Sermon – John 18.1-19.42, GF, YC, March 25, 2016

Tags

Adam, cosmic, crucified, fall, garden, Garden of Betrayl, Garden of Eden, Garden of Redemption, Good Friday, gospel, Jesus, John, Sermon, sin

One of my favorite places is the garden at a monastery called Mepkin Abbey in South Carolina.  The trees are old and large, many dripping with Spanish moss.  There are a few statues and pieces of artwork that are artfully nestled in the gardens.  There is an old, small cemetery surrounded by a rusty wrought-iron fence.  But the most wonderful part of the garden is the river that runs along the edge of the gardens.  Benches are strategically placed near the water’s edge so that visitors can sit and listen to the lapping water, hearing the whir of insects, and rustle of the breeze.  The gardens of Mepkin Abbey are one of the most peaceful places I know.

Or at least, they are supposed to be.  Everything there, from the beauty of God-made creation to the beauty of man-made art, is supposed to invite the visitor into holy contemplation.  But I rarely find contemplation peaceful.  Contemplation usually leads me to a quiet conversation with God – which certainly sounds peaceful and serene.  But the trouble is that more often, my prayer life is about talking to God.  When I make space for the kind of quiet I need to actually listen to God, I sometimes hear things I do not want to hear.  God uses the rare gift of silence to put before me the things I have been avoiding with all my busyness.  So what should be a time of peaceful bliss more often becomes a time of sobering reflection.

The agonizing story we tell this day is rooted in gardens too:  three of them to be exact.  As the story opens we are told that Jesus and the disciples go to a garden – one where they had frequented, as Judas is familiar with the garden where they often met.  The garden was a place of peace for Jesus – the place where he retreated for prayer after long days of teaching, preaching, and healing.  The garden was a place of familiarity – a home for the man who really had no home.  The garden was a place of affirmation – a place where he and his closest companions went together without pressure to perform or do, but to just be together.  Into that peaceful garden violence erupts.  “Sinful men, violent men, men with weapons, come to the garden in the dark, looking for someone,” as one scholar writes.  “The someone who was the father’s only son.  Like all humans, they are looking for God, but they don’t know that’s what they are doing.  They think they are only doing their job…”[i]  But unlike in Matthew, Mark, and Luke’s gospel, John does not paint the garden as one of agony.  No, Jesus has already done his grieving.  In this garden, Jesus is ready.  We hear his resolve in his conversation with the armed men.  Jesus has no intention of hiding or grieving in the darkness.

The story of that garden is laced with the story of another garden:  the garden in which John’s gospel is rooted.  If you remember, John’s gospel is the gospel which starts on a much more philosophical note than the other gospels.  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  In the beginning there was a garden too – the Garden of Eden.  In the Garden of Eden, the roles were reversed.  Instead of men coming to look for God in the person of Jesus, God goes looking for man – Adam, specifically.  N. T. Wright describes that day in Eden artfully, “[God] came on the evening breeze, came as he had always come.  Came because they knew each other, and used to spend time together.  Came to the garden because that’s where they always met.  That’s where he was at home.  And there was no answer.  The man had hidden.  Something had happened.  The friendship was soured.  There was a bad taste in the air, a taste made worse by the excuses and feeble stories that followed.  Love, the most fragile and beautiful of the plants in that garden, had been trampled on.  It would take millennia to grow it again.”[ii]

In the garden of Eden, God comes searching for a sinful man.  In the garden of betrayal, sinful men come looking for God.  The first Adam entered into sin, forever straining the relationship between humankind and the Creator.  John’s gospel presents Jesus as the true Adam, the man without sin, who is sent to his death by sinful Adams, so that “the garden may be restored, and instead of bloodshed there may be healing and forgiveness.”[iii]  From the beginning of our story today, the two gardens are ever intertwined, holding for us the tension of the significance of this event.  For although this story today is the story of our Savior crucified, the story today is also a cosmic one, one we understand to be rooted in the oldest of stories – the fall of humankind that is not redeemed until the fall of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Of course, Jesus standing boldly in the garden of betrayal is just the beginning of our story.  We listen intently as we hear the painful story retold – of God’s chosen ones betraying God by putting Caesar in the place of God, of Pilate sacrificing his ethics because of peer pressure, of disciples abandoning and denying Jesus, of Jesus’ suffering to the very end.  And where do we end our story, but in another garden – the garden that holds a new tomb that Joseph of Arimathea offers.  This is the garden that will host sacred events.  The redemption begins right away.  Though Joseph and Nicodemus were ashamed and afraid of their discipleship, when the opportunity comes to show their loyalty, they do not waiver.  Their shame is washed away by their royal care of Jesus’ body.  With enough spices for a king, in an untouched tomb, in the beauty of a garden, they put to rest the new Adam, who redeems the age-old Adam in us all.

