The Gap between Who We Are and Who God Wants Us to be

Have you ever noticed how the reference to most of the biblical readings in the bulletin looks something like this: Philippians 4:1-8, or Mark 12:24-30? They are straight from the bible… with no omissions. But every now and then, the framers of the lectionary try to slip something by us. Like today: a reading from Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, and 8-10. What happened to verses 4 and 7? What do they say and who decided you and I won’t get to hear it?

Well, let me set the record straight and reveal what is being kept from you. Verse 4:

The scribe Ezra stood on a wooden platform that had been made for the purpose; and beside him stood Mattithiah, Shema, Anaiah, Uriah, Hilkiah, and Maaseiah on his right hand; and Pedaiah, Mishael, Malchijah, Hashum, Hash-baddanah, Zechariah, and Meshullam on his left hand.

And now for verse 7:

Also Jeshua, Bani, Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodiah, Maaseiah [wasn’t he on the other side in verse 4?], Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, Pelaiah, the Levites, helped the people to understand the law, while the people remained in their places.

You know, this is the first year these two verses have been omitted. I used to so look forward to the Third Sunday after the Epiphany, Year C, because some poor lay reader had to make his or her way through – and I think we can all agree on this description – these unpronouncable names. There are not a lot of perks in the clergy business, and they just took away another one. I remember one time years ago when a seasoned reader stood at the lectern and said,

Ezra stood on a wooden platform that had been made for the purpose; and beside him stood some guys on his right hand and some other guys on his left hand.

Well, it is sad that these moments of improvisation and torture are no more.

Removing the reading of all those names does not diminish the fact that this passage is an important Old Testament lesson. It speaks about a spiritual struggle we still engage today and while it takes place nearly five centuries before Jesus’ ministry, there is something about it that feels like a New Testament moment.

Let me give you some background. The temple and the walls around Jerusalem were in ruins when exiles returned from Babylon in the closing years of the 6th century BC. Leaders like Nehemiah and Ezra the priest soon rallied the people to engage in a huge public restoration project. During the course of this work someone uncovered ancient scrolls of scripture.

These were and are the words of God and, because the exiles were not allowed to take the scrolls to Babylon, no one had read them or heard them read for nearly two generations. While in exile the Jewish people carried on with their faith traditions as best they could based on their memories. But memories can be faulty. Huge gaps in the faith tradition can go undetected while what are minor points can be overemphasized almost to a fault.

So once the city’s wall was repaired, it was time to do some repair work on the human soul. All the people gather around. Ezra reads and he chooses a couple dozen leaders to lead what are essentially small group discussions so that the people understand fully what they hear.

And here is what they heard: there was a huge gap between who they were and who God wanted them to be. Theirs is a timeless struggle we still engage today. There will always, always, always be a gap between who we are and who God wants us to be.

I had a friend in high school who went out for the track team in the high jump. He worked very hard at it day in and day out. We were at a huge meet and he represented our school. Before his event began, I found him, and wished him luck. He looked very dejected. Because this meet attracted the best athletes for miles around, the bar for the starting jump was set at 5’8”. My friend’s best jump ever was 5’4”. There was no way he was going to make it out of the opening round. Those four inches might as well have been four miles. It was a gap he simply could not overcome.

If you can imagine how he felt at that moment then you can understand how the people in Jerusalem felt the day when they heard God’s word read aloud. They were good and faithful people trying their best to do what they imagined God wanted them to do. But then, in an instance, in a holy, sacred moment, they learned just how far away they were from living lives that actually pleased God according the standard set by Scripture. And, in their minds, the gap between what they were doing and what they learned God expected was overwhelming.

Into this moment steps Ezra the priest. When the people became aware of the gap they wept, they mourned, and they fell into despair. They forgot about the how God had brought them back from exile. They forgot about the rebuilding they were doing. They focused only, solely, entirely on the gap.

Now I don’t want to minimize the sins and shortcoming of those folks gathered back in the day. I don’t want to say that it was unimportant. I don’t want to say that the people should just ignore it. Somehow, someway, they had to come to grips with their behavior and move forward. Ezra knew this, for sure, but notice what he does. He calls for a party! He calls for a celebration… a celebration of all that is good and godly in who the people are. It is to be a celebration rooted first and foremost in God’s love. Look at what Ezra says, “This day that we have seen the gap is a holy day. Do not be grieved. The joy of the Lord is our strength.” That is New Testament theology.

I once heard a pastor pronounce the absolution of sin after confession with these words:

“By the grace of God we are not what we once were.”
By the love of God we are who we are.
And we are not yet what we one day will be.”
That is “joy of the Lord” thinking and no person of honest faith can make his or her way in life without it.

Those of us who live in the joy of the Lord know that God meets us where we are, as we are – gaps and all. We know that God loves us where we are, as we are – gaps and all. And we know how God’s love shapes and molds us into a more faithful way of being. In a few moments we will receive communion. The name of the service is not “The Great Groveling before God because We are Unworthy Sinners.” The title of the service in the prayer book is “The Great Thanksgiving.” And we don’t perform the service in penitence, we “celebrate” it for it is the best food and finest wine of the week.

