Jamie Parsley's Blog, page 5
January 12, 2025
1 Epiphany
Baptism of Our Lord
January 12, 2025
Luke3.15-17, 21-22
+ I know it’s not something we want to hear about today, on thisvery cold, very snowy winter morning.
In fact, just thinking about it makes us even colder.
But there’s no getting around it.
If there’s a theme for this Sunday it’s…
Water.
And it’s a very good thing to be considering.
It is probably the natural element we most take for granted.
And yet it is one of our most vital.
We depend upon water.
It nourishes us.
It cleans us.
It delights us.
In our Western society, we take for granted the fact that ourwater is clean.
In other parts of the world, water isn’t so clean.
In other parts of the world, water sometimes is a source ofillness.
In some parts of the world they have little idea of the luxury ofsomething like cold water—or even ice for that matter.
As we’ve known here in this part of the country over the years,water can also be a destructive force when it comes to the matter of floods.
Water, as vital as it is, can also destroy.
It can destroy property, hopes, dreams and even lives.
For us, as Christians, water truly is the source of our spirituallives.
Throughout Scripture, we find ourselves nourished by and remindedof the importance of water.
The authors of our scriptures, coming as they did from such anarid place as the Middle East, no doubt appreciated water in ways we don’t.
And that appreciation certainly affected their spirituality.
Certainly, we find the image of water returning again and again inscripture.
Each time Scripture references water, it does so as a source oflife, as a source of renewal, as a source of God’s saving grace—even in theinstance of Noah’s flood.
Water is important to us as humans.
And it is important to us as Christians.
In today’s Gospel reading, we find probably the most profoundexpression of how important water is to us as Christians.
We find that first great example being set.
As Jesus comes out of those waters, as the Spirit, like a dove,descends upon him, he hears the words from God:
“You are mySon, my Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
Here the standard is set.
Here the breakthrough has happened.
From now on, this is essentially what has been spoken to each ofus at our own baptisms:
“You are mychild, my Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
For most of us, we have no doubt taken for granted our baptisms,much as we have taken for granted water itself.
We have viewed baptism as no more than a christening service forbabies—a kind of dedication ceremony.
Baptism is, obviously, much, much more than that.
As you hear me say again and again, baptism is THE defining momentin our lives as Christians.
Whether we remember the event or not, it was the moment when ourlives changed.
It was the moment we became new.
It was, truly, our second birth.
When some Christians ask you, “Have you been born again?” you cantell them in no uncertain terms: “Oh, yes I have actually!”
You can, “I was reborn in the waters of life and marked asChrist’s own forever on the day of my baptism.”
But even that doesn’t truly convey what baptism is for us.
What happened to Jesus in those waters, happened to us as well.
In the waters of our baptism, we were reborn as children of ourloving and caring God.
We became what was Jesus is.
We became children of God.
We can, from the very moment of our baptism, trace our relationwith God our Parent—the God who recognizes us and loves us and accepts us andembraces us.
So, why the importance of this one single event?
Well, the bond that is made at baptism is one that truly can neverbe broken.
That relationship that was formed with God in those waters iseternal.
In baptism, we truly do become God’s child.
For ever.
We become God’s own Beloved.
It is a bond that can never be broken.
We can try to break it as we please.
We can struggle under that bond.
We can squirm and resist it.
We can try to escape it.
But the simple fact is this: we can’t.
For ever is for ever.
Now, we might not want to have this bond anymore.
Some of those babies we have baptized in the font in the narthex whogrow up will make clear later on that they don’t want this bond anymore.
But, no matter how much we may turn our backs on God, God neverturns away from us.
No matter how much we try to turn away from God, to deny God, topick God apart and make God something other than who God is, God never turnsaway from us.
God never denies us.
Why?
Because that bond, formed in those waters, is eternal and binding.
And God will never turn away one of God’s children.
What Baptism shows us, more than anything else, is that we alwaysbelong to God.
It shows us that, no matter what we might do, we will alwaysbelong to God.
Always.
For ever.
In this way, Baptism is truly the great equalizer.
In those waters, we are all bathed—no matter who we are and whatwe are.
We all emerge from those waters on the same ground—as equals.
A bishop or a king or a president is no greater than you or me inthose waters.
And, as equals, we are not expected to just sit around, huggingourselves and basking in the glow of theconfidence that we are God’s own child.
As equals, made equal in the waters of baptism, we are thencompelled to go out into the world and treat each other as equals.
We are called to go out into the world and make a difference init.
And we are called to act like Children of a loving God.
That means we have to fight ourselves sometimes.
We have to fight to not become negative people.
We, as loved children of a loving God, must work hard to not bemanipulative, controlling, gossipy, backbiting, unloving people.
We must not be what our critics accuse of us being.
We must love and respect each other equally.
Our baptism doesn’t set us apart as special people.
It forces us out into the world to be a part of the world and, bydoing so, to transform the world.
So, in those waters of baptism, something truly incrediblehappened for us.
We went into those waters one person, and emerged from thosewaters as someone else completely.
It was an incredible moment in our lives, just as it was in thelife of Jesus, who led the way and showed us that Baptism was an incredibleoutpouring of God’s love and light into our lives.
So, with this knowledge of how important it is, let us take thetime to meditate and think about your own baptism and the implications it hasin your life.
And when we do, let us remember and celebrate the bond that wasformed with our loving God in those waters on that marvelous day we werebaptized.
In a few moments, I will come through the nave and will sprinkleyou with water.
As that water touches you, remember how God loves you andcherishes you.
And when you enter this church, and when you leave it, payattention to the baptismal font in the narthex and the blessed water in it.
Touch that water, bless yourselves with it, and when you do, remember itas a reminder of that wonderful event in your life which marked you forever asGod’s very own.
Those words spoken to Jesus on the day of his baptism are beingspoked to us again and again.
Let us listen to those words.
Let us believe those words.
And let us celebrate those words that God speaks to each of us—
“You are myBeloved; with you I am well pleased.”
January 5, 2025
Epiphany (eve)
January 5, 2025
Matthew2.1-12
+You know, I just gotta say it.
Somedays, I really wish I had a sign like these wise men in our Gospel reading fortoday had.
Iwish I had something real and tangible like that in my life.
Astar I could see and follow.
Andnot just me, but others too.
Asthough they too could validate this sign from God.
Idon’t get signs from God like that.
Imean, look at it!
Astar!
Notvery subtle.
Still,even if a star like that appeared as a sign, I’m not certain I would follow it.
Idoubt any of us would actually follow a star.
Wecertainly wouldn’t follow a star with some vague notion of a divine king beingborn.
Itprobably wouldn’t mean much to us, prophecy or not.
Itwould take great faith and great bravery to load up everything, includingvaluables like gold and spices into that time of hijacking and robbery and justhead off into the unknown.
Butthese men did just that.
These“wise” men did something that most of us now days would think was actuallynaïve and dangerous.
Originally,of course, the word used for these people was “astrologers,” which does add aninteresting dimension to what’s occurring here.
Astrologerscertainly would make sense.
Astrologerscertainly would have been aware of this star that appeared and they would havebeen able to see in that star a unique sign—a powerful enough of a sign thatthey packed up and went searching for it.
Andit certainly seems like it was a great distance.
Theyprobably came from Persia, which is now modern-day Iran.
Andthey would’ve come in a caravan of others.
TheseMagi are mysterious characters, for sure.