Now I said initially that there are three gardens in our text.  That number is still true.  But today, we create our own garden as well.  Our garden is bare – stripped of beauty and adornment.  But our garden is still here – a sacred place of comfort, companionship, and company with God.  Stripping our garden of its usual adornment allows us to strip ourselves of our normal busyness and sit with our God.  That is what gardens do for us anyway.  No matter how many beautiful pieces of art or flowering beauties we see, at some point we have to sit down, take a deep breath, and listen to our God.  That is what we do today.  We come to the garden of the redeemed to ponder how we got here.  We come to remember our roots in the sin that severed our relationship with God in the Garden of Eden.  We come to remember those times when we have taken up arms as we stormed into the Garden of Betrayal.  And we also come to remember those moments of redemption when we did the right thing, placing our Lord in the Garden of rest.

Our time in the garden of redemption will not necessarily leave us feeling fulfilled.  In fact, our leaving here pondering the cosmic nature of what Jesus has done to remedy the sin of humanity is all we are given today.  We know good news is coming – that the garden of rest will become the garden of resurrection.  But not today.  Today we leave this place pondering our own participation in the action of the gardens of today’s story:  those times of our sinful fleeing from God, those times of our sinful persecution of God, and those times of our abandoning God or our fear of proclaiming God.  We are blessed by the garden of redemption, the garden of St. Margaret’s, to sit and listen.  We share the experience and draw strength from one another.  Our joy will come soon.  But not today.  Amen.

[i] N. T. Wright, John for Everyone, Part 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 102.

[ii] Wright, 102.

[iii] Wright, 104.

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Homily – John 1.1-18, C1, YC, December 27, 2015

Tags

Christmas, faith, God, interpreting, Jesus, John, love, prologue, Sermon

I know many priests who love to read John’s prologue at Christmas.  They get excited just reading the text and they cannot wait to preach on the text.  I am not one of those priests.  The text is so dramatic and circuitous.  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.”  I know lots of people who love the poetic sound of these words, but to me, they just sound like gibberish.  I always have to read them three of four times to figure out what John is saying.  I struggle in hearing them to know whether John is being repetitive or if he is trying to lead me through some complex logic.  By the time I get to the fourth verse, I tend to mentally check out.  Besides, this is Christmas – can’t we talk about cute babies, loud animals, and singing angels??

Truthfully, John is not to blame for my apathy.  John’s prologue is true to the entire tenor of John’s gospel.[i]  John is not a gospel writer who is interested in telling an enthralling story of intrigue and delight.  John is much more interested in interpreting the story of Jesus.  He does not just want to report the what – he wants to report the why.  The other gospel writers are like that grandpa who always tells great bedtime stories.  John is more like the cryptic college professor who seems to speaking English, but nothing he says makes sense.

I sense my distaste for John says more about me as a consumer than about John as a writer.  As a lover of movies and books, I like to be entertained and drawn in by a story.[ii]  But the truth is, I know that the cryptic college professors have something very important to teach us too.  Today, what that professor has to teach us is to define what has happened in the Christmas event – not just the who, what, when, where stuff of a news feed.  John wants us to know what the who, what, when, where stuff means.  Actually, I think John wants us to know that the who, what, when, where stuff is only scratching the surface of the enormity of the Christmas event.  John wants us to know that although Jesus is born in a particular time and place, Jesus always was, is, and will be.  All that gibberish about the beginning and the Word and the Word being with God and being God is important.  What John does is set the stage for our entire theological understanding of who Jesus is.[iii]  Jesus is not just a special child.  Jesus is not simply a person.  Jesus is both human and divine.  John is outlining the crux of our entire faith in this prologue.

Though I do not suspect that John’s words today would be the best words to use when explaining to a child or a new convert to the faith who Jesus was and what he means to us, John’s words are at the heart of not only the Christmas story, but of our entire faith as Christian people.  When I served at an Anglo-Catholic parish, we did a lot of bowing, genuflecting, and prostrating.  One of the things that took some getting used to for me what genuflecting during the part of the creed that says, “by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate form the Virgin Mary, and was made man.”[iv]  At first I wondered why we genuflected there, but I followed along so as not to stand out.  After two years of that practice though, I came to see the strength in the gesture.  God does something powerful by taking on human flesh.  The incarnation is a game changer.  All that happened before the Christmas moment was transformed when God took on human form.  That is why, despite how wordy or convoluted the words may sound, we read them at Christmas because they help us understand the enormity of this event.   In the end, that realization is much more powerful than the who, what, when, where information.  The why is a much more powerful story today.  The why tells us of the astounding way that God loves us – so much so that God will go to unheard of lengths to be among us, to give us a glimpse of how to live in the way of God, and to redeem us for all time.  The why of this story may not be an engaging bedtime story.  But the why of this story blows our minds when we begin to grasp how insanely the Lord our God loves us.  We could all stand to do a little more genuflecting – either with our bodies or in our hearts – recognizing the tremendous significance of what God has done in the person of Jesus. Our invitation today is to thank and praise our God, and then to discern how that all-powerful love for us will change us to be agents of love and light as well.  Amen.

