First Sunday after Christmas

First Sunday after Christmas

                Kai e scotia auto ou katalaben. And the darkness comprehended it not. Like the English word “comprehend” the Greek katalaben has two meanings – to understand and to overcome. The Greek is an intensive of the verb to grasp, to hold on to, to get.  We can say, “I get it” and mean I understand it, or “I’ve got it” meaning I’ll grab the fly ball.  

Darkness cannot grasp light. Spiritual darkness cannot understand spiritual light; spiritual darkness cannot overcome spiritual light.  The consensus of the biblical scholars is that St. John’s gospel was written down about 60 to 70 years after the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus. The older I get the shorter that seems.  The gospel offers us the reflections of the apostle’s long life on the meaning of Jesus’ birth, death and resurrection.

Inspired by the Holy Spirit, John affirms that Jesus is the eternal Word of God. John tells us that after his resurrection Jesus appeared to the disciples. Thomas was the first of many who have said to Jesus, “My Lord and my God.”  John’s gospel begins as Genesis does, “In the beginning . . .”

Over 300 later, after much theological controversy the spiritual leaders of the community of Jesus met in northern Turkey and agreed that Jesus Christ is “truly God and truly man.” (BCP 864).

The whole gospel of John and our Christian lives are an extended meditation on Thomas’s affirmation of faith to Jesus, “My Lord and my God.”  What do we mean when we affirm that Jesus is our God? How does our life witness to our affirmation that he is our Lord?

John says that Jesus is the light that shined in darkness. And the darkness comprehended it not. First, comprehend as understand: We who are enlightened by the Holy Spirit find it hard to understand God’s love for and in the world he has made. The metaphors of light and life help us.  We experience light and darkness, life and death, before we have words for them.

We are surrounded by light; almost always there is enough light for us to see our way. We live in a 3^rd floor corner apartment at Deerfield. When I get up in the middle of the night the street lamps  offer enough light for me to see my way. On a trip to Sinai we camped one night in the desert; there the stars of the Milky Way provided enough light to see our way.

Despite all our increased knowledge in the science of the beginning of life and medicine’s art and science to cure disease and increase the length of life, both the beginning and the end of life are not ours to control. We know ourselves to be alive, and we also know the loss in the death of those we love. We also know something of the loss of relationships brought to an end by sins of all kinds. And by God’s grace we also have some experience of the new life that can come in repentance and forgiveness.

When we look seriously and honestly at our lives we can see the areas of darkness where the light of Christ shines dimly, and we can see spiritual darkness in our society.  Surveys show increasing scriptural illiteracy; larger and larger tears appear in the common fabric of social morality; individual, group, and national self-interest seems to have a higher priority than concerns of peace and justice.

In August 1914 as World War One was beginning British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Gray said, “The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.”  After that war came depression, totalitarian governments, another world war, and the cold war. After the fall of Communism has come ideological / religious conflicts. Lamps flicker and many have been extinguished in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia.

But like the stars in the Sinai desert, Christ’s light continues to shine. Even in the spiritual darkness of a post-Christian Europe new light is being kindled. Trust is institutions, including the organized church, diminishes, but new Christian communities are born and grow. The light shines in darkness, and the darkness cannot comprehend it – cannot understand it, but also cannot overcome it.

In a Japanese prison in the Philippines some 70 years ago American women missionaries  made a small chapel. On the wall they hung a crucifix and at Christmas placed under it a creche of scraps of wood and cloth. A guard pointed at the cross and asked, “Who’s that?”  “Jesus.”  Then he pointed at the figure of the baby in the manger and asked, “Who’s that?”  “Jesus.” He put his hands together, bowed, and said, “So sorry.” Unlike the guard who did not comprehend, we are not sorry, but glad, glad with the remembrance of the birth of our Saviour, for “we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.”

         We are children of God, children of light, children of life. “From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.” This week and in the year to come, let us live out who we are by God’s grace, and show forth his glory in the world he has redeemed. Amen.

Advent 4A Deerfield (2)

Advent 4A 13  Deerfield

          Many of us have a mental image of how we think Christmas is “supposed to be.” The image includes a composite of memories of parts of happy Christmases past when the family was all together and getting along, when we got all the presents we wanted and none that we didn’t, when the tree was just right, and at the Christmas dinner we had as much as we wanted of just what we wanted to eat, and so on.  No Christmas has ever been like it, including this Christmas.