Wepopularly see them as the three wise men, but if you notice in our Gospelreading for tonight, it doesn’t say anything about there being three of them.
Theremight have been four or five of them for all we know.
It’sa fascinating story
Certainly,it might seem strange that I am even talking about the Christ child and theMagi.
It’sthe beginning of January, after all.
Christmashappened almost two weeks ago.
Mostof us have put away our Christmas decorations.
Treescame down quickly in the first few days after Christmas, the rest in the daysimmediately after New Years.
Sincewe’ve been hearing about Christmas for months, we are maybe a little happy tosee the Christmas season go away for another year by this time.
I,for one, am happy we don’t have Christmas commercials and songs all over theplace.
We’reready to put those trappings aside and move on.
Thefact is: the Christmas season, for the Church, began on Christmas Eve and endswith Epiphany.
So,what is the Epiphany really?
Well,the word itself—Epiphany—means “manifestation” or “appearing.”
Inthis context, it means the manifestation of Christ among us.
Andin the story that we hear this morning, it is the appearing of Christ not onlyto the Jews, but to the non-Jews, as well, to the Gentiles, which we findrepresented in the Magi—those mysterious people from the East.
Thefeast is all about the fact that the Messiah was sent not only for the Jewishpeople, but for all people.
Epiphanyis the manifestation of God’s Son in our midst.
Epiphanyis a moment of realization.
Inthis feast we realize that God has reached out to us—all of us, no matter ourrace or our understanding of this event.
Nomatter who we are.
Epiphanyis the realization that Christ has come among us.
Notin some blazing cloud.
Notin some pillar of fire.
Notwith a sword in God’s hand, to drive out our enemies and those with whom we areat war, as many people believed the Messiah would do.
Butin the person of this little child, Jesus, in God’s own Child.
Overthe last month or so, we, as the Church, have gone through a variety ofemotions.
Adventwas a time of expectation.
Wewere waiting expectantly for God’s Holy One to come to us.
Christmaswas the time of awe.
TheMessiah, the Christ, was among us and there was something good and wonderfulabout this fact.
Epiphany,however, gets the rap for being sort of anti-climactic.
Itis the time in which we settle down into the reality of what has come uponus.
Werealize what has happened and we accept it.
Abit of the awe is still there.
Abit of wonder still lingers.
Inthe Gospel story, the wise men are overcome with joy when they see the starstop over Bethlehem.
But,for the most part, despite the joy they felt, we are now moving ahead.
Thereare no more angels singing on high for us.
Themiraculous star has begun to fade by this point.
Thewise men have presented their gifts and are now returning to home toPersia.
Itis a time in which we feel contentment.
Wefeel comfortable in what has happened.
But,in about a few weeks, this is all going to change again.
Wewill soon face the harsh reality of Ash Wednesday and Lent.
Now,I know it’s hard even to think about such things as we labor through the winter.
Butit is there—just around the corner.
Thetime of Christmas feasting will be over.
Thejoys and beauty of Christmas will be replaced by ashes and sackcloth and,ultimately, by the Cross.
Butthat’s all in the future.
Christmasis still kind of lingering in our thoughts today and, in this moment, we havethis warm reality.
God’sanointed One, the Messiah, the one the generations were looking for and longingfor, has finally appeared to us.
Whenwe look upon the face of the child Jesus, we see ourselves.
Wesee that just as Jesus is the Son of God, we too are children of God.
Inthis Child the divine and the mortal have come together.
Andthat, as children of God ourselves, we too can find the divine and the mortalwithin us as well.
Andfor this moment—before the denial of our bodies in Lent, before the betrayaland torture of Holy Week, before the bloody and violent murder of Good Friday,we have in our midst, this Child.
Andthis Child reminds us that we are children of this same God as well.
Inthis season of Epiphany, we are definitely being reminded that we are childrenof God.
Nextweek we, celebrate the Baptism of Jesus, and are reminded of our own baptism.
Ourbaptism reminds us very clearly that we are children of a loving and caringGod.
TheEpiscopal priest and biblical scholar, Bruce Chilton, once wrote about baptism:
“Baptism…waswhen…God sends [the] Son into every believer, who cries to God, ‘Abba, Father.’The believer becomes a [Child], just as Jesus called upon his father…The momentof baptism, the supreme moment of faith, was when we one discovered one’s selfas a [Child] of God because Jesus as God’s Son was disclosed in one’s heart.”
Fornow, we are able to look at this Christ Child and see God’s Messiah in ourmidst.
Butwe are also able to look at this holy Child and see ourselves as well.
And,in looking at this Child, we see ourselves as holy too.
Weare able to see ourselves as truly loved children of our loving God.
Thatwas made possible through the waters of baptism.
Epiphanyis the realization that Christ has appeared to us where we are—here in our ownmidst.
Christhas appeared to us, in us.
Werealize at Epiphany that we often find Christ in our own mirrors, staring backat us.
Andthis is what we can take away with us this morning.
Thisis the consolation we can take with us as we head through these short winterdays toward Lent.
Nomatter where we are—no matter who we are—Christ is here with us and within us.
Christis with us in all that we do and in every place we look.
So,let us look for him.
Letus see him in our midst—here in our life.
Letus, like the Magi, adore him as he gazes upon us.
Andwhenever we recognize him—that is our unending feast day of Epiphany.
December 29, 2024
I Christmas
December 29, 2024
John 1.1-18
+ Today, this first Sunday of Christmas, is one of those somewhatforgotten Sundays.
Nobody pays a whole lot attention to the first Sunday of Christmas.
It’s somewhat of a “low” Sunday.
It feels a bit anti-climactic, after Christmas Eve and Christmasday.
But I like this Sunday, maybe because it’s kind of a forgotten,neglected Sunday.
I like underdogs.
I like is especially because it always reminds me of thatbeautiful hymn we will sing a bit later today, “In the Bleak Midwinter.”
After all, we are in the bleak midwinter.
This is it.
And nobody knows the bleak midwinter better than us, here, inFargo, North Dakota.
I talked about this in my Christmas day sermon, but what a lot ofpeople don’t know is that the words to that hymn were written by an incrediblepoet.
Christina Rossetti.
Rossetti was the sister of a Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who was muchbetter known in his time as a leader of pre-Raphaelite literary movement inEngland.
Christina was the forgotten one.
The unmarried sister who quietly wrote poems at home, she was alsothe superior poet.
She was a devout Anglo-Catholic Anglican and a bit of recluse.
Think of her as kind of Hugh Church Emily Dickinson.
And although, during their lifetime, Dante Gabriel was morefamous, 125 years after her death, it is Christina Rossetti’s words we aresinging today.
And today is the actual 125th anniversary of ChristiniaRosetti’s death.
She was also my mother’s favorite poet (well, hopefully after me)
In fact my mother requested that Rossetti’s “When I am dead, mydearest” be printed in her funeral program.
When my mother died, the poem and hymn “In the bleak midwinter”spoke strongly to me.
I played a wonderful version of it by the Indie band AnimalCollective over and over again in those weeks after she died.
Yes, I know that it is a Christmas hymn, and my mother did not diein the season of Christmas:
But let’s face it.
That opening stanza speaks loudly to us who live in the bleakmidwinter for months on end:
In the bleakmid-winter
Frosty wind made moan;
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
Long ago
And let me tell you, it also speaks very loudly to anyone who isgoing through a mourning “hard as iron.”
Grief is truly like a terrible bleak winter, no matterwhat season may be outside.
