Christmas Eve 2025 God Is Here!

 

Christmas Eve 2025 – God Is Here!

That’s how we left it Sunday: God. Is. Here. Where do we go from here? That is the question.

 

Christmas Eve Eve I woke up early. It is dark. Really really dark. Some kind of rain or mist is going on. I feel my way through the dark into the living room and fire up the Lenovo Think Pad one more time. As I was falling asleep last night after baking dozens and dozens of cookies, poet Mary Oliver was describing a black snake. The snake “came like a whip…like black water flowing down the hill./ Watch me it whispered / then poured like black water through the field/ then hurried down, like black water into the mouses hole…” A black snake, like black water, underground with a mouse where it is darker than this Christmas Eve Eve morning, I thought.

 

And Oliver observes, “dear God, we too are down here in such darkness.” Yes, I thought, we are. Like Sisyphus, we try to claw our way back into the light, only to slip once again into the darkness…the Lenovo lights up. Breathe deep. Too much of its blue light can disturb your sleep. Disturb your peace. Darkness can be both disturbing and somehow reassuring at the same time. Calming or anxiety provoking. I open Facebook and my eyes fall upon the following from a lifetime friend and fellow traveler towards the Light and Life of the world:

Then He appeared and the soul felt its worth.

The thrill of Hope, a weary world rejoices…Please heal our world

 

Jesus would call it Tikkun Olan: repair the world. It is what he came to do. Repair the damage we have done to the world he created. God. Is. Here. And suddenly the soul feels its worth. Hope is reborn whenever we bear him, as Mary did, and give him to the World, a weary world, a jaded world, fearful of rejoicing, seeking healing for all that keeps us chained to the darkness. None of us are free, none of us are free, if one of us is chained, none of us are free...until we let his light to shine within...the morning star that knows no setting...He comes, He rises still, He appears in the oddest moments, in the oddest of people we meet, in a manger with shepherds of all people. Do we see him? Do we call him? Do we seek him? Do we ever see him in others? And then he is right here, where two or three are gathered, he is in the midst of us lighting the way home, home to ourselves, our true selves, our loving selves, our light filled selves…we feel our worth, we feel the thrill of Hope, we rejoice, ideo o o ideo o o, ideo, gloria, in excelsis Deo!

 

Google AI reveals: that last part first appeared in a Finnish Song Book in 1582. We don’t know how old it really is, but of course Id-e-o-o-o" is a vocalization from the Christmas carol "Personent Hodie" ("On This Day Earth Shall Ring"), where it leads into the Latin phrase "Gloria in excelsis Deo," meaning "Glory to God in the highest," a joyful chant by the angels announcing Jesus's birth. The "Id-e-o" is meant to mimic angelic singing. He Is Here. Lying in a manger. Or, as Matthew has it, in a house. Some commentators remind us, 2,000 years ago, the first floor of a house might have a manger where the animals would spend the night indoors. Something like those Charleston, South Carolina homes, where the sitting room is on the second floor. The last time I saw The Reverend Frank Mcclain was in one of those homes.

 

Frank+ was my first rector out of seminary. He retired to Charleston, and on a visit, Frank took me to the top floor of their house and said, “Look out this window.” And through a rather small window on the top floor, one can see the place that started it all – Fort Sumter. That’s where it began. When will it ever end? Or, as Pete Seeger would ask over and over again, “When will we ever learn? When will we ever learn….” In the holy darkness of Christmas Eve Eve, I miss Frank. I miss my father Robert. I miss my mother, Patricia. The Holy Darkness of Christmas brings out the ghosts of our past. I miss Missie, Frank’s wife. The last time I saw Missie and the girls, we were sitting in that second floor sitting room getting ready to head over to Frank’s funeral just before Christmas that year. I shared with the family the sermon Frank delivered my first Christmas as a priest in Christ’s One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. They had never heard it. I re-read it every year. It concludes:

“Christmas, we have often emphasized, has been and is a time of giving. The letters that come in the mail, stack upon stack of them, tend to underline those words of Jesus, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” This is recorded in the Book of Acts and not in the Gospels. That of course is true – and yet, never forget it, Christmas is also a time to receive a gift, wonderful truth.

            “We will each of us receive some special gift tomorrow from someone who loves us. More wonderful even, we will each of us, singly and together, receive a gift from someone who loves us even more, from God.

            “In any of our lives there is a manger, now doubtless empty, cold, malodorous, surrounded by beasts – the heartbreaks, tragedies, and disappointments of our lives. But it is there that you will find the child, new born, if you will look on him and be open to receive God’s gift.

            “It can come to you this Christmas, that gift, that birth within you of the Christ Child, when you become aware of and touch, perhaps only fleetingly, the whole and complete person God intended you to be; that God intends you to be. It can happen when you are alone or it can happen when you are in company. It can happen here, at this present Bethlehem, this Holy Table, when and where you receive tangible evidence, symbols of bread and wine, God’s Body and Blood, God’s life.

            “As in receiving any real gift, your response will be astonishment, humility (Why me?), and deep, restorative joy – to which you can only say Gratia, Thank You, Eucharist, Grace!

            “Be open tonight/today to receive that gift, open-handed, offering nothing but your need, your empty manger. Centuries of experience assure you that God’s gift is being offered, God’s Son, born within you. Arise and go out into the world with astonishment with humility, with joy. Respond in whatever language you may know, Thank you, Eucharisto, Gratia. Your gratitude will show forth – and – a Merry Christmas.”