I think back to my high school friend. That meet came early in the season. He did not give up on the high jump or on himself. He kept at it day in and day out, meet after meet, working to get better. And do you know what, by the end of the season he was clearing 5’8” with ease. There is a parable in that story for us today. It calls us to know the gap in our lives by understanding scripture, to acknowledge that the gap exists, to celebrate what we can do, and to allow God’s grace to work on what we can’t. I don’t know what Maaseiah and the others told the small groups they led, but if I had been in charge of one, this is what I would have told them.

Love without Depletion Overflows

We live in a culture that appreciates the symbolism of an act or event.  Take tomorrow’s Presidential inauguration as an example.  Much of what will occur is intended to convey meaning.  At his first inauguration, Barak Obama was sworn in using the Lincoln Bible; the bible on which Abraham Lincoln placed his hand when he took the Oath of Office in 1860.  Clearly it was an intentional choice made by Mr. Obama and an act rich in symbolism.

At tomorrow’s inauguration, the President has elected to have a bible used by Martin Luther King placed on top of the Lincoln Bible.  This will be one of many symbolic acts incorporated into tomorrow’s festivities that people are talking about.  Internet discussion around the bibles centers on Obama’s original shift from the one used by George Washington at his inauguration, the addition of the MLK bible, and questions as to why any bible should be used during the oath.

Symbolic acts do this.  They create conversation about mystery, meaning, identity, wisdom, and deeper truths.  And, as I said, our culture is very much in tune with the symbolism behind much of what happens.

More than the other three, John’s Gospel teems with symbolism.  As a writer, John cares little for chronological accuracy.  Instead, he is deeply invested in the layers of meaning undergirding each episode he describes.  In John’s Gospel, the initial act Jesus chooses to launch his public ministry is to attend a wedding.  What does that tell you?

Think of the possibilities here.  As his first act, Jesus could have healed a sick person.  He could have exorcized a demon, clamed a storm, confronted an injustice or forgiven a sinner.  He could have gone to a synagogue and prayed.  Rather than do these or anything else we might imagine, John reports that Jesus attended a community celebration.  What do you suppose the symbolic meaning behind this is?

Richard Wilbur is a celebrated poet and an Episcopalian.  Meditating on the event at Cana, he wrote a toast for a family wedding that captures a significant aspect of the complex meaning behind Jesus’ actions:

St. John tells how, at Cana’s wedding feast,
The water-pots poured wine in such amount
That by his sober count
There were a hundred gallons at the least.

It made no earthly sense, unless to show
How whatsoever love elects to bless
Brims to a sweet excess
That can without depletion overflow.

Which is to say that what love sees is true;
That this world’s fullness is not made but found.
Life hungers to abound
And pour its plenty out for such as you.

Now, if your loves will lend an ear to mine,
I toast you both, good son and dear new daughter.
May you not lack for water,
And may that water smack of Cana’s wine.

 (The Wedding at Cana by Richard Wilbur)

“Whatever love elects to bless brims to a sweet excess.”  “This world’s fullness is not made but found.”  I think Wilbur has captured something deeply true in the symbolic act behind Jesus’ attendance and actions at Cana.  Work your fingers to the bone all your life and still you cannot make that wine for which you thirst.  It is all ready here in abundance.  You just have to let it find you.

I was first drawn to the Episcopal Church because its message, its liturgy, and in its spirituality affirmed the goodness of life in a way that I did not perceive during my more conservative, Evangelical upbringing.  Yes, there is brokenness in this world, there is sinfulness, there is evil.  But, as I said last Sunday, in addition to challenge, we live in a world infused with grace and there is more than enough grace to carry us through life’s difficulties.  Wilbur captures this truth when he says “love continues to overflow without depletion.”

I want you to think back over the past week… just the past week.  I am confident it has been filled with blessings and challenges.  Think for a moment and ponder Wilbur’s claim that “love without depletion overflows.”  If you found this to be true in your life over the last week, how about doing something unEpiscopalian and give me an ‘Amen’.

Have you ever shopped at a Restore?  It is to leftover building supplies and discarded home fixtures what the Salvation Army Store is to used clothing.  About a year ago I bought a rod iron bed frame at a Restore in Newport News for $20.  The cashier asked me if I was redoing a bedroom.  “No”, I said, “I am going to use the rod iron in my garden somehow.”  She got all excited at this and said, “I love it when people find a way to ‘repurpose’ our items.”

At the wedding in Cana, Jesus ‘repurposes’ six huge stone water jars.  They held water not meant for consumption, but for ritual purification.  The Book of Leviticus sets out in exacting detail who is spiritually clean and who is not based on any number of criteria: what you eat, bodily functions, if you touched something you shouldn’t, etc.  Way back in the day there must have been a good reason for all these various rules, but by Jesus’ day that moment had long since passed.  In his day the purity laws served a much more simple function... they enabled religious leaders to determine who was in God’s favor and who was not.  They determined who could be admitted into God’s community – in this case, the wedding feast – and who should be excluded.  In this sense the jars had a powerful symbolic value, didn’t they.

