A donkey, a baby and the kiss of God. Christmas 2019

+Brennan Manning wrote: “Jesus comes not for the super spiritual but for the wobbly and the weak-kneed who know they don’t have it all together and who are not too proud to accept the handout of amazing grace.”
What is represented in this manger scene is the greatest gift of all time. Given for you and for me. Not because we earned it but because we are that adored by our God. Whether you feel worthy of this gift isn’t the point. The point is that the gift has been given….we just need to open it.
     Just like Cristofero, the donkey who carried Mary to Bethlehem.
Cristofero was a little donkey. He was much smaller than the rest of the donkeys and whenever he was hooked up to a cart it was too heavy to pull. Cristofero never got to help. Because he wasn’t strong enough, he wasn’t big enough.
Now there was one thing about Cristofero that wasn’t small. Or weak.
That was his bray—-HEEEEEEEEEEEHAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.
That bray would make your toes curl.
One afternoon, standing all by himself in the barn, feeling lonely and sad, angry and worried, frightened and worthless, Cristofero, let loose a bray louder than anything ever heard—-it was so loud God heard it all the way in heaven!
Which was good because just at that moment God was wondering how Mary was going to make it to Bethlehem.
You see, Joseph and Mary were so poor they didn’t own a donkey, a horse or even a cart. The only way to get to Bethlehem was to walk.
And so that’s what they were doing. Walking the 98 miles from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Most pregnant women have trouble walking 98 feet when they’re nine months pregnant let alone 98 miles…..
The walk wasn’t going real well….
God was worried. Now God worries about all pregnancies but God was particularly worried about this one because Mary and Joseph’s baby was God in the flesh—because God wanted to know what it was like to be a human being….how it felt to be born,  grow up, walk around, have friends. So God made a baby who could do all of those things, feel all of those things, be all of those things—Jesus of Nazareth. God was desperate to keep Mary and Joseph and Jesus safe… so just about the time Cristofero was crying out in his sadness, God had an idea—
God needed Mary to be safe and secure to deliver Jesus....but she needed help getting to Bethlehem (so she could follow God’s orders as well as the emperor’s)
And Cristofero needed to feel needed. And wanted. And useful.
And, because the world had become (and remains) very dark and scary, the world needed Light and Love and Joy.

The world needed help.
Mary, Joseph and Jesus needed help.
And that little donkey? Cristofero, needed help, too.
     So God whispered in Cristofero’s great big ears:
“I have a job for you. Go to the road which leads to Bethlehem and walk until you find a couple—-a good and solid man named Joseph and his wife, the young and very pregnant Mary. Let Mary climb aboard and carry her to Bethlehem. There won’t be any room at the inn, so make a space for her in the barn where she can give birth. Protect her from every danger by using your GREAT BIG BRAY.
Cristofero, I’m counting on you.”
And you know what?
That little donkey found his way to the road that leads to Bethlehem, found the couple who did what they we’re told even though they were scared and he did what God asked him to do (even though he was a little scared too) and carried them all the way to Bethlehem, guarding them every step of the way.
And once Jesus was born Cristofero added his GREAT BIG BRAY to the choir of angels singing, Glory to God in the Highest Heaven, on this Night, the one to save us all has been born…and it’s the greatest gift anyone has ever and will ever receive”
      To mark the role of that little donkey in the greatest night ever, every donkey born has a cross imbedded into the fur on their back—it’s the mark made by God’s kiss of thanks saying, “thank you little donkey for making sure Mary, Joseph and Jesus were safe. I know it was a big job, and I also knew you were just the right little donkey to do it.  Even though you were a little nervous and little scared.”
     My friends, “Jesus comes not for the super spiritual but for the wobbly and the weak-kneed who aren’t too proud to accept the handout of amazing grace.”
My Christmas wish for us all is that we be like Cristofero—-accepting this gift of amazing grace, Emmanuel, God come to us in the flesh.
Merry Christmas. And Amen.

