Wrestling with God

+Now you all don’t hear me talk much about sin. Sin is one of those church words that’s been so hijacked, been so misinterpreted that it’s hard to use in conversation without being misunderstood. But today I’m diving in. After all, it’s the first Sunday in Lent, what better time to talk about sin?
Last Sunday night I had a long wrestling match with sin. I had insomnia. I tossed and turned all night, worrying about something. My brain just wouldn’t stop---it just kept running the problem over and over in my head…finally around 4 am, exhausted and no closer to a solution than I had been at 11 pm it hit me----I wasn’t giving God any room . I wasn’t turning the problem over to God…and the only explanation for this, the only explanation for holding onto this problem throughout the long sleepless night was this: I didn’t trust God to handle it. I really thought that I had to come up with the solution myself, that somehow it wasn’t worth God’s time and concern….that God couldn’t be bothered.
In other words, I failed to trust God. I failed to let God in. I SHUT GOD OUT. And right there, in those three little words is a perfect definition of sin: shutting out God.
Remember, sin means missing the mark, sin means we’ve allowed ourselves to be ruled by fear, sin suggests we’ve forgotten about God. You see sin isn’t just some laundry list of misdeeds that we need to atone for before being in God’s favor. We are ALWAYS in God’s favor, we’re always God’s beloved. But when we close the door on our relationship with God, when we shut God out, we are harming ourselves. And us being hurt? That’s what hurts God.  Closing the door on our relationship with God hurts us so in turn, God is hurt. That’s sin.
So, the heart of our Lenten journey is to do whatever we can to LET GOD IN. To let God into the whole of our lives, completely thoroughly. It’s about entering into an active and trusting relationship with God.

Faith is about relationship….it’s about our relationships with each other, it’s about our relationship to all those whom we encounter outside these doors, but above all else, it’s about the relationship we have with God and the relationship we allow God to have with us.
I’ve mentioned before my somewhat pedestrian interpretation of the German priest and author Karl Rahner’s theology. With apologies to Fr. Rahner it boils down to this:
Our life is on a continuum….every decision we make, every action moves us on this continuum. At one end is God at the other end is what some people might call the Devil, others might call darkness, still others call evil and what I call Not God.  What we do—all day, every day either moves us closer to or farther away, from God.
Are you moving toward God or away? Are your choices fueled by light and grace or by darkness and despair? Do you trust God? I mean really trust God?
Jesus in today’s Gospel trusted God. And man oh man did that tick off the forces of darkness, the evil one, the Not God in our world. Jesus and Satan have a wrestling match of their own. And guess who wins?
Remember, Jesus has just emerged from the baptismal waters of the Jordan, he’s just been anointed as God’s beloved, the chosen one, when he’s thrust into 40 days of blistering heat, endless hunger, heart wrenching loneliness and 40 nights of bitter cold, desperate sleeplessness, and terrifying visions. The Devil is throwing everything but the kitchen sink at our Lord but because Jesus refuses to shut God out, because Jesus trusts in God no matter what, the temptations of the darkness, the evil forces of this world, the pull of His humanity do not win. In today’s Gospel, light defeats dark, hope overwhelms despair, Love beats hate and the march of God’s goodness continues on its way.
Today’s Gospel gives us hope; hope that as we begin our Lenten journey, the steady drumbeat of the light of Christ given to us at Christmas and  Epiphany will fuel us.
And that’s good news because to really do up Lent right, we need that light. For it’s that light which we use to shine in all the dark corners of our lives. You know those parts of us that we hide from, those things we left undone, or those things we’ve done that we wish we could undo.
The work of Lent is opening up space for God to come in and help us with the spring cleaning of our souls. In Lent we change the rhythm of our lives not so we can say that we successfully avoided chocolate or red meat or swearing or smoking for these 40 days, no we change the rhythm of our lives so that God can slip in and show up in the most unexpected places.
And this is where it can get a little tricky… changing the rhythm of our lives makes us vulnerable. Anytime we make a change, anytime we enter uncharted waters, we are vulnerable. And when we’re vulnerable we have two choices: stay in fear and trepidation, holding on for dear life or move into trust and faith, letting Go and letting God.
In case you didn’t know already, this is way easier said than done.
At 4 am last Sunday—well Monday morning---I realized I wasn’t trusting God. But that doesn’t mean I fell into blissful sleep and awoke to a settled mind and a soothed soul. Nope my wrestling match continued….I knew that I wasn’t trusting God, but it still took another day or so before I was able to drop all my defenses and open my arms wide to let God in…..and that’s ok. You see that’s what Lent is all about, learning how to trust that God, in the end, is always the one we can turn too, that God is always the one who can feed our hungers like no one or no thing else.
So the sin of my Sunday a week ago is not something to be ashamed of, it’s something to embrace, it was something to dive into because it is only in experiencing some dark nights of Not God that we can gain the courage and the trust to move fully and wholly into the bright days of Only God. +

