Jesus – Page 8 – Word In Process

It Takes Courage

April 27, 2017 – Thursday in the Second Week of Easter – Acts 5:27-33

Tonight I preached at the seminary’s final Community Eucharist of the semester. To view the sermon click here.

And so it is with today’s reading from The Acts of the Apostles as it has been with many of our readings from Acts since Easter: we join the following program already in progress.

The lectionary people have invited us into a vignette that is but one in a series of events in which the disciples find themselves in deep trouble. They have been performing healing miracles and teaching all over Jerusalem in the name of the Risen Lord Jesus. And here’s the thing: a lot of people are loving it. They’re won over by the hundreds. It’s no secret that Peter and the rest were good at what they were doing, and in tonight’s reading they appear before the council largely for that reason.

At the outset of the passage it says, “When they had brought them [from the Temple where they had been teaching], they had them stand before the council. The high priest questioned them…” They brought them, they had them stand before the council, and the high priest questioned them—it just sounds like a biblical precedent for our discernment process.

But, it’s more than that. We need to pay attention to what’s happening here—it’s pretty serious stuff. This is the same council that Jesus appeared before. These folks really don’t like the disciples stirring up people’s emotions and disturbing the civil order. No government does.

The council elders say, “We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and you are determined to bring this man’s blood on us.”

Listen to that: “You have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and you are determined to bring this man’s blood on us.”

It’s blood that the council members don’t want anything to do with, bad blood. “Don’t you go blaming us for his death!” the council elders seem to be saying. [1] Oh the nastiness, animosity, and distrust they feel toward that blood!

For many Christians today that blood is a good thing. It’s like when I see Tom Early in the hallway. “How are you, Tom?” He replies with a crooked smile, pointing his index finger at me, “Washed in the blood of the lamb.” The fountains of hymnody flow with it. It’s the only tonic capable of curing our sinful ways.

But these folks are afraid of that blood (and rightfully so perhaps). They don’t trust what the disciples are doing. “Don’t blame me for what’s happened!” It’s like—don’t put that evil on me!

They’re afraid, and they’re mad at the disciples; mad because they fear being associated with Jesus and his death. Deep down I think they’re scared that what happened to him will happen to them if the disciples keep winning people over. As their fear increases they lash out in anger at the disciples who are the living, breathing symbols of Jesus.

Sound familiar? It’s what we do. It’s our human condition, evidence of our frailty. When we’re afraid, it feels more natural, easier, to lash out in anger than it does to take up courage. When everything is piling up, you’re exhausted just trying to make it to the end, and you open your mail box and find a C- where there should be at least a B+ and you get angry. You might not pass. You take it out on the professor. Then you find out your diocese has released you, you might not have a job. You take it out on your spouse or your bishop. These types of things don’t exactly breed courage, but courage is exactly what it’s going to take to fill Jerusalem with the news of the Risen Christ.

This is the last one of these Thursday night Eucharists for a while, and as we look around the room we’ll the see the faces of those who won’t be here when the next one rolls around. Some of our friends won’t be back. They’re headed out into a world that’s very fearful. They’ll need some courage to fill Jerusalem with the news of the Risen Christ.

Courage is required, or else we’ll get stuck in the cycle of fear, too. When your new neighbor at the rectory says, “Listen preacher, it’s like I told the last guy, we don’t need you nosing around here. Wife’s got cancer and my back is acting up again. I’m out of work. God has nothing to do with us.” It’s too easy to ignore the promise of Easter in times like that and to become a prisoner of fear. We can’t let ourselves do that.

We’ve got to take courage like the disciples do when they say, “We must obey God rather than any human authority,” they say. “The God of our ancestors raised up Jesus … exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior … and we are witnesses to these things…”

That kind of courage is a no-brainer to them by this point. They are literal witnesses to the resurrection. They have no reason to fear any civil authority. When they said this council members got so mad they wanted to kill the disciples. But it’s no matter; the disciples have a reason to hope.

They may have no reason to fear death, but for us it’s much harder, don’t you think? Can you go out into Jerusalem and testify to things that enrage people to the point they want to kill you? It takes a lot of courage. Can you do it?

And don’t say, “Well Peter did it and he’s our model so we’ve got to go and do likewise,” because it’s not the same. No, it’s not the same for us, because they actually saw it. They were there when they nailed him up and they were there to hear the news of his resurrection and they were there when he appeared to them, and breathed on them, and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

They were there, but we weren’t. It was easier for them to live into the promise of the resurrection because they witnessed it firsthand and so could obey God without question, right? It’s harder for us, right? It’s harder now that it’s 2017. That was all so long ago. I want to know how we can do it now!

To say today that we must obey God rather than any human authority—it’s laughable! Can you even imagine how much courage that would take?

Where does it come from? Where does our courage come from today?