Every Chrismas is imperfect. Some are more imperfect than others. For many of Christmas can be a hard time compared to our image of how Christmas is “supposed to be” and even compared to our real memories of past Christmases. Some of the people with whom we shared Christmas dinner in the past are now sharing in God’s heavenly banquet. Children grow up and take on spouses whose families have their own expectations of Christmas.  My daughter remembers 1987. She was 10; my mother lived here in the square doughnut. I was rector in Shelby with a 10:00 Christmas morning service, lunch and drive up the mountain. Presents were opened in the early afternoon. My mother died before the next Christmas and the following year we moved to Durham.  

But part of the grace of Christmas is Emmanuel, God is with us. No matter what, Jesus is with us by his Holy Spirit.  That first Christmas was not easy for Joseph. “before they lived together,” Mary “was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.”

The traditional teaching is that Joseph was an older man and Mary his young second wife. Joseph does not appear in Scripture after their visit to the temple when Jesus was about 12. The brothers and sisters of Jesus come to reason with him early in his ministry in the way older siblings counsel younger ones about the ways of the real world. The gospel says Joseph “but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son.”  Did they have so after? The liturgies of the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox church speak of Mary “ever virgin.” That tradition  dates from about 115 years after the Crucifixion and Resurrection.

We can appreciate Joseph’s disappointment regardless of speculation about his age and situation. We are told, “her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly.” We are not told that he went to ask Mary the truth. He should have. I want to believe that “being a righteous man” he would have enough trust and love to ask Mary, “What happened?” and to hear from her about the angel Gabriel. But whether the angel who appeared to him in a dream was offering new information or simply spiritual confirmation, Joseph was obedient to the will of God and took Mary as his wife.

Nazareth was a small town, 4 miles from Sepphoris, the principal Roman military and civilian center in Galilee.  People talked and probably laughed behind their hands. But Joseph was obedient to God’s call as Mary had been obedient to God’s call. And God blessed their obedience.

In an imperfect world, all we can do is to seek to do the will of God as that will is revealed to us. The God who made us loves us.  He wants what is best for us, and what is best for us is to be obedient to his will. Our task then is to seek to discern, and then to do, God’s will.

One good way to discern God’s will is to lay aside our own notions of how things “ought to be.” Joseph didn’t much want to have his young fiance’ talked about. His first thought was to protect his own name and reputation.  He was a “righteous man and unwilling to expose her” and himself “to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly.” We can appreciate that.  If we don’t talk about unpleasant things eventually other people won’t either. But we know God is a God of truth. His ways are not our ways, and his ways are good and true.

God speaks. We need to listen. God speaks through his word written in Scripture; God speaks through Christ’s body the church; God speaks through people who love us; and God speaks in our quiet times. He spoke by the angel to Mary; he spoke to Joseph through an angel in a dream. I wonder sometimes if God speaks through angels in dreams to those of us who are not quiet unless we are asleep.

An old story tells how some 70 years ago Christian prisoners of war made a chapel in a corner of a cell. On the wall they hung a rough carved crucifix. At Christmas they set on a table below the crucifix a nativity scene made from bits and pieces of wood and cloth. One day while a prisoner was kneeling in prayer the guard walked in. He pointed at the figure of the man on the cross and asked, “Who?”  “Jesus,” the prisoner replied. Then the guard pointed at the figure of the baby in the manger and asked, “Who?” “Jesus,” the prisoner replied. The guard put his hands together in respect, bowed, and said, “So sorry.” And the prisoner replied, “No, not sorry, but so glad.”

All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: "Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel," which means, "God is with us."

Advent 4 13 Deerfield

          Some 70 years ago Christian prisoners of war made a chapel in a corner of a cell. On the wall they hung a rough carved crucifix. At Christmas they set on a table below the crucifix a nativity scene made from bits and pieces of wood and cloth. One day while a prisoner was kneeling in prayer the guard walked in. He pointed at the figure of the man on the cross and asked, “Who?”  “Jesus,” the prisoner replied. Then the guard pointed at the figure of the baby in the manger and asked, “Who?” “Jesus,” the prisoner replied. The guard put his hands together in respect, bowed, and said, “So sorry.” And the prisoner replied, “No, not sorry, but so glad.”

          At Christmas we proclaim our faith in the Word made flesh, Jesus, God’s son. He was born in a stable, died on a cross, was raised from the dead and in him we have new life. Paul wrote to the church at Rome of the “gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures . . . concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and declared to be Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.”