 

A few days later, back home in Maryland, Frank’s Christmas card arrived, dated just a few days before the heart attack took him home. At the end of the card he wrote, “May your coming year be bright and the kind of world you deserve. With love, Frank/Missie.” Frank knew better than just about anyone I have ever known that God. Is. Here. Immanuel: God is with us. Let God In. Let in The Light! Become the Light of Christ. Help others to see the God who is here!

 

That’s the joke of it all, isn’t it. We wait and wait for God in Christ to return when it seems he never really left. That’s the hook in his final words to us at the very end of Matthew’s gospel, “Lo, I am with you always, to the end of the age!” Whenever we think we are done with Jesus we discover that Jesus is never done with us! God is with us. To the end of the age. The darkness has not overcome The Light! God is here. Jesus is here. Always. Forever. And ever. It’s like what I saw on Facebook: He appeared and the soul felt its worth. The thrill of Hope, a weary world rejoices. Please heal our world, He says! Tikkun Olam, He says! Repair the world, He says! That’s where we go from here! Gloria, in excelsis Deo! God bless us, every one!

God is Here Advent 4A

 

God is Here

God is Here. That’s it. God is here. We were reminded of this at our recent diocesan convention by The Very Reverend Winnie Verghese, Dean of the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine. And really, this is what the evangelist we call Matthew wrote to proclaim in terms that everyone might understand. He begins with a rather remarkable genealogy connecting Jesus the Christ, the Son of David, all the way back to Abraham. [Matt 1:1-18] In his recital of all the fathers who stretch from Abraham to David, and from David to Jesus, Matthew’s main point is that from Abraham onward, not only has God been with all these people, now and forever, in ways that are mysterious and settling, but that God in Christ came not as a vision, not for a visit, but to dwell among us as one of us. That is, God became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood, to experience all that life and death have to offer to every one of us. That is, God is here! 

Although ancient genealogies tend only to list the fathers, the patriarchs, the pater familias, Matthew’s account is unique in that in addition to Mary we find the names of four other women: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and “the wife of Uriah.” We tend to run past the genealogy to get to the story of Jesus’s birth, but those who first heard Matthew read in public worship would surely have said, “Wait, wait, wait. Hold on. Isn’t Tamar the one who played the role of a harlot to trick her father-in-law Judah into fathering the children he had denied her with his sons for so long? And wasn’t Rahab a prostitute in Jericho who aided two Israelite soldiers escape capture, and was the mother of Salmon’s son Boaz? And wasn’t Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, the gentile widow from Moab? And Obed was the father of Jesse who was the father of King David! And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah? Jesus is related to these four women?” Prostitutes, gentiles, and the woman King David raped all get special mention that leads to Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born. Jesus who is called Christos, Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God, God incarnate: the Word that was with God before the beginning of the world; that Word that is God, through whom everything that was made was made. More than any other names in Matthew’s genealogy, these four women plus Mary foreshadow the fact that the baby named Jesus welcomes and loves everyone whomever, from wherever, no matter what. Because he knows God was with these five women, and that our God is surprising and finds important things for all of us to do, so we can all play a part in the life of Jesus the Christ because he came to demonstrate and make us all understand and believe once and for all that God is Here! 

Several things in this genealogy: 1) this kid is Jewish, 2) this Christ is Universal, he lives for and belongs to everyone – men and women, slave and free, Jew and Gentile, and 3) these five women are as much a part of him as all those men. This genealogy is surprising, it’s real, it has been through generations of challenging political, military, and religious crises, and yet, through it all, God was there! 

Just after the genealogy, Matthw tells us that “the birth of Jesus Messiah took place in this way.” [Matthew 1: 18-25] Thanks in part to St. Francis who invented the creche, we tend to remember the birth of Jesus as Luke tells the story. Matthew’s story is different, concise, and hints at danger lurking in the shadows. And curiously, Joseph, not Mary, is the main character. Joseph, we are told, is a righteous man – that is, he strives to keep all 613 laws of Torah (248 positive, 365 negative). Joseph is engaged to a young woman. In all likelihood, this is an arranged marriage. Joseph has obligations to the young woman’s family. She is most likely 12 or 13 years old. But there’s a problem. She is pregnant. By some unknown entity. 

There are all kinds of specifics among the 613 laws of Torah on what a righteous man is to do. A public divorce, which would likely result in an honor killing of the girl by her family for dishonoring their name. Joseph decides against that and chooses to dismiss her quietly and let the chips fall as they may. Tamar would have some wisdom to share with Mary. But wait! All of a sudden, Joseph is visited by an angel of the Lord in a dream who issues the standard, “Joseph, Son of David, do not be afraid to marry this girl Mary, “for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” Jesus is the Greek translation of the Hebrew name Joshua, or Yeshua, which means “God helps,” “God saves,” or my favorite, “Yahweh, help!” 

Matthew tells us, this was all to fulfill what the prophet Isaiah had once said, “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call him Emmanuel,” which means “God is with us.” Isaiah actually said, “a young woman,” not a virgin, which Matthew no doubt borrowed from a corrupted translation. When Joseph wakes up from sleep, he does as the angel of the Lord had commanded him. He took her for his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus. 