February 3, 2013 Epiphany 4 The Greatest Gift of All

+Couple’s preparing for marriage almost always choose today’s Epistle reading for their wedding. Invariably, they choose it because they think it so clearly expresses the love they have for each other, the love which, in their mind, will be the sole focus  of the wedding ceremony they’re planning. “Oh,” they exclaim, it’s PERFECT.” But then the cranky old priest informs them that this reading isn’t about their love for one another. That it doesn’t have anything to do with them directly, that St Paul didn’t think much of marriage anyway, so their love was not even on his radar as he penned these words to his flock in Corinth.
And therein lies a big problem. This reading has been given the full Hallmark make-over—and in the process it has been relegated to the “wedding reading,” so ubiquitous, that we fail to notice the profound and earth shattering message Paul was providing. You see what Paul is saying, in short, is that without God, nothing matters. Nothing.
 That promotion you just got at work? Without God? Big deal.
That wonderful partner you just promised to love and to cherish until you are parted by death? Without God? Nothing.
The healing you’ve received from that horrible illness? Without God in the picture?  Forget about it.
Paul is telling us that all those gifts we’ve been given, all the gifts of the spirit he’s been blathering about in the previous chapter are completely and utterly worthless—they mean absolutely NOTHING if they aren’t wrapped in, infused with, and born out of Love.
Not the love of mother to child, not the love of husband to wife, not the love of partner to partner, not the love of friend to friend, but the Love from which all these loves emanate. The Love from which all of Creation pours: God.
In his very Paul way (rambling harsh and at times convoluted) Paul is telling us that GOD IS LOVE.
God is THE LOVE that puts the warmth in the sun, the sparkle in your beloved’s eye, the giggle in a  child, the blue in the sky and the hope of the world. And without it, without this Love above all other loves? Well without it our gifts, no matter how vast, no matter how amazing, no matter how cherished, end up like so many discarded toys a few days after Christmas: a bunch of twisted plastic, crumpled tissue paper, broken boxes and torn ribbons, forgotten and tossed aside.
A couple of years ago I began my Christmas Eve sermon by remembering this exchange I had with my niece Alyssa when she was a little girl:
“What’s this?” “A present for you.” “For me?” “Yes, it’s for you.” “Why?” “ Because I love you very much.”
It was either Christmas or her birthday and I was giving Alyssa a gift. Presents were kind of new to her, and she didn’t quite get that this was just for her… to keep. Forever! She was delighted beyond belief with the gift. But it wasn’t the doll or the book or the toy, it wasn’t even the thrill of receiving a gift from another. No for that little girl it was (and I might say, still is for the almost 25 year old woman she has become) the love which led me to want to give her something. That’s what gave her such a thrill. Out of her appreciation of that love, out of her love for me came her unbridled innocent response of joy: “For me? Especially for me?”
You see, little Alyssa got it right all those years ago: the REAL gift isn’t the toy or the book, or the ability to prophesy, or to heal or to preach or to do altar guild, or host coffee hour or serve on vestry—the REAL gift, the ONLY gift is Love.
We can be the greatest at what we do—the best lawyer, the best writer, the best teacher, the best nurse, the best volunteer, the best mother, the best father, the best friend, the best partner, the best the best the best—but if we do these things for our own glory and not for God’s, if we do these things for our own gain solely and not for the good of the whole, if we do these things in a vacuum oblivious to our responsibility to the world around us, then these gifts, these skills, these talents are just a noisy clanging bell signifying absolutely nothing.
The astonishing thing about this reading, the thing lost on so many of us who have heard the reading ad nauseum at weddings is this:
The Love of which Paul speaks “bears all things. Believes all things. Hopes all things.”
It. Never. Ends. Everything else—everything else—will end. All our gifts—no matter how fabulous-- all that we are and all that we have will end. It will all decay and crumble. It will all be forgotten and lost. But, not love. Not this Love that is God. Not this Love that fueled the dawn of creation. Not this Love that welled up and came to live among us in the person of Jesus Christ.
This Love, the Love beyond all understanding, the Love beyond full comprehension, the Love we can only see through a glass dimly until the Last day—this is the Love that knits us, inextricably and forever, to God. AND, it is the Love that, inextricably and forever, knits us to one other. For it is in us and through us that the Love to end all Loves, the Love that is God takes shape as the Body of Christ in this world.
So unwrap your gifts, exclaim your joy and know that this Greatest Gift of All, the Love that is God, will never end, it will never wear out and it will never ever fail us. Thanks be to God! +

