2 Epiphany Yr C

Many of you know that each fall I travel to my seminary in Austin TX, the Seminary of the Southwest, to attend the alumni lectures, and to meet with five of my classmates. The bond we formed while in seminary goes deep and was formed through much conversation, joy, heartache, and food. We ate in one another’s home at kitchen tables, we ate in the seminary refectory, we ate at Trudy’s, and Rudy’s, at the Red River Café, Kirby Lane, and the Posse. When we graduated, we promised one another we would gather once each year for mutual support and encouragement. Well, that’s the excuse anyway. One of our professors observed and proclaimed, “I’m really not sure what y’all do together, but I do know you eat and drink and have fun!” And somehow in that, Jesus shows up.

At our Epiphany Evensong, we heard Fr. David tell us about the season of Epiphany, the little known and oft forgotten season. During these few weeks sandwiched between the Season of Christmas and Ash Wednesday and Lent, we read gospel stories that show us who Jesus is. That’s what Epiphany means, showing or revealing. Traditionally this story of Jesus changing water into wine at Cana has been called a miracle story, the gospel writer himself writes of signs, Jesus speaks of them as his works. The word sign indicates that its purpose is to show, to be a sign of or toward something beyond itself. Signs speak of why Jesus is significant and why his identity matters to human beings. The gospel writer’s purpose is to evoke a faithful response in us, the readers. When we call this story and the others in John that are like it, miracles, and emphasize that they are deeds which defy the laws of nature, we actually miss the point of the event as it may have been understood by those who originally told the story and heard the story. I think this story is much more about Jesus showing up when people are gathered for mutual support and encouragement, and to have some fun.

The same seminary professor I have already quoted writes in her book on John’s gospel,

Jesus’ glory means something very concrete. Jesus’ glory means that Jesus provides wine when it is needed. Jesus gives an abundance of wine, one hundred and twenty gallons, even if the guests are already inebriated, and Jesus gives an abundance of excellent wine. Wine is wine. At the same time, wine is a symbol of Jesus’ gifts to human beings of joy and life, grace upon grace.

She continues,

The first sign confirms that Jesus is the Word made flesh who provides from creation and engenders life and joy. The confirmation ….. comes from the story of these friends in this village.

-- Cynthia Briggs Kittredge, Conversations With Scripture: The Gospel of John (Anglican Association of Biblical Scholars), p.41-42.

God shows up as people gather and revel in the abundance that God has provided. God’s abundance is not dependent on any one of us; God’s abundance is not lavished on the privileged and withheld from the poor. In fact, as this story shows us, God’s abundance may show forth in odd and unusual places and when least expected. The Lord shows forth his glory.

And yet today I am all too aware of the tragedy that is so apparent around us. War, devastation, earthquake. We are faced with the reality of Haiti. It seems like a place without abundance and only with sadness and tragedy. How does God show up then? Where is God in the midst of the rubble?

Tragedy and devastation no matter where or when it is does not attest to God’s absence. Some may say that tragedy is a result of God’s judgment, but that is not true. We know that disaster and accident are a part of our world, part of human existence. God does not magically remove suffering. God comes into our suffering, God is in our midst. This season of Epiphany is all about God showing this to us. Incarnation is about God showing up. The work that Jesus did and does in his life and on the cross is to walk with us, and to let the suffering of tragedy wreak it’s fury on him, and to take it out of the world with love.

God shows up in you and me and in our prayers and in our help for the people of Haiti. This is about being able to suffer together, and we either suffer together or we suffer apart. Incarnation is about accompanying one another through the suffering we personally feel, or that we feel on behalf of those who seem so far away. And I believe that God suffers with the people of Haiti and with us. I believe that God weeps at the loss of human life, as you and I weep at the loss of human life.

The abundance that God shows is not of riches, nor of the absence of suffering, the abundance that God shows is the abundance of compassion and love. You and I and the people of Haiti are the face of God. If God provides wine when it is needed, then God provides love and compassion when it is needed, and you and I bear that love and compassion into a broken and fragmented world, whether it is lives that are broken, or whether it is buildings that are broken, or whether it is bodies that are broken.