What do we learn from Matthew’s story of the birth of Jesus the Universal Christ and Messiah? Joseph is from the line of David, and will become the adoptive father of Jesus. And that Jesus will be known as “the son of David,” but by divine intervention, not in the customary biological manner. Joseph is not to be afraid, a pronouncement which will appear at the end of the story addressed to the disciples, who would be us: “Fear not, god is doing a new thing in the world.” [Matt 28:5] Along with Joseph, we learn that there is a righteousness that transcends the laws of Torah. The angel tells Joseph to shatter the old law in order to keep the new law. Joseph will become a righteous man in the new sense, not the old sense, and marry her. That is, Joseph is transformed, and that that is what Jesus comes to us to do: transform us to the new ways in which God is here! (Note, God throughout history adapts his intentions to the matters at hand) 

Perhaps most interesting is the fact that the child borne to Mary is given the name Jesus by Joseph, as the angel commanded, and the name Emmanuel by Matthew by way of Isaiah. God Saves. God is with us. Oh, and Matthew already gave him the name Christos, Christ, or Messiah. This is just the beginning! As the child grows up, he will accumulate many, many more names: Son of David, Son of God, Lord, Master, Good Shepherd, Savior, and the list goes on! 

But the two names in Matthew’s account of “the birth of Jesus took place in this way,” remain central to Jesus’s life. He saves others. He welcomes others. He heals others. He gives meaning to their lives. They who come from all walks of life, from all places in the known world. He turns away no one. Not one. And the night before he is crucified, he cries out in the garden his own name, “Yahweh, help!” Demonstrating that even Jesus, the Son of David, Son of God, can forget in the darkest moments of his earthly life, that indeed, God is here! 

Matthew will conclude his Good News the way it begins. Jesus has one last gathering of his disciples, which by then numbered many many more the original twelve. He tells them to go to the ends of the earth and bring the Good News to one and all. That is, to do the things that he does, and more than all of that! Then he issues a promise: “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” God is here! 

(BTW, the “you” is plural. I’m with y’all always to the end of the age. God. Is. Here.) 

And is it true ? For if it is,

No loving fingers tying strings

Around those tissued fripperies,

The sweet and silly Christmas things,

Bath salts and inexpensive scent

And hideous tie so kindly meant,

 

No love that in a family dwells,

No carolling in frosty air,

Nor all the steeple-shaking bells

Can with this single Truth compare -

That God was man in Palestine

And lives today in Bread and Wine

                                          -from 'Christmas' by Sir John Betjeman C.B.E.

Speaking Truth to Power: The Prophets Advent 3A

Speaking Truth to Power: The Prophets

Stir up Sunday - Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us; and, because we are sorely hindered by our sins, let your bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and deliver us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory, now and for ever. Amen. 

Every Third Sunday in Advent we pray for God to stir things up, and with great might to come among us; BECAUSE we are sorely hindered by our sins. And look who is featured as Exhibit #1 among our texts for today: John. John the baptizer. John who was sent by God to prepare the way of the lord. The Way of the Lord. God’s Way. Jesus’s Way. John knows how to stir it up! 

And where do we find John? In prison. Why? Because he was not a polite dinner guest. He rebuked Caesar’s appointed King of the Jews, Herod Antipas. Herod was fascinated by John until John had the temerity to point out that Herod’s marriage to his brother’s wife, Herodias, was unlawful and sinful in the eyes of God. Talk about stirring things up! John had the prophetic courage and strength to speak truth to power. For that he was put to death. 

There was Moses who confronted Pharaoh demanding that he “Let my people go!” Thus, the prophetic tradition in Biblical Religion was born. It did not stop with Moses. Elijah famously rebuked King Ahab of Israel, confronting him for his wickedness, especially for promoting Baal worship with his wife, Queen Jezebel, and for unjustly seizing Naboth's vineyard, leading to prophecies of judgment and famine. Nathan rebuked David for stealing another man’s wife and arranging for her husband to be killed at the battle front. Jeremiah referred to the kings, priests, and prophets of Judah as "bad shepherds" (Jeremiah 23:1-2) who failed God and His people by scattering, destroying, dividing, and neglecting the flock, and then led them into sin and exile instead of guiding them with God's truth. God condemned these leaders for their self-serving, unfaithful guidance, promising punishment and a future "Good Shepherd." Daniel rebuked King Belshazzar of Babylon for his arrogance, idolatry, and disrespect towards God. This is just a small sampling of those chosen and direct by God to stir things up; to speak truth to power! 

From prison, John wants to know if and how Jesus whom he baptized was continuing in the Bible’s prophetic tradition of Speaking Truth to Power. And we are those people who know that that is just what Jesus did. He walked among the weak, the poor, and the oppressed. Like God, Jesus loved “the righteous; cared for the stranger, sustained the orphan and widow, and routinely frustrated the ways of the wicked – be they the priests in the Temple, or Herod’s appointed lackey in Jerusalem, Pontius Pilate, not to mention his challenges to the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Scribes. Read the four gospels and one sees Jesus speaking truth to power, challenging all the political parties and powers of his day on almost every page. He routinely named the demons before casting them out! 

That is, the Bible records a long and honored history of God appointing ordinary people to confront the political leadership as well as the religious leadership, not just of Israel, but of other countries as well. John and Jesus were two more in the long line of prophets whose writings and actions dominate long sections of our Biblical tradition. It is through the lives, actions, and writings of these prophets that our God routinely throughout history has stirred things up with great might to urge us to stand against all leadership that is damaging and sinful to the people of God. 