New Wine, New Year, New Future Jan 20, 2013

I wonder if Jesus’ mother, Mary, is related to my mother, Elaine. When Mary comes to Jesus saying, “they’re running out of wine---you must do something!” I’m reminded of the many parties my parents hosted when I was young….the biggest worry leading up to those parties was whether or not there was enough food and drink---especially drink!  Now, whenever I have people over, or have a wedding reception, I am stressed and worried that there won’t be enough.
 Both my mom and I have a fear of scarcity, of there not being enough. But that’s not what was going on with Mary. You see, Mary’s always the smartest one in the room, the most intuitive, so when she says to Jesus—“you’ve got to do something, we’re running out of wine,” she wasn’t acting out of fear or face-saving, she just knew that it was time, time for her Son to live into the ministry he was born to do. Time for her son to take the old and turn it into the altogether new.
Jesus doesn’t think it’s his time, but Mary doesn’t really care what he thinks, she knows it’s time and he must act. So he does. Whether or not his time has come in his mind or not, Jesus’ ministry has begun.
But, because this is John’s Gospel, it just isn’t as clear as I’m making it sound.  This Gospel is full of symbolism. Unlike Matthew, Mark and Luke; John makes no pretense that his Gospel is a straight-forward, historical narrative of the life and ministry of Jesus.
When reading John we must always remember that what’s presented is only part of the story, with John there’s always more symbolism than our brains can take on the first read through. It’s a little bit like reading William Faulkner or Toni Morrison. Or watching the TV show Lost.
 In this Gospel, things are always different from how they seem, so it can be a bit tricky to figure out what John is getting at.
A prevailing theme for John is the dawning of a new age. To John, the coming of Jesus as the Messiah has changed the world from what it used to be into something altogether new.
This is why John prefers to use the word “signs” instead of “miracles.” The things Jesus did, like turning water into wine, were signs to the faithful that the way we experience God and the way God experiences us is now changed.
What Jesus did was not about an obedient son reluctantly doing what his mother asked; nor was it about Jesus making sure the host of the wedding was not embarrassed by the wine running out, nor was it about making sure those attending the party were able to keep drinking.
What’s really significant in this story is that the water is special water. It’s water that’s been set aside for the Jewish purification rites. It’s there for the people to use for washing. But it wasn’t about being sanitary or comfortable. This washing was a religious ceremony; a ritual cleansing in order to go before the Lord during the wedding feast. In this sign Jesus takes the old- the ritual bath water- and turns it into the new- fresh wine.
It’s important to realize that this is not an anti-semitic reading---Jesus didn’t take the bad or the wrong and turn it into the good and the right! He did not take the useless and turn it into the useful. He took good things from the past and transformed them, changed them, into other good things for the future.
On this annual meeting Sunday we ask, where have we been and where are we going? Or to expand the metaphor of this gospel: What’s our water that Jesus has come to turn into wine? What are the good things from our past that can be  changed into good things for our future?
[GOOD SHEP: We continue a very steady growth. We have lots of children in our midst, our Sunday School program is thriving. How else can we serve the young families of our parish and in our neighborhood? Would some of the older couples in the parish like to engage in a parenting support group, sharing the wisdom of years with the younger members? Do we want to have more intergenerational events? How shall we engage the new demographic taking hold here?
We are at a crossroads with the Elam Jewett Café, it may or may not re-open. If it doesn’t re-open what will we do with that space? If it does re-open how can we do more to support this effort? As we look at our role in the greater community, what can we do to make a bigger difference in this city? We’ve expanded the hours of the Food Pantry, how do we get more of us involved in this major outreach effort? What else can be done? How else can we be the Body of Christ, the Light of Christ in our neighborhood, our city, our state, our country, our world?]
[ASCENSION:  We have new parishioners, people who have started to attend here over the past two years who are taking on more leadership roles. Some of our long-time leaders appear ready to hand over the reins…but this transition can be difficult. New leaders may do ---new leaders will--do things differently. Are we ready to let some new people try some new things? Can we let go of the old water and allow it to be turned into new wine? It’s tough to do, but it is vital to our future.]
The new age brought by Jesus the Christ is an ongoing age of transformation and growth.
We’re not the people we once were; nor are we the people we will someday become.
We’re in a state of fluidity; we’re water being changed into wine.
We have choices, as individuals and as communities of faith. We can face the future's changes with fear of scarcity and resistance to change; or, we can embrace them with abundant faith and overflowing excitement.
Either way, change is going to happen, the new age is upon us, the water is beginning to change, and whether we’re ready for it or not, whether we think the time has come or not, God is smack dab in the middle of it all: past, present and future.