A Magnificent Revolution Advent3A St Luke's Jamestown

      A couple of weeks ago I saw a meme on Facebook which read: “I don’t think we’ll understand Advent correctly until we see it as preparation for a revolution.” (Robert Berron).
Those words  hit me like a ton of bricks. Because yes, what we are preparing for, the birth of the messiah, is a revolution. This revolution is not one of guns and bombs, or of a collapsed stock market, or of impeachment proceedings in Washington. No, this revolution is a revolution of love. Of God’s love. A love so massive, so unrelenting, so universal that when accepted, when received, when welcomed and when embraced by humanity, this love has changed, is changing and will change this world.
       Welcome to the third Sunday of Advent. Welcome to the third week of our preparation for the greatest revolution of all time, a revolution we hear Mary sing about in today’s canticle, a revolution of saying yes to God and of saying yes to God coming to us in the flesh, Jesus.
    Why a revolution? Because God coming to be among us in the form of a baby, born to Mary and Joseph, God living as one of us in the form of Jesus of Nazareth, God living among us as someone who lifts the downtrodden, who challenges those in authority, who destroys the systems of evil and then dies on the cross, that God, this God, our God, isn’t interested in managing us like some puppet master, no this God, our God, is interested in being us. God, presented to us through the yes of Mary and Joseph in the person of Jesus, is the leader of a revolution, a revolution to turn this world upside down and inside out—returning creation to its original intent—-a manifestation of God’s love, in living, technicolor glory.
    Today we’re talking about the kind of revolution that begins with God choosing a young peasant girl to bear the greatest gift ever given to humanity, it continues with a stalwart fiancé who chooses to stand by Mary even though all the cultural, religious and legal norms of the day implored him to discard her like a piece of day old trash. Today we’re talking about a revolution born inside that barn , because there was no room at the inn. Today we are talking about a revolution that lives and moves and gains its meaning through every single one of us who proclaim Jesus as Lord, who join with Mary in her anthem of breaking down the unjust and immoral structures of the day, raising the lowly, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and embracing the outcast. Today, in the middle of Advent 2019, we sing Mary’s song of revolution not as a sweet homage to lowly Mary, chosen by God, we sing it as a promise to her and to her God and to her Son that this revolution, the revolution of Jesus Christ, still lives in each and every one of us.
     If I had my druthers I would spend all of Advent focusing on Mary and Joseph. Because the story of Mary and Joseph is meant, in my opinion, to be our story. Because Mary saying yes to God, Mary saying no to tradition, no to the cultural rules of the day, no to the norm… and Joseph doing the same, this is the foundation of what it means to be Christian, to be followers of Jesus Christ here in Jamestown, here at St Luke’s. For to be part of this revolution we must always say no to darkness, no to evil, no to oppression, no to unchecked power. In this revolution we say yes to light, yes to love, and we offer this yes to everyone, everywhere, always, as long as we take breath.

     The revolution of Jesus began when Gabriel said—-“ummmm guess what Mary? You’ve been  been chosen to be the Theotokos—-the God bearer.” Now most of the art depicting this scene show a very holy Mary saying of course, why wouldn’t I, thanks for asking.” I don’t believe it. Mary had to have been terrified. What God was asking her to do had so many implications—-those she knew of and those she couldn’t even imagine. And yet, this 14 year old girl said yes. That is strength, that is courage—it is the stuff of a revolution.
 What Mary unleashed with her yes was a revolution and her song, the Magnificat, was her rallying cry.

 I implore us all to have it be ours as well:
I pray that our souls will at all times and in all places declare the Greatness of the Lord and that we will always rejoice in that.
I pray that we will do our part to cast down the cruel from their thrones, raising the meek and the honorable in all we do.
I pray that the hungry will be fed, the lonely will be loved and the excluded will be brought into the fold. ‘For when we do that, when we follow the spirit of Mary’s Song, when we follow the path she took of always trusting God even when it pierced her heart and worried her soul, when we do all of this, at all times and in all things, we will perpetuate the revolution that is Christianity. The revolution that is following the teachings of Jesus to love, no matter what.
When we do that, really do that, you know, as well as I do, that we will change this world.
And that, my friends is the stuff of revolution.


Amen.

Advent 2A Dec. 8, 2019 Stump or Shoot, God is Coming for Us! Alleluia.