Water that is now wine, bread that is now the body, death that is now life. God shows us in the midst of joy, and in the midst of sorrow, that it is life that has the victory. God shows us that abundance is to be shared. We must provide the water, so that it may be turned into wine. We must provide the prayers that turn into abundance.

Let us pray,

O God, our hearts ache for lives lost
Suddenly
For families’ swallowed
By water and earth
For home and hearth gone
And memories forever changed
In an instant. O God, our eyes look to you
For healing
For comfort
For hope
For direction.
O God, our arms reach out to do all that we can in whatever ways that we can for as long as is needed for neighbors and friends and for those so far away.
Amen.

(Prayer borrowed from St. James on the Parkway, Mpls MN.)

1 Epiphany Yr C Baptism of Our Lord

Remember your baptism! Remember each day who we are, and whose we are, and how beloved we are. Many, if not most of us cannot remember the actual day of our baptism, but whether we can remember our baptismal day or not is less important than whether we can remember that we too are blessed and beloved. We too are blessed and beloved. God has interrupted our lives to show us that we are blessed and beloved.

What if we lived our lives every day believing this truth? We are blessed and beloved. This is our identity. This is what God says about us. We are blessed and beloved; we are marked as Christ’s own forever. We understand that the work Jesus did in his life, love, suffering, death on the cross, and resurrection was to stand by our side, and ultimately take our place, so that death does not wreak its havoc on us, so that death does not have the victory, but that the victory is in new life. If this is so, and I do believe that it is so; our reality points to death and resurrection, then, what God says about Jesus, you are my beloved and with you I am pleased, then it is true about us, you and me, as well.

So baptism shapes us, our baptism matters as Jesus’ baptism matters. We need to live our lives out of this truth, this reality. Our baptism matters. It matters because out of it we may life a moral life. It is our baptism that may guide and direct us as we navigate the turbulent waters of moral decision making. We live in a world where it appears moral decision making is largely absent. You only have to watch the news, which no longer is news but entertainment, to see that. All over our television screens, newspapers, magazines, are stories that cause me to wonder, what were they thinking? The answer probably is, they weren’t.

In a culture where people are tempted by savvy marketers to form identities around consumption and branding, how can the church provide an alternative identity that frees us from being consumed by commodities? Money is a moral issue.

The ubiquitous refrain of "I'm bored" suggests not so much a lack of interesting possibilities as a false notion of what fulfillment looks like; how can the church invite people into the adventure of Christian living? Boredom is a moral issue.

People are not immune to the general sense of anxiety arising from a feeling of political, economic, and global insecurity; how can the church help us learn to fear rightly and live courageously? Fear is a moral issue.

As most of you know, I don’t offer much in the way of absolute certainty; I approach most answers to questions with a certain amount of humility. But in this case, I know the answer to these questions. The answer to these questions lies in taking our baptism seriously. The answer to these questions lies in living as a community of faith in which baptism matters. Our baptism frames and shapes our moral life. The over arching principle of our moral life is, “I will with God’s help.” This Christian life is not something we attempt on our own. It matters too much to try it by ourselves. This Christian life is always with God’s help, and it is always supported and loved by this particular community of faith. Once again we fall into the sin of narcissism when we attempt the moral life on our own. It just doesn’t work, it just can’t work. We see that played out before us over and over again. At the core of who we are, whose we are, and what we know about Jesus, is the body. We look to the body of Christ to bear us when we cannot walk on our own, to pray for us when we can no longer pray for ourselves. Baptism binds us together, baptism makes us accountable to one another. Baptism reminds us that we never enter the water alone; we always use the buddy system. That’s a lesson we all should have learned at summer camp. Our moral life arises out of our life together as the body of Christ.

Secondly the Christian moral life is to continue in the practices, “Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers?” I find the use of the word practice incredibly liberating. Doctors practice, lawyers practice, we practice this moral life and we are immersed in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers. This is what we do, it is not nothing. We read and study scripture, and we read and study what those who have come before us say about scripture. We gather around kitchen tables, and living room tables, and restaurant tables and we exchange ideas, we hash out arguments, we bring up pros and cons, we talk! We learn from one another.