We are God's Beloved. 1st Sunday after the Epiphany Jan 13, 2013

There are a lot of controversial issues in the church these days; hymnal and prayer book revisions, the election of a new Presiding Bishop, too many aging church structures, same gender marriage. And baptism. Ok so maybe baptism isn’t what first popped into your head as a hot button issue of the church, but it really is. This summer I got into a somewhat heated debate on Facebook about the role of baptism and communion—basically whether it is ever ok to give someone communion who is not baptized. I bowed out of the debate fairly quickly when I realized that the people with whom I was debating were never going to see that I was right. ;-)
So you see, Baptism is a hot button issue.
Actually canon law—the law that govern the church—is pretty straightforward: Communion is open to all baptized Christians. Now if one were to follow the letter of the law one would say this law is clear: no baptism, no communion. But it doesn’t say that, precisely. And therein lies the crux of the debate. Are we following the letter of the law or the spirit? And if the spirit, just what IS the spirit of the law? And who is the arbiter of that spirit? As you can tell, it gets murky and messy really fast.
So for me, while it may not be clear, it’s pretty easy, because I just proceed by doing what feels faithful and welcoming and by avoiding what doesn’t. And what doesn’t feel right, under any circumstance, is a litmus test for receiving the Eucharist. I mean it when I say that all who feel drawn to the altar are encouraged to come forward and be fed. That said, I am also a huge fan of baptism and feel that anyone who is drawn to the table of the Lord on a regular basis would benefit greatly from being baptized. So I am VERY COMFORTABLE inviting all to the altar but am also hopeful that those of you who are not baptized would feel compelled to pursue this fundamental sacrament of our faith.
 But baptism is a whole lot more than some type of admission rite to communion. Baptism is a naming rite,  a welcoming rite, a symbolic rite. Baptism is a cornerstone of our Christian faith….not for what it allows the recipient to do as much as for what it gives to the recipient and to the community of faith surrounding and supporting that person.
On this first Sunday after the Epiphany, on this first Sunday of the rest of Christ’s life, of the manifestation of Christ in our world, of Jesus’ baptism, of Jesus’ naming as God’s beloved, of Jesus’ reception of the Holy Spirit—on this First Sunday after the Epiphany-- a LOT HAPPENS.
Just like at every baptism. Which is why baptism, in and of itself, is such a big deal.
At the beginning of the Rite of Baptism we proclaim, in no uncertain terms, that there is One Body and One Spirit. One Hope in God’s Call to Us. One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism. People often misread this as exclusionary language. “There is one Faith. Ours. We’re in, the rest of the world, OUT.” But that’s not what it says. With these words God is telling us, and we are reminding ourselves,  that there is one Faith with lots of different versions therein. We are all members of this One Faith if we do one very simple thing: love our God with all our heart and with all our mind and with all our soul. We are to love our Creator, the one who is Divine Parent and Creator of ALL. Everyone. No exceptions.
That’s why I say, all who feel drawn to the altar---all who feel drawn to God---are welcome here. Not because I get to decide if they meet an admission standard but because the only requirement for admission into the Kingdom of God is a willingness to accept the Love God continually and forever pours out for God’s Beloved---all of us. Everyone.
God gives, it’s up to us if we receive. And this receiving, this reception? Well it’s a big part of baptism.
In our tradition, most baptisms are of children.  A child is the most pure and present manifestation of God’s love in our world. The gift of a child is miraculous, precious and incomprehensible. It is, each and every time, a miracle. After being blessed with such an incredible indescribable gift, it’s natural for those who love the child to want to present him or her back to the God who formed them, who created them, who loved them before everyone else. So, we present the child to God, to thank God for the gift and to remind ourselves, and the community of faith of which we are a part, of our responsibility in raising this child. That it is our responsibility to help the newly baptized receive all the gifts of the spirit available. It is our responsibility, as a community of faith, to build them up, to raise them if they fall, to cheer them when they succeed, to weep with them when they don’t. You see that’s why baptisms should never ever be private. Because raising a child takes a whole community. So we, in the baptismal liturgy, promise to care for this child of God, be they an infant, a young child, a teenager or an adult, as long as they live. It is a huge responsibility, it is a solemn vow and it is what being part of a church community is all about.
So as we commemorate the baptism of the adult Jesus by John in the Jordan River, let us put aside the arguments about who is in and who is out and simply remember that in baptism we don’t say welcome to the club, in baptism we say, thank you to God. Because baptism is how we, as a people of faith, as a family of faith, as a church, say to one another: we are God’s beloved children and in us, God is well pleased.   Amen.