[i] Robert Redman, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, vol. 1 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 140.

[ii] Michael S. Bennett, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, vol. 1 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 142.

[iii] Redman, 142.

[iv] BCP, 358.

Sermon – John 20.1-18, ED, YB, April 5, 2015

Tags

community, Easter, Episcopal, intellect, Jesus, John, Mary Magdalene, mystery, personal, questions, realness, Sermon, theological, visceral

Growing up in the church, I always had a lot of questions.  There were a lot of things in the Bible that I found confusing, and downright contradictory, and I wanted someone to explain them.  Often the answers were unsatisfactory, and I struggled to understand why the adults in my church did not just have clear answers.  So imagine my delight in adulthood when I discovered the Episcopal Church and the way that the Church seemed to embrace questions.  Of course, the answers were still not always clear, and priests used words like “mystery” and “I don’t know.”  But at least I was in a place that welcomed the questions, and that fact gave me hope that one day, I might actually figure out all this “God stuff.”  And of course, going to seminary was a dream – I could actually spend 24-7 steeped in my questions, in textbooks, and in my favorite spot, the Library.  And though I discovered that there is rarely one answer to a question, the fact that there were myriad answers that one must hold in tension was just fine.  I was just happy to have developed some of the language and ideas around those big questions.

So imagine how proud I was when my first child finally started asking questions about Jesus.  I was going to be the parent who did not have to use words like “mystery” and “I don’t know.”  I did know, and with her first question, I launched into an explanation of epic proportions.  It was not until I looked in the rearview mirror of the car and saw her eyes glazed over and her attention fading that I realized I had lost her.  Somehow my accumulated knowledge and reference to the debates of scholars was of no help with a three-year old.

What I probably should have done was taken a cue from John’s gospel that we hear today.  The funny thing is that John’s gospel is usually pretty heady – his sentences are often convoluted and complicated.  And to be honest, sometimes my eyes glaze over and my attention fades when I read John’s gospel.  But today’s lesson is a little different.  Today, as we hear about the most significant fact of the Christian faith – Jesus’ resurrection – John is not abstract or intellectual at all.  Quite the opposite, the encounter between the risen Lord and Mary Magdalene is visceral, emotional, and deeply, deeply personal.[i]

This kind of revelation about God is not what we expect from John’s gospel.  This is the same gospel that begins, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.”  No mangers, angels, or kings.  John is all about theologically explaining Jesus.  So why then does John give us a story about Mary, Peter, and the beloved disciple running around like crazy people?  Why does John have Mary repeatedly not being able to see past her grief to realize that not only is she speaking to angels who are trying to give her good news, she is also talking to the very man whom she is grieving?  John beautifully transitions today from being a writer who consistently presents Jesus in heady, intellectual ways, to being a writer who also shows us that Jesus is most known in the tangible, realness of life.  In the story, Mary is desperate to see her Lord’s body – what she imagines is the last tangible piece of him left.  She is so distraught that she cannot even see clearly when he is looking at her straight in the eye.  Only when she has turned away in despair, is she able to find Jesus.  Jesus says, “’Mary,’ and the sound of his voice saying her names helps her to see him.  He does not offer a general address; no, he uses a word that applies to her and her alone, a word that captures the utter particularity of her individual life – her name.”[ii]

We do not get a distant, transcendent Jesus in John.  We do not get some flowery, academic description of a concept of Jesus.  We get a real man, addressing a real woman, using the sound of his raspy voice, calling a woman by her very own name.  The gospel does not get much more real and tangible than that.  John’s gospel is such a relief to us today because who among us cannot relate to the busyness of this text?  Before we get to the part of Jesus saying Mary’s name we have Mary and disciples running back and forth, people walking past one another without a word, Mary misinterpreting things because she is so singularly focused on what she thinks should be happening.  Of course she could not see Jesus.  Neither can we.  We are running from work to home to meetings to practices to church.  We are answering emails, hearing headlines on the news, and eating dinner.  We are on the phone, driving the car, and scarfing down lunch.  How can we connect to Jesus in the chaos of our lives?