It was not long ago that the young German theologian Deitrich Bonhoeffer was teaching at Union Seminary in New York City. As the Nationalistic fascist dictatorship of Adolf Hitler was condemning more and more groups of people to concentration and death camps, Bonhoeffer made the decision to return to join those seeking to put an end to the Nazi regime, against the pleadings of his fellow faculty to stay in the relative safety of New York City. Arrested for his part in a plot to assassinate Hitler, he was imprisoned, and condemned to death by hanging on April 9, 1945. His final words to a fellow prisoner were, "This is the end—for me, the beginning of life". He also reportedly told someone to relay a message to Bishop George Bell, an Anglican theologian, Dean of Canterbury, Bishop of Chichester, member of the House of Lords and a pioneer of the ecumenical movement, and ally of The Confessing Church: "Tell the Bishop that I believe with him in the principle of our universal Christian brotherhood, which rises above all national interests, and that our victory is certain." I am quite sure Bonhoeffer did not view his actions as in any way heroic, but rather a matter of Chrisitan duty, consistent with the words and actions of Jesus and the long tradition of prophetic witness that runs from the beginning to the end of The Bible. 

A protestant pastor contemporary of Bonhoeffer, Martin Niemöller, at first a supporter of Hitler and the Nazi National Socialist regime, became an outspoken critic of the regime. Like a modern- day Jeremiah or Daniel, he preached against the abuses of the Nazi regime, and in May of 1934 formed The Confessing Church, an association of German churches who spoke out against the Nazi abuses. Eventually he was arrested, put on trial, and sent to several concentration camps, ending up in Dachau from where he was liberated by US Forces. Niemöller famously said: First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me. 

“Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us…” This is our prayer. And in our Baptismal Covenant we promise to “respect the dignity of every human being.” What, then, are we to do when we hear the President of the United States call Africa and Haiti “shithole countries;” who calls Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, who migrated to the United States from Somalia as a refugee, "garbage;" calls all refugees from Somalia “garbage;” calls the African nation of Somalia “filthy, dirty, disgusting, ridden with crime”? Who calls female journalists “obnoxious, stupid, piggy, ugly, incapable, terrible,” in public? Similar abuses occur on an almost daily basis. Begging the question: What is the real cost of silence? What is the real cost to our society? To our country? What is the damage being done to young boys and young men who will think such behavior toward people of other nations and women is not only all right, but to be the sanctioned prerogative of “real men” in today’s world? 

What would Jesus do and say? What would John the baptizer do and say?  What would Jeremiah do and say? What would Daniel, and Elijah, and yes, what would Moses do and say? Do we really want to pray for God to stir up his power among us? We witness on an almost weekly basis that God appoints people just like us to be those people who stir things up on God’s behalf. We promise in our baptism that all that we do and all that we say will proclaim the Good News of God in Christ. We partake of the Body and Blood of Christ every Sunday, but do we dare to follow in him in all that we do and say? Does God really want us to remain silent as women and people of color are regularly demeaned and publicly stripped of all dignity? Ask Martin Niemöller. Ask Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Ask almost any woman what it is like to see professional, competent women being publicly abused every day. 

May the Lord’s bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and deliver us from our daily sins of omission, and give us the courage to stand with all those who in the Biblical tradition have mustered the strength to Speak Truth to Power, just as Pastor Neimoeller and The Confessing Church finally did in May of 1934. May the Lord have mercy upon us all. Amen. 

PS Few if any of us can be like Jesus. We can all be like John and the prophets. 

Time For The New King Advent 2A

Time For The New King

Barbara Hall was one of our New Testament teachers in Seminary, and she often urged us to ask one simple, but important, question of the texts we are looking at: What time is it? Our Advent lessons in general all point us in one direction: It is time for something new, and God is already at work bringing God’s newness into being. More specifically, the lessons for this Second Sunday of Advent are all saying, one way or another: It is time for the new King. Or, as the prophet Jeremiah recently framed it: We have suffered under a series of bad shepherds. It is time for a new shepherd aligned with God’s purpose and intentions for us and for all of creation – creation which has also suffered under the policies of the bad shepherds. 

Isaiah 11:1-10, for instance, describes the political reality of the dynasty of David, and thus Israel, as having been reduced to a stump – the stump of Jesse. Jesse, of course is the father of the shepherd boy with the ruddy hair and complexion: David. His ancestral tree has been felled, Humiliated by the Assyrians in the eighth century BCE, and by the Exile to Babylon in the sixth century BCE. The poetry of Isaiah envisions a new shoot sprouting from the stump. Seemingly insignificant, easily missed or overlooked, and later perhaps, represented in this poem by the “nursing child” playing over the potentially dangerous “hole of the poisonous adder.” This child represents the new king, a new “good shepherd.” It is easy to imagine how it is the followers of Jesus some six hundred years later might latch onto this text and associate it with the man from Galilee. Jesus, a most unlikely king, who “shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his loins.” 

That is, the new king of God’s reign cannot be bought by bribes, nor manipulated by propaganda, and does not rule from a place apart from the people, but rather walks among the poor and the weak, those who are socially powerless, administering justice, healing, and feeding those who have been overlooked for so long by the powerful elites in Jerusalem. Righteousness and faithfulness to God’s purposes are the hallmarks of the new Good Shepherd. 