We are also in this strange time of watching the year 2024 leaveand to bring in the year 2025.
I have a personal tradition of watching threemovies on or around New Years Eve.
The first is a movie called 200 Cigarettes—whichis about a group of edgy, cool, New Wave New Yorkers on New Year’s Eve 1982partying and thinking about their lives and all that the New Year entails.
It’snot a great movie and I don’t recommend it to too many people.
It’s just one of those kind of so-so moviesthat I occasionally like to watch just for the fun of it.
The second movie which I always watch on NewYears Day morning, is Tokyo Drifter, a great Japanese film form 1966,
I started watching that film on New Years Day9 years ago.
It was my first New Years after I gave updrinking.
And one of the joys I had in giving up alcoholwas how wonderful and fresh New Years morning is, especially with no hang-over.
(I also like to go for a long drive on NewYears morning, depending on the weather)
But another movie that I always like to watcharound this time of the year is a movie I do recommend.
It’s a Coen Brothers film called TheHudsucker Proxy.
Any of you who know me, know I LOVE the CoenBrothers.
I refence them about as much in sermon as I dothe author Cormac McCarthy.
The Hudsucker Proxy, if you’ve never seen it, openswith a really powerful beginning.
It begins with a panning shot through the snowof New York City from above.
As the shot pans, we hear the narrator.
He says, as we travel along with him:
That's right.
New York.
It's 1958 .
Anyway, for a few more minutes it is.
Come midnight, it's going to be 1959.
A wholeother feeling.
The NewYear.
Thefuture.
OldDaddy Earth [is] fixing to start one more trip around the sun.
Everybody [is] hoping this ride round [will] bea little more giddy...
...alittle more gay.
All over town, champagne corks [are] popping.
Over in the Waldorf, the big shots [are] dancingto the strains of Guy Lombardo.
In Times Square, the little folks [are]watching and waiting for that big ball to drop.
They're all trying to catch hold of one momentof time...
...to be able to say:
"Right now! This is it!
"I got it!"
Ofcourse, by then it'll be past.
But they're all happy...
...everybody having a good time.
That’swhat beginnings are all about, I guess.
That one moment when we too can say:
“Right now! This is it! I got it!”
And we all know that just as soon as we do,just like the narrator said, “it’ll be past.”
T
he other reason I love this Sunday is that, for us Episcopalians,in our lectionary for today, we get this incredible reading from the firstchapter of John.
I know.
It’s hard at first to grasp our minds around this reading.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and theWord was God.”
Maybe we just don’t “get” it.
And that’s all right.
Like “In the bleak midwinter,” it too is a poem.
And like a poem, we have to make it our own for it to really meansomething to us where we are, right here and now.
For me, as you have heard me say many times, I don’t likebeginnings.
Whenever I get a new biography of someone, you will see me skip tothe end, or the middle.
I never enjoy the beginnings very often.
I know.
That probably reveals way too much about me psychologically than Icare to admit.
As this year runs down and the new year begins, our thoughts naturallyturn to beginnings.
We think about that New Year and how important a new year is ourlives. It heralds for us a sense of joy—and fear—of the future.
All of a sudden we are faced with the future. It lies there beforeus—a mystery.
Will this coming year bring us joy or will it bring us sadness?
Will it be a good year or a bad year?
And we step forward into the New Year without knowing what thatyear will hold for us.
But, the fact is, at the very beginning moment, we can’t do muchmore than just be here, right now.
We need to just experiencethis beginning.
And we can’t let anxiety about the future take hold.
We just need to be here, right now, and take part fully in thisnew beginning.
That’s what beginnings are all about, I guess. That one momentwhen we can say:
“Right now! This is it! We are alive and we are here! Now!”
And we all know that just as soon as we do, it’ll be past.
In our reading from John this morning, it’s also one of thosemoments.
In that moment, we get a glimpse of one of those “right now”moments.
It seems as though, for that moment, it’s all clear.
At least for John anyway.
We encounter, the “Word.”
God’s Word.
Now to be clear, the Word here is not the Bible.
The Word of God is this force of God—this action of God.
And this Word of God, as we hear today, came and was made flesh inJesus.
And this is an appropriate way to begin the Gospel of John and tobegin our new year as well.
It is a great beginning.
It sets the tone for us as followers of Jesus.
God’s Word was there in the beginning.
God spoke and creation happened.
And God’s Word is here, now, in our beginning.
And in God, we experience a beginning that doesn’t seem to end.
God’s Word comes forward and becomes present among us in a way wecould never possibly imagine.
God appears to us in the Gospels not as the God in the Hebrewscriptures, cloaked behind pillars of fire or thunderstorms or wind.
Instead, God’s word, God’s wisdom, God’s essence became flesh in Jesus.
God’s voice was no longer a booming voice from the sky, demandingsacrifices.
God voice is now the Word spoken to us gently.
God’s Word spoken to us in this beginning moment, and it is a wordof Love.
The commandment this Word of God tells us of is a commandment tolove.
Love God and love one another as you love yourselves.
This might actually be one of the few times when I actually enjoythe beginning of a story.
Maybe the true message of Jesus is that, in God’s Kingdom, thatbeginning keeps on and on, without end.
In God’s Kingdom there is constant renewal.
In God’s Kingdom it is always like New Year’s Day—always fresh,always full of hope for a future that does not end or disappoint.
As we prepare to celebrate 2025, this is a great way to live thisbeginning moment.
In this beginning moment, let us think about beginnings and howimportant they are for us personally and for our spiritual lives.
And let us do what we can to be the bringers of new beginnings notonly in our own lives, but in the lives of others.
With this encounter with the Word, we, like John, are also sayingin this moment, this one moment is holy.
This moment is special.
This moment is unique and beautiful, because God is reaching outto us.
In our grasping of it, let’s make sure it doesn’t wiggle away fromus.
Let’s not let it fall through our fingers like sand.
Or snow.
This holy beginning moment should stay with us.
Always new.
Always fresh.
Always being renewed.
We’re here.
Right now.
We’re alive!
It’s the future.
The Word, God’s Word, has come to us.
It’s incredible, really.
This moment is a glorious and holy one.
So, let us, in this holy moment, be joyful.
Let us in this holy moment rejoice.
And let us, in this holy moment, look forward without fear to whatawaits us with courage and confidence. Amen.
December 25, 2024
Christmas Day
December 25, 2024
+Christmas, for most of us, brings up memories of Christmasespast.
It’s just the thing we do.
And, for me, this year for some reason, I’ve really been missingmy mother.
My mother was not real big into poetry, despite having a poet fora son.
I don’t know if she ever really “got” my poetry.
But one poet she really did love was Christina Rossetti.
And if you’re gonna love a poet, Rossetti is about as good of apoet to love as any.
Rossetti was not one of those great love poets.
She never married.
She never seemed to have any reason deep romantic love for anyone—well,maybe except for Jesus.
But she had deep faith.
She was a solid Anglo-Catholic who took her faith very seriously.
I’m not certain why my mother loved her so dearly.
But she did.
And when my mother died, I found myself listening to a version of “Inthe Bleak Midwinter” by Animal Collective over and over again.
It was a very appropriate song (and poem) for my mother’s death,which also occurred in the “bleak midwinter.”
In that great poems, Rossetti wrote,
Love came downat Christmas,
love, all lovely, love divine;
love was born at Christmas:
star and angels gave the sign.
You can’ put it better than that.