We can certainly try to connect to Jesus through the study of academic readings and theological debates.  We can try to mentally work our way toward Jesus.  But more often, Jesus is revealed to us instead through embodied, physical ways.  As one scholar explains, “As he did with Mary, Jesus comes to us not as a general idea or an imagined ghostly figure, but as a presence that reaches beyond our mind’s overt powers of knowing and touches our lives in ways that we cannot see.  They are felt – tasted, touched, smelled, heard, seen in image, and as such, often as unconscious as they are visceral.”[iii]  Sometimes we will experience God through study and the use of our minds.  But sometimes, we will come to know God through the emotional and personal – like being called by name.

Once we are willing to accept that there are some things that are beyond our knowing, we can perhaps lessen our grip on our Episcopal embrace of the intellect, and realize that some things of God have to be experienced.  In order to do that, we are going to need some help.  We are going to need to “go to church and be in a space where we physically, emotionally, communally, experience Jesus in our midst.”[iv]  Whether in the taste of the communion wine, the smell of the Easter flowers, the sound a favorite old hymn, or the feel of hard wooden pew, church is one of those places in which the familiar tastes, smells, sounds, touches, and sights stirs up something deep inside of us.  Though church can certainly feed our minds, we can feed our minds anywhere.  But our bodies need to be fed too.  And sometimes the only way to feed our body is through our physical, visceral experiences that can only be had in church – so that our bodies might be reminded of Christ too.

Of course, that means we are going to have to give up some things.  We are going to have to give up on the notion that our brains will be able to answer all our questions.  We are going to have to give up some time on Sundays so that we can place ourselves in the position to taste, touch, feel, see, and hear Jesus.  And we might even have to be willing to say the occasional, “I don’t know,” when our children ask us really hard questions.  But my guess is that children, and even adults, when they are willing to admit it, might be relieved to hear us say, “I don’t know.  But sometimes in my gut, I can feel Jesus with me.  And every once in a while, though the thought may be really strange, I really can hear Jesus calling my name.”  My guess is that the ambiguity, the visceral, tangible concept of Christ, and the sense of wonder and mystery you share might make for a more engaging answer anyway.  Amen.

[i] Serene Jones, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 376.

[ii] Jones, 378.

[iii] Jones, 378.

[iv] Jones, 380.

Sermon – John 18-1-19.42, GF, YB, April 3, 2015

Tags

denial, failings, Good Friday, Jesus, John, Mark, passion, Peter, Sermon, shame, steady, strong

This week we have heard two accounts of Jesus’ passion.  What I am drawn to in both accounts is Peter’s denial.  Both the gospel of Mark and the gospel of John detail Peter’s denial, but the denial of Peter is a bit different in Mark than in John.  On Palm Sunday, we heard Mark’s version.  In Mark, when the servant girl and others ask Peter if he is with Jesus, Peter three times denies Jesus, saying, “I do not know the Man.”  The denial is bitter to us, since we know that Peter not only knew him, but seemingly loved him intimately.  To proclaim that he did not know Jesus is akin to erasing Jesus’ presence in his life.  Peter’s denial of that intimate knowledge seems like the ultimate betrayal.

But then we read John’s passion narrative today.  Although Peter denies Jesus three times again, this time the denial is a little different.  This time, Peter is not asked whether he knows Jesus, but whether he is a disciple of Jesus.  To this question, Peter responds, “I am not.”  The denial in John’s gospel sounds less personal and less offensive.  Whereas in Mark, Peter’s denial feels more like a lie – to state that Peter did not know Jesus when in fact he did.  In John’s gospel, Peter’s denial feels more like a smoothing of the denial.  He does not deny that he knows Jesus, only that he is not a disciple of Jesus.  The trouble with this kind of denial – the denial of Peter’s discipleship –  is that in some ways this denial is much worse.  By denying his discipleship, Peter denies his relationship with Jesus – all that they have been through, all that he has professed, all that he has learned and grown to love.  Peter is denying how Jesus gave him his name, Peter.  He is denying the times that he professed his faith in Jesus – in fact the time that he said he would lay down his life for Jesus.  He is denying that intimate moment when Jesus washed his feet, and he longed for more – that his whole body be washed.  He is even denying how he passionately cut off a slave’s ear just to protect Jesus.  In John’s gospel, Peter not only denies Jesus, he denies an entire relationship.  He denies his discipleship.[i]

As I was thinking about Peter’s denial this week, I was reminded of popular movie.  Though the movie is a pretty cheesy romantic comedy, the movie Thirteen going on Thirty reminded me of Peter.  In the film, the main character, Jenna, is frustrated that her life has not turned out how she would like at age thirteen.  She is not popular, she is not a part of the cool crowd, and her best friend is a rather chubby, unattractive, but sweet boy named Matt.  And so, in order to reach what she thinks will give her the most happiness, she ends her lifelong friendship with her best friend, Matt, remakes her life, and when she magically wakes up at the age of thirty, she has everything she wants – friends, a job in fashion, an athlete boyfriend, trips around the world – basically the glamorous, comfortable life she always wanted.  All she had to do was deny her relationship with her best friend – even when that denial involved mocking him in front of others to gain status.