There are two pictures that I hold as models for Christian practice. First is actually the rabbinic practice of Torah study and interpretation. The rabbi’s would gather together to read and discuss scripture, they would raise point after point, apply scripture to this situation and that, they would argue and fight, and then they would agree to disagree, and live their common lives together treating each other with dignity and respect.

Secondly is the practice of communion and common prayer. We come together in the breaking of bread and in the prayers. At our center is Jesus Christ. What we do and what we say forms and frames our practice. We are fed and nourished by a loaf of bread, bread that has been prepared by the loving hands of a man who shares his gift of baking. Bread that is blessed and broken for all of us. Bread whose fragments join us together as a whole, healed and forgiven. Bread in which the main ingredient is wheat, wheat whose seeds have been planted in the dirt, seeds that must die in order to emerge from the ground as a new creation, the plant that gives us our sustenance. We meet, shoulder to shoulder, and share this bread, Jesus, this new creation that makes each of us a new creation. It is in this action that we may find our identity, blessed and beloved.

And together we pray, not just us, but God’s people all over this city, this country, this world. We may not agree on much, but still we pray. Our practice of prayer is our identity. In and through our common prayer, our morning prayer, our noon day prayer, our evening prayer, our spontaneous prayer, our prayer under our breath, we are healed, the fragments of our lives are brought together and made whole, made new. Our moral life arises out of our practice of study and prayer.

Resisting, Repenting, Returning, “Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?” Missing the mark is part of who we are as human beings; turning back toward God is our identity as blessed and beloved of God. Baptism does not make us perfect, but the grace of baptism does woo us back, it helps us and causes us to turn our eyes back toward God even when we’ve blown it so badly we can’t imagine God ever taking us back. There is nothing we can do that separates us from God’s abundant and amazing grace. Our moral life arises out of forgiveness.

Embodying the Good News, “Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?” You hold the light. You are filled with the love of Christ. You are blessed and beloved. You are equipped and prepared by your baptism to go out into the world and proclaim by word and example God’s abundant and amazing love, God’s forgiveness and healing. Our moral life arises out of this embodiment of Jesus. It is at the core of respect and dignity for every human being.

Remember your baptism! Remember that you are blessed and beloved. Remember your identity. For those of us who have forgotten, I invite you to exercise your baptismal commitment by renewing your spiritual journey and moral development by participating in one of the many opportunities you have here at St. Andrew’s. Bible study, Education for Ministry, Sunday morning education, Wednesday @ St. Andrew’s, Barely Organized at Bully Blends, serving at Cornerstone Mission, preparing a meal for United Campus Ministry. Or maybe you have an idea for something that you would like to invite others to do with you.

Remember your baptism!
Remember your identity.
Remember that you are blessed and beloved.

The Lord has shown forth his glory: Come let us adore him.

Feast of the Epiphany

The Lord has shown forth his glory: Come let us adore him.
These wise men came all the way from the East to the tiny town of Jerusalem to find the child who has been born King of the Jews. I wonder why these three who seem to be wealthy, they bring very costly gifts, and important, they get an audience with Herod with no trouble, journey all that way to see this child, who they call King of the Jews. Could the stars in the sky point to something so important and so powerful that these three risk the time, the danger, and the cost to make this journey? They knew nothing of the Prophet Isaiah, they knew nothing of this at all, and yet they come. Once they reached their destination, they were "overwhelmed by joy," and then, whatever drew them far from home sent them back again. So why does Matthew tell us this story? I think because Matthew wants us to hear about the Good News of God's universal and all-encompassing grace. A grace that extends to the farthest reaches of the world, that extends to all people, Jew and non-Jew, that extends to rich, like these Kings, and poor, like the folks that gathered that day the baby was born, the shepherds and Mary and Joseph.

What is happening here is what Mary sang about after the angel visited her. This child who is born in a barn and who is king, is the one who turns the world. From the halls of power to the fortress tower, not a stone will be left on stone. Let the king beware for your justice tears every tyrant from his throne. The hungry poor shall weep no more, for the food they can never earn; There are tables spread, every mouth be fed, for the world is about to turn. These wise men cannot remain at home, they must attend this newborn king. They must observe for themselves this mystery, and in doing so they are changed and they must return home by another way.