That is what we are experiencing this day.
God, forus anyway, is a God of love.
Becausewe are loved by God.
Becausewe are accepted by God.
Becausewe are—each of us—important to God.
We are,each of us, broken and imperfect as we may be some times, very important toGod.
Each ofus.
Andbecause we are, we must love others.
We must,each of us, become like Jesus God’s love personified.
We mustlet that love that came down in the bleak midwinter dwell within us.
And wemust live this love out in the world.
We mustgive birth to God’s love so others can know this amazing love as well.
Knowingthis amazing love of God changes everything.
When werealize that God knows us as individuals.
That Godloves us and accepts each of us for who we are, we are joyful.
We arehopeful of our future with that God.
And wewant to share this love and this God with others.
That iswhat we are celebrating this morning.
Our hopeand joy is in a God who comes and accepts us and loves us for who we are andwhat we are—a God who understands what it means to live this sometimesfrightening uncertain life we live.
This isthe real reason why we are joyful and hopeful on this beautiful morning.
This iswhy we are feeling within us a strange sense of longing.
This iswhy we are rushing toward our Savior who has come to visit us in what we oncethought was our barrenness.
Let thehope we feel tonight as God our Savior draws close to us stay with us now andalways.
Let thejoy we feel tonight as God our Friend comes to us in love be the motivatingforce in how we live our lives throughout this coming year.
God ishere.
God is inour midst today.
God is sonear, our very bodies and souls are rejoicing.
And Godloves us.
Love truly came down.
Love became flesh and blood.
Love became human.
And in the face of that realization, we are rejoice today.
We are rejoicing in that love personified.
We are rejoicing in each other.
We are rejoicing in the glorious beauty of this one holy moment intime.
So, let us rejoice.
And let us be glad.
God is with us.
G0d’s love has come to us.
And it is very good!
Let us pray.
Holy God,you are with us. You are present in our midst. And we rejoice in the Presencefor which we have longed for for so long. Fill us this morning with true joy,with true hope, so that we can share this joy and hope with others. In Jesus’name, we pray. Amen.
December 24, 2024
Christmas Eve
December 24, 2024
+I think most of us know what it’s like.
Mostof us know this feeling.
Mostof us, I hope, have felt that amazing moment when fear is turns into joy—intosomething beautiful.
Whendarkness is turned to light.
Whenour anxieties give way to relief.
Thatis certainly what Mary and Joseph must’ve felt as they found shelter on thatnight.
Thatis most certainly what they would’ve experienced when the Baby finally came andthey realize, for certain, that this birth was something exceptional.
Allthat fear they had felt as they traveled all that distance, all that anxietythey felt when they realized they might not have a place to settled down, allof that turned on a dime.
Andinto the darkness and fear of their life, came dazzling light.
Thisis what we too are clinging to tonight.
Thiswe too are holding on to.
Thisis what we are hoping in as we move forward.
Because,for those of us who trust in God, who know that God is good and that God alwaysprovides, we know there is always light in the darkness.
Weknow that always there is always an end to our anxieties and fears.
Weknow that, even if we seem insignificant to the powers that be, to those whohave the power and ability to turn us away, God never turns us away.
Godalways provides us, like Mary and Joseph, a safe place.
Iknow this Christmas season can sometimes feel like a bit much.
Mostof you know how I feel about the “Christmas season.”
ItIS too much sometimes.
Theexpectations that things should be just right, just perfect, just always happyand joyful, are sometimes too much for all of us.
Iunderstand the tendency we all have of getting caught up in society’scelebration of Christmas.
It’seasy to find ourselves getting a bit hypnotized by the glitz and glamour we seeabout us.
Iadmit I enjoy some of those sparkly Christmas displays.
Butthe problem for me is that there is a lot of hope in all of it, but sometimesthe hope gets lost.
Thehope gets swallowed up.
Weseem to get distracted somewhere along the way and lose sight of what it is weare hoping in.
The great Archbishop of Canterbury (and probably the greatest ofmy personal heroes), Michael Ramsey once wrote: “Our Christmas is no lessChristmas and our joy no less joyful because we are keeping Christmas with avery dark and troubled world around us…Our rejoicing at Christmas is not anescape from life’s grim realities into a fancy realm of religion and festivity.Rather is it a joy that, as we face and feel the world’s tragedy, we know thatGod has an answer: an answer for [hu]mankind to receive. In a word, this is atime of hope.”
Tonight, on this dark, cold night, we celebrate that hope.
Whiledarkness still exists, we now see that in the midst of that darkness, there isa glimmer of light.
It is dim at times. It doesn’t seem like much. But it is there.
And as we strain into that darkness, we realize that hope does comesto us as Light.
We celebrate the hope of that Light that has come to us in ourcollective and personal darknesses.
We celebrate the Light that has come to us in our despair and ourfear, in our sadness and in our frustration.
And as it does, we bask in the glory of those two emotions—the twoemotions Christmas is all about—hope and joy.
Hope—in our belief that what has come to us—Jesus—God’s own Child,our hope—is here among us,
And Joy—at the realization of that reality.
As we come forward tonight to meet with joy and hope this mysterythat we remember and commemorate and make ours this evening, we too should findourselves feeling these emotions at our very core.
This hope and joy we are experiencing this evening comes up fromour very centers.
Our lives are different because of what happened that evening whenJesus was born.
Because of that event, we find that our hope is more tangible—morereal—that anything we have ever hoped in before.
And that is what we are rejoicing in this evening.
Our true hope and true joy is not in brightly colored lights and apile of presents under a decorated tree.
Our true hope and joy is not found in the malls or the stores.
We know that our true hope and joy are not there because bySaturday, we’re going to see that what the rest of the society is celebrating in this Christmas season willbe disposed of.
Our true hope and joy is more powerful and more tangible thananything that is so disposable.
Our true hope and joy does not come to us with things that will, aweek from now, be a fading memory.
Our hope and joy is in that God has come close to us, that God’sLight has shined upon us, and this reality causes us to leap up with joy.
Our hope and joy is in that almighty and incredible God who wouldcome to us, not on some celestial cloud with a sword in his hand and armies ofangels flying about.
Our hope and joy is in God who comes to us again and again in ourdarkness.
Our hope and joy is in a God who comes and accepts us and loves usfor who we are and what we are—a God who understands what it means to live thissometimes frightening uncertain life we live.
This is the real reason why we are joyful and hopeful on thisbeautiful night.
This is why we are feeling within us a strange sense of happinessand excitement.
This is why we are rushing toward this holy event, toward the Godwho renews us in what we once thought was our barrenness.
Let this hope you feel tonight stay with you now and always.
Let the joy you feel tonight be the motivating force in how welive our lives throughout this coming year.
We, like Mary and Joseph, have come so far.
We, like them, have hoped so strongly.
Thisis what it is all about.
Thisfeeling we are feeling right now is the true joy that descends upon us when werealize God has come to us in our collective darkness.
Andthis joy that we are feeling is because the Light that has come to us willnever, ever darken.
December 22, 2024
4 Advent
Dec. 22, 2024
Luke1:39-49 (50-56)
+ As you know, I have been studying Judaism for the last severalyears, and for my it has definitely deepened my own Christian faith.
I have found that to truly understand the Gospels and the life of Jesus,I need to sometimes to see what was happening not through Greek, Hellenisticeye (which we as Westerners tends to do all the time), but rather to look atall scripture through a Hebrew lens.