This image of the social and political responsibilities of national leadership is further supported by Psalm 72, in which the psalmist asks God to give the new king/good shepherd God’s own righteousness and justice, so that “he may rule your people righteously and the poor with justice…He shall defend the needy among the people; he shall rescue the poor and crush the oppressor.  He shall live as long as the sun and moon endure, from one generation to another. He shall come down like rain upon the mown field, like showers that water the earth.” The office of the king is to equalize by a powerful intervention a social situation of enormous inequity: Caesar’s Rome is bleeding the people of crops, fish, and endless taxes, while offering business deals to the affluent despots who also are stealing family farms and vineyards to monopolize tremendous wealth. The new king makes a new world possible. Early Christians believe Jesus, humble unto death on a Roman Cross, is that new king Isaiah and Psalm 72 imagine! 

That is, the emerging early church repurposes the ancient scriptures to fit the current circumstances in the first century. Indeed, Paul writes to the believers in Rome, the church in the very heart of darkness, and who are already just a few decades after the resurrection divided and polarized among themselves: “Whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, so that by steadfastness and by the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope. May the God of steadfastness and encouragement grant you to live in harmony with one another, in accordance with Christ Jesus, so that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.” Paul is encouraging a new practice in the church of the ways that the strong and the weak, the haves and have-nots, relate to each other in new faithfulness. For this has been God’s intention from the very beginning of time. Paul writes that it is time that we follow in the footsteps of the man from Galilee who worked outside the halls of power to unite all divisions within society, division that only allow the powerful elites to profit from the sufferings of a divided people. [Romans 15:4-13] 

Enter John the baptizer. [Matthew 3:1-12] Matthew also repurposes the poetry of Isaiah: ‘A voice cries out: In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’ Applying Isaiah’s text to the mission of John who says, in effect, “People, we are in the wilderness once again. It is time to repent of how we ignore the ways of the Lord. It is time to begin again as we did after the Exile!” Some Pharisees and Sadducees come down to the river to see what John and the people are up to. This is indeed and odd pairing, as these two political groups rarely come together at all. Yet, both are secure in believing that their respective approaches to life is the right way because they are faithful descendants of Abraham. John is inscrutable, and is on to them, and doubts that they are truly committed to a new way since they work tirelessly to preserve the old ways, hoping against hope that to do so will somehow free them from the iron rod of the Empire. They represent the gospel of what some have called Episcopal Whine: “We’ve always done it this way!” or, “We’ve never done it that way before!” John will have none of it. “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance. Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” 

Then John lays it out in no uncertain terms: There is a new king, a good shepherd, coming who is mightier than I am. I baptize with water; he will baptize with water and fire! Either you are on the bus or off the bus! As those who know the rest of the story, Jesus the Good Shepherd embodied the visions of Isaiah and Psalm 72, standing in the breach between the haves and have nots, seeking justice for the poor, the weak, and all whose existence was irrelevant to those who walked in the halls of the powerful. Jesus even tried to reason with those who wanted to return to the past, uneasy to move forward into the new future God intends for all people. The powerful guardians of the past, the monopolists of wealth, and the leaders of both the Empire and the Temple tried to put the Good Shepherd out of the picture for good. 

But it did not work. There were those who saw him again after the crucifixion. Those who embodied his example. Some in every generation succeeded, while others were martyred for their efforts to unite rather than divide. Advent beckons us to look forward, not back. Advent means to be that season in which we try, once again like John and Jesus, to get our daily lives in sync with God’s rule, and invite others to do the same. It is the energy and power of God that may authorize and enable us to receive the new king and rejoice in a new obedience which attends to the neighbor. When we are so energized, we become dazzled by the fact that the whole of creation can begin again, healed, restored, forgiven. 

The news of God’s newness is indeed very good news. We can embrace it, receive it, and act upon it! But, can we? Are we tenured to the old ways? Comfortable with the lack of justice and the ever-widening gap of inequalities? The gates of God’s forgiveness and mercy are opened to one and all. Are we ready to enter those gates and embody the life of the Good Shepherd? And if not now, when? For Advent is more than four weeks once a year. The season of Advent is always here, now, every moment of every day, calling us to walk in The Way of the Lord. We are meant to ask ourselves, “What time is it?” What time is it? It’s time for the new king. Amen. 

The Three W's of Advent Advent 1A

 

The Three W’s of Advent

Wake up! Watch! Wait! It comes as a surprise each year to remember just what Advent anticipates. It is not the birth of a Christ child. It is not the coming of Christmas. It is not even about how to prepare for Christmas. It is much larger than all of this. It is about the primary Hope of Faith: Christ will come again! Or, what some call his Second Coming. For many of us, it feels embarrassing to admit it. But his coming again is to initiate, support, and stabilize a world of God’s Shalom, true justice and peace for all people.

 

Christmas has been so secularized, removed from its rightful place in God’s Salvation History. It is now mostly about how much can we purchase in the weeks leading up to Christ’s feast of the Incarnation – God come down to dwell among us – literally, as the text really says, God came down to tent among us. Which is important to remember, for tents provide shelter, but it is impermanent shelter. It is portable shelter. Tents do not rely on owning a plot of land – a piece of this fragile Earth our island home in an otherwise hostile universe. We are urged, beginning now way before Black Friday, to set a new national record of sales – sales that often are necessary to secure the businesses that sell to us for another year of selling even more stuff.