By turning the water for purification into the best wine of the feast Jesus does something much more significant than keeping the party going.  He transforms the face of religion itself.  The very jars that conveyed inclusion and exclusion, worthiness and unworthiness, became the containers that fostered an ongoing celebration of life itself.  The old rules kept people out.  The new rule of Jesus is an invitation extended to everyone.  He is all about a message that draws in.  As Wilbur put it, God’s life abounds and hungers to pour out its plenty on such as us.

The very actions of Jesus we read this day invite us to understand life as an invitation to enter into the blessing and joy that permeates life lived in God.  It tells us that this invitation is open to everyone.  It tells us that this message is first and foremost on Jesus’ mind at his inaugural moment.  And it tells us that we do not make this life, but rather find it as we discover what is always there… the incredible life offered by the Lord of life.

Baptisms in Grace and in Challenge

   

This first Sunday after the Epiphany is always a celebration of our Lord’s baptism in the Jordon River; a moment that launches his public ministry.  After an event-filled birth some thirty years earlier Jesus has grown up in relative obscurity.  In the three years that follow his immersion Jesus will change the course of human history and even more than this, we Christians proclaim that Jesus has transformed cosmic reality.

Here is what the fourth century bishop Gregory of Nazianzus wrote about this moment:

John is baptizing when Jesus draws near… He comes to bury sinful humanity in the waters… He who is spirit and flesh comes to begin a new creation through Spirit and water.

The Baptist protests; Jesus insists.  Then John says: “I ought to be baptized by you.”  He is the lamp in the presence of the sun, the voice in the wilderness in the presence of the Word, the friend in the presence of the Bridegroom, the greatest born of woman in the presence of the firstborn of all creation, the one who leapt in his mother’s womb in the presence of him who is adored in the womb, the forerunner and future forerunner in the presence of him who has already come and is to come again. 

Jesus rises from the waters; and a drowned world rises with him.

And the world Jesus lifts out of the water is a world infused with God’s love and God’s grace.
 
We are blessed on this day through baptism to welcome Payton Rowe into the Christian faith and life.  It is her official introduction into the world of grace; a world she already senses through the love and affection of her family and friends and a world she will come to know more deeply as the years go by.

There is a wonderful poem by Denise Levertov titled The Avowal that describes the life of faith using two common images, a swimmer floating in water and a bird gliding in air:

As swimmers dare
to lie face to the sky
and water bears them,
as hawks rest upon air
and air sustains them,
so would I learn to attain
freefall, and float
into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace,
knowing no effort earns
that all-surrounding grace

God’s love and grace is not something we work for, it is something we acknowledge.  We rest in it.  We allow it to hold as we live and to lift us as we soar.  Like all of us, Payton’s life continually will reflect the reality and presence of all-surrounding grace.

I am keenly aware that for Payton, as again for all of us, there will be a second baptism.  She will provide the water for this one with her own tears.  It will happen many times, but one of these moments will mark the end of her innocence by the rude and unwelcome awareness that this life holds challenge as well as grace.  She will learn that pain, hurt, rejection, fear, anxiety, loss, and death are never far from us.

In time Payton will come to understand that the first baptism is more than enough to bear her through the second; that hope is greater than despair, healing more powerful than hurt, love overcomes all hate, faith conquers fear, and a light always shines in the darkness.  This is the world that rises from the Jordon’s baptismal water with Jesus.  It is the world we live in by faith: a world of grace and challenge.

These two realities were present in the life of our congregation over the past twelve months.  At last year’s annual meeting, the wardens and Vestry highlighted our challenge: the 2012 operating budget was underfunded by nearly $40,000.  We faced a financial crisis.  Still, signs of grace were all around us.  Nowhere was it more evident than in our growing membership, increased Sunday attendance, and lengthy prayer list for couples preparing for the birth of a child.

It is amazing how things can change.  Through your generosity and a confluence of circumstances that probably won’t happen again, St. Paul’s ended the year with a $10,000 surplus.  Grace, grace, grace!  However, the year’s most significant challenge emerged where we least expected… in our membership.  Good and faithful people have left St. Paul’s because of decisions made at the national and diocesan level.  Membership is down.  Attendance is down.  There is a striking rise in the number of people who, by virtue of the criteria we have been using for several years, are now considered inactive.

My sense is that each person who is committed to St. Paul’s became even more committed in 2012.  You did more, gave more, and attended more than ever before.  We have a strong base and a good nucleus on which to build.  We are down, but we are far from out.

I am grateful for the staff that serves us.  Al, Amy, Miko, Juel, and now Holly are remarkably talented people who use their gifts in service to God to further the mission of this place.  I am grateful to our Vestry, especially to Debbie Askew, Jim Gordon, and Marty Wilson whose service ends with today’s election.  All three have done much for the parish: Altar Guild, education, property & finance, the Food Pantry, pony rides and float-towing – these are skills that will be hard to replace.