At times it’s hard to do so.
But it has also been revolutionary for me, as a Christian, as apriest and even as a poet.
Seeing the Gospel stories through a Hebrew lens is sometimesdifficult.
But one aspect of doing so has been the approach to the scriptureswe find about viewing representatives of God as divine beings.
For early Hebrews people it was not uncommon for them to see thepeople who they believed were sent to them from God as being divine.
We find this most profoundly in the story of Jacob and the Angel.
Which is one of my favorite stories in scripture.
The angel, of course, is not God, but God’s representative.
But for Jacob, as he wrestled with angel, he felt he was trulywrestling with God.
Certainly, for the followers of Jesus, who saw him as a veryunique representative of God, they saw him as divine.
And in him, they saw God.
More importantly, they saw in Jesus a loving, compassionate andwildly inclusive God.
It did not take much of a leap for the Greeks to take this Hebrewview of God’s representative and formulate something as complex and mysteriousas the Trinity.
We’re not going to get into all of that today.
It’s the last Sunday of Advent, after all.
But we can see God’s divinity in other people in scripture aswell.
And when we start seeing that divinity in someone like Mary, forexample, we are offered a glimpse of something particularly unique.
We are offered a glimpse of the feminine aspects of God, which wefind in the story of Mary.
This is important, because, there are not many opportunities inscripture for women to act in the capacity of representative of God.
But we do see it uniquely in Mary.
Bear with me.
In our Gospel reading for today, we find Mary and her kinswoman—probablyher aunt—Elizabeth rejoicing in the ways in which God was working their lives.
Mary, carrying within her flesh God’s very Son—the Messiah madeflesh, this very unique representative of God—carrying actual divinity withinher— and Elizabeth, carrying within her flesh John, who would later be theBaptist calling to us from the Jordan River (and also, might I add, arepresentative of God to many people as well), meet and there is a spark betweenthem.
What is that spark?
That spark is God’s energy at work in them.
What I have always loved about this story from scripture is thatneither Mary nor Elizabeth probably can fully comprehend what is going onwithin them.
How could they?
How could any of us?
But what they do know is that something strange and wonderful andHOLY has happened.
God is happening. And in a big way!
Mary, the young virgin, has conceived under mysterious andcertainly scandalous circumstances and is about to give birth.
And Elizabeth, the barren elderly woman, also is also about togive birth.
Neither should be having a child.
Yet, somehow, they both are.
These sort of things don’t happen in ordinary life.
Certainly nothing even remotely like this happened before in thelives of these two Jewish women.
But now, here they were, greeting each other, both of thempregnant with children that came to them by miraculous means.
And, although they might not fully understand why or how, theyfeel real hope and joy at what has happened to them.
The full expression of this hope and joy finds it voice in thewords of Mary’s song
“My soul glorifies the LORD
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.”
And in doing so, Mary truly does embody God.
The divine dwells within her in a very unique and beautiful way.
And because God does, she becomes something more.
She becomes a unique representative of God.
Certainly she is a representative of God to Elizabeth.
And certainly she continues to be to many of us even today.
But, of course, it can’t just end there.
It is isn’t enough that we simply look to others a representativesof God.
We also must, in turn, strive to be representatives of God, hereand now, in our world part of the world.
Essentially this is our goal.
It is our goal to embody God’s Light and Love and Presence withineach of us as well.
We are—each of us—called to be unique representatives of God inthis world.
We, like Mary, are called to carry within us Jesus.
Wherever we go, we should bear Jesus within us.
Like Mary, God’s own gift to us dwells within us.
Like Mary, God’s very Word dwells within us!
And like Mary, we should be able to rejoice as well, at this factthat divinity itself dwells within us.
We too should sing to God, in joy and hope:
“My soul glorifies the LORD
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.”
Now, we have been hearing the Magnificat quite a bit this morning,as we should.
This “Song of Mary” is one of my beautiful scriptures we have.
But before we think this is some nice little song to God from aninnocent teenage girl, I would like you to remember how radical it really is.
How defiant it is.
And how political it is.
Oh, you didn’t catch Mary’s political jab?
It’s right there:
“…[God] hasscattered the proud in their conceit.
[God] has castdown the mighty from their thrones, *
and has lifted up the lowly.”
This is no meek and mild teenager!
For her, living there, in that time, that says a lot.
And it’s echoing pretty loudly for us here and now.
God, we realize from this Song of Mary, does not let the “proud”in their conceit last long in that place.
We know that God has no problem casting down the mighty from theirthrones.
Mary’s song of defiance is our song of defiance today for us aswell.
And that, even in our defiance, we are full of hope in a God trulydoes do these things.
Like both Mary and Elizabeth, this hope and joy we areexperiencing later this week should be coming up from our very centers as well.
This is really how we should approach the miracle that wecommemorate on Tuesday evening and Wednesday.
Like Mary and Elizabeth, we will never fully understand how or whyJesus—God’s very Son made flesh, God’s Word indwelling in our midst—has come tous as this little child in a dark stable in the Middle East, but it hashappened and, because it happened, we are a different people.
Our lives are different because of what happened that evening.
That is how God works.
God loves us enough that everything we have feared will be takenfrom us.
And that is what we are rejoicing in, along with Mary andElizabeth, this morning.
Our true hope and joy are not in brightly colored lights and apile of presents until a decorated tree.
Our true hope and joy are not found in the malls or the stores.
Our true hope and joy do not come to us with things that will, aweek from now, be a fading memory.
Our hope and joy are in that Baby who, as he draws near to us,causes us to leap up with joy at his very presence.
Our hope and joy are in that almighty and incredible God has sendus the Messiah, the anointed One, the One promised in the prophecies ofscripture, in this innocent child, born to a defiant teenager in a dusty distantland.
Our hope and joy are in a God who send us this amazing gift—whohas sent us LOVE—real and abiding LOVE--with a face like our face and fleshlike our flesh.
LOVE embodied.
This is the real reason why we are joyful and hopeful on thisbeautiful winter morning—on this last Sunday of Advent.
This is why we are feeling within us a strange leaping.
This is why we rushing toward God’s very Messiah who has come tovisit us in what we once thought was our barrenness.
Let the hope we feel today as God draws close to us stay with us nowand always.
Let the joy we feel today as God comes to us in love be themotivating force in how we live our lives throughout this coming year.
Let us greet God’s Light with all that we have within us and letus welcome him into the shelter of our hearts.
And, with Mary, let us sing to the God who sends Jesus to us withall our hearts,
“My soul glorifies in you, O Lord,
and my spirit truly rejoices in you, O God, my Savior.”
Let us pray.
Our souls glorify you, O God. Our spirits truly do rejoice in you.Visit us, here in this place in which we dwell, and live within us. Let uscarry your Presence with us wherever we may go. And go with us wherever we maygo. Let us be your representatives to those who need your love, your light,your radical, all-inclusive love, now and always. We ask this in the Name ofJesus our Messiah who is about to dawn like the Sun into the night of oursouls. Amen.
December 20, 2024
Christmas Letter
Christmas,2024
MyFriends at St. Stephen’s,
As we near the joyous commemoration ofthe birth of Christ and prepare to celebrate all that that birth means to us asfully loved and fully accepted children of God, we also find ourselves anticipating the new year of 2025 and all that itpotentially holds for us.
