January 10, 2016, the Baptism of Jesus

This is the season when we roll up our sleeves and get back to work. The family gatherings are all over and the presents are all opened. Now we have to pay for them. Now the cold and dark days of winter are upon us and we have nothing to wait for but the spring. There is a focus in these days, much like the crisp air. There is nothing to distract us. We can see the stars in the clear air of winter.

Epiphany is all about making things clear. Jesus is revealed to the world - first through the visit of the Magi, and then through a series of events that make his presence known. Today we remember his baptism. The ritual in itself is not as important as the commentary from heaven. "You are  my son, the beloved." We can wonder at the need for any of this. Of course, God loves the Son. Of course, we know this is important. We remember and we also consider what this means to us.

We too have been baptized. We have been loved. Baptism is our way of beginning our lives as Christians. We enter life through the waters of baptism. It is often our first experience of a faith community. There are also other important aspects. Baptism is a formal ritual that makes us part of a family. Our baptism is often our first public event. Friends and family take pictures and have a party. It is where we share our name that will follow us through life. It is a turning point in our lives - and for most of us, we don't even remember it.

We revisit the baptism of Jesus to help us remember our baptism and to remember the true and eternal purpose of our own baptism. We use only a small amount of water, poured over the head of a baby. It is a kind of bath. We remember that we are forgiven - cleansed from our sins as if they are washed away. This is only a small part of baptism. The symbol of water is much greater than our little splash of water from a shell.

We remember that water is present at creation. The Holy Spirit moved over the waters at the beginning of all things. This baptismal water is creative. This reminds us that we are made and that God is always creating new things. We are part of God's creativity and we are connected to the whole of all created things. We become part of creation in a new way and we are connected to the creator in a new way. We become co-creators with God as we become God's daughters and sons.

Water is God's path of deliverance. There is a recurring theme around how God saves people through water or by water. The people of God first find freedom by crossing the Red Sea in the exodus. They cross the Jordan River to enter into the promised land. Noah and ark are carried safely over water. Jesus offers us baptism to show us a way from one life to another. We are saved from sin and we are also brought to a new place where we are the new people of God.

Water is also a kind of danger. The word, "baptism" means death by drowning. To be baptized is to be overwhelmed. We follow Jesus literally. We participate in his death and in his resurrection. In baptism we die with Jesus and we are resurrected with him. I think we only understand a part of this. We somehow understand that we are forgiven. (Maybe a little harder to accept it.) We somehow understand that Jesus dies and he is resurrected. The hard part is accepting that we are too.

Well, we don't look any different. We often don't feel any different. It's hard to imagine that a little baby needs any transformation. We grow up. We don't just grow old. In our baptism, we begin a journey into a larger life. We join Jesus in death - death to sin and all the things that kill us. We are also invited to join Jesus in life. Even if it was a long time ago - even if we don't remember it - we are always able to live our new resurrected life.

The trick for all of us who are old and who think life is over - is to continue to walk into new life. We are always reborn. We are always resurrected. We know how help our children grow. We know how to care for them and encourage them. These are the words from heaven, "This is my beloved." These are words to Jesus and to us - to all of God's children. God isn't done with us at baptism. God is just starting.

How is God working in you right now? What new thing is beginning in you? We are eager to think about all the bad things God has to get rid of. We have no trouble being ashamed of our failures. (There is certainly a place for this sort of self-examination.) Do we believe that our sin is so bad that God can do nothing with us? Baptism isn't about how bad we are that God needs to wash us clean. Baptism is about a change. We end one life and begin another. There is no turning back. God wants us to be part of a new creation. God wants us to live forever.

We are surrounded by fear and anger. Mostly this comes from fear - fear that we won't ever be good again. We are surrounded by demands that we worry and fret and hoard and keep ourselves free of danger. God keeps reminding us to stop being afraid. God wants us to be curious. God wants us to discover new horizons. God wants us to look out for each other and not just ourselves. God has loved us and blessed us. We have everything we need, and probably more than we can imagine. We only need to follow Jesus. He confronted anger and fear. He offered new life instead.

Second Sunday after Christmas, January 3, 2015

            Happy New Year! Did you mark the day with any customs? Did you walk down stairs backwards? Did you begin the day by saying “Rabbit, Rabbit.”? Did you eat black-eyed peas for prosperity? Did you make any resolutions?

            It’s almost a truism that we will fail every resolution. The gym is full now, but it won’t be in a month. We make these resolutions because we want to be better or to have a better life. We often fail because we are afraid or unwilling to make the necessary changes to our values or our purpose. (We want to be more fit without changing our diet. We want to save money without changing our lifestyle.)