I particularly want to thank Jim Gordon for his quiet, effective leadership as Junior Warden a year ago and Senior Warden this past year.  His commitment, dedication, and unfailing presence (along with Elizabeth) has been a sure sign of God’s grace in our midst.  I speak for the entire Vestry when I express my gratitude to Terry Mottley for accepting the position of Treasurer in mid-year.  He has put in an enormous amount of time and effort to get us caught up.  I am grateful for the accuracy and attention he brings to this ministry.

Now in my sixth year, I continue to enjoy serving as your rector.  My most rewarding moments over the past twelve months have come by being with you in times of grace and challenge.  I think of the Waller’s 60th wedding anniversary in August and watching Madison Mottley ring the church bell the afternoon she learned that her mother had died.  I rejoice in every one of the year’s seven baptisms.  I was moved to be a part of the service where fourteen people were confirmed or received.  At the candlelight, Christmas Eve Cantata I felt like I was in Levertov’s poem, floating and soaring in the midst of grace.

I know that I don’t know what 2013 has in store for the parish, only that there will be more than enough grace to meet our challenges.  None of us knows specifically what life holds for Payton Rowe, but we do know two things about it.  First, she will learn to float and soar in all-surrounding grace, even in the midst of life’s inevitable challenges.  And second, each one of us will do all in our power to support her in this wonderful life of faith, which (if you recall from last week) is a journey without maps.

A Journey without Maps

The 20th Century theologian Paul Tillich said that the life of faith is a journey without maps. This certainly squares with my experience. If you are signing on to follow Jesus so that your life will be predictable, you are going to be disappointed. In fact, little about life is predictable except its unpredictability. Sure, day in and day out we may face a steady diet of fastball pitches right over the plate; pitches that we can handle with ease. But experience tells us that a day will come when we get a curve ball or a slider or an off-speed pitch or a knuckleball or one that is hard, high, and tight aimed at the chin. We don’t know when it is coming, but we know that it will. All we can do is react in the moment to what is. This, I think, is what Tillich meant when he said that the life of faith is a journey without maps.


Perhaps he had the magi in mind when he made his observation. These stargazers certainly lived faith without a map. They were spiritual, open, scholarly, generous, adventurous, trusting. Following the path of a single, bright star in the western sky is a pretty vivid image of a mapless journey. In the course of making their way they encounter their mirror opposite in Herod. He is practical, exacting, controlling, fearful, ruthless, duplicitous, and totally invested in maintaining the status quo, which benefits him at the expense of others. For Herod, life is a not a journey without maps, but rather a self-serving plan that he controls.

How exotic that caravan must have appeared as the camel-carried-foreigners made their way into Jerusalem proper! The city must have been buzzing with news of its arrival and speculation regarding its mission. Stargazers have a way of unnerving rule-makers just as people who live life without maps have a way of unsettling those who think they can dictate every pitch’s speed and location over the plate. The mapless journey of the magi led them to a house. There they encounter a mother and child. They pay homage to the child and present him with gifts. Herod follows a map of his own making, the one that marks the way to the destiny he desires. His map directs him to destroy the child, and just to make sure he gets the job done, he orders the slaughter of every boy under the age of two in the region.

The faith-filled journey takes many different shapes and patterns, as you might expect. The star to light the way appears at different times and in a myriad of circumstances. For the last week or so I have been meditating on a poem by the Australian writer Judith Wright titled “Grace”. In it she describes how the star most often appears for her and I think to all of us:

Living is a dailiness, a simple bread
That’s worth eating. But I have known a wine,
A drunkenness that can’t be spoken or sung
Without betraying it. Far past Yours or Mine
Even past Ours, it has nothing at all to say;
It slants a sudden laser through a common day.

It seems to have nothing to do with things at all,
Requires another element or dimension.
Not contemplation brings it; it merely happens,
Past expectation and beyond intention;
Takes over the depth of flesh, the inward eye,
Is there, then vanishes. Does not live or die,
Because it occurs beyond the here and now,
Positives, negatives, what we hope and are.
Not even being in love, or making love,
Brings it. It plunges a sword from a dark star.

Maybe there was once a word for it. Call it grace.
I have seen it, once or twice, through a human face.

There are times when a faith-filled journey without maps presents a very ordinary opportunity in the midst what Wright calls “dailiness.” But this moment is anything from ordinary for it “slants a sudden laser through a common day.” We don’t conjure it through contemplation. In fact there is nothing about it we control. She says that this grace comes to us through a human face.

I think I know what she is describing. It is what happens when we lay aside our plans, our work, our chores, our tasks, our duties, even if only for a few moments, and give our attention to the unexpected encounter with another person. Grace is found not by crossing off everything on our to-do list, but by putting aside our daily map at the unexpected appearance of a star in the sky. It might be a co-worker who is carrying a burden, or child who wants to share a newly discovered wonder or friend who wants to relax for a minute or two. When that sudden laser comes slanting through a common day, roll up you map, tuck it away for a while, and let the moment take you where it will.