A great light has dawned, a light that draws all people and calls us to live our lives illuminated by its truth. That's what Epiphany and the Epiphany season is about. This new light shines on a new age, the age inaugurated by the life, death, and resurrection of this child, this man, this king, Jesus. You and I bear this light, we are like the wise men, we are from a far away land, and God’s universal and all-encompassing grace surrounds us too. We are not excluded, no one is excluded. We witness the light and we, like them must bear the light home, and to our workplaces and our playplaces.

The myrrh’s the thing. We can bear this light because of the myrrh. Remembering that myrrh is an embalming spice, and missing from Isaiah, Matthew’s inclusion of myrrh as one of the gifts the wise men bring points us in the direction of the depth and breadth of God’s intent with Jesus. The Jewish Messiah was expected to come in glory in honor, as a king of all kings, but instead is Jesus, the one who is born in a barn who comes to bring justice, and who is to die to do it. Matthew points us to this reality, and in so doing provides us with the light bearing tools. Jesus isn’t just a baby, whose birthday we celebrate each year. Jesus is the one who inaugurates the new heavens and the new earth, and that means we are living right now in this interstitial time. The in-between time. The time after the beginning and before the end, the alpha and the omega. This is a time when the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overtake it, because of the work Jesus has done on the cross, and is doing in our lives.

We witness to the light, like the wise men before us. We are the proclaimers of God’s universal and all encompassing grace, we receive and bear the abundant and amazing love that God has for all people. You, and me, like the wise men. This journey takes us home by another way.

Our lives are changed by incarnation, our lives our changed by this Light coming into the world, We will spend our lives saying yes to the new creation God intends for us, or we will spend our lives saying no to who God calls us to be. Saying yes is dangerous, as the wise men learned, as we learn, saying yes to God is to enter a relationship that brings us outside of ourselves and causes us to confront our fears and our prejudices, saying yes to God moves us from narcissism to selflessness. Saying no to God means that we can be secure in the way things are, we can live a life untouched by injustice, untouched by prejudice, untouched by the pursuit of greed.

So, what does it look like to bring our own gifts to this Child, God’s gift to us. And what does it look like to go home by another way? What does it look like to live a life of incarnation, what does it look like to carry the light into a world of darkness? On this route home we are called to be Light bearers. We are called to be Love bearers. We are called to bring God’s Love to dark corners, to mountaintops, to raging waters. We are called to bring God’s Love to a fragmented society, to a culture that is pulled apart by greed and by conspicuous consumption. We are called to bring God’s Love to a culture that values contingency and impermanence over commitment, fidelity and covenant.

God’s Love, God’s Power, is the most powerful integrating force in creation. God’s Love moves us from brokenness, from fragmentation, to wholeness, to healing. You and I bear the scars of that brokenness, we bear the scars that fragments cut us with, and we bear the healing Love of God. It is that Love, that Light that we carry into the world. Our work is out there, and it is about bringing the Light into the world.

How do you bring God’s Love and God’s Light into the world, how do you bring God’s wholeness into your work or your school? It is our call, to bring God’s transforming love to those who have not yet seen or felt or known that love. Be the light-bearer, just like those wise ones of so long ago, and you will go home by another way.

Those magic men the Magi
Some people call them wise
Or Oriental, even kings
Well anyway, those guys.
They visited with Jesus
They sure enjoyed their stay
Then warned in a dream of King Herod's scheme
They went home by another way. *

The Lord has shown forth his glory: Come let us adore him.

*James Taylor, Home By Another Way

1 Christmas

How do you begin to imagine the Word made flesh? How does the Word in the flesh come to life in your life? For me that may be a good book that ignites my imagination, takes my brain into places it hasn’t been before, it is in the people I know and the stories they tell. It is also in music.