 

It is in this world of secularized Christmas that Jesus urges us to Wake Up! Wake up and Stay Awake! In the 24^th chapter of Matthew, the disciples marvel at the updates, improvements and redecorating King Herod has done to the Jerusalem Temple. The Temple that had already been destroyed and rebuilt twice. Jesus can see what’s really going on. The Romans had taken control of the Temple and those who were in charge of the sacrifices and collecting the tithes. Despite Herod’s efforts, it is already falling apart, and will soon be destroyed again. And that’s only symbolic of the disintegration of society and its institutions. The Temple which represented the stability of the nation was now surrounded outside the city gates by Roman crosses with the remains of those who dared to resist the Empire; those who tried desperately to hold on to the old traditions and institutions of stability.

 

Don’t be fooled, says Jesus. Wake up and see what’s going on. Despite the things that are falling apart, the old norms that are being replaced by deadly, life-taking practices, watch and notice instead where God even now is doing justice and peace and well-being. Wherever and whenever that happens, God’s promises are on the move toward newness. This is what the church in Advent is to Wake Up and Watch for with eagerness and joy, and to pitch in wherever and whenever we can as we Wait for the Christ to return.

 

That is the promise, as of old. In the midst of the violence of the Empire, of military interventions, sweeping the streets for those who do not comply with the Emperor’s demands, with crucifixions on the side of all roads that lead to Jerusalem, the Poet-Prophet Isaish declares God’s promises: “He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples;

they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.” [Isaiah 2:1-5] As we wait for Christ’s return, we are to lean into any and all opportunities and actions which will lead to such  lasting and real peace, not the so-called Pax Romana, or Pax Americana`, but the Peace of the Lord which passes and is beyond all human understanding, but nevertheless, is more real than the machinations of an Empire based on greed and human consumption.

 

Of course, Jesus’s companions, and let’s face it so do we today, want to know when the Christ will return? Again, Jesus counsels, Do not be fooled. Many will come, pseudo-messiahs, pseudo-prophets, and they will try to lead you astray from the life of my Father’s kingdom, his Shalom for all the world. Of that day and time, no one knows. Not angels. Not people. Not even the Son, Only the Father knows for sure. It will be like the days of Noah when everyone was eating and drinking and marrying, not watching, no longer seeking God’s justice, God’s peace, Gods’ Shalom, and just like that they were swept away by the flood. Stay awake, Watch as you Wait, for you do not know in what hour of what day he will come.

 

Or, like the oiko-despot, the house despot who, if he knew when the thief would come would have stayed awake; he would not have allowed his house to be broken into! Stay awake! Be prepared! Do not presume to know the day and the hour the Son of Man will arrive. As you wait, participate in the promise that lies ahead; the promise of justice and peace and forgiveness and love abounding. It won’t be what we say. It won’t be what we believe. It will be what we do as active participants in God’s love, mercy, and forgiveness for all people.

 

So it was that Paul wrote to the sisters and brothers in Christ living in the very heart of darkness; living in Rome, home-base for the Empire: You know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires [Romans 13:11-14]

 

Wake up. Stay awake, Watch, and Wait. Watch for where God is already at work for justice and peace. And actively Wait while leaning into the Lord’s intention of justice and peace for all people, while respecting the dignity of every human being. Do not be drawn into the Empire’s works of darkness, denigrating and dividing people against one another. Put on the armor of light, the light of Christ, which no darkness has nor can overcome! Christ is the morning star that knows no setting! May God the Father, his Son Jesus the Christ, and the Holy Spirit lead us into a Holy Advent looking forward, not backwards, into a future in which we truly study war no more!

 

Two footnotes: 1) The fact that even Jesus and the angels are not privy to the time of the Second Advent provides a sharp warning against speculation and an overeagerness to read the signs of the times. In fact, any claim to special insight about the future merely exposes human arrogance and pretense. And 2) Readers of these texts are reminded that they live not as speculators

guessing about the future, nor as prospectors hunting for gold nuggets, but as those to whom a promise has been given. It may (and in fact the text says that it will) come as a surprise, something one cannot calculate. Nevertheless, those of us who have received the promise are bound to the future. We are oriented toward the outstanding fulfillment, and thus we are to always Wake up, Watch, and Wait for that day to come, knowing that our waiting is to be actively engaged in God’s intention of Justice and Peace for all people; not some people, not most people, not just a few people, but all people, everywhere, now and forever. Amen.

 

 

The Three W's of Advent Advent 1A

 

The Three W’s of Advent

Wake up! Watch! Wait! It comes as a surprise each year to remember just what Advent anticipates. It is not the birth of a Christ child. It is not the coming of Christmas. It is not even about how to prepare for Christmas. It is much larger than all of this. It is about the primary Hope of Faith: Christ will come again! Or, what some call his Second Coming. For many of us, it feels embarrassing to admit it. But his coming again is to initiate, support, and stabilize a world of God’s Shalom, true justice and peace for all people.

 

Christmas has been so secularized, removed from its rightful place in God’s Salvation History. It is now mostly about how much can we purchase in the weeks leading up to Christ’s feast of the Incarnation – God come down to dwell among us – literally, as the text really says, God came down to tent among us. Which is important to remember, for tents provide shelter, but it is impermanent shelter. It is portable shelter. Tents do not rely on owning a plot of land – a piece of this fragile Earth our island home in an otherwise hostile universe. We are urged, beginning now way before Black Friday, to set a new national record of sales – sales that often are necessary to secure the businesses that sell to us for another year of selling even more stuff.