What makes that movie so relatable is that we all remember how monumental life seemed as a teenager.  One slight, one suggestion that we did not quite fit in could make our self-worth plummet.  Unable to see beyond what felt like ultimate importance at that age, we all said and did things that we look back upon now and feel shame for doing.  And although most of us would like to think we grow out of that undiscerning teenage phase, the truth is that we continue to struggle with those impulses into adulthood.  When put on the spot, we can waiver between the right thing to do and the most advantageous thing to do.  We can struggle with what our conscious would have us do and what we know will make us the most comfortable or safe.  When we are really honest with ourselves, we can admit that we are creatures who seek comfort.  We regularly choose the path of least resistance so that we can avoid conflict, keep the peace, or just remain in a comfort zone.  The phrase, “don’t rock the boat,” is a phrase that we use when we are encouraging people to just keep things as smooth as possible.  In fact, the only time we want to rock the boat is to toss over the person who is causing us discomfort, so that our boat can get back to smooth sailing – despite the cost.  That impulse is in every one of us, and controlling that impulse is more difficult than most of us like to admit.

That is why reading John’s version of Peter’s denial is so hard today.  Though we have heard the story a hundred times, there is some part of us that always hopes the story will end differently this year.  When we hear Peter answer the question about whether he is Jesus’ disciple, our heart breaks again when he says quite simply, “I am not.”  We mourn Peter’s response, not only because Peter’s response is a denial of all the goodness of his relationship with Jesus, but also because Peter’s denial reminds us of the times that we have denied Christ in our own lives.  We recall today the times when we have downplayed our faith to make others more comfortable; the times when we have avoided caring for the poor when we know that is what Jesus would have us do; the times when we have wrested control of our lives from God because we think that we know better; or maybe the times when we have simply stepped away from faith, or God, or Church because we just could not offer that part of ourselves anymore.

The good news is that in the face of denial, Jesus is ever strong when others cannot be.  When Peter is questioned, his response is, “I am not.”  When Jesus is questioned, his response is, “I am.”  When the crowds say they are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus says, “I am he.”  When they seemed stunned into silence, and Jesus again asks who they are looking for, Jesus says, “I told you that I am he.”  When Peter is faced with the heat of confrontation, he crumbles with an “I am not.”  But Jesus calmly, strongly, steadfastly faces the heat with, “I am.”  Of course, Jesus’ response is not just a response of strength.  His response is a claiming of the divine name.  Jesus takes the same name that God gives to Moses when God says, “I am who I am.”[ii]  Jesus is faithful, strong, and bold because Jesus is the one through whom God is revealed.  Though Peter is not, Jesus is.

In the midst of our failings, in the midst of our shame for the ways in which we deny and betray our Lord, Jesus’ words, “I am,” are what give us comfort today.  When we cannot be who we are called to be, when we fail in our discipleship, or when we deny our relationship and commitment to Jesus, Jesus firmly remains the great “I am.”  Jesus in John’s gospel steadily steps forward to his death, constantly in control of his death.  He carries his own cross, he dies with his mother and beloved disciple with him, and he determines when his mission is “finished.”[iii]  When we are weak, he is strong.  When we fail, he succeeds.  Jesus’ strength, his clarity in his identity, and his determined focus to the very end is our stronghold.  We will never be the as great as the great “I am.”  But by holding fast to Jesus this day – our strong, beloved, crucified Jesus – perhaps we too will be able to turn our “I am not,” into an “I am.”  And in the meantime, Jesus will lead the way.  Amen.

[i] The concept of the differences in John and Mark’s version of Peter’s denial presented by Karoline Lewis, in her Sermon Brainwave podcast at http://www.workingpreacher.org/brainwave.aspx?podcast_id=610 on March 27, 2015.

[ii] Guy D. Nave, Jr., “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 305, 307.

[iii] Nave, 309.

Sermon – Matthew 3.13-17, E1, YA, January 12, 2014

Tags

baptism, consent, covenant, God, Jesus, John, prevent

Today we celebrate the baptism of Jesus.  All three synoptic gospels have an account of Jesus’ baptism, but Matthew’s version that we hear today is the only one that has a dialogue between the John and Jesus.  Though there is debate about why the conversation is present in Matthew’s gospel[i], I find much more interesting the content of their conversation.  When Jesus comes to John to be baptized, John tries to prevent Jesus from doing so, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”  Jesus responds to John, by saying, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.”

