December 2018 – Word In Process

Christmas has only just begun

First Sunday after Christmas – December 30th, 2018 – Galatians 3:23-25, 4:4-7; John 1:1-18 – Trinity Church, Winchester

You can listen to this sermon by clicking here.

Today is the sixth day of Christmas. You would likely know that, even if you weren’t an Episcopalian, because of the famous song that reminds us all. Not to worry, I won’t be preaching about any “six geese a’laying.”

Nevertheless, I want to provide you with your annual reminder: Christmas is twelve days long. It’s not a day; it’s a season.

Sadly, by the first day of Christmas, most people—most Christians even—are tired of it. The mall has been decorated since Thanksgiving. Christmas music has been playing since Halloween. New Year’s Eve is just around the corner. (I bet we’ll be talking about our plans at coffee hour.)

By the time we’ve made it to church on Christmas Eve and unwrapped our presents on Christmas morning, we’re exhausted.

We’re tired of all the merriment, the holiday parties, the search for the perfect gifts, wrapping the perfect gifts, paying for the perfect gifts. Some of us adults might be tired of the kids who have already been out of school for a week. And some of us kids might be tired of being stuck at home.

It’s understandable. There’s a rush getting ready for Christmas. There are lots of sugar-cookies to frost, lots of grandchildren to buy for, and lots of places to set at the table.

It is human nature to throw ourselves into planning and preparing for events that, all of the sudden, are over. And it’s human nature to be (at least a little bit) glad when they are over.

Ever gotten married? After planning a wedding for months and months it’s only natural for the happy couple to pause and in some brief moment to look at one another and admit, “I’ll be glad when this is over.”

The same is true of pregnancy. At least, as far as I can tell. I’ve never experienced it, but I have heard expectant mothers say, “I just want this to be over.” Pregnancies are hard on the body, and they take courage and hard work to manage. A friend of mine who was on bedrest for several months of her pregnancy told me, “I can’t wait until this is all done.”

When we are in the midst of stressful and emotional times it makes sense to want them to end. Sometimes, though, we get so hung up on seeing things as endings that we forget that they are beginnings, too.

Brides and grooms may say, “I can’t wait until this is over.” But they also say things like, “I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you.” The wedding may be the end of the stress and planning and anticipation of the wedding day, but it’s the beginning of life together.

A pregnant woman may say, “I can’t wait until this is over,” but I’ve also heard her say, “I can’t wait to hold this baby in my arms.” The birth is the end of the pregnancy, but it’s the beginning of a completely new chapter of life. One that will contain a toddler, a middler-schooler, a college student, and maybe even grandchildren!

The same is true with Christmas. There are plenty of reasons to be glad that your Christmas festivities are over. It’s stressful to coordinate family schedules. Christmas is hard to face alone, especially for the first or second time. And let’s be honest, it’s awkward to make small talk with relatives you hardly ever see. But now is the time to remember that Christmas is first and foremost a beginning.

Christmas is the beginning of Christ in our midst. “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.”

The transforming birth of Jesus changes our relationship with God forever. God put on flesh and walked among us in order to tell us in the most profound way possible that God loves us. All of us.

The Apostle Paul reminds us in his letter to the Galatians that Christmas is the beginning of our new relationship with God. “When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman . . . so that we might receive adoption as children.” We are all children of God, and God lives in each of us—even in our flesh—forever. Christmas is the beginning of all that.

I know you’ve heard it before. “It’s still Christmas.” “Christmas lasts twelve days.” “We have until Epiphany, you know.” “Don’t undecorated the nave yet!” But I’ve decided that it is not the preacher’s job to worry about over-exposure to certain truths. Rather, it is the preacher’s duty to go right on preaching them. Today that truth is this: Christmas has only just begun.

You already know that Christmas is more than at day, that it’s a season. But let me let you in on a little secret: that season never ends.

Even next Sunday, when we come together to celebrate the Epiphany, it will still be Christmas, because the incarnate one will be with us. When Lent comes and our sins are heavy in our hearts, it will still be Christmas, because God will be with us. Emmanuel! When on Easter the joy of the Risen Christ fills the church with triumphant “Alleluias!” it will still be Christmas because the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

Every year of his life until this one, Walker has had the tradition of going with his mother to see Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol on stage at the Kansas City Repertory Theatre. For the past couple of years I have had the opportunity to go with them.