The Word is how God touches Us and We touch God

+The Gospel for today is John’s Christmas story. I know, there’s not a donkey or a manger or a shepherd or a star in sight. There’s no Joseph, no Mary. No baby Jesus. No silent night, No Angels harking. None of that.
But just what is a Christmas story anyway? A Christmas story is a way for us to make sense of our faith. It’s a way to understand that Jesus is God and that God is Jesus.
See…right there it gets really confusing. Doesn’t it? God is Jesus Jesus is God….what?
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.
It’s easier to understand than you may think. You see, in the beginning, when creation was, well, creating….Jesus was there. But not the Jesus we’ve come to know through the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, not the Jesus of Paul’s many letters…no the Jesus who was there was not the man who is God, it was instead the God who will become Jesus.
Jesus the Divine was there, not Jesus the Man.
Jesus the man came later, because Jesus the man is an instrument used by God to reach us.
 This is where that whole idea of “The Word” comes from. “The Word” is a translation of the Greek concept of Logos. Logos has been defined many ways but in our usage Logos is the discourse---the conversation-- between God and God’s creation. We can’t experience God because God isn’t an old white man sitting on a throne. God is Love, God is Light, God is Peace. God is energy. God is not a person. God is not physical, God is not material. So the Logos, the Word, is how God reaches out to God’s creation. Jesus is this Logos, Jesus is this Word.
Jesus is how God touches us and how we touch God. And isn’t that what Christmas is all about—God reaching out to us?
But, because it’s John’s Gospel, there’s still more to this story. You see not only is this Prelude of John a Christmas story, it’s also a Creation story. John writes:
All things came into being through The Word, and without The Word not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
The basic premise of creation stories is that in the beginning God created the light. The very first thing created out of the muck and the mess, the first thing created out of the deep was light.
And with this notion that light was created out of darkness comes one of the cornerstones of John’s theology—that God is the light and that not-God is darkness. It’s as basic as the good guys wearing white hats and the bad guys wearing black hats in those old tv westerns: Light is good. Dark is bad. Light is safe, dark is dangerous. Light is warm, dark is cold.
God is all that is good, “not God” is all that is not good. Jesus is God in the world….God is light, Jesus is in the world, so Jesus is the light of the world.
God is always battling the forces of darkness, because the primordial muck from which creation emanated is always trying to overtake the Good ness that is God.
This light stuff is where that other John, John the Baptist comes in. You see John –the Gospel writer, the evangelist NOT the Baptist---is trying to establish the basic Christian belief that Jesus is the Messiah, Jesus is God in the flesh, Jesus is the Light of the world, to his readers---primarily those philosophical Greeks and the stuck in the old ways Jews of the late first century world.
So John the gospel author introduces his readers to a herald of the light, a witness to the coming of the messiah--John the Baptist. We read:
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
And so, here we have a Christmas story all wrapped up in a Creation story, with a touch of Advent thrown in for good measure. This Gospel is trying, in 18 verses, to give us the whole ball of wax in one fell swoop:
God in all of God’s “godness” is intangible, unknowable to us basic humans, so God uses an instrument to reach us, an instrument to engage us in a relationship we can grasp. God does this by taking on flesh in the person of Jesus. Jesus comes to us seemingly as a man just a man, but soon we learn, along with him, that while he is a man he’s also much more. We learn that he is God who has taken on the human form in hopes that we, the regular old humans, will embrace the man and through that embrace, learn to love the God.
So John’s Christmas story doesn’t have a donkey or a manger or a shepherd or a star. His story doesn’t have a Joseph, or a Mary. There’s no baby born in a barn. No silent night, no Angels harking and heralding. Nope, John’s Christmas story has none of that. What it does have is, very simply, a God who wants nothing more than for us to Love one another just as that same God Loves us.
Now where have I heard that before?
Amen.