When I read these words from the beginning of the gospel of John, it is a symphony that I hear. I hear a perfect note as the music begins. The choirmaster at my seminary said that the note most common in nature is a G. As this symphony begins, I imagine it is a G that sings into existence the rest of the story. Music is organic; as is the Love of God. It is in every fiber of creation, the stones shout it out, the wind hums the word, the rain keeps the beat, the grace and truth of Christ is made real in the dance of the spheres.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Every time I hear these words from John I hear the language of music. Sometimes for me the language of music speaks more clearly than words. When I hear this passage from John I am encircled, enveloped, swaddled, if you will, in the awesome and abundant love of our creator. When I hear these words I hear a symphony. I hear the bass, the tuba and the tympani and the baritone, beating as the heart of creation. I hear the bass clarinets, and the bassoons, and the saxophones joining in the building of the harmonies. I hear the flutes and the clarinets and the violins with the melody of love and hope. And I hear the trumpets and the French horns with the blast of the proclamation that God who has created the world comes into it as one of us. And I hear the sadness of the oboe and the English horn, with the news that some do not choose to listen to the music. And then the voices join the fray. Ahh, the dance begins.

Music exists in relationship. The relationship of the composer to the music, the relationship of the music to the hearer, and the relationship of the musicians to the music. Can music really be music without those who hear it?

Music tells us a story. Music has a beginning, a middle, and an end. We, the hearers might like the music, and we might not like the music. When our boys were younger, in elementary school, I would volunteer in their classes to teach a music listening class called Bravo. The idea was to teach children to love and appreciate classical music before others were able to teach them not to like it. In that class we would listen to a piece of music and talk about the story it told. We would imagine the creatures and the people who populated the story of the music.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

These are words, which try to describe and contain the most awesome reality that cannot be described and contained. God, the composer, if you will, sings the perfect note, and in doing so, enters into relationship with the music. The music is Jesus, and we are the hearers. Of course there are tons of flaws with this metaphor, our language is totally inadequate to describe the reality of God. But, once the music begins, you and I, the hearers, will go out and tell others about how the music changed us, we loved it, we hated it, and everything in between. But for the hearing, we are forever changed.

That’s the awesome power here, in the beginning of John. You and I and the world we live in cannot be the same, we are forever changed; God is turning the world around. The music, the light, the word, seeps in and through us so that we can never be who we were before we heard it. And that is the rest of the story. The purpose of the gospel of John is to evangelize; the purpose of the gospel of John is to point to God. The purpose of the gospel of John is to convince the hearer that once we encounter God in the flesh, Jesus, nothing for us, and nothing for our world, can be the same, the world is about to turn.

Because the music, who is God in the flesh, Jesus, lived and died as one of us, a human being. The amazing movement in this symphony is when we thought the music went silent; we thought the darkness put out the light. But it didn’t. The composer began again with a new song, the song that returned the light to the world.

It is this encounter with the word, with the music; it is this relationship between the composer, the music, and you, where eternal life lies. The gospel of John is full of references to eternal life. And in John, eternal life is not something that happens after this life, it is this life. It is the way we live when we hear the music, when we are the musicians, when we encounter Jesus.

Alleluia. To us a child is born: Come let us adore him. Alleluia.

Christmas Eve 2009

Alleluia. To us a child is born: Come let us adore him. Alleluia. This is an amazingly meager set of words to proclaim the event that has changed us forever, the inbreaking of God into our world. "It happened while they were there that her term was up and the days were completed for her to deliver. She delivered her son, the firstborn. And she wrapped him up and placed him in a feed trough because there was no place of lodging for them anywhere else." Certainly an inauspicious set of circumstances in comparison to the cultural celebration of Christmas we witness today. No snowy winter, no animals overlooking the baby's crib, not even a stable, no innkeeper crying out "no room". But then, the inbreaking of God’s kingdom is announced by a rather spectacular appearance to the shepherds by an angel doing what an angel does—delivering a message. At the appearance of the angel, the shepherds respond with fear.

How do we get from the simplicity and grittiness of the feed trough into which this miraculous baby was placed and the splendor of the proclamation by the heavenly choirs singing Glory to God in the highest heaven to the conspicuous consumption that is Christmas today? How do we get from the angel announcing do not be afraid, to the fear of offending someone with the Good News? How do we look forward instead to a world that is marked by the inbreaking of God. God, who is love, and can do nothing but give of Godself. How are we changed by this inconceivable conception? What difference does the incarnation make? Why do we gather on a night like tonight?