 

It is in this world of secularized Christmas that Jesus urges us to Wake Up! Wake up and Stay Awake! In the 24^th chapter of Matthew, the disciples marvel at the updates, improvements and redecorating King Herod has done to the Jerusalem Temple. The Temple that had already been destroyed and rebuilt twice. Jesus can see what’s really going on. The Romans had taken control of the Temple and those who were in charge of the sacrifices and collecting the tithes. Despite Herod’s efforts, it is already falling apart, and will soon be destroyed again. And that’s only symbolic of the disintegration of society and its institutions. The Temple which represented the stability of the nation was now surrounded outside the city gates by Roman crosses with the remains of those who dared to resist the Empire; those who tried desperately to hold on to the old traditions and institutions of stability.

 

Don’t be fooled, says Jesus. Wake up and see what’s going on. Despite the things that are falling apart, the old norms that are being replaced by deadly, life-taking practices, watch and notice instead where God even now is doing justice and peace and well-being. Wherever and whenever that happens, God’s promises are on the move toward newness. This is what the church in Advent is to Wake Up and Watch for with eagerness and joy, and to pitch in wherever and whenever we can as we Wait for the Christ to return.

 

That is the promise, as of old. In the midst of the violence of the Empire, of military interventions, sweeping the streets for those who do not comply with the Emperor’s demands, with crucifixions on the side of all roads that lead to Jerusalem, the Poet-Prophet Isaish declares God’s promises: “He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples;

they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.” [Isaiah 2:1-5] As we wait for Christ’s return, we are to lean into any and all opportunities and actions which will lead to such  lasting and real peace, not the so-called Pax Romana, or Pax Americana`, but the Peace of the Lord which passes and is beyond all human understanding, but nevertheless, is more real than the machinations of an Empire based on greed and human consumption.

 

Of course, Jesus’s companions, and let’s face it so do we today, want to know when the Christ will return? Again, Jesus counsels, Do not be fooled. Many will come, pseudo-messiahs, pseudo-prophets, and they will try to lead you astray from the life of my Father’s kingdom, his Shalom for all the world. Of that day and time, no one knows. Not angels. Not people. Not even the Son, Only the Father knows for sure. It will be like the days of Noah when everyone was eating and drinking and marrying, not watching, no longer seeking God’s justice, God’s peace, Gods’ Shalom, and just like that they were swept away by the flood. Stay awake, Watch as you Wait, for you do not know in what hour of what day he will come.

 

Or, like the oiko-despot, the house despot who, if he knew when the thief would come would have stayed awake; he would not have allowed his house to be broken into! Stay awake! Be prepared! Do not presume to know the day and the hour the Son of Man will arrive. As you wait, participate in the promise that lies ahead; the promise of justice and peace and forgiveness and love abounding. It won’t be what we say. It won’t be what we believe. It will be what we do as active participants in God’s love, mercy, and forgiveness for all people.

 

So it was that Paul wrote to the sisters and brothers in Christ living in the very heart of darkness; living in Rome, home-base for the Empire: You know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires [Romans 13:11-14]

 

Wake up. Stay awake, Watch, and Wait. Watch for where God is already at work for justice and peace. And actively Wait while leaning into the Lord’s intention of justice and peace for all people, while respecting the dignity of every human being. Do not be drawn into the Empire’s works of darkness, denigrating and dividing people against one another. Put on the armor of light, the light of Christ, which no darkness has nor can overcome! Christ is the morning star that knows no setting! May God the Father, his Son Jesus the Christ, and the Holy Spirit lead us into a Holy Advent looking forward, not backwards, into a future in which we truly study war no more!

 

Two footnotes: 1) The fact that even Jesus and the angels are not privy to the time of the Second Advent provides a sharp warning against speculation and an overeagerness to read the signs of the times. In fact, any claim to special insight about the future merely exposes human arrogance and pretense. And 2) Readers of these texts are reminded that they live not as speculators

guessing about the future, nor as prospectors hunting for gold nuggets, but as those to whom a promise has been given. It may (and in fact the text says that it will) come as a surprise, something one cannot calculate. Nevertheless, those of us who have received the promise are bound to the future. We are oriented toward the outstanding fulfillment, and thus we are to always Wake up, Watch, and Wait for that day to come, knowing that our waiting is to be actively engaged in God’s intention of Justice and Peace for all people; not some people, not most people, not just a few people, but all people, everywhere, now and forever. Amen.

 

 

Christ the King vs Fascism

 

Christ the King vs Fascism

It may strike us as odd that, as we celebrate Christ the King, we focus on Christ on the cross. To add to the oddness of this feast of our Lord is our second reading from Luke 1:68-79, the Song of Zechariah, the old priest in the Temple explaining to his wife and others why he will name his and Elizabeth’s child John. These two passages from Luke’s Gospel may strike one, at first glance, not the most obvious way to celebrate what Pope Paul VI in 1969 named this day, the Last Sunday before Advent, the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe; often shortened to Christ the King Sunday, or The Reign of Christ.