            God seeks much more for us than our good image. God seeks more for us than comfort and ease – than safety and confidence. God wants to bring us home – to our true home. The cost to us is that we have to leave this home behind. We have to risk what we know for what we hope.

            The Holy family is in danger. Jesus is experiencing all the danger and hardships of his day. He faces the threat of evil Herod, who is willing to spill innocent blood to hold onto his power. This causes Mary, Joseph, and Jesus to become refugees. Where have we seen this before?

            We see this in refugees displaced by danger and war all over the world. We see this in the wanderings of the poor and the struggles of the unemployed. We see this in families destroyed by addictions. It is a very common and contemporary story.

            We also see this in the stories of scripture. There is an ancient Joseph who is sold into slavery in Egypt by his brothers. After a time, God uses his dreams to save his people. They come to live in Egypt to escape famine. Later, they too become slaves and are powerfully delivered into freedom through the exodus.

            This great journey of freedom becomes a story of hope. When the people are again cast into exile and they live far from home, Jeremiah sings a song of return. The people will be restored and they will return to the home God has prepared for them. These stories of deliverance and return become stories of hope for the people of God whenever they find themselves trapped or lost.

            Psalm 84 is a song of praise, centered on the joy of worshipping in the temple. It is a song sung by any pilgrim who climbs up the road to Jerusalem and the temple mount. It becomes a song of praise for anyone entering into worship – long after the temple is gone. It is a song we can sing because we are also called. We are invited to come to God, as people of God, saved through love even though we are the wrong race and a distant people.

            Jesus enters the journey with us – no matter how we have ended up on this road. Jesus is in the exodus. He is in the return of the exiles. He is with the frightened refugees fleeing violence. He is with the lost, the frightened, and the poor.

            Jesus invites us on a journey. But be careful, this is much more than our timid attempts at self-improvement. We have to begin by admitting that wherever we find ourselves, it is not our true home. We have to admit our need to get moving.

            What is our displacement? In what wilderness do we find ourselves? What keeps us in bondage or fear? We are invited to leave it behind. (We may not wish to because we are more comfortable with the devil we know.) As we leave the past behind, we may lose certain markers that make the landscape familiar. We may have to learn our way as we go.

            Jesus isn’t calling us to what we already know. We already realize that the familiar doesn’t work (that’s why we make resolutions to try and change.) Jesus is calling us home. To get to our true home we have to travel though unfamiliar ground. It is the journey that changes us. It is the discovery that gives us joy. It is our trust in God along the way that gives us the peace we seek.

            Where will we go this year?

First Sunday after Christmas, December 27, 2015

            Christmas isn’t over. Have you heard about the twelve days of Christmas? We celebrate Christmas as a season, from December 25 to January 6, the feast of the Epiphany. In ancient times, and still in Orthodox and many other churches, Epiphany is the important holiday. On that day we celebrate the revelation or epiphany of Jesus to the whole world. Around here, many Spanish cultures celebrate three kings day.

            We might remember the Christmas carol about the twelve days of Christmas. There are an awful lot of presents! (I think it’s only one different present each day.) There are many speculative theories about the carol. Is it a mnemonic device to instruct hidden Roman Catholics? The several points sound acceptably Anglican to me. (two testaments – seven sacraments – twelve apostles) I like the theory that it’s a kind of party game song. Each person adds a verse and the next person has to repeat every verse. Even more fun with holiday punch!

            The world around us celebrates a great commercial holiday with visions of gift-giving and purchased togetherness. The joy and generosity is great fun. We might regret all the bills that come due in January, but by then, it’s too cold to do anything but sit inside and dream of spring.

            The stores are all counting up their profits while we still have some celebrating to do. We remember the greatest gift. God has given us his son, Jesus. Through Jesus we are forgiven and set free to live new lives. The story of the simple baby sleeping in the manger is also a story about the lengths that God will go to love us. God gives us the most generous gift. Jesus sets aside every power and privilege to save us and love us. How can we respond?

            There is nothing we can give back to God to make up for this unprecedented generosity. There is only one thing that God asks of us – that we accept the gift offered to us.

            One way to do that is to respond in faith and believe that God loves us. The other way (or the next way) is to respond in kind. Since we have received generously without conditions, we ought to live lives of generosity – giving to others freely as well. Maybe twelve days of gifts isn’t so crazy after all! If we seek to emulate the carol, perhaps we could update it with more meaningful gifts.

            Without trying to think of twelve forms of generosity, with alliteration, what could we do? We could show hospitality and welcome – especially to the stranger. We can look people in the eye and say, “hello” and “thank you.” We can think about those in need – this week and throughout the year. We can set aside our busy schedules and pay attention to the blessings of God in unexpected places.