I think there are as many answers to these questions as there are people. But I also think there is one answer. God desires not to be a distant God, not to be separate from humanity, but to be with humanity, to be with you, and me, to walk with us, all of us, as individuals and as community, to love us. Incarnation is absolutely amazing. Incarnation is God’s desire for relationship. At any time in our lives, we can choose to be in that relationship or to choose out of that relationship. In the relationship, we have a chance at wholeness, at hope. Not perfection though, you see, the flaws and the scars become part of the beauty, the victory is not the removal of suffering, sadness and death, but the victory is in the relationship that brings our brokenness to wholeness.

We respond to God’s self-giving love for humanity, God’s love for each of us, by opening ourselves to God’s presence right here in our presence, we do that by being present to God’s interruption in our lives. In a world where there is little room at the inn for a poor child, maybe we must make room for God to surprise us with unexpected revelations given by unusual messengers.

We gather on a night like tonight because God’s love for us matters. The creator of the universe, the baby born in a barn, God’s willingness to be with us matters. Without God’s relationship with us, we founder, we lose direction, we are tossed about. Without God’s relationship with us, we look to ourselves as the center of the universe, we whine in the darkness and we implode. Without God’s relationship with us, we are hopeless.

This inconceivable incarnation shows us that the world doesn’t have to be made perfect before it is made new. You and I do not have to be perfect before we are made new. That’s what’s so amazing about God with us. God comes to us in the midst of the chaos, in the midst of the darkness. God comes to be with us in the midst of our isolation and alienation, in the midst of the muck of the stable, and the pain of a Roman cross.

This is an extravagant love, an abundant love, poured out for each one of us as if each one of us was the only one in existence; poured out for all of us in unlimited supply. This abundant love is offered without reservation or regard for what you have and haven’t done, or how many Christmas cookies you make, or how many Christmas presents you give.

The prophets of the Old Testament testified to this love, but the love that God has for creation is beyond comprehension. That is why God came into our midst, to shed light on this love. You see, Jesus is more than a teacher who can help us understand the words in scripture. Jesus is the Word made flesh. We don’t have to figure it all out; we can experience it in relationship.

God with us, God in our midst, the light that has come into the world is the power and the hope of Christmas. And this isn’t just something that has happened, or that happens to us, we are not a passive observer. This is a relationship in which we participate. The Word made flesh meets us in the Flesh. One way we express this participation is when we gather together and the Word is present in our midst, and we are re-membered in the Body and Blood of Christ, just as we are doing right now.

And then we respond to the relationship that God offers us, the love that God offers us, by carrying the light into the world. You see, God’s work is not contained inside a church. We participate in God’s work, and are nourished and fortified to do God’s work, but most of that work takes place out there, it takes place in your work and in your play, in your school. We are to be the light that illuminates God, we are to be the light that shines on people and shows them the way to God.

It’s a new life. It’s a new world. Right here, right now, we are invited to experience the Incarnation we celebrate in Christmas by living and loving as Christ’s body in the world. That’s the light we walk in, that shines all the more brightly in the darkness that cannot overcome it. That’s the hope that sustains us, the peace that keeps us centered amidst life’s turmoil, the joy that makes eternal and abundant life present in the here and now.

Alleluia. To us a child is born: Come let us adore him. Alleluia.

4 Advent Yr C

Our King and Savior now draws near: Come let us adore him. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leapt in her womb. I was wondering with my group of pastor friends the other day about what it would be like if we greeted one another in this way. Each of us are God-bearers, just like Mary and Elizabeth, should we not greet one in expectation and hope? Our advent waiting draws us ever closer to fulfillment.

Elizabeth, barren and too old to conceive, Mary, too young to conceive, both of these child-bearings are inconceivable. Our response to this inconceivable conception calls forth Holy Imagination. I turn to one of my favorite writers, Madeleine L’Engle, when I ponder these things. She writes in a book called Bright Evening Star, “It is not that in believing the story of Jesus we skip reason, but that sometimes we have to go beyond it, take leaps with our imagination, push our brains further than the normally used parts of them are used to going.” She goes on to write “I had to let go all my prejudices and demands for proof and open myself to the wonder of love. Faith is not reasonable because it wasn’t for reason, but for love that Jesus came.”