There’s one thing about that performance that I always seem to remember above all else. Toward the end, when Scrooge is begging for his very life, he lands on his knees in front of the “Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come,” and he mutters, “I will honor Christmas in my heart, I will honor Christmas in my heart, I will honor Christmas in my heart.”

Friends, if you want to honor Christmas in your heart, honor Jesus in your heart, keep him there always, and look for him in everyone you meet. If you do that, it will be Christmas all the time.

Sermons

How far is it to Bethlehem?

The Eve of the Nativity of Our Lord – December 24, 2018 – Luke 2:1-20 – Trinity Church, Winchester

Last year a group from my home parish journeyed to the Holy Land to see many of the storied sites of the Bible: Jerusalem, Galilee, Nazareth, Jericho, and of course, Bethlehem.

Bethlehem is one of the most famous cities in the region because of its place in the gospel story we just heard. The Church of the Nativity there boasts the traditional site of Jesus’ birth. I remember the day we took the short bus ride from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. My friend Collin shouted from the back of the bus, “How far is it to Bethlehem?”

I’ve been thinking about that question a lot lately. “How far is it to Bethlehem?” Collin was surely not the first person to ask this question. Think about the biblical Christmas narratives.

It’s census time. Caesar has spoken and Joseph has to get Bethlehem. Imagine a very pregnant Mary turning to him to ask with weary eyes, “How far is it to Bethlehem?”

While watching their sheep on a Judean hillside, a group of shepherds hear a heavenly noise. It’s like nothing they have ever experienced before. The angel tells them good news of great joy. “Go to Bethlehem and see.” After the angels depart, imagine a group of startled shepherds looking at each other and asking, “How far is it to Bethlehem?”

The magi observe a star in the east and make their way to Jerusalem asking, “Where is the child who has been born?” “In Bethlehem of Judea,” the prophets have written. Imagine the three tired travelers meeting eyes and simultaneously asking, “How far is it to Bethlehem?

It’s a question older than even the birth narratives.

The Book of Ruth tells us that Naomi moves with her family from Bethlehem to Moab. Soon tragedy befalls her. Her husband and sons die, and she prepares to move back to her hometown with her daughters-in-law. Imagine her gathering what’s left of her life and trying to remember, “How far is it to Bethlehem?”

The question is still alive and well in the present age.

Frances Chesterton wrote a poem entitled, “How far is it to Bethlehem?” It became a well-known English carol, set to various musical arrangements. You can hear both St. Patrick’s Cathedral Choir in Dublin and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sing it on YouTube.

“How far is it to Bethlehem? / Not very far. / Shall we find the stable-room / Lit by a star?”

Others have phrased the question slightly differently. There is a children’s book with the title, “How Many Miles to Bethlehem?” (There’s also a sing-along song and a stage play with the same name.)

The question has been on the minds of those past and present. It’s no surprise then that tonight we still come wondering, “How far is it to Bethlehem?”

As Christians of the twenty-first century we are well-versed in the Christmas story. We ask, “How far is it to Bethlehem?” knowing well what we will find there—Jesus Christ. God made man.

At Christmas we celebrate the incarnation. God made flesh. The incarnation tells us that God came to dwell with God’s people as one of them. Once and for all God became flesh to tell us that flesh matters. People matter. You matter.

Through Advent we heard tell of the one who is coming. Now he is here. Jesus breaks into a world of fear, of uncertainty, and of division and offers us saving grace. It’s a good thing, too, because we need him now more than ever.

This world needs Jesus. What else can we count on? The government? No, it’s shut down. Our political parties? All they do is argue. The stock market? I wouldn’t bet on it.

We need the one who promises to deliver us from this unpredictable and divisive world. We need Jesus. The good news is, Jesus is here. In our brokenness, grief, sadness, stress, anxiety, loneliness, and anger God is with us. Emmanuel.

Wherever you are in your humanity, the incarnation promises you that Jesus is right there with you. Bethlehem is right here among us and in us: holy people, fed with holy food, made in God’s holy image.

So, how far is it to Bethlehem?

Last year my friend Collin asked a simple question on a bus in Palestine, but what I remember better now is the reply yelled back from the front. “Not very far!”

No, it’s not very far at all.

Sermons

Came. Coming. Here.

First Sunday of Advent – December 2, 2018 – Jeremiah 33:14-16; Luke 21:25-36 – Trinity Church, Winchester

Today we begin again. We begin a new liturgical year by waiting with patience and expectation for the One who is promised to us. We begin by waiting for Jesus.