I Believe--Christmas 2012

I believe. Do you?
I believe that Jesus is God in the flesh, born of a peasant girl and her betrothed, Joseph.
I believe that this was an extraordinary birth in otherwise ordinary circumstances.
I believe that God chose to come among us in this way because God didn’t want to make a big splash.
 I believe God wanted to come to us in a whisper not a shout.
I believe God wanted to ease into living among us, as one of us.
And I believe we  needed to be eased into having God among us, in the flesh.
I believe this was not something to be entered into unadvisedly or lightly. I believe this needed to be entered into cautiously and with restraint.
I believe that God came quietly to live among us, because I believe God really really wanted to know just what it was like to be human.
I also believe that God’s birth in the person of Jesus Christ was so extraordinary in its ordinariness that creation just couldn’t hold back in the restraint God intended.
I believe that the birth of Jesus in that barn…was so glorious that the heaven’s opened up, angels descended and the stars shone extra brightly.
Just like every birth.
Yes I believe that the birth of Jesus was just like every other birth.
You don’t believe me do you?
You don’t think a heavenly host descends to earth singing the praises of a newborn savior each and every time a baby is born?
You mean that the birth of a baby each and every time isn’t a miracle?
You don’t think that the gift of a new life, no matter what the circumstances is an event deserving of awe and wonder?

Here’s what I know from my very limited study of biology but my extensive experience of walking the walk of pregnancy and birth with many friends family members and parishioners. And what I know from my experience of walking the walk of wanting to be pregnant but not being able to conceive. And walking the walk of getting pregnant but not being able to stay pregnant:
Every single pregnancy that leads to a live birth is a miracle.
So much can go wrong, so much does go wrong. Delivering a healthy happy baby is a miracle. Each and every time.
So while we may not think that the world erupts into a chorus of Joy to the World each and every time a baby is born then we just aren’t listening.
You see, Jesus being born to two ordinary people in a somewhat extraordinary circumstance is exactly how the Messiah, the Prince of Peace, Emmanuel, God in the flesh needed to come to us.
Because the sacred isn’t only the gold and shiny, the neat and tidy, the all put together in colorful paper and ribbons.
The sacred isn’t only the glorious sunsets, it’s also the rain storms.
The sacred isn’t only the fabulous arias, it’s also the tinny tune of a tone deaf child
The sacred isn’t only on Christmas and Easter.
The sacred is every single day.
The sacred is Creation.
All of it.
The sacred is all that God has created, because all that God creates is beautiful, stunning and miraculous.
All that God creates is priceless
All that God creates is holy
And all that God creates is wonderful.
This is the wonder and the glory of this holy and blessed night: that God came to be among us in the skin and bones of humanity, in the dirt and dust of the wilderness, in the baying, baa-ing, mooing  and clucking of the donkeys, sheep, cows and chickens of that barn. That God came to be in the hearts and minds and souls of each and every one of us gathered here on this silent night.
I believe that God as Jesus Christ was born to Mary and Joseph and that this birth was revealed with a great heavenly host to shepherd’s tending their flock in a nearby field because God is in the ordinary and the mundane, as well as the extraordinary and the magnificent.
I believe that Jesus is born to Mary and Joseph each and every year so that maybe, just maybe, a few more people will come to believe that God loves us—US—so much God just can’t stay distant from us.
I believe in the miracle of Christmas, because I believe in the never-ending, all encompassing love of God, a God who needed, absolutely positively needed to be with us, skin and bones, dirt and dust, baying and mooing and baaing.
I believe in Christmas everyday of every year.
So Merry Christmas today, Merry Christmas Tomorrow, Merry Christmas every single day of your lives.
I believe. Do you?
 Amen.