That is perhaps the best description of what happened here yesterday morning as we gathered to celebrate the life of Madison Mottley’s mother, Michele. The moment took us where it will, slanting a sudden laser through a common day. If you wonder what it means to live a life of faith as a journey without maps, you need look no further than ten-year-old Madison. Her courage, her joy, and her desire to draw us all in to a celebration of life are something those of us at the service will never forget. Think about it: we didn’t sing,

This little map of mine,
I’m going to let it lead the way.

No, we sang:

This little light of mine,
I’m going to let it shine.

And yesterday, no one’s light was shining brighter than Madison’s.

Judith Wright holds that moments like yesterday happen behind our expectation and beyond our control, and I think she is right about that. And yet, there is something important about beginning each day ready for the possibility that a star just might appear in the western sky. A few weeks back I shared with you a piece by Kenneth Phifer from his work A Book of Uncommon Prayers. Here is another, titled “Morning Again,” that highlights a need we all have to be open to the day:

How great you are, O God.
You can draw beauty out of barrenness,
courage out of fear,
and love out of loneliness.
You can make darkness as light
and silence as singing.
You can help me handle my troubles
or learn to live with them
when they cannot be handled.
You can make each day a miracle of grace
and fill each night with music.
You understand even my failures to respond to life
as our Lord Jesus did.
You keep pressing in upon me with your forgiveness
and offering new chances.
Give me the courage
to accept the chances that are mine this day.
Stir in me an eagerness for life
and a new openness to love.
Deepen my ability to appreciate ordinary gifts
and extraordinary evidences of grace.
Sweep me clean of the petty harassments
that so often set the tone for my daily living.

I have been using this prayer each morning for a while now. Each petition is so real, offered from what feels like a place of deep honesty. Nowhere in it is the suggestion, “And God, this is how I envision you addressing my request.” It is a prayer that says, “Take me where I am, as I am, and get me to a place of light and life using the path of your own choosing.” If this is your prayer than you are opening yourself to a journey without maps.

Sometimes this journey helps us to find faith-filled moments in the midst of ordinary dailiness. Other times it leads us on a dangerous yet dazzling quest for wholeness and new life. No matter where we are on this journey there is light and there is grace. We are always being led to that place where we can give homage to One in whom we live and move and have our being.

We People of the Incarnation

In his book, The Hour of the Unexpected, John Shea relates the story of Jesus’ birth as told by five-year-old Sharon; a little girl sure of her facts and moved by their meaning:

They were so poor they had only peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to eat and they went a long way from home without getting lost. The lady rode a donkey, the man walked, and the baby was inside the lady.

They had to stay in a stable with an ox and an ass (hee-hee) but the Three Rich Men found them because a star lited the roof. Shepherds came and you could pet the sheep but not feed them.

Then the baby was borned. And do you know who he was? The baby was God!

Shea writes that after Sharon said this, she jumped in the air, whirled round, dove into the sofa and buried her head under a cushion. That, he says, may be the most appropriate response to the Good News of the Incarnation.

On the first Sunday after Christmas we always read from the prologue of John’s Gospel:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a Father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

“The Word became flesh.”

The spirituality of most traditions in the Christian faith tends to gravitate toward one of the major events in the bible. Lutherans, for example, have a spirituality rooted much more deeply in Good Friday and the Cross than we Episcopalians do, at least in my experience. Charismatics are people of the Spirit – Pentecost Day. There are traditions rooted in the giving of the law, the Ten Commandments, and there are those rooted in Paul’s conversion. Perhaps more than any other tradition, we Anglicans are rooted in the Incarnation. We are a people whose spiritually is forged by God’s decision to take on our human nature and to live in our world.

God becoming flesh is a sign of God’s love for all that God has made. It is an indication that our fragile, foible, human form is a capable container of all that is good and right and holy. It says that creation is precious to God. The Incarnation demonstrates that God is not aloof or unhappy, but desires to reside in this world and to reside with us.

Being rooted in the Incarnation has deeply affected Anglican thinking. We long ago rejected the Calvinist doctrine that humanity is totally depraved; so fallen and wicked that we do not even possess the ability to respond to God’s message of grace and love. We embrace the idea that human activity and human initiative is infused with goodness and potential because we are created in the image of God. Music, art, literature, dance, poetry, film, design, craftsmanship, gardening can be and often are human expressions of divine holiness. Human projects such as science, medicine, accounting, engineering, and agriculture pick up on the way God has ordered creation and, in so doing, advance the quality of human life. We believe that the Word became flesh not so much to give us one last warning, and not so much to extend to the fallen one final opportunity to grab an eternal life preserver, but to show us God’s true self and to show us how to live into the fullness of our humanity.

We proclaim that the Word became flesh. We do not proclaim that the Word became a holy book. We Anglicans have a high regard for Scripture and a distinctive way of approaching it. First and foremost, we emphasize reading it in the context of public worship. Doing so shifts our focus from discerning what doctrines it might teach to how it speaks to human needs and hopes. We don’t see the bible so much as being a detailed, divine blueprint for how the world should function, but rather (in the words of William Countryman) “as a promise, a gospel, even perhaps a letter from a dear friend.” It works on us more through kindness than through fear. And while we revere the bible, we are aware that it has a human element to it. (Again Countryman says) “It is the Word of God, but that does not necessarily mean that it is God’s words. Always the bible is second to the incarnate Word.” Why do we hold this? Well, to quote little Sharon, God became a baby. God did not become a book.