We wait, not only for his coming in flesh, but also his coming in glory. Because we focus on both the incarnation and the “parousia,”Advent is an interesting time of the church year to say the least. It both completes and renews our annual liturgical cycle. It renews our year with the longing for Jesus’ birth and concludes it with the expectancy of his second coming.

For this reason we might say that Advent is “a season under stress.” This stress makes for a season of some conflicting interpretations and practices. We see evidence of this conflict in today’s scriptures. One calls us to joyful longing and one to judgment and dread. [1]

“The days are surely coming,” we hear from Jeremiah, “when [the Lord] will fulfill the promise [he] made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah . . . I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.”

As Christians we understand Jeremiah’s interpretation of the coming Messiah to be fulfilled in the birth of Jesus Christ. This is a text of promise. It communicates our Christian hope of redemption and deliverance at the hand of the Messiah who comes, even as a baby.

From Luke, on the other hand, we hear Jesus himself, at the end of his public ministry. “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations . . . People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” It sounds a lot like, “Lo, he comes with clouds descending.”

Like today’s reading from Jeremiah, we can hear this passage from Luke as a text of promise. One day the Lord will come in glory to redeem us from the sin and destruction of this world. There’s hope!

However, the passage is scary and a little unsettling. We hear in it the dread that accompanies judgement. It is in this sense a text of terror. There will be distress on the earth. “People will faint from fear.” Watch out, Jesus warns, so that you are not caught off guard, as if in a trap.

Hearing eschatological, even apocalyptic, texts like this one, the Church seems to interpret them as either texts of promise or texts of terror. [2] But the two are not mutually exclusive. Advent reminds us to see them as both. The conflicting nature of these texts is not a bad thing; it is something to be cherished.

Today’s texts remind us of Advent’s complexity, but they are not our only liturgical reminders of the ambiguous nature of the season. Throughout its history the Church has emphasized both penitential and anticipatory aspects of Advent.

Some might silence the Gloria in favor of the Trisagion, as we have done, to emphasize a penitential component of the season. Some sacred ministers will wear deep purple—or even black—to orient worshippers toward a mindset of repentance in preparation for impending judgment.

On the other hand, others prefer to emphasize the joyful expectancy of the incarnation by adding a bit of greenery to liven things up. My childhood parish used to decorate for Christmas before Advent 1. If you were to visit different parishes over the next three weeks you would see varied interpretations across our denomination. You will certainly see pieces of each in this parish.

The nature of this season beckons us to sit in tension for a while. Adopting either of these approaches wholesale—whether donning the metaphorical sackcloth of repentance or decorating the tree and singing carols—is not advised. The point of Advent is to live into its ambiguity.

We don’t know much about the origin of Advent. If you’re interested, I can recommend some books on the subject like Waiting for the Coming by J. Neil Alexander. In it he tells us that one thing is clear from examining Advent’s somewhat fuzzy past: the church is not willing to settle for one story or another. Advent is not only about the judgement, hope, and expectation of the second coming or joyful longing and preparation for the incarnation. Advent is about participating in both of these realities. [3]

These two themes are inextricably intertwined for a very good reason–they remind us that our beginning is linked to our end. The Jesus who came is promised to come again. Our celebration and remembrance of the past and the hope and expectation of the future meet in our present reality.

Today’s collect helps us understand. Give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light now—in this mortal life in which your Son came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he comes again in glorious majesty, we may rise to the life immortal.

Right here, right now, we know that the same Jesus who came, and is coming, is among us and working in us. You may have heard it before. It’s sounds a lot like…

“Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.”

“We remember his death, we proclaim his resurrection, we await his coming in glory.”

That’s past, present, and future. Jesus walked among us. Christ will come in judgement of us. The Risen Lord is with us now. Came. Coming. Here.

If you dwell in Advent’s ambiguity and wait patiently, you will learn the most valuable lesson of all. Jesus is with you now, even while you wait for him. You have a whole lot to look forward to in the future. You have a whole lot to celebrate about the past. But you also have a whole lot of living to do right now. The good news is that Jesus is with you, and he guides you along the way.

Remember him, as a vulnerable infant, Expect him, like a valiant figure in the clouds. But most of all, experience him in the flesh like his disciples always have, in the breaking of the bread and the prayers.

[1] J. Neil Alexander, Waiting for the Coming: The Liturgical Meaning of Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany (Washington: The Pastoral Press, 1993), 23-24.

[2] Ibid., 20.

[3] Ibid., 24-26.