 

Christ the King Sunday was the creation of an earlier pope, Pope Pius XI, during a time of gathering darkness throughout Europe, not dissimilar to what Zechariah and his people experienced under the oppression of the Roman Empire. Thus, the old priest sings, “[The Lord] has raised up for us a mighty savior, born of the house of his servant David. Through his holy prophets he promised of old, that he would save us from our enemies, from the hands of all who hate us” (Luke 1:68-79). This mighty savior, of course, is Jesus, of whom many had hoped would rescue the Israelites from the severe darkness of Roman rule. And this entire song, ostensibly to be about John, defines John’s role in just a few words as the one who is to announce the coming reign of Christ and what he often calls the kingdom of God as an alternative to life in the empire.

 

In 1925, as the world was being gripped by nationalist, secularist, anti-Semitic, and authoritarian-fascist dictators like in the old Roman Empire, Pope Pius XI instituted Christ the King Sunday to refocus the Church, the Body of Christ on Earth, on why we are here at all – to be icons of God’s love in this world. As Christ’s disciples, we are to serve the world as Christ did: loving God his Father, and loving all people as neighbors – even to the extent of admonishing us to pray for and love our enemies. This would be a hallmark of a Christlike life: to love others as Christ loved all others, and as our Risen Lord and King loves us today. No doubt, Pius XI would recognize the signs of a similar gathering darkness once again, throughout the world today: so-called “strong men,” dictators, and fascist governments are once again promising peace and prosperity, but delivering nothing close to the promise Zechariah sings of: “In the tender compassion of our God the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

 

It is our God’s tender compassion, which one sees at work even as Jesus is already nailed to a Roman cross. The scene, as Luke describes it, is dark. They are at the Place of the Skull, a hillside outside the city gates of Jerusalem, where the Romans have crucified countless others considered, like Jesus, a threat to the empire (Luke 23:33-43). As Jesus is crucified alongside two other criminals, he forgives the soldiers doing the empire’s dirty work, “for they do not know what they are doing.” People in the crowd and leaders of the community are mocking Jesus. If indeed he is the Christ, the Savior of God’s people, why does he not save himself? Why doesn’t he order his followers, who are many, to revolt? The disciples and the reader all know, however, that is not the way of God’s love, mercy, and forgiveness.

 

Then, one of the criminals also crucified joins in the jeering: “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” But the other says, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.” He continued, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” He replied, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.” We hear Luke’s Passion every three years on Palm Sunday. Perhaps, however, we miss the greater meaning. Jesus does not say, “Someday in the distant future you will be with me in paradise – in my Father’s kingdom, living with me under the reign of Christ.” That is, we can all be with Christ, whom Pope Paul VI calls “the King of the Universe.”

 

As the author of Colossians reminds us, in agreement with the opening words of John’s Gospel, this Jesus, the Christ, the Word, was with God before Creation itself, and is “the very image of God, the first born of all creation” (Colossians 1:11-20). This is the Universal Christ and King of the Universe itself, which we know to have been set in motion nearly 14 billion years ago and is still expanding, still growing, still evolving! The Good News for all humankind is that the kingdom of God’s beloved Son, in whom we have redemption and forgiveness, is open to all today, here and now. For the cross was not the end of the story. It was just the beginning of the reign of the resurrected Christ, whose Spirit is with us and in us at all times. For those of us who know the rest of the story, the prophecy of the old priest Zechariah is true: “In the tender compassion of our God the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace” (Luke 1:68-79).

 

The Franciscan Sister Ilia Delio, in her book The Primacy of Love, reminds us of the power of this moment with Christ on the cross. The reign of Christ, this Paradise he promises us here today, means that “each person is a divine creative work of love.” We are all created in the image of God and represent God’s special and distinct love for each person. She goes on to speak of that powerful and early follower of St. Francis, Clare of Assisi. Clare, in correspondence with Agnes of Prague (the sister of King Wenceslas!), urges us to meditate on the image, the icon, of Christ on the cross every day, for it is a mirror of our hearts: “Study your face within it, so that you may be adorned with virtues within and without.” Delio then asks the reader, “Does your face reflect what is in your heart? When the image of who we are reflects what we are; when our face reflects what fills the heart, then we image Christ, the image of love incarnate, God’s agape.”

 

The prophet Jeremiah, the old Priest Zechariah, and Jesus were all familiar with a world of “bad shepherds” dividing, misleading, scattering God’s people, God’s flock, in darkness and fear. Such bad shepherds are at work throughout the world today. It is on the cross that Jesus promises to gather a remnant of those of us who look upon the crucified Christ and see just who we are and whose we are. Christ the King Sunday is meant to be a day, a moment in time for us to be freed from all darkness, freed from the clutches of bad shepherds everywhere. In Christ, through Christ, and with Christ, we can learn to let go of any and all attachments to empire, and let all fears, worries, and obsessions fade into the background. As Albert Nolan, a Dominican priest from South Africa, writes in his book, Jesus Today, “For some, the greatest relief of all is the experience of freedom from guilt. Our wrongdoing will never be held against us. We are forgiven. We are free.” We are freed to be with Jesus in paradise today.

 

“Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.” This is Jesus’ final declaration from the cross. This is what the “mirror saint” Clare wants all of us to see as we gaze at Christ on the cross. May God forgive us, may Christ renew us, and may the Spirit enable us to grow in Christ’s love, mercy, and compassion for all persons, and all creation itself. Amen.

 

[RCL] Jeremiah 23:1-6; Luke 1: 68-79; Colossians 1:11-20; Luke 23:33-43