It is for love that Jesus came, and we need to respond like Mary, like Elizabeth. We need to respond with shouts of joy, with dances of gladness. This Good News changes us forever; it changes our world forever. It is as inconceivable and unreasonable that each of us is a God-bearer as it is that Mary is a Christ-bearer. It is inconceivable that God has burst into our world. And yet, all of Advent we wait in active anticipation of the moment that God bursts into our world as a baby, and that God bursts into our world to bring our history; our lives, to fulfillment. We cannot continue to respond to this Good News with business as usual. We cannot respond to the sacredness of each other the same as usual. Words like, Hello, how ya doing, I’m fine how are you just don’t cut it. The Good News is Our King and Savior now draws near: Come let us adore him!

This inconceivable conception that God bursts into our lives must change us. It changed Mary, it changed Elizabeth, it changed Zechariah, it left him speechless, it changed Joseph, he had to defy the law in order to love and support Mary, it changed a community, it changed an entire people. Mary responds to this inconceivable conception first when the angel Gabriel comes to tell her, and Mary says “let it be to me according to your word.” My hunch is that maybe it took her a little while to come to this kind of brave acceptance, initially she probably said something a little more like “no way, I can’t have a baby, I’m too young, I’m not married.” By the time we catch up with her in the story we read today, Mary is singing “my soul magnifies the Lord.” Mary’s response to this inconceivable conception progresses from brave acceptance to joyful praise. I wonder if Mary needed some time to get used to the idea that she is the Christ-bearer so that she could move from brave acceptance to joyful praise. I wonder if Mary didn’t have a little advent waiting of her own.

When Mary and Elizabeth meet, the baby in Elizabeth’s womb leaps and Mary is filled with such joy and hope that she sings and dances. Mary and Elizabeth lived in a dark time under Herod the Great, whose casual brutality was backed up with the threat of Rome. And yet Mary’s song is a song of freedom, a song of liberation for her people, it is subversive and it is revolutionary. It is joyful and it is hopeful. Advent waiting calls us into this paradox, the paradox that Mary embodies, that finding involves losing; that hiding involves revealing; that birth involves death.

While our culture has been celebrating Christmas since before Thanksgiving, we continue to wait. This fourth Sunday of Advent is oh so difficult, we just want to be there, we just want to have it now, and it is so hard to resist the pressure to just say Merry Christmas. But Advent waiting as Mary shows us, forms us, shapes us, so that the inconceivable conception can take hold of us, and can give birth to the Holy Imagination that bears God into this world.

Mary spent most of her life waiting; from the moment the angel Gabriel comes to her and announces do not be afraid, through the final moments as she waited for her son’s death on the cross, and the hours up to the inconceivable resurrection. Mary waits. I think Mary’s waiting can teach us that Advent is a time that summons us to embrace waiting as a way of life. Advent summons us to practice waiting, and by doing so to lay down the foundations of a life shaped by waiting, so that when those times come when we have no idea what to do, times of sadness, times of joy, times of difficulty, times of division, we fall back on that deep, still waiting in the present moment that opens up a space for God’s interruption in our midst.

We wait in this present moment with Mary, with Elizabeth. We wait with quiet and confident expectation for this inconceivable conception to come to fruition and fulfillment. In the waiting we may be changed. We may be filled with hope, hope that God indeed is turning the world around. We may act with justice and mercy, knowing that indeed with Mary we are bearing God to this world. In this present moment God turns each of us around.

It is no coincidence that the way that God interrupts our world is to be born into our world, it is no coincidence that God interrupts our world to live and love, and suffer and die just like each and every one of us. Being human means being born to die, and only a God who is willing to share that can actually help us face our own mortality and that of those we love, and to help us live every present moment fully alive. It is in the waiting for the births and the deaths, and in the moments in between, that God breaks in and surrounds us and lifts us with love.

I am reminded of my own pregnancies during Advent waiting. I am reminded of the joy and hope and dreams of bringing a baby into the world. I am reminded of the fear and trepidation of bringing a baby into the world. I am reminded of the blissful ignorance of what the future would hold. As I look backward to that time I am filled with nostalgia at its wonder, I am forever changed and cannot respond to the world with anything less than compassion and hope. And I look with hope to the possibility of what the lives of our sons will bear. But it is the present moment that is pregnant with possibility, the present moment that bears God in their lives, in my life, in our lives.