For mypart, serving as St. Stephen’s continues to be truly one of the most fulfillingexperiences of my priestly life. Our life together of ministry, worship, musicand outreach has been a source of great personal joy for me and has helped meto see how gracious God is in showering blessings upon faithful, committedpeople who truly do seek after God.
As wemove forward together into this future full of hope and potential growth, I askfor your continued prayers for St. Stephen’s and your continued presence onSunday mornings, Wednesday nights and whenever else we gather together toworship and to do ministry.
Pleaseknow that I pray, as always, for each of you individually by name over thecourse of each week in my daily observance of the Daily Office (Morning andEvening and the celebration of the Eucharist. Above all, know that I givethanks to God every day for the opportunity to serve such a wonderful, caringand loving congregation of people who are committed to growth and radicalhospitality.
Mysincerest blessings to you and to all those you love during this season of joy,hope and love.
PEACE always,
December 8, 2024
2 Advent
December 8, 2024
Luke 3.1-6
+ We are now well into this strange and beautiful season ofAdvent.
As I’ve said before—and will no doubt say again—I love thisseason.
You all know:
(This is a terrible thing for your priest-poet to say, but…)
I’m not a big Christmas fan.
I never have been.
But Advent. . . that is right up my alley.
Prophets and prophecies fulfilled.
God coming to us.
Talk about the end of things.
It’s all so fantastic and yet so compelling.
And just when we think we have it all kind of figured out, who dowe encounter?
In this morning’s Gospel, we are faced with the formidable figureof John the Baptist.
I used to not like John the Baptist.
He always seemed kind of frightening to me.
He was kind of crazy, after all.
But over the years I’ve really come to like John the Baptist.
He is actually an incredible saint.
And someone very important to the story of Jesus.
Certainly it would be difficult for any of us to take the words ofa man like this seriously.
Especially when he’s saying things like, “prepare the way of theLord, make his paths straight.”
How could WE do any such thing?
How do we make pathways straight?
Somehow, in the way John the Baptist proclaims it, this is not somuch hopeful as frightening.
It is a message that startles us and jolts us at our very core.
But this—whether we like it or not—is the true message of Advent.
Like John the Baptist and those who eagerly awaited the Messiah,this time of waiting was almost painful.
When we look at it from that perspective, we see that maybe Johnisn’t being quite as difficult and windy as we initially thought.
Rather his message is one of almost excruciating expectation.
Which we talked about last week in my sermon.
For us, as followers of Jesus, we too are living with thisexcruciating expectation.
But our expectation is not something we do complacently.
We don’t just sit here and twiddle our thumbs in our patientwaiting.
Rather, in our expectation, we do what John the Baptist and otherprophets did.
And what is that?
We prophesy.
We proclaim.
We assess the situation, and strengthened by what we know iscoming to us, we make a kind of educated guess—inspired by God’s Spirit—at howit will all turn out.
And we profess and proclaim that message.
Our job as prophets is to echo the cry of the Baptist:
“Prepare the way of the Lord, make the paths of God straight.”
We should find ways to prepare for God’s coming to us.
We do it in many ways during Advent.
We light the candles of the Advent wreath.
We listen to the message of the prophets from the Hebrew Scriptures.
We slow down and we ponder who it is we are longing for.
And we wait…
As prophets, as fellow seers of the future, we are proclaiming thatmoment when the Messiah will come to us.
We know he is coming.
We know his coming is imminent.
But sometimes he seems so agonizingly slow in his coming to us.
One of my favoritebooks is called The Forgotten DesertMothers.
It is a book about earlyChristians who took the words we heard this morning from the Baptist asliterally as they could.
These desert mothersand fathers have a lot to teach us.
Like, us, they livedin an age of uncertainty.
Many had suffereddearly during the persecutions against Christians in the early years of theChurch.
Others had previouslybeen pagans who lived lives of excess.
It was a time whennothing in the world seemed stable.
Governments gave wayto stronger governments.
Differing religionsbattled each other for what each perceived to be “the truth.”
And so too did manyChristians.
It sounds familiardoesn’t it?
In the face of all ofthis uncertainty, these men and women heard the call of the Baptist. “Preparethe way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”
In response they didsomething we might find unusual.
We, as modernChristians, are taught that we must not only live out our faith, but also, insome way, must proclaim our faith to those around us.
We take seriously thecommand to go out into the world and proclaim what we believe.
It is what we do whenwe go out to feed the hungry or to tend the sick.
We do it when wereach out to others in the name of God.
These earlyChristians, however, did the exact opposite.
They retreated fromsociety and went off to the desert, in this case usually the deserts of Egyptand Palestine.
Oftentimes, comingfrom wealthy homes and positions of authority, they sold it all, gave the moneyto the poor and went off to live alone.
And we’re not talkingabout a few individuals here.
We’re talking aboutpeople leaving in droves.
The deserts wereliterally populated with men and women who tried to leave it all behind.
More often than not,they formed loosely-organized communities, usually around a church, in whichthey lived and prayed alone for most of the time, only coming together to praythe Psalms or celebrate Eucharist.
Their lives in thedesert weren’t, as you can imagine, comfortable lives by any means.
Some walledthemselves up in abandoned tombs.
Others lived incaves.
One went so far as tocrawl stop a tall pillar and live there for years on end, exposed to theelements.
Even then theycouldn’t completely escape what they left behind.
Many of the storiestell of these poor souls being tormented by demons and temptations.
It’s not hard toimagine that, yes, alone in a dark tomb or cave, one would be forced to faceall the darkest recesses of one’s soul.
Part of the processof separating one’s self from the world involved finally wrestling with allthose issues one carries into the desert.
Few of us in this dayand age would view this kind of existence as the ideal Christian life.
In fact, most ofwould probably look on it as a sort of insanity.
But at the time, inthat place, people began to see this as the ideal.
People, I imagine,were tired of the day-to-day grind of working, slaving, fending for themselvesin a sometimes unfriendly society.
They felt distantfrom God and they were not able to find God in the society in which they lived.
The idea of going offand being alone with God was very appealing.
Of course, even thisseemingly simple and pure way of living was soon tarnished by another formexcess.
Some of the peoplewho went off to live in the desert were simply mentally unsound to begin with.
Others went insaneafter years of living alone in a tomb or a cave.
They abused theirbodies, sometimes to the point of death, by whipping themselves, by chainingthemselves to walls, by not taking care of themselves physically, or simplystarving themselves to a point close to death.
But despite theseabuses, the message of the desert mothers and fathers to us is still a validone.
The whole reason theywent off like they did was to shed everything that separated them from theirwaiting for God.
They sought to maketheir very lives a living Advent.
They were waitingexpectantly and anxiously for God’s Messiah.
And by mortifyingthemselves, by chastising their bodies and fasting, they would be prepared forhis coming again.
Although I hope noone here is called to a life quite that extreme, I think their message speaksto us clearly in these days before Christmas.
We should find waysto prepare for God’s coming to us.
In this season, overwhelmed by all that is happening around us, wefind ourselves reacting in our own ways.
Our own lives can be frightening.
And at times, these moments of expectation are frightening.
But, still, even in these frightening moments, we should remember:we are prophets.
We can assess the situation—as ugly and bitter as it is—and,inspired by God’s Spirit, see that there is a positive outcome.
Always.
God’s Messiah is coming.
Yes, not at the speed we want him to come.
But he is coming.
And in that moment, prophets that we are, enlightened by God’sSpirit as we are, seeing into the dark of the future, we can look forward in hope.