John has been out in the wilderness for a while now, and has been preaching all along about the Messiah.  I imagine he has a pretty set idea of who this Messiah is how the Messiah will behave.  So, when Jesus comes, asking John to baptize him, John pushes back.  We are not sure exactly what John expects Jesus to do or say, but we can tell by the way he actively tries to prevent Jesus from being baptized that Jesus’ actions do not fit in John’s mental image of how things are supposed to go.  In fact, John feels so strongly that he does not just protest or argue with Jesus.  The text says John tries to physically prevent Jesus from being baptized.

What I love about this interaction is how very human and familiar John’s response to Jesus is.  I can think of hundred of times we have equally tried to get in Jesus’ way.  We couldn’t possibly invite our unchurched friend to church because we have heard their tirades about religion and those who go to church.  We cannot imagine going on a foreign mission trip because we cannot get the time off, we don’t speak the native language, we love hot showers too much, or mission trips just simply aren’t our thing.  We refuse to take our problems up with God in prayer because we think we can solve the issue on our own, that God is too busy for our minor issues, or we have yet to hear the answer we want from God.  We cannot possibly take on that new ministry invitation because we do not have the time, we cannot imagine what good the ministry will do, or we just simply do not like change.  Like John the Baptist, over and over again we prove ourselves to be experts in attempting to prevent Jesus from doing something in our lives.

When we were preparing for Church in the fall, we shared several videos on our Facebook page meant to spark some thought and conversation about how we invite people to church.  Most of the videos were funny, using satire to highlight our discomfort with inviting others to church.  My favorite is one where two guys meet in their yards after church.  One has his Bible in his hand, having just returned from church.  The other is working in the yard, tending his garden.  As the two chat, you can hear the inner monologue of the gardener, wondering why his neighbor never asks him to go to church.  He even admits, in his thoughts, that he would totally go if he were invited.  But instead, the best the churchgoer can do is to invite his neighbor over for lunch.  You can see the disappointment in the neighbor, but how both men try to skirt the issue.  Essentially the churchgoer prevents his neighbor from feeling truly welcome to church.

To John, and to us, Jesus’ response is simple.  Jesus basically tells John, “Just trust me and do this now.”  Jesus does not explain why John must get out of the way or how baptizing him will somehow fulfill all righteousness.  Jesus does not tell John what will happen when Jesus is baptized.  Jesus does not even really offer reassuring words.  To this dearth of reassurance, how does John respond?  The text simply says, “And John consented.”  But more fascinating than John acquiescing is that John really does have a choice.  Like Moses, Samuel, Mary, and Joseph, God always offers the choice to respond.  There is always the choice of saying no.  I am reminded of the story of Naomi and her daughters-in-law.  She gives them the choice of returning to their homelands when her sons, their husbands, die.  Orpah chooses to go home; Ruth chooses to stay with Naomi.  That is the beauty of our relationship with God – the affirmation of our freewill and the mutuality of the relationship is always present.

Today, like we do multiple times during the year, the Church will invite you to make a choice in your relationship with God.  We turn back to our own baptisms and we reaffirm the choices that were first made on our behalf, but we have now promised for ourselves every time we renew our baptismal vows.  Those promises include proclaiming the Good News of God in Christ, seeking and serving Christ in all persons, and striving for justice and peace.  Those promises are not promises the church created from its own imagination.  Those promises come out of invitations from Jesus’ life and ministry.  Like Jesus asked John to just trust him and act, so Jesus invites us to trust him and act through our own baptism.  Our invitation is to be a people who consent.

Now some of you may be like John, Mary, or Joseph who receive a challenging invitation from God and respond with a hearty, “Here I am Lord,” or a simple consent.  Others of you may be more like Samuel, who hear God’s invitation but do not quite understand the invitation – like when Samuel goes to Eli in the temple multiple times thinking Eli is calling him in the middle of the night instead of God.  Or maybe you identify more with Moses – who argues with God in myriad ways, trying to convince God to ask someone else, anyone else, to take on God’s invitation.

Luckily our baptismal vows give us some clue about how we can manage to consent to God.  “Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of the bread, and in the prayers?” is the question you will hear today.  The more you steep yourself in Scripture and the fellowship of this community, the more you will be empowered to proclaim the Good News of God in Christ.  The more you consume the body and blood of our Savior, the more you will be able to see and then serve Christ in others.  The more you immerse yourself in a life of prayer, the more you will find opportunities for striving for justice and peace among all people.  Today you choose, you consent, to live your life within the community of faith – and that choice will have an impact not just on you, but on others.  But Jesus cannot do the work alone.  The choice is yours to consent.  Amen.

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[i] Troy A. Miller, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. A., Vol. 1 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 239.