          Many human religions believe the world as we know it was created by a god or gods who then inspired men and sometimes women to teach this creation how to live and gave them the ability to live by these teachings. The details of the teachings and the examples of holy life vary from place to place, person to person, and culture to culture.

Christians alone of all human religions believe that God our creator not only gave us  inspired teachings and the examples of holy men and women, but also that the creator also became a man, “to share our human nature, to live and die as one of us, to reconcile us to the God and Father of all.”

To many non-Christians the incarnation is a scandal and an offense.  Some hold a philosophy that limits the real to what can be seen and measured, but most of us have known some of the transcendent realities. We have learned, for example, to recognize the love that motivates the Christmas present that isn’t quite right – the wrong size, wrong color, wrong brand. We’ve all gotten presents like that aren’t quire right, and we’ve all given presents like that that aren’t quite right. We know Christmas presents as an outward and visible sign of inward and spiritual love and affection.

We gather for worship  celebrating Jesus’ use of ordinary things to share his extraordinary love. “On the night before he died for us, our Lord Jesus Christ took bread, and when he had given thanks to the Father, he broke the bread and gave it to his disciples, and said, ‘Take, eat: This is my Body, which is given for you. Do this for the remembrance of me.’” In the same way after supper he took a cup of wine, gave thanks, and shared the wine with them, “This my blood of the new Covenant, which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Whenever you drink it, do this for the remembrance of me.” (BCP p. 358) We call this use of the ordinary things by a Latin word, sacrament, and we explain the Christian sacraments as “outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace, given by Christ as sure and certain means by which we receive that grace. Grace is God’s favor towards us, unearned and undeserved; by grace God forgives our sins, enlightens our minds, stirs our hearts, and strengthens our wills.” (Catechism p. 857-858)

Jesus offered God’s grace to the disciples the night he was betrayed, and Jesus offers God’s grace to us this day because he is God incarnate. We live by grace, and not by law alone. We live as forgiven sinners, set right with God by God’s action, not our own. And that is a moral scandal to the non-Christian. How dare we say that “if we confess our sins God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."”(I John 1:9) Sin, the moral agree, must be punished. We mock God’s law, they say, when we say we escape punishment by claiming God’s forgiveness. 

We agree that sin must be punished and the righteousness of God’s law maintained. But we also say that Jesus took our punishment on himself on the cross, and when he died there the power of evil was forever broken. Jesus could do so because he, being God, came “to share our human nature, to live and die as one of us, to reconcile us to the God and Father of all.”

In the prayer Jesus taught us we pray, “forgive us our sins (our trespasses).” We claim for ourselves the spiritual benefit of God in Jesus sharing our human nature. At the cross, Jesus prayer, “Father forgive them.” And we are forgiven because of Jesus’ death and resurrection.

We live by grace, and not by law. So it is not only because he commanded us but because we are grateful for our own forgiveness that we pray, “forgive us our sins (our trespasses) as we forgive those who sin (trespass) against us.” Our pretending to forgive those who sin against us is a further scandal to those who know only law and not God’s grace in Jesus. We who try to forgive know how hard it is. It does seem easier to hold on to the sense of injury, to play the victim. But we know that in the long run that is harder. Resentments can kill us; they contribute to high blood pressure and other physical and emotional, and spiritual, illnesses. We can forgive only because Jesus shares with us the power of his love. But the good news is that we can forgive, and when we forgive others, we experience anew God’s forgiveness.

Corrie Ten Boom was a Dutch Christian who helped shelter Jews during the Nazi occupation and with her family was taken to a concentration camp where her sister Betsie died. After the war she spoke in Germany and wrote a book, The Hiding Place, from which this comes:

“It was at a church service in Munich that I saw him, the former SS man who had stood guard at the shower room door in the processing centre at Ravensbruck. He was the first of our actual jailers that I had seen since that time. And suddenly it was all there – the roomful of mocking men, the heaps of clothing, Betsie’s pain blanched face.

          “He came up to me as the church was emptying, beaming and bowing. “How grateful I am for your message Fräulein”, he said “To think that, as you say, He has washed my sins away!”

“His hand was thrust out to shake mine. And I, who had preached so often to the people in Bloemendaal the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side. Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him.

“I tried to smile, I struggled to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so again I breathed a silent prayer. Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me Your Forgiveness.

          “As I took his hand the most incredible thing happened. From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me.