            God breaks into our world and offers grace and peace. Before we can share in it, we have to notice it. We have to notice our near neighbor who may be in need of good news. We can be that good news – just be doing what we already know how to do. If there is any message in the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem it is this. God has come near – into our day-to-day lives. God isn’t embarrassed by our humanity. God wants to transform us.

            A list of pre-Victorian love gifts is a silly way to remember the season. We can be silly in our joy and lyrical in our acts of generosity. God transforms all of it.

           

Christmas 2015

            Jesus was wrapped in bands of cloth and laid in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. We have a little trouble with the word, “manger.” We get confused about the building and the scene. It is an old word for the “feeding trough.” The scene is odd, and Canon Frank Logue wrote about this in his Christmas sermon a few years ago.

            There was no place for them. Really? Even for a pregnant woman? Joseph is in Bethlehem to participate in a census. Where are the relatives? Presumably, they were required to be there too. Where are the aunts and uncles? No cousins? I wonder if the scandal of Mary’s pregnancy had already reached Bethlehem and caused a lot of doors to be shut.

            For whatever reason, they find themselves in a barn. Jesus is laid in a feeding trough. Maybe the hay makes it soft. Perhaps the animals have more hospitality than the people. (I hope they aren’t hungry!)

            In the middle of the night, God’s angel appears to shepherds. They are watching over their sheep. This is dangerous work and low status. Shepherds are not respected as they roam from place to place and live off the land (they are suspected to be thieves.) They don’t make credible witnesses, but perhaps they are the only ones awake at this hour.

            The glory of God shines around them and they are afraid. The angel begins as angels always do, “Don’t be afraid!” Really, the angel’s words are stronger, “Stop being afraid!” “Why? I have good news! Your savior, your messiah has been born! Here’s the sign. You will find a baby in a feeding trough in a barn!” (Of all places!)

            The angel chorus comes out and breaks into song. They proclaim God’s glory and God’s peace all over the earth. The shepherds don’t quite know what to make of this. They decide to go and see. So they do go and see. They find a baby in a feeding trough in a barn. They tell Mary all about it. Their singing is probably not as good as the angels, but they are having a great time. Mary thinks about these things – she treasures this memory.

            What are we to make of this? Not many of us have experience with barns and shepherds. No angels interrupt our work or our dreams. We have the message to the shepherds. Stop being afraid. We have good news.

            We live in a time of fear. We think that our lives are in constant danger. The news that surrounds us in the 24/7/365 news cycle is one bad thing after another. It is a lie. We are fed a constant stream of bad news to control and to manipulate us – to keep us riveted – to get us to buy soap, or insurance, or beer. We are tempted to withdraw into a world we think we control, where we surround ourselves with voices that agree with us. We are tempted to remain isolated and afraid – because it’s the devil we know. It is a lie.

            Stop being afraid. We have good news. Jesus is in the world. His life, death and resurrection, reconciles us to God. Nothing can change that. No matter how foolish or frightened we get; we know that we are loved and we have the capacity to love others.

            Stop being afraid. We have good news. Go and see. Where has God blessed us? When has God guided us? How has God loved us when we did not think it was possible? God has companioned with us through our successes and failures. God has been present with us when we were lonely and when we were sick and when we were lost. This is the good news that we know. This is the real truth.

            God loves us. God has given us Jesus, so that we can be in a relationship with God. God has forgiven us and God invites us to reconciled with one another. God also invites us into a full and rich eternal life that we can begin to live right now. We can dance like drunk shepherds. We can find glory in a barn.

            Life with God is the only truth worth knowing. Life with God is the only way to find true peace. God gives us this life today and always. This is the good news. Stop being afraid. Go and see. Rejoice!

December 20, 2015

The Fourth Sunday of Advent

                  What is it like to wait for the birth of a child? There are so many plans. There are so many changes on the way. Parents gather furniture and gear, clothes and diapers. Family and friends gather almost too many gifts and hand-me-downs. There is joy and excitement. There is a little fear around the unknown. There is danger. There is wonder.

                  First time parents have the steepest learning curve. Everything is new. Everything must be learned – all at once it seems. Advice comes like water from a fire hose. Who can remember it all (how much can be ignored)?

                  Before anyone is ready (except maybe the mother) the process of birth begins. After much rushing around and probably too little sleep, a new life comes into the world. There is joy. There is great happiness. There is still a little fear. How will this child turn out? Will we be good parents? Mostly, there is just dumb pride at the wonderful child right in the middle of everything.