Sermon – John 1.1-18, C1, YA, December 29, 2013

Tags

Christmas, God, Holy Family, Jesus, John, Mary, miracle, prologue, Rembrandt, scripture

A couple of days after Christmas, the all-Christmas-music radio stations have switched back to their normal formats.  At local stores, the Christmas rack of cards had been transformed to a rack of Valentine’s Day cards.  In our neighborhoods and among our friends and family, we have switched our greeting from, “Merry Christmas!” to, “Happy New Year!”  The world has moved on from Christmas, and yet, the Church is still dwelling in Christmastide – in fact we celebrate not just one day, but the famous twelve days of Christmas.  Our celebrations continue until those wise men arrive on the 6^th, when we transition to Epiphanytide.  Today, after stories of shepherd, angels, and the holy family, we find ourselves not wondering what is next, but instead still pondering what has just happened.

For a reflection on what happens in Jesus’ birth, what better text than John’s prologue?  John takes us out of the stable, and invites us not to just consider the miracle of that holy night, but to consider the miracle of a God who takes on human flesh for us.  And so, instead of telling us about the earthly beginning of Jesus’ life, John takes us all the way back to the beginning of all things – that creative moment when the Word and God are together, making all life come into being.  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  The words sound beautiful, and John’s text is rich with meaning and interpretation.  But John’s words are also a little circuitous, repetitive, and a bit difficult to understand without reading them multiple times over.  The familiarity and beauty of the words may be soothing, but the meaning of those words sometimes eludes us.

As I sat pondering these words this week, I found myself drawn again to Rembrandt’s painting, “Holy Family,”[i]  In the foreground of the painting, Mary, who is bathed in light, has a well-worn book, perhaps scriptures, lying on her lap, held in place by one hand, as though she has been reading the book intently.  Her face, however is turned away from the weathered book, as her other hand lifts a blanket that is covering a cradle, revealing a sleeping, contented Jesus.  Behind Mary and Jesus, in much fainter light, Joseph is standing over a piece of wood that he is intently planing.  Meanwhile, in the top left corner of the painting, young cherubim are hovering around the scene with outstretched arms.

What I like so much about the painting is that Mary gives us a clue about how we are to understand John’s beautiful, but convoluted words today.  First, I am intrigued by the way Mary clutches her well-worn book.  In looking at her book’s worn edges, I am reminded of the Bible I used for my Education for Ministry class several years ago.  In EFM, you spend two years reading through the Old and New Testaments.  I remember how my homework for the class instructed me to highlight certain passages in different colors so I could track the different contributors to a text.  I remember writing notes in the margins of passages that stood out, held particular meaning, or raised questions.  I remember certain pages being soiled by the meal I tried to cram in while finishing my assigned reading for a particular session.  That Bible looked like a Bible someone actually lived with as opposed to the clean, commemorative ones I have on many of my shelves.

That is the way I imagine Mary treating her worn book.  As the one who ponders things in her heart, I imagine Mary also ponders scripture in her heart.  I imagine she pours over the texts as she looks for words to explain her experiences with Jesus or as she simply longs for words to describe her feelings toward the God who had done something so tremendous in her life.  As Mary seeks to understand the Word made flesh, perhaps she returns again and again to the words of scripture, trying to discern their meaning.  And given that she is a faithful Jew, she probably also does that pouring over scripture with her faith community, as they seek to always hear God’s word for the people.  Her community probably turns back to that creation narrative over and over again.  Her community probably turns back to the Law of Moses over and over again.  Her community probably turns back to the prophets over and over again.

Given her longing for scriptural insight, Mary likely would have appreciated John’s text today, even though John’s gospel was not written until about 60 years after Jesus’ death.  She would have already known the stories of Luke and Matthew because they are her story.  But our text by John today is an attempt to help all of us understand the magnificence of what happens when God takes on human flesh.  In fact, if Mary had been reading John, I imagine that the last line we hear is what draws her attention away from her well-worn book to look at the Christ Child himself in Rembrandt’s painting.  John writes, “No one has ever seen God.  It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.”

Perhaps this text is why Rembrandt depicts Mary’s eyes wandering back to that cradle, her hand pulling back the blanket, and her mind not just worrying like any mother does over an infant, but her mind also worrying about what God is doing in this child of hers.  She wants to do more than read the words on the paper – she wants to read the Word, with a capital “W,” in her life.  She wants to gaze at the Word made flesh, who shines light into that dimly lit room and into the world.  She wants to not only know the Law of Moses, but to know the grace and truth that comes directly from the Word incarnate.