+There are so many surprising images in today’s readings:

¬ Wolves and lambs lounging in a peaceful co-existence, leopards and lions playing, a baby crawling safely within the reach of the snake.

¬ Gentiles being welcomed into Judaism through the cleansing act of baptism—no 30 foot walls being erected to keep the Palestinians out of Israel back then-- the images of peaceful co-existence are almost unbelievable!

¬ And then we have wild and woolly John the Baptist flying INTO A RAGE at the Pharisees who’ve come to gawk at his somewhat bizarre presentation. There he is, all smelly and wrapped in camel hair, blasting his message to all within ear shot, a touch of crazed ramblings infused with a wisdom that cannot be denied.

¬ And one of my favorite images of all—that earnest little seedling shooting up from a stump: a branch from the tree of Jesse.

The family tree that was the House of David, looked mighty bleak when Isaiah was writing in the 8th c. BCE—it was a mere stump of its former glory---the House of David was under attack by the Assyrians, they were surrounded, defeat at every turn. 

Hard to be hopeful in such a situation...who can imagine anything growing while sitting on the stump of utter despair?

 I’ve sat there myself, perhaps you have, too. You may be there now -- at that place where hope is cut off, where loss and sadness have deadened your heart. A place where peace seems out of reach and happiness, the thing of fantasy.

  The good news is that God’s Advent word has come to sit on that stump, alongside us, right where we are. You see the promise of God doesn’t  come in a blaze of glory, it’s not delivered on a chariot of fire..no ,it comes to us exactly where we are and it comes to us just how we are...happy and hopeful, sad and despairing, raging and ranting. It doesn’t matter—God meets us right where we are.

Our message from Isaiah is filled with hopeful words creating a vision that’s surprising in its simplicity and honesty. Nothing hyperbolic and lofty here. God’s promise is matter-of-fact and brutally honest--the nation as they knew it would never rise again. The shoot would not become a mighty cedar... instead the shoot would become something altogether surprising, altogether different than anything anyone could ever expect. It won’t look mighty, it won’t be fierce… it will be a BABY born to peasants, IN A BARN among the cattle and the sheep and the donkeys. 

There is nothing overtly mighty in that scene at all... yet... in that barn , among those critters, God will come. And none of us will ever be the same again. 

   Yes, a shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse… fragile, yet tenacious and stubborn. It will grow like a plant out of dry ground. And it will be strong and miraculous enough to push back the stone from a rock-hard tomb.

The shoot will grow in the heart of those cut off by unbearable sorrow until one morning they can look up again. It will grow in the hearts of people told over and over that they are nothing, they are nobody.

In the depths of that sorrow, in the grip of that hate, the plant will grow. It will break through the places where darkness dwells, where hope loses its way, where loneliness spreads. The shoot will grow to sing shouts of Hosanna and Glory to God in the highest.

   My friends, this shoot emerging from the stump of Jesse—this fragile sign--- is the beginning of God’s incarnation—of God’s coming to us, as one of us!

Now, what about the seedling longing to burst forth in our own hearts? Deep in that place where faith longs to break through the hardness of our own disbelief, the frozen ground of our own fear, the rock hard stone of our own despair?  Folks, don’t wait for the tree to be full grown. Search for that sprout, encourage that shoot, welcome the God who comes to us in Advent; inviting us to move beyond all that was into all that will be.

We may still want to sit on the stump for a while and brood—that’s ok--God will sit with us. But God will also keep nudging us, saying: “Look! Look -- there on the stump. Do you see that green shoot growing?”

“O come, green shoot of Jesse, free

Your people from despair and apathy;

Forge justice for the poor and the meek,

Grant safety for the young ones and the weak.

Rejoice, rejoice! Take heart and do not fear,

God’s chosen one, Immanuel, draws near.”

My friends, a miracle is sprouting, the wonder of God is approaching, the Prince of Peace indeed is drawing near. Be alert, be prepared and be ready to shout with the angels and the shepherds, 

“Glory to God in the highest heaven and peace to God’s beloved people on earth! “

Amen!

https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1940