“The Word became flesh.” In a recent editorial, the award-winning, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd explored a question that must surely be on the mind of many: Why does God not prevent debilitating illness and horrific acts of violence? She looked to author and priest Father Kevin O’Neil for insight and understanding. In Dowd’s column, O’Neil recounts stories of being with others during a time of loss and he relates how others where with him when he was at a similar place of need. Listen to how he reflects on these experiences:

For whatever reason, certainly foreign to most of us, God has chosen to enter the world today through others, through us. We have stories of miraculous interventions, lightning-bolt moments, but far more often the God of unconditional love comes to us in human form, just as God did over 2,000 years ago.

I believe differently now than 30 years ago. First, I do not expect to have all the answers, nor do I believe that people are really looking for them. Second, I don’t look for the hand of God to stop evil. I don’t expect comfort to come from afar. I really do believe that God enters the world through us. And even though I still have the “Why?” questions, they are not so much “Why, God?” questions. We are human and mortal. We will suffer and die. But how we are with one another in that suffering and dying makes all the difference as to whether God’s presence is felt or not and whether we are comforted or not.

Father O’Neil may be a priest in the Roman Catholic Church, but his incarnational thinking is one we Anglicans can celebrate. The Word became flesh in its purest, fullest form in the person of Jesus. We find that the Word still comes into this world, not so much, for us at least, by quoting the bible to people and attempting to explain to others how it contains all the answers to their questions, but when we allow God’s goodness and love and beauty and peace to abide in us and then are willing to let it fill the space we occupy with others. Surely you have sensed God being present through the efforts of another person. Perhaps you have recognized God being present to another through your own efforts. These are powerful experiences and as a priest I can only do what I do by being confident God will be incarnate through my work, poor though it may be.

We are people deeply rooted in the Incarnation. It shapes how we understand life, the world, humanity, the bible, and care for one another. These twelve days of Christmas are at the heart of who we are as a people of God. This hopeful, positive approach to the faith is something we Anglicans embody in a distinctive way through our spirituality. It is one way God uses us to bless to the world.

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day

The 19th Century poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is one of America's best
known writers.  He is the author of such famous quotes as "into each life a
little rain must fall" and "in this world you are either an anvil or
hammer."  On Christmas Day 1864, Longfellow wrote a poem which became a
popular carol, and the story behind the poem is the story I want to tell you
tonight.  

That Christmas Longfellow was in the throes of a particularly difficult
period in his life.  His wife Fanny perished in a tragic fire three years
earlier while she was tending to family matters in their Cambridge,
Massachusetts home.  She had trimmed the hair of one of her daughters and
decided to preserve a few locks in sealing wax.  Her dress passed too close
to a nearby candle and ignited in flames fueled by wax that had dripped onto
the material.  Fanny Longfellow fled the room where her children where
gathered and ran to her husband's study.  He attempted to smother the fire,
first with a small rug and then with his own body, but he was not able to
save her life.  In the process Longfellow was so severely burned that he was
not able to attend the burial service.  

After that truly horrific event Longfellow was no longer able to produce
public writing.  His own personal journals give us insight into his state of
mind and spirit.  The first Christmas after Fanny's death, he wrote, "How
inexpressibly sad are all holidays."  On the first anniversary of her death,
he journaled, "I can make no record of these days.  Better leave them
wrapped in silence.  Perhaps someday God will give me peace."  Longfellow's
entry for December 25, 1862 reads: "'A merry Christmas' say the children,
but that is no more for me."

Then, in March 1863, Longfellow learned that his oldest son, Charles
Appleton Longfellow, secretly enlisted in the Union Army without his
blessing.  In early December came word that Charles was severely wounded at
the Battle of New Hope Church here in Virginia.  He had been shot below the
shoulder blade and the bullet did damage to his spinal column.  Charles
returned to the Longfellow home in Cambridge for a lengthy, uncertain
recovery.  That Christmas Longfellow wrote nothing at all in his journal.  

A year later, on Christmas Day 1864, he ventured out for a stroll.  All
around Cambridge church bells were ringing with the message "Peace on earth,
goodwill toward men."  It struck Longfellow that peace and goodwill had been
neither his own experience nor that of the nation as a whole.  The Civil War
was in its third year.  Hundreds of thousands had been killed with many more
injured.  On that Christmas morning, families were separated from loved ones
precisely because the peace on earth proclaimed by the church bells did not
exist.  As he walked and as he listened, Longfellow reflected on his own
loss and on the losses of our nation.  His mood was sour, the antithesis of
the message ringing throughout the community.  

But something happened during that walk.  Something changed for Longfellow.
When he got home he sat down in his study and for the first time since
Fanny's death began to write.  He produced a poem called "Christmas Bells",
which twenty-some years later, was reconfigured into a carol we now know as
"I heard the bells on Christmas Day":

   I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day
   Their old familiar carols play,
      And wild and sweet 
      the words repeat
   Of peace on earth, good will to men.