We, the prophets, find that we can now see the goal for which weare working.
We can look into the gloom, into the frightening future and seethat all is not lost.
God’s Messiah, the Chosen One, is coming.
He is coming to us.
He is coming to us in this place in which we seem sometimes toflounder.
He comes to us in these moments when we feel overwhelmed.
He comes to us in those moments when it seems we have lost.
He comes to us in our defeat.
And when he does, even in those moments, we know.
Truly the summation of our prophecies is upon us.
And what is that summation?
It is the fact that, in the coming of God’s Messiah “all fleshshall see the salvation of God” in our midst.
And with that realization, with that actualization, we are liftedfrom those waters and from the dark mire and muck of our lives.
And we are restored.
Once and for all time.
S0, do what prophets do.
Rejoice!
Proclaim the way of the Lord!
The Messiah is coming!
God is close at hand!
Rejoice!
Amen.
December 1, 2024
1 Advent
December 1, 2024
Luke21.25-36
+ Today, is of course the first Sunday in Advent
I am wearing the Sarum Blue chasuble.
The church is draped in blue.
It feels kind of like. . .
. . . Christmas, right?
Wrong!
It is NOT Christmas yet.
In fact, it won’t be the Christmas season, for us anyway, foranother three weeks or so.
Christmas for us as liturgical Christians, doesn’t begin untilChristmas Eve.
For now, we are in this anticipatory season of Advent.
Advent is no more Christmas than Lent is Easter.
And we should just let these seasons be what they are for us.
After all, anticipation is a good thing.
Preparation for the big events is always a very good thing.
And anticipation is something we don’t really give a lot ofthought to.
But anticipation is a very good word to sum up what Advent is.
We are anticipating.
We are anxiously expecting something.
And in that way, I think Advent represents our own spiritual livesin some ways.
We are, after all, a people anticipating something.
Sometimes we might not know exactly what it is we areanticipating.
We maybe can’t name it, or identify it, but we know—deep insideus—that something—something BIG—is about to happen.
We know that something big is about to happen, involving God insome way.
And we know that when it happens, we will be changed.
Life will never be the same again.
Our world as we know it—our very lives—will be turned around bythis “God event.”
It will be cataclysmic.
What I find so interesting about the apocalyptic literature wehear this morning in our scripture readings is that we find anticipation andexpectation for this final apocalypse. And that anticipation and expectation isa good and glorious thing, I think.
That is what this season of Advent is all about.
It is about anticipation and expectation being a wonderful thingin and of itself.
Because by watching and praying in holy expectation, we grow inholiness.
We recognize that despite the doom and gloom some people preachwhen it comes to prophecies, doom and gloom doesn’t hold sway over us asChristians.
Still, despite this view, we are a people living, at times, in thedark doom and gloom of life.
In Advent, we recognize that darkness we all collectively live inwithout God and God’s Light.
But we realize that darkness doesn’t hold sway.
Darkness is easily done away with by light.
And so, in Advent, we are anticipating something more—we are alllooking forward into the gloom and what do we see there? We see the firstflickers of light.
And even with those first, faint glimmers of lights, darknessalready starts losing its strength.
We see the first glow of what awaits us—there, just ahead of us.
That light that is about to burst into our lives is, of course, theLight of God.
The Light that came to us—that is coming to us—is the sign that Godis drawing near, as Jesus says in today’s Gospel.
God is near.
Yes, we are, at times, stuck in the doom and gloom of this life,especially right now.
But, we can take comfort today in one thing: as frightening as ourlife may be, as bleak as our collective future might seem, as terrible as lifemay seem some times and as uncertain as our future may be, what Advent shows usmore than anything is this: we already know the end of the story.
We might not know what awaits us tomorrow or next week.
We might not know what setbacks or rewards will come to us in theweeks to come, but in the long run, we know how our story as followers of Jesusand children of God ends.
Jesus has told us that we might not know when it will happen, butthe end will be a good ending for those of us who hope and expect it.
God has promised that, in the end, there will be joy and justiceand happiness and peace.
In this time of anticipation—in this time in which we are waitingand watching—we can take hope.
To watch means more than just to look around us.
It means to be attentive.
It means, we must pay attention.
It means waiting, with held breath, for the Kingdom of God tobreak upon us.
So, yes, Advent is a time of waiting—it is a time ofanticipation—that is so very important in our spiritual lives.
Advent is a time of hope and longing.
It is a time for us to wake up from our slumbering complacency.
It is a time to wake up and to watch.
The kingdom of God is near. And we should rejoice in that fact.
In preparation for Advent, I have been re-reading some of thosepoets and writers that inspired me many years—way back when I was a teenager.
One of the poets/theologians that I have been loved dearly formany years is the German Protestant theologian and poet, Dorothee Soelle.
If you do not known Solle, read her.
She is incredible and important.
That term we hear all the time right—Christo-fascism—she coinedthat term.
When I was in high school, I first read her book, Of War and Love, which blew me away.
But a poem of hers that I have loved deeply and that I have re-workedas a poet myself is her poem, “Credo.”
I was going to just quote a part of the poem here, but it’s justso wonderful, I actually have share it in full.
This is the poem as I have adapted it.
The poem is
Credo
by Dorothee Soelle
(adapted by Jamie Parsley)
I believe in a God
who created earth
as something to bemolded
and formed
and tried,
who rules not by laws
written in stone
with no realconsequences
nor withdistinction between those
who have and thosewho have not
experts or idiots
those who dominateand those who are dominated
I believe in a God
who demands thatcreation
protests andquestions God,
and who works tochange
the failures ofcreation
by any means.
I believe in Jesus
who, as “someone whocould do nothing”
as we all are
worked to changeevery injustice
against God andhumanity.
In him, I can now see
how limited we are,
how ignorant we canbe,
how uncreative wehave been,
how everythingattempted
falls short
when we do not do ashe did.
There is not a day
in which I do notfear
he died for nothing.
Nothing sickens memore
than the thought
that he lies at thismoment
dead and buried
in our ornatechurches,
that we have failedhim
and his revolution
because we fearedinstead
those self-absorbedauthorities
who dominate andoppress.
I believe in a Christ
who is not dead
but who lives
and is resurrected inus
and in the flame offreedom
that burns away
prejudice andpresumption,
crippling fear anddestroying hatred.
I believe in hisongoing revolution
and the reign ofpeace and justice that will follow.
I believe in a Spirit
who came to us withJesus,
and with all those
with whom we share
this place of tears
and hunger
and violence
and darkness—
this city of God—
this earth.
I believe in peace
which can only becreated
with the hands ofjustice.
I believe in a lifeof meaning and purpose
for all creation.
And I believe
beyond all doubt
in God’s future world
of love and peace.
Amen.
Yes, we dolive in “thisplace of tears/and hunger/and violence/and darkness—/this city of God—/thisearth.”
But we arehoping, in this Advent season, for “God’s future world/of love and peace.”
It is near.
The Kingdom of God—with its incredible revolution—is so close tobreaking through to us that we can almost feel it ready to shatter into ourlives.
So, in this anticipation, let us be prepared.
Let us watch.
God has come to us and is leading us forward.
God—the dazzling Light—is burning away the fog of our tears andhunger and violence and is showing us a way through the darkness that sometimesseems to encroach upon us.
We need to look anxiously for that light and, when it comes, weneed to be prepared to share it with others, because it is telling us that God’sfuture world is breaking through to us.
Right now.
This is the true message of Advent.