                  I am at an age where most of my friends are becoming grandparents. We all have pictures. (Want to see some pictures?) Children are indeed a blessing when there is a time limit in responsibility. I can play with them and give them back. Good thing too – I don’t have the energy to chase them all day.

                  We put up with an awful lot for the sake of our children. Babies seem an even worse return on an investment of time and energy. We love them and coo and make ourselves silly. They mostly just burp and sleep (even if we think it’s a smile.) Why do we fuss over these little bundles of joy?

                  We don’t give to them because of what they give back. We love our children because of who they are and because of what we hope for them.

                  Today we remember two first-time mothers. Mary and Elizabeth are pondering their respective unplanned and unusual pregnancies. Elizabeth keeps company with a long line of women in scripture that find themselves with a child late in life. Mary has a more peculiar story that suggests God’s time and God’s ways. The prophets are often using the miracle of birth to stand for the surprising and joyful creation of something new by God. Just when we think we know the way the world works and we think we’ve seen it all, God laughs at our cynicism and gives us a baby.

                  We think we have hard times. Mary could point to no father (the Holy Spirit? That’s a hard story to sell.) Mary is a young girl in a patriarchal society, in an occupied country in the Roman Empire. She had no rights. She had no power. She was dependent on the generosity of Joseph and the patience of her neighbors, that they not reject her outright.

                  No wonder Mary goes to see Elizabeth. Who would want to hang around the old neighborhood? At least Elizabeth will have some experience of an unusual birth, and she would probably appreciate the help.

                  Elizabeth rejoices. There is no questioning. There is no judgment. She shares her joy and the child in her leaps for joy as well. Elizabeth believes Mary. Elizabeth believes in the promise given to Mary – just like we want to do with all children.

                  Mary responds with her own song. She proclaims the greatness of the Lord! She gives thanks for what God has promised her and for how she has been already blessed. She proclaims the way that God works in the world. God overturns our order of things. God lifts up the lowly and casts down the mighty. God feeds the hungry and sends away those who are already filled.

                  I wonder how different this might sound to us depending on where we find ourselves. We believe in the saving power of God. If God only saves those in need, why are we trying so hard to make ourselves comfortable? In Mary’s case, she remembers God’s power when she has no power. God will save her and her people no matter in what state they find themselves.

                  Mary shows great courage. Without much to go on, she trusts the promises of God. She takes on the disapproval of her culture. She takes a step on a long journey of faith. She invites us to do the same. Will we show courage in a time of uncertainty? Will we take on responsibility for caring for all of God’s children (even if we have enough problems of our own)? Are we ready to reject what we think we know and accept what God offers instead?

                  A child is coming? Do we have all the gear and clothes and food that are necessary? Are we ready? Probably not. We never really are. All we can do is try our best to be ready. Then we trust in God’s grace to show us what we need. Then we marvel. We wonder. We rejoice in God’s unbelievable gift.

December 13, 2015

The Third Sunday of Advent

        

            Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice! The Lord is near. I wonder sometimes that scripture has to repeat truth because it so hard to believe. This week we remember joy. We light the pink candle. We hear the command of the collect to stir up our hearts – maybe we also know this as stir up Sunday when we all go home and give our Christmas pudding a good stir. (No pudding? It’s all the fun of the season!)

            There is a part of our season that is all about generosity and gifts. We look forward to what we will do and whom we will see. We also live in difficult times. We are afraid and uncertain. The news is filled with danger and ugly words. Our joy seems misplaced.

            This is why we are commanded to have joy. Of course there are times when we get good news or some great reward. At those times we can’t contain our joy. We delight in the newborn baby. We celebrate a graduation. If only our times had more of this good news and less of the bad. Yet we are commanded.

            I listen to the radio in my car when I’m driving around. On NPR this week, a family from Newtown was being interviewed, as it has been three years since that awful day in Sandy Hook. They shared their pain and their loss. They also shared how they were standing against the choice to hate or to give up. They were still determined to make the world a safer place. They wanted to remember the good gifts of their present life (especially their surviving son.) They held no hate, instead they kept on repeating their motto, “love always wins.”

            They spoke about the importance of connection. They reflected that if Adam Lanza and his mother had not been so disconnected, and without resources, perhaps there would have been a different story. The answer isn’t simply more laws or better security. We need a different society, where we look out for each other. We need to create a world where we see that everyone gets what they need.

            The motto, “love always wins,” is not always easy to see in fact. The world seems full of people who give in to hate and fear. It is not easy to see how our actions can effect how others choose to live their lives. In this advent season we are confronted with the need to choose faith over fear and love over hate. Paul reminds us to rejoice. This Sunday reminds us of joy.