   I thought how, as the day had come,
   The belfries of all Christendom
      Had rolled along 
     the unbroken song
   Of peace on earth, good will to men.

   And in despair I bowed my head:
   "There is no peace on earth," I said,
      "For hate is strong 
      and mocks the song
   Of peace on earth, good will to men."

   Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
   "God is not dead, nor doth he sleep;
      The wrong shall fail, 
      the right prevail,
   With peace on earth, good will to men."

   Till, ringing singing, on its way,
   The world revolved from night to day,
      A voice, a chime, 
      a chant sublime,
   Of peace on earth, good will to men!

At the heart of Christmas is the good news of Emmanuel - God with us.  The
'with us' part will change throughout our lives: where we will be, who will
and who will not be with us, what we are able and not able to do. all of
this can and will change.  What is constant is that God is with us no matter
what our circumstance.  God's presence endures all things.  It took
Longfellow nearly four years to be able to come back to it, but he did.  And
he found a moving way to speak about his myriad of emotions and recovery of
faith in the midst of national pain and personal loss.

I think tonight about families in Newtown, CT, in Webster, NY, and in so
many areas of our country directly affected by heinous, violent crime and
imagine that this is a difficult night.  Their world has changed in a
devastating way, much as Longfellow's had been.  Their loss mocks the
message of Christmas, but that does not silence our bells or what we
Christians proclaim: "God is with us, peace on earth and goodwill to all."

Two Sundays ago I said in my sermon that the tragedy in Connecticut had
connected me with the season of Advent as never before.  Its themes of light
in the midst of darkness, joy in the midst of sorrow, and hope in the midst
of despair are exactly what we need to hear right now.  Tonight I embrace
the Christmas message that God is with us; becoming present when it is
darkest, when we are most sad, when we are in deep despair.  God's Son was
not born under cushy circumstances to a life of sheltered privilege.  God
came to be with us in some of the most challenging circumstances imaginable.
Why?  Because that is when and where we most need God to be with us, when
life is tough.

I am struck by the parallels between Longfellow's sadness and where our
country finds itself this Christmas; the parallels of personal loss, of
communal tragedy, and national grief in the midst of war.  Longfellow
experienced a rebirth if you will because the churches around him proclaimed
the good news of Emmanuel - God with us and peace on earth.  Yes, I took
three mournful Christmases for the bells to break through Longfellow's
darkness, but eventually his night turned to day.  

This Christmas, perhaps more than any other I can recall, I am honored to be
a part of the church and feel so incredibly hopeful about the impact we have
simply by proclaiming the good news: "A voice, a chime, a chant sublime, of
peace on earth, good will to men!"  Longfellow wasn't revived by a slick
sermon or stately prayer.  He was restored because, in multiple churches
around Cambridge, various people took the time on Christmas day to pull
ropes connected to church bells.  

Never underestimate the healing power in the hands of the church present
every time we gather to be the church.  We never know how and when our
simple proclamation of "God is with us, peace on earth and goodwill to all"
will give birth to light and joy and hope.  But we know that if we do not
say it, if the bells rest silent, if the message is not proclaimed, then God
has lost a powerful voice to remind people of God's loving presence.

My prayer is that you will experience the heart of Christmas in a renewing
and profound way.  If you walk in sadness, I pray that this may be a time
when ringing singing revolves your night to day.  If you find yourself in a
daytime moment of light and rejoicing, I pray that your very life will be a
witness to the heart of Christmas.  The message of God with us is one we all
we need to hear in every possible way it can be said.  How will you say it?

Seldom Seen

Listen to this actual newspaper account that appeared in print several years ago:

"Waylon Pendergast, 37, of Tampa, Florida, committed a spur-of-the-moment robbery while on his way home from a late-night drinking session.  A very inebriated Mr. Pendergast forced his way into the house through an open upstairs window, filling a suitcase with cash and valuables before setting the living room on fire to cover his tracks.  He then escaped through the back door and made his way home, chuckling all the way.  Only as he turned the corner into his own street, however, and discovered three fire engines outside his house, did he realize that in his drunkenness he had, in fact, burgled and ignited his own property.  His comment: "I had no idea I had so many valuable possessions."

I don't know if Waylon Pendergast attends a church, but I have my doubts.  They arise not because he drinks too much and not because he committed two felonies, but because he was clueless about his blessings.  We people of faith are attentive to the goodness we find in life.  Some of this goodness takes the tangible form of material possessions.  Some of it relates to those things that, as they say, money cannot buy.  We people of faith do not number our problems, we count our blessings.  And as we count, often we are overcome with amazement and joy.


This aspect of the faith is front and center in today's Gospel reading.  A teenage girl (young by our standards) and a woman in her early thirties (old by the standard of her day) meet to visit.  They are cousins and each is pregnant.  Notice what we do not hear in the narrative.  There is no mention of Elizabeth having morning sickness, back pain, or trouble sleeping, but I am confident she was struggling physically.  There is no mention that Mary had a care in the world, but you can be sure being an unwed, unemployed mother weighed heavily on her mind.  