Do not be afraid; listen for God to be born in this present moment. The world is about to turn. Our King and Savior now draws near: Come let us adore him.

3 Advent Yr C

Advent is a time of active waiting in expectation for the birth of a baby, and for the fulfillment of the hope that began with Jesus’ death on the cross and in the resurrection. Advent gives us the opportunity to listen carefully for the voice of the one who is calling us to repentance and to transformation, to a new way of faithfulness to the God who is already extending grace and suspending judgment before we ask. Advent is about living into the fullness of God’s grace. We are invited to make our decision to follow Jesus, and that invitation comes not just once for a lifetime, but in every moment we live. That is what faithfulness is; it is not necessarily about being on the right path or divining the right plan. It is not the reward at the end, and it is not the romantic and nostalgic worship of a baby, but it is the active anticipation and expectation that Jesus is here with us now, and is transforming our lives in the present, while gathering humanity to redemption and fulfillment.

Advent is a time of active waiting, it is preparing for the future while living in the present. It is living in the midst of what has been, what is now, and what will be, I think of Advent as a sort of time warp. We live in Advent for these four weeks prior to Christmas in the midst of the rush to get to Christmas, but our call as Christians is to be present to the revelation of God as it unfolds, all the while having a glimpse of what is to come as we prepare for God’s fulfillment.

In this third week of Advent, we hear in the gospel John’s ethic of repentance. John calls those who have willingly gathered at the river to be baptized a brood of vipers, but then he tells the people to bear fruit worthy of repentance. What John is saying to them is, don’t sit around doing nothing just because you know you are Abraham’s descendents. This promise isn’t yours just because you belong to the right family. And they ask John, what should we do? John’s answer is to be who you are, and do what you do, and to be faithful in that, no matter what you have or don’t have. John doesn’t judge the tax collectors, he doesn’t tell them to go get a different job, he doesn’t judge the soldiers, he doesn’t tell them they shouldn’t be soldiers. He says do that work God has brought you to do. Be fully present to whatever it is God calls you to, be faithful in your work and in your play. John’s ethic is fairly simple, to the crowds who really have very little, John says, share; to the tax collectors, John says, be fair; and to the soldiers John says, don’t be bully’s.

And then John’s ethic of repentance points these newly baptized people to the one who is God incarnate, God in our midst. John calls them and us to turn to God and let that determine your life, your relationships, your present and your future.

This Christian life is not a heroic life. In fact, it is quite ordinary. According to John the Baptizer in this passage, the markers of faithfulness, the markers that we have made this choice to follow Jesus, the markers of transformation, are the fruit that we bear; sharing what we have and being fair in all of our relationships. What an amazing passage to read as we actively wait, treat each other well right now, experience the sacred incarnation in your midst, as you look forward to the fulfillment of all humanity. Participating in God's new kingdom is available to all of us where we are, requiring only the modicum of faith necessary to perceive the sacred in the ordinary. It is, in short, entirely within our reach: Share. Be fair. Don't bully. Turn your face to God. So with many other exhortations, John proclaimed the good news to the people. Good news, indeed.

As we observe this third week of Advent, as we listen to incarnation in active anticipation of all that is to come, we hear the simplicity of this message. Share, be fair, don’t bully. In a culture where the cacophony of Christmas calls us to consume, the simplicity of sharing and fairness seem almost trite. But it is incarnation and ultimately resurrection that give meaning to this simplicity. Jesus is born anew among us whenever we acknowledge the sacredness of the other. Jesus is born anew among us whenever two or three gather in his name. Jesus is at work among us wherever the poor, the sick, and the marginalized are received and find healing and power for new life. Jesus is among us whenever we share what we have, whenever we treat people with dignity and respect.

And when we keep alert, when we pay attention, when we keep our eyes, ears, minds and hearts open to receive God’s good news, we see God’s good news finding flesh in our world in places and in ways as surprising and challenging as they are joyous. Waiting in active anticipation and expectation summons us to the present moment, to a still yet active, a tranquil yet steadfast commitment to the life we live now.

Our King and Savior now draws near: Come let us adore him.