Mary A Lifetime of God-Bearing Advent IV 2012

Mary is my hero.
Year in and year out, I am utterly blown away by the witness of Mary, the mother of Jesus, his first disciple, and the only person present at the birth, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus…Mary’s little boy.
I love Mary.  But not the Mary of adoration and mysticism. Not the “Holy Mother, ever blessed Virgin.” No, I love Mary, the young woman who was, by all accounts, a faithful servant, a good daughter and well…normal.
Mary was a simple young woman living an ordinary life when, suddenly, her life was turned on it’s ear after a visit from the angel Gabriel.
Now many of you know that I have a thing about angels. And not always good thing. I’m just not sure what to make of them.
First of all they have wings. And for those of you who were around a couple of summers ago when I had a bat in the Rectory you know that I am terrified…. completely and utterly terrified of sharing space with a winged creature. I have no issue with birds flying around outside, far above my head, but when anything larger than a mosquito starts flying around my house, near me? I freak out.
So right there, angels kind of bug me.
And then there’s that whole thing about what an angel is…not human, not divine, but somewhere in between…. Just what is an angel?
All that being said, I do appreciate the role of angels in the history of our faith…but those flapping wings? I prefer my angels to look less like the flying monkeys in the Wizard of Oz and more like Clarence from It’s a Wonderful Life. I am more comfortable with angels who look more like you and me and less like, well…angels….
So that’s why I’m pretty sure I would like Gabriel. I just have a sense that Gabriel would be a more regular type guy, regular enough that his initial appearance to Mary didn’t freak her out.
I envision Gabriel as fitting into the landscape of Mary’s world.
So when he appears at Mary’s door, or when he encounters her at the market or down by the river while she washed clothes or out back as she gathered pomegranates from the bushes, Mary is receptive to him.
Mary receives the message he gives her, outrageous and fantastic as it sounds. Mary receives the message. Mary accepts the message. And then Mary waits. And wonders. And ponders.
Yes Mary is my hero because she was receptive to receiving the Word of God through the angel Gabriel.
Mary’s also my hero because not only did she accept the Word of God through Gabriel she literally BORE the Word of God. Mary, the God-Bearer carried the incarnated God in her womb for nine months. The word of God grew within her until it could no longer be contained and it burst forth, changing the world. Forever.
And Mary’s my hero because after that birth she led the Lord of Lords and King of Kings, the Prince of Peace, the Messiah, her baby boy…through all the trials and tribulations of childhood.
She nursed him.
She weaned him.
She soothed him when he fell.
She encouraged him as he grew into his role, as he learned that he was, indeed
The Lord of Lords…. the Prince of Peace, the Messiah
And she was there when that role reached its necessary conclusion on that hilltop called Calvary, nailed to that tree.
Yes Mary bore the Word of God as her own flesh and blood and together with him she bore the slings and arrows, the jubilation and the joy of being God in the Flesh, Emmanuel.
But most of all, Mary is my hero because she said yes.
She is my hero because she was open to receiving God and when God asked, she said yes.
Would you? Would I?
How does God ask us to bear the Word of God? And when we are asked, do we say yes?
That’s our task during these days of incarnation, these days of a miracle birth in Bethlehem---to ask ourselves, how has God presented Godself to me? Has God come to us like Clarence?
Or like Gabriel?
Or has God come to us in the neighborhood child who could use a smile.
Or the elderly woman in the grocery store who cannot reach the top shelf?
Or the homeless and the hungry?
The destitute and the depressed?
The lost and the lonely?
Perhaps God has asked us to bear the Word of God while we stood in the voting booth, or while we decide where to spend our money, or when we know a friend or family member is in an abusive relationship.
Maybe God asks us to Bear God’s Word at all times. And in all places.
And maybe, maybe that’s the point of God coming to be among us in the first place…to show us, to teach us that bearing the Word of God is not a once in a lifetime thing, it’s a lifetime thing.
Mary is my hero because Mary’s life was spent, being the God-Bearer. In all that she was and in all that she did.
May we strive to do the same.
Amen.