What the narrative does detail is the warm greeting they offered to each other.  Elizabeth's words reverberate with blessing for her younger cousin.  Mary's words ring out with gratitude and praise for all that God has done.  Even the baby in Elizabeth's womb leaps for joy.  Joy holds a very significant place in Luke's Gospel where the word appears ten different times and often in response to something initiated by the Holy Spirit.  By contrast, Matthew uses the word joy only five times, John eight (primarily as a response to persecution), and Mark not at all.


Elizabeth is the person who most radiates amazement when she says, "Why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to visit me?"  The New International Bible makes it even clearer: "But why am I so favored?"  Mary echoes in response: "The Mighty One has done great things for me."


Have you ever had a moment like this - a moment of clarity - when suddenly and without notice you are overcome with an awareness of how blessed you are; a moment of sheer amazement that you have what you have - materially, relationally, personally, spiritually; a moment of joy even (and especially) in a time of hardship or need?  If we subscribe to Luke's theology, such insights as these are the fruit of the Holy Spirit's activity in our life.


In my experience the Holy Spirit helps us to see blessing in the midst of challenge.  I remember shopping a few years ago at (where else?) Wal-Mart and being slightly annoyed that the person pushing a cart in front of me was taking too long to get down the grocery aisle and in the process was blocking my way.  I watched her for a while I began to realize that each time she stopped to pick out an item she was doing mental math to figure out
if she could afford it or not: bigger cans verses smaller (and more affordable), name brands verses knockoffs, and more than once just looking at an item and putting it back on the shelf verses in the cart.  I pondered but could not remember the last time I had to worry about being able to pay my grocery bill. It helped me to realize how truly fortunate I am and with this newfound awareness of blessing, my annoyance was transformed into joy and amazement.  It may not seem like much of an epiphany, but it changed my outlook on life (and on shopping at Wal-Mart).   

After she passed away, Cecelia Williams' son found a poem she had written some years before.  It is another example of how the Holy Spirit transforms our perspective:


  Thank God for dirty dishes,
     They have a tale to tell.
  While other folks go hungry,
     We are eating very well.
  With home and health and happiness
     We should not want to fuss.
  For by this stack of evidence, 
     God is very good to us.

I'll think of this poem when I have to clean up from Christmas dinner and when I have to do laundry (a sure sign that I have clothes to wear) and when I have to clean house (a sign that I have a house to live in) - all blessings.  


Why am I so favored?  Why has God been so good to me?

Several years ago, lying in a bed in a dingy, old, log cabin, this is not the question I was asking.  I was at a clergy conference designed to help participants assess how we are doing spiritually, vocationally, personally, and financially.  "Why am I so favored?" is not the question that filled my thoughts when I first laid down, but it became the question which settled in my mind by the time I went to sleep.  I wrote a poem about the experience, which I have not shared with anyone until now.  I have given it the title "Seldom Seen."
   
I am a little resentful
That I must walk fifteen minutes
Down a dark road in the woods
To get to my cabin.
It is late, I am tired,
And I missed the bus
The others took.

I get to my cabin
And lay down on my bed.

When I checked into
The conference they laughed,
"Oh, you are staying in
Seldom Seen."  
It is the lodging farthest away 
And up a steep hill.
Others are in modern rooms
With porches looking out
Over the lake.  I am in 
A cold log cabin
Isolated from the rest
And alone.

As always, alone.

And I am a little bit resentful
As always.

I lay down on my bed
And look up at the ceiling
Taking in its structure
And texture and design.
The windows are open
To the cool mountain air
And I hear water cascading
Down a nearby stream.

I am aware of my
Mild resentment
The water
The isolation
The absence of a lake view
But another voice inside me says
  This night
   I am sheltered
  I am safe
  I am comfortable
  I am still full after a delicious dinner
  I am affirmed
In a vocation which
Satisfies and delights me
It pays me well and will provide
A comfortable retirement
I am in good health
With no limitations
Or restrictions
I possess a sound, sharp,
Inquisitive mind
  I have God's love in me
And know God's love for me.
  I am surrounded by God's love
In the people I serve.


How many people around the world
This night
Are praying desperately
For just one or two
Of these things I have?
How many people would gladly
Exchange their bitter, harsh reality
For even a small taste of my world?


The resentment I felt has evaporated
Because I have sensed my
Blessings seldom seen.


God is so good and I
Lack nothing that I need.

We chuckle at Waylon Pendergast for stealing what he already had and burning down what he already possessed, but in a sense we do the same kind of thing all the time.  We let the inconvenience of waiting rob us of the awareness of wealth.  We let a stack of dishes blind us to the treasure of family and food.  We let resentment overshadow the deep and abiding goodness in our lives.  

Elizabeth and Mary are wonderful figures for us to follow.  Their amazement and joy in the midst of challenge and struggle give us reason to invite God's Holy Spirit to speak to us, to move us, to transform us.  Why are you so favored?  Why has the Mighty One done great things for you?  The answer is simple. because God loves you.  Basque in the warmth of this love and live your life with a renewed sense of joy and amazement.