edwards family gathered outside the Chapel to baptize eight-month-old Bryson.  When Bryson’s family asked me if Bryson could be baptized this weekend in a small family gathering, I had to think for a moment.  Advent is not one of the normal seasons for baptisms.  But then I remembered two things.  One, this Sunday is Gaudete Sunday – the Sunday in Advent marked for joy, and often marked by shades of pink and rose.  What could be more joyful than a baptism?  Two, I glanced at our lessons and saw John the Baptist was in our Gospel lessons.  Who better to feature in our lessons on a baptism weekend than John the Baptist?!?

Of course, I only needed a few minutes of sermon preparation this past week to realize I had missed something critical about our lessons this Sunday.  Last week, we had John the Baptizer featured in Mark’s gospel.  But this Sunday, when John appears in John’s Gospel, he is not labeled as John the Baptizer, but John the Witness.[i]  John’s role in the Gospel of John does not rest as centrally in his role of baptizer, but more centrally in testifying to the identity of Jesus Christ.  As Lamar Williamson says, “John’s role is to recognize the true light when [the light] appears, and to call attention to [the light] so that others may recognize [the light] and believe – that is, recognize, trust in, and commit themselves to the light.”[ii]  There went my perfectly arranged baptism weekend!  “John the Witness” does not really have quite the same je ne sais quoi as “John the Baptist.” 

So, I started thinking about what we are doing when we baptize people into the community of faith.  Baptism certainly is a rite of initiation into the body of Christ.  Upon baptism, one may receive communion and participate fully in the body.  We make promises on behalf of the baptized, we renew our most fundamental promises on our own lives through the Baptismal Covenant, and we open up a life’s journey of faith, hope, and joy in Jesus. 

But at the end of the day, the thing we are really doing in baptism is witnessing.  We are witnessing to the baptized, and their family, what are the things of ultimate importance to us as Christians.  We are witnessing a commitment to our community – the full responsibility we are willing to take on in the faith journey of the baptized, from infancy to adulthood.  And we are witnessing to the broader community:  that even in the midst of a pandemic (in which Bryson has spent his entire life), even in the midst of divisiveness and unrest, even in the midst of economic uncertainty, we are witnesses to new life, new hope, new joy.

Like John the Witness today, in baptism, we point the way to Jesus.  When Bryson, or our friends, ask the big questions, we will point them toward Jesus.  When Bryson, or our families, question faith and express doubt, we will witness to them about our own faith and doubt stories.  When Bryson, or our community, cannot claim joy or are simply numb to the overwhelming suffering of these days, we will share with them as Steve Garnaas-Holmes says, that “Christ does not come to make us happy, but to stand with us in the pain of life until joy like a seed rises.  All is swallowed up in joy.”[iii]  That is what Gaudete Sunday, a baptism weekend, and John the Witness invite us to do this week:  to be witnesses of joy, not looking at ourselves to be the light, but looking toward the one who is light – the only one who can solidify joy in the darkness of Advent.  Amen.

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[i] Karoline M. Lewis, John (Minneapolis:  Fortress Press, 2014), 27

[ii] Lamar Williamson Jr., Preaching the Gospel of John (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 4, as cited by Gary W. Charles, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 1 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 71.

[iii] Steve Garnaas-Holmes, “Rejoice Always,” December 10, 2020, as found at https://www.unfoldinglight.net/reflections/b4fws8bsnsjklfkw3ws8823kke9a7t on December 10, 202.

Sermon – Matthew 25.31-46, P29, YA, November 22, 2020

Tags

Christ the King, crisis, election, God, Good News, Jesus, mend, pain, pandemic, peace, Sermon, Thanksgiving, weary

Once upon a time, “there was a cobbler who lived alone in his shop with one window that looked out on the street.  His wife and children had all died and he asked God, “Holy One why have you so long delayed your coming?  I have almost given up hope in seeing you.  Please come to my humble shop this day and show me your face.”

Outside on the street the cold winter brought snow.  Through his window he saw a beggar who shivered in the cold.  The cobbler invited the beggar into the shop to warm him and offer a meager meal from his shrinking larder.  The beggar thanked him and left.