What Rembrandt depicts in his painting is perhaps where we find our invitation from John’s gospel lesson today.  In order to understand John’s language, we too are invited to create our own dialogue between the Word of Scriptures and the Word made flesh.  Studying both Holy Scripture and the Holy Child is how we come to understand challenging texts like John’s gospel.  For some of us, that invitation may seem as muddy as John’s gospel.  But what Mary does in Rembrandt’s painting is available for us today too.  We can “develop a richer, fuller faith by tending both to the Word through words and to the Word made flesh, the Christ who is with us in the sacraments, with us in prayer, with us in our church, with us in our friends, with us in the stranger, and with us in creation, since ‘all things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.’”[ii]

For those of you still wondering what this life pattern still looks like, consider the ways in which we already live into this balance.  When we reach into our pockets a little deeper for those families in our neighborhood who are just struggling to put gas in the car and food on the table, honoring the holy in one another, we then turn back to Holy Scripture that tell us to care for the poor.  When we care for one another in this community, sharing our deepest pains and struggles, we then turn to back to Holy Scripture as we struggle to find words to verbalize our understanding of God in that pain and struggle.  When we come to this table, and consume the body of Christ in the bread, we then turn to Holy Scripture to understand what the Word became flesh means.  We gather today as a community of faith, both clutching the Word in Holy Scripture, and clutching Word in the Christ Child, knowing that we can never fully understand one without the other.  Amen.

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[i] C. 1645.

[ii] Thomas H. Troeger, “Homliletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. A., Vol. 1 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 193.

Sermon – John 1.1-14, CD, YA, December 25, 2013

Tags

Christmas, darkness, death, God, incarnation, Jesus, John, light, prologue, resurrection

I must admit that I have always been a little wary of John’s prologue at Christmas time.  I tend to prefer the earthy stories of Jesus in a manger, of dramatic angelic appearances, of messy shepherds, and of a baffled holy family.  I like that I can picture the events in my mind and ponder their meaning.  I like that I could imagine myself there and even wonder what the events mean to me two thousand years later.  My love of these stories is only accentuated by the songs we sing on Christmas Eve, and the nostalgia the music brings to me.

But today, on Christmas Day, we get none of that.  We sing no songs, we hear no romantic, familiar stories, and we do not get lost in the ancient narrative.  Instead, on this busy, often loud day, we come into a totally different space – a place of quiet reverence – and we hear a totally different text.  John does not go back to the beginning of Jesus’ story – he goes back to the beginning of all our stories.  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  Our minds drift not back to a stable, but to the beginning of creation, when the earth was a formless void – tohu wavohu.  Whereas our synoptic gospels try to tell us about who Jesus is by giving a story about his birth narrative, John’s gospel takes an even wider lens to try to explain who Jesus is.

In some ways the contrast between Christmas Eve’s stories about the stable and Christmas Day’s quiet reflection on the beginning of time is quite appropriate.  On Christmas Eve we are full of giddiness and excitement.  We break the long anticipation of Advent with a festive celebration of Jesus’ birth.  We share in jubilation, as if we are a crowd of people gathered at the maternity ward, sharing cigars and bear hugs.  But today, like a crew that has come in to clean up after a late-night party, we gather in these pews with a bit more sobriety, deeply pondering what all this incarnation stuff means.  For that kind of work, John’s gospel is the perfect gift.  John almost seems to say, “Yes, all those stories you know and love about Jesus are true and are to be celebrated.  But do not get swept away in the excitement and forget what this really means.”

For John, he begins his gospel starting not with details of the event of the incarnation, but with details about the significance of the incarnation.  For John, he is not interested in the sentimentality of a cute baby.  John is interested in the astounding fact that God became incarnate – took on flesh, lived among us, took on our dirty, gritty lives, and faced rejection and suffering – all so that we might live.  The God of creation – that same creative God we know from Genesis – is the same God who comes among us.  The Word has always been, and yet the Word also enters into human history to give life and light to the people.  When we talk about this kind of momentous significance, it is no wonder that we gather here in quiet awe of our God, soberly realizing the tremendous, salvific gift of the Word made flesh coming to dwell among us.

In some ways, the contrast between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are hitting home a little more vividly this year.  On the one hand, I have a four-year old, who really gets Christmas this year, who is excited beyond belief about baby Jesus, St. Nicholas, presents, and visiting family.  Her enthusiasm is infectious, and I want to cultivate that joy.  I am reminded of that collect from compline that asks God to “shield the joyous.”  But on the other hand, death has been heavy around me these last few days.  A dear friend from Delaware died this weekend, St. Margaret’s Cemetery helped a young couple from a neighboring church bury an 8-month stillborn child on Monday, and just two days ago, a St. Margaret’s parishioner lost his mother.  In light of the grief of those around me, I am grateful for a sober reminder of the awesomeness of our God, the salvation and promise of resurrection that is only made possible through the incarnation – that Word made flesh who lived among us, and who is full of grace and truth.  In the end, there is hope on both sides – hope for the happily joyous this season and hope for the soberly mournful this season.  I thank God for a Church who tends to both sets of needs, but mostly I thank God for taking on our earthly flesh, for giving us the Word who knew both joy and sorrow, and for promising us that the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it.  Amen.