In a nursing home sits an old woman that I’ve become reacquainted with recently. She’s the sweetest thing, but it’s a terrible place. I bet you’ve been there. It’s damp and cramped. There are fans that circulate air that has long since stopped moving; all they do is mix the smell from the kitchen with the smell of stale bed sheets. She’s so sweet, but I don’t know how she has the courage to go on in there. The staff members are always scowling. They don’t even try to hide it from the visitors anymore. Where does her courage come from? I can hardly even stand to visit.

Before I knock on the door I peek my head around and see her there reading her Bible. It’s the only book she’ll even try to read anymore. I don’t know how she could go on. I sit down and she tells me she’s been thinking about her family. Each night when the nurse puts her in bed she thinks of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren and she prays for them. How does she go on? The nurse comes in to bring her pills. “Oh, thank you so much, honey. I know you’re busy,” she says. How does she do it? She tells me about her new friend at her table in the dining room. They used to go to church near each other, so they have something to talk about. “She’s a good Christian woman,” she says. As I get up to leave she asks me, “Before you go, do you think we might have a prayer?”

I just don’t know where she gets that courage…

[1] Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler, editors. The Jewish Annotated New Testament: New Revised Standard Version (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 208.

Sermons

“You Have No Power”

Good Friday-April 14, 2017-John 18 & 19

My Good Friday sermon from “Preaching Against Violence” class.

Jesus refuses to speak.

[Pilate] entered his headquarters again and asked Jesus, “Where are you from?” But Jesus gave him no answer. Pilate therefore said to him, “Do you refuse to speak to me? Do you not know that I have power to release you, and power to crucify you?” Jesus answered him, “You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above; therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.”

Jesus refuses to speak.

“Where are you from?”

Silence.

“Don’t you know that I have the power to either release you or crucify you?”

Another pause. And then Jesus says, “You have no power … unless it was given to you from above.”

“You have no power.

“You may think you do, Pilate, but you don’t. Sure, you could have me killed, or you can set me free. If you set me free they will riot, and then they’ll find someone else to blame. You can have me killed, and they’ll be satisfied for a moment or two. It’ll buy you a few weeks, but they’ll be back. There will be something else, someone else.

“All of that out there—the angry crowd, the screaming, the hate welling in their hearts and spewing from their lips—you have no power over it; you can’t really control it. The only true power comes from above. My father has not given you that kind of power.”

Jesus knows that something far greater than human power is at work in the events of his crucifixion. Evil forces conspire to create divisions that Pilate and the angry crowd are completely unaware of. Jesus knows that the power of Satan is at work and its plotting to get exactly what it wants.

All around us the devil’s scandals run riot. Some develop quickly, others over long periods of time. Sooner or later those scandals envelope even us. They carry us unknowingly along with them, and all the while we are complicit in evils of which we are completely unaware. [1]

Don’t believe me? Take Jesus’ word for it. In John’s gospel he tells us, “If God were your Father, you would love me…you are of your father the devil and it is the desires of your father that you wish to do.”

“Your father, from the beginning, was not my father. My father you do not imitate, but you imitate the devil. You take after him. You’re using the devil as a model for your life, not God.”

We’re tempted to use the devil as a model for our life. Not God. Never has that been more apparent than it was on the day God died.

It is apparent because, we, in our frail human condition, have become rivals of one another. We, in our lowliness, have become living obstacles, stumbling blocks for each other. We, in our unworthiness have begun to think the worst of each other. When things get this bad, it starts to look a lot like our problems will be solved if we destroy each other. We begin to think that if we could just eliminate the enemy everything would be okay. We begin to think that if we can squelch our rival everything will be just fine. [2]

If only I could rid my side of town of that black family. It would be nicer. People would feel like walking up and down the sidewalks again and looking at the flowers. Parents would let their children play in the yard. We could leave our doors unlocked!

Satan wins when our rivals start to look a lot like our neighbors, and their rivals a lot like their neighbors, and in our effort to beat those rivals we all band together to take them on!

If we could just get rid of the Muslims then our country would be safe again! If we could just push the Mexican’s back across the border and build that fence high enough, then we’d have more jobs again.

Satan’s winning.

And if we all group together and lynch our rival, that’ll fix it!

Satan’s winning.

Once we’ve gotten rid of the Muslims and the Mexicans we’ll oust the Catholics! We’ll identify a new rival in our community. One of those who used to be one of us no starts to look a lot like our arch-nemesis.

Satan’s winning.

Boy, the devil’s really got us wrapped around tight, and we don’t even know it.

When we get rid of them, all will be right with the world! Yes! That’s right. And then we’ll take on the next, and the next, and the next and we’ll keep weeding out our enemies until until there’s nobody left to weed but God!

We have to understand that Satan gloms onto us like bacteria. He’s contagious. [3] We are infected with an evil that has no identity apart from its affect on us. It’s proclivity to make us sin is its lifeblood, and it’s detrimental to us and to the kingdom of God.

If we do Satan’s bidding, if we act as children of Satan instead of children of God, then why is Jesus silent? Why doesn