          “And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world’s healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.” 

Christmas is Jesus’ birthday, and we get the presents. Our greatest gift is Jesus who, being God, came “to share our human nature, to live and die as one of us, to reconcile us to the God and Father of all.” And all the gifts we give and receive convey the love and reconciling power of the same Jesus.

The guard in the prison camp put his hands together in respect, bowed, and said, “So sorry.” And the prisoner replied, “No, not sorry, so glad.”  

 

Advent 2 2013

Advent 2A 12-8-13

          This sermon was preached at a Eucharist which began with the traditional language Ten Commandments from page 319 in the American 1979 edition of the Book of Common Prayer.  The rubric places this after the opening Collect for Purity in the traditional language Rite 1, and although there is no rubrical direction for contemporary language Rite II, the same form was used at the same place.

 

          In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

We have seen and heard much about Nelson Mandela in the last few days. His life offers us some examples of the repentance John called for. Nelson Mandela was born to a Christian mother and educated in church schools. His education was interrupted by his political activism. He began as an advocate for non-violent change, but when that was met with police force he agreed to lead an armed struggle that included bombing public buildings and other violent responses. In prison he repented of this decision and returned to the principles of non-violent change. He is reported to have said, “As I walked out the door toward my freedom, I know that if I did not leave all the anger, hatred, and bitterness behind that I would still be in prison.”  His lived that repentance in his political and spiritual life thereafter.  

He was an eloquent speaker and advocate for the cause of freedom for all the people of South Africa. He was able to negotiate a change in government marked not by racial violence but by a Peace and Reconciliation Commission that was able to bring most South Africans to a common understanding of their history, of the things than had been done, good and bad, and the reasons why they had been done. Mandela’s Christian faith, and the Christian faith of the white minority, formed a basis for establishing a new community. We see that in the South African flag – over the red, white, and blue of Holland and Britain is the black and yellow of the African National Congress, and the green common to the ANC and to the Dutch speaking South African Republic.  

We prayed, “Merciful God, who sent your messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer. . .”

Continuing self-examination and repentance is a fundamental Christian practice. We are continually to judge ourselves against the standard of God’s teaching. We began this morning with the Ten Commandments (page 317) as the communion service began from 1552 to 1928, and the response, “Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law.” As part of your Advent spiritual preparation I encourage you to read over the Catechism pp 845-862, particularly pp 847-848 on the Ten Commandments. The old story is of the sailor who came out of church saying, “At least I haven’t worshipped any graven images recently!” In fact paying too much attention to graven images, particularly those on pieces of paper with engravings of presidents and others, may be our most common sin.

The Ten Commandments are not the only standard for self-examination, though they are a good starting place. Another is the list of the works of the flesh and the fruits of the Spirit in Galatians 5:16 following:  “Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.”

In the General Confession we say ". . . we have offended against thy holy laws, we have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done . . .” I encourage you this Advent to put some legs on your confession, to be aware of some specific areas of your life where God is working with you to clean up your past and open some new ways for the future.

The Eucharist is our re-membering, our joining with Jesus in his sacrifice as part of his resurrected body, spiritually fed and strengthened in this life as we prepare to “greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer. . .”

Jesus Christ in his death and resurrection has indeed baptized us with his Holy Spirit and fire. “His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” By self-examination and repentance, by accepting Christ’s forgiveness for ourselves and forgiving others we identify as his wheat.

Corrie Ten Boom was a Dutch Christian who helped shelter Jews during the Nazi occupation and with her family was taken to a concentration camp where her sister Betsie died. After the war she spoke in Germany and wrote a book, The Hiding Place, from which this comes:

“It was at a church service in Munich that I saw him, the former SS man who had stood guard at the shower room door in the processing centre at Ravensbruck. He was the first of our actual jailers that I had seen since that time. And suddenly it was all there – the roomful of mocking men, the heaps of clothing, Betsie’s pain blanched face.

          “He came up to me as the church was emptying, beaming and bowing. “How grateful I am for your message Fräulein”, he said “To think that, as you say, He has washed my sins away!”

“His hand was thrust out to shake mine. And I, who had preached so often to the people in Bloemendaal the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side. Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him.

“I tried to smile, I struggled to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so again I breathed a silent prayer. Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me Your Forgiveness.

          “As I took his hand the most incredible thing happened. From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me.

          “And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world’s healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.” 

          Merciful God, who sent your messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.