As hectic as this month of December is going to get, as you’refeeling overwhelmed by all the sensory overload we’ll all be experiencingthrough this month, remember, Watch.
Take time, be silent and just watch.
For this anticipation—this expectant and patient watching ofours—is merely a pathway on which God can come among us as one of us.
November 24, 2024
Christ the King/Christ in Majesty
November 23, 2024
Daniel 7.9-10, 13-14; Revelation 1.4b-8; John 18.33-37
+ Today is the traditional Christ the King Sunday, also known asChrist in Majesty.
It is the last Sunday of the long, green season after Pentecost whichbegan way back in May (aww, remember sweet, innocent May!).
Today, with many of us feeling anxiety about our collectivefuture, we recognize that no matter how terrible or how great a leader may be,there is one leader for us, as Christians, who is the ultimate Leader.
The King of Kings.
It is an important Sunday in the Church.
Today marks the End of one Church Year—Year B.
Next Sunday will be the First Sunday of Advent and Church Year Cbegins.
So, it’s kind of like New Year’s, almost a month early.
This feast feels like an ancient feast—Christ the King Sunday.
But it actually is not.
It’s only 99 years old.
In 1925, Pope Pius XIinstituted the Feast of Christ the King to remind Christians that theirallegiance was to their spiritual ruler in heaven as opposed to earthlysupremacy, which was claimed by the fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini.
It is a Sunday forus to remind ourselves that Jesus stoodup against the empire and showed us what true leadership looks like.
It is a time for us toremind ourselves that Jesus’ “kingship” does not involve domination or somekind of weird triumph.
Rather, it embodies theradical, all-powerful compassion and love of Jesus seeking justice for all.
For us, now, in our anxiety, in our uncertainly, can look forwardto something more than what this world promises.
Advent, that time of preparation for Christmas, is about tohappen.
The Season of Advent is, of course, the season of anticipation—oflonging.
And dare I say, maybe a fair share of healthy impatience.
Maybe that’s why I like it so much.
I am an impatient person—as anyone who has worked with me for anyperiod of time knows.
Certainly, we, as followers of Jesus, might get a bit impatientabout that for which we are longing.
Our journey as followers of Jesus, is filled with anticipation andlonging.
We know, as we make this journey through life, that there is anend to our journey.
We know there is a goal.
But we might not always be aware of what that goal is or even why we’rejourneying toward it.
But today, Christ the King Sunday, we get just a little glimpse ofthat goal.
We get to get an idea of what it is we are anticipating.
We get a glimpse of the THE END of the story.
We are invited, on this Sunday, to see this King—this ultimateRuler—coming to us on clouds, and on wheels of burning fire.
I, for one, love the drama and the splendor of such an image.
In our readings today—especially our readings from the ProphetDaniel and Revelation, we too, with Daniel and the Apostle John, get a glimpseof what it is we are hoping for, what we are striving for.
We see a glimpse of the One we, as Christians, recognize as Christ,that Anointed One who is seated at the right hand of God—our God who is the Alphaand Omega, the Beginning and End— and who is coming to us on the clouds.
But the Ruler we see in our own collective vision this morning isnot the humble carpenter, the amazing miracle worker, or the innocent newbornbaby we are anticipating in a month’s time.
The Ruler we encounter this morning is coming to us on clouds,yes, but he also comes to us while standing on the throne of the Cross—anabout-to-be condemned criminal—engaging in a conversation with Pontius Pilateabout who he is.
The Christ we encounter today is crowned, yes—but he is crownedwith thorns.
This King we celebrate today—this King crowned as he is with acrown of thorns—he is the Ruler of all of us, no matter who the rulers on earthmay be.
And because he is our ruler, in him whatever divisions—especiallypolitical divisions—there are between are eliminated.
After all, he too lived in a world of terror and fear, in a worldof division, where fear and terror and despotic leaders were daily realities inhis life.
This is the Christ we encounter as well today.
The Christ we encounter today is Christ our King, Christ ourPriest, Christ our ultimate Ideal.
But he is also so much more than that.
He is also the one that some would also judge as Christ the Rebel,Christ the Misfit, Christ the Refugee, Christ the Immigrant, Christ theFailure.
And what the Rebel, the Misfit, the Refugee, the Immigrant, theFailure shows us powerfully is that God even works through such manifestations.
God works through rebellion, through ostracization, throughfailure even.
And this is a very real part of our message on Christ the KingSunday.
In the midst of the brokenness of Christ, God is ultimately trulyvictorious.
And because of what God does in Christ we too, even despite ourown brokenness, despite our own rebelliousness, despite our own failures, we too will ultimately triumphin Christ.
The King we encounter on this Sunday, the King that awaits us atthe end of our days, is not a despotic king.
The King that we encounter today is not a King who rules with aniron fist and makes life under his reign oppressive.
This King is not some stern Judge, waiting to condemn us to hellfor what we’ve done or not done or for who we are.
But at the same time the King we honor today is not a figureheador a soft and ineffective ruler.
Rather, the King we encounter today is truly the One we arefollowing, the One who leads us and guides us and guards us.
This King does not allow us to have fear as an option in ourlives.
This King eliminates our divisions.
The King we encounter today is the refugee, the misfit, the rebel,the outcast, the immigrant, the marginalized one, who has triumphed and whocommands us to welcome and love all those who are marginalized and living withterror and fear in their own lives.
And his Kingdom, that we anticipate, is our ultimate home.
We are all—all of us, every single one of us, no matter who weare—, at this moment, we are citizens of that Kingdom of God, over which Godhas put the anointed One, the Christ.
That Kingdom is the place wherein each of us belongs, ultimately.
That is where our true citizenship lies.
You have heard me say it in many, many sermons that our job asChristians, as followers of Jesus, is to make that Kingdom a reality.
You hear me often talking about the Kingdom breaking through intoour midst.
That’s not just poetic talk from your poet-priest.
It is something I believe in deeply.
The Kingdom—that place toward which we are all headed—is not onlysome far-off Land in some far-away sky we will eventually get to when we die.
It is a reality—right here, right now.
That Kingdom is the place which breaks into this world whenever welive out that command of Jesus to love God and to love one another.
When we act in love toward one another, the Kingdom of God ispresent among us.
Again, this is not some difficult theological concept to grasp.
It is simply something we do as followers of Jesus.
When we love, God’s true home is made here, with us, in the midstof our love.
A kingdom of harmony and peace and love becomes a reality when wesow seeds of harmony and peace and love.
And, in that moment when the Kingdom breaks through to us, hereand now, we get to see what awaits us in our personal and collective End.
As we prepare for this END—and we should always be preparing forthe END—we should rejoice in this King, who is the ruler of our true home.
And we should rejoice in the fact that, in the end, all of us willbe received by that King into that Kingdom he promises to us, that we catchglimpses of, here in this place, when we act and serve each other out of lovefor one another.
The Kingdom is here, with us, right now.
It is here, in the love we share and in the ministries we do.
So, on this Christ the King Sunday, let us ponder the End, but letus remember that the End is not some terrible thing.
The End is, in fact, that very Kingdom that we have seen in ourmidst already.
For us the End is that Kingdom—a Kingdom wherein there is a Kingwho rules out of love and concern for us. And for all.
“I am the Alpha—the beginning—and the Omega—the End,” the God ofJesus is saying to us.
And for us, we know what that means.
We know that it is in our End that we truly do find our beginning.