As the day passed, a few customers came with repairs they needed for their shoes and harnesses.  A young boy sought shelter from the cold and snow.  The child’s feet were wrapped in old dirty rags and stuffed with paper.  Into the shop he invited the boy.  After making him some warm milk and a sandwich from the little food he had he went to his closet and found a pair of shoes that [had] belonged to his son.  He fit the shoes to the boy.  Grateful, the boy left with a promise to return to visit him.

It was approaching dusk and the cobbler despaired of a visit from the Lord.  A woman with her young babe appeared in front of the window.  She was dressed in a thin piece of cloth and she looked as if she might freeze to death.  The cobbler invited her into his shop.  Wary of the old man, she hesitated at the door, but feeling the warmth within she stepped across the threshold.  The cobbler made her some tea and went to his closet to find a heavy woolen cloak that [had] belonged to his wife.  Giving her the cloak the woman thanked him and after he shared the rest of his larder with her, she left with the child.

The sun descended and left the cobbler bereft.  “Why didn’t you come and visit me today,” the cobbler asked?  There was a voice that spoke to him in his humble shop:  “But I did come to you.  When you invited in the beggar, the boy, and the mother and her child, I was there with you.  In each of their faces you looked into my eyes.”[i]

I don’t know about you, but the last eight months have been exhausting.  Every week I look at the lessons and newspaper and hope for some good news – some glimpse of the face of Jesus.  But every week, the news somehow seems worse.  This week has been no different, with suffering hitting us at both the macro and micro levels.  Our country is in an existential crisis about the Presidential election.  Although many commentators seem to think things will work out, at question is the very foundation of democracy – elections where the votes of the people matter and where the peaceful, respectful exchange of power can happen.  We have managed to successfully do this for over two hundred years, and somehow, this year we cannot seem to hold to our founding principles.  Meanwhile, on the micro level, we are approaching a national holiday of Thanksgiving – a holiday characterized by the gathering of peoples around a table, not unlike our own Eucharistic feast.  And yet, flights are being cancelled, car keys are being put down, and painful calls of cancellation are being made.  Once again, this pandemic is crushing our rituals, forcing us to stay apart from one another.

So, when I picked up the Biblical texts for today, remembering this is Christ the King Sunday, I could not have been more relieved.  I am ready for the shepherd of Ezekiel who seeks out the lost, binds up the wounded, and feeds us on the good pasture – all while destroying the fat sheep and feeding them justice!  I am ready for the Psalmist’s invitation to bow down before the Lord our Maker – the king above all gods, the one in whose hands are the caverns of the earth, the heights of the hills, the sea, and the dry lands!  I want to hear the beauty of the song, King of Glory, King of Peace.  I want a god who will take all of this away – the strife, fighting, suffering, weariness, and make everything better.  I want to see Christ the King!

But nothing is ever easy with Jesus.  When we call out for Jesus, Jesus tells us in the gospel today that he is already here – here with us when we feed the hungry, sate the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, and visit the sick and imprisoned.  To our wearied selves, who just want a victorious king to fix things, our king reminds us today that relief is not found in power grabs and punishments.  As the founder of The Catholic Worker, Peter Maurin, once explained, the social policy Jesus gives us for the renewal of the world is works of mercy.[ii] 

Our lives right now are upended.  Even doing the literal work of the cobbler from that story may not seem possible in these times of social distancing.  But the good news we hear today is peace will not come from powerful, political overpowering.  Peace and relief in these times will come from loving the vulnerable, tending the weak, serving those suffering more deeply than we can imagine.  Like the cobbler in his grief, we may not be able to see those in need in this pandemic.  But they are there, with us, every day.  And it is there, we will see the face of Jesus.  There, God will soothe our pain.  There, the Holy Spirit will mend our weariness.  There is our peace.  Thanks be to God. 

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[i] Leo Tolstoy, “Martin the Cobbler,” as retold by Bob Stuhlmann in “Goat Cheese And Starfish: For November 23, 2014,” posted on November 18, 2014, as found at http://storiesfromapriestlylife.wordpress.com/2014/11/18/goat-cheese-and-starfish-for-november-232014/ on November 20, 2020.

[ii] Stanley Hauerwas, Matthew:  Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible (Grand Rapids:  Brazos Press, 2006), 212.