            John the Baptist seems to be a little short on joy. Yet even with his harsh words, the gospel says that he proclaimed good news to the people. He calls them all vipers. This is an illusion to apocryphal writing that describes the evil men who will be judged at the end of time. This is a time of decision. This is a time of action. It’s time to choose a side. Who will you follow and how will you act?

            The people are asking John this very question. What should we do? He does not list a variety of acts of self-discipline or denial. He basically tells them to be fair. He tells them to act decently to one another. Whoever has two coats should share with someone who needs one. If you collect taxes, take no more than you should. A soldier should not take anything by force but be content with his wages.

            Then John introduces a dire warning about the one coming after him. This one will bring a winnowing fork and separate the wheat from the chaff. Which are you, wheat or chaff?

            The good news is: we are wheat. So we need to act like it. At the very least, we should act decently towards our neighbors. Beyond that, what do we believe? We know that Jesus saves us and gives us eternal life. We have nothing to fear. Jesus is reconciling the world to God and we have been invited into this same ministry of reconciliation.

            Even though we are surrounded by fear and violence, we can choose faith and we can choose love. We will not stop every violent event. We cannot convert any hateful person. We can create a culture around us of acceptance and love. We can choose to know our neighbors and look out for their welfare. We can love the stranger, the outcast, and the refugee. We can also proclaim that love always wins, because it does.

            This is God’s promise to us.

Dec. 6, 2015 - Advent 2

            This is a season of preparation. There is so much to anticipate. There are gatherings of family and friends. There are all the logistics involved in figuring out who will be where and when. What will we eat? What presents will we buy? How will we get there? It’s no wonder we think so little of the journey of Mary and Joseph to Jerusalem. All they had to do was find a place to sleep.

            How will we get there? Do you use online services like Kayak or Expedia? Airplane tickets become evermore mysterious in how they are priced. If you drive, GPS sometimes doesn’t work when it’s cloudy or you find yourself in a tunnel or under forests – and the cell phone cuts out when there are no cell towers.

            I hope you don’t have to drive through Waterbury – and they have just begun construction. We can see the hope in the words of the prophets to make the highway straight and level all that is uneven. It’s easy to write poetry. It’s a much more difficult things to carve through rock and build bridges over rivers. Sometimes that’s how it seems when we make our way to God. All we see are obstacles that are difficult to navigate.

            This is the promise of Advent. God doesn’t promise peace and quiet and an easy road. God finds us along the hard ways and offers a new way. Maybe that’s our trouble. We don’t take God’s short cut because we’re convinced we know the way. We plod through the obstacles because it’s the hard way we know.

            Baruch is the secretary of Jeremiah (who was probably a hard man to work for.) Baruch writes down a vision of a highway of return. One day all the children of God will find their way back to Jerusalem. They will be restored and renewed. Jerusalem will have joy instead of sorrow. The highway is for the return trip.

            It’s not that the people of God didn’t know how to have a relationship with God. They already knew about God and they had faith – and they also failed to live up to what they believed. They were living in exile because they couldn’t live with God. Baruch holds out hope that God would find a way to welcome them back.

            Zechariah was a priest in temple when an angel promised that he would have a son. Like many other older persons who were promised children, Zechariah couldn’t believe the news – so the angel made him speechless until it came true.

            When John is born, and he gets his voice back, Zechariah sings his own song of hope and promise. The first half of the canticle praises God for God’s faithfulness and the many ways that God has saved the people in the past. Then Zechariah sings about how John will prepare the people for salvation in a new way.

            John grows up and begins his work. He preaches in the wilderness – the desert really. He prepares the way of the Lord in the arid and God-forsaken wilderness of Judea. Perhaps John is showing people that there is no place that you can go that God isn’t already there. Perhaps John is showing that God meets us in our own wilderness places. Just when we think we are lost and too far gone, we hear the voice of one crying in the wilderness, “Prepare the way of the Lord!”

            In all of our preparations, we are offered a new way. We already think we know the way, even though we often get lost and confused following the path we think we know. John urges us to repent – to change our minds – to think differently. God offers a new way, where the rough is made smooth and the crooked straight.

            I know we have the route all planned out. We got our trip-ticks from AAA. We mapped it out on MapQuest. God wants us to set our itinerary aside and look for the salvation from our God.

            It’s a new way. To find it we have to forget what we think we know and listen and look for what God is showing us now. It doesn’t look like what we remember. God is making a new way, a new path. God is making a straight and wide highway in the wilderness for us to find our salvation.

            The hardest thing we have to give up is our certainty that we know the way (I hear some men are like that.) It will take us places we haven’t been. It will take us by different path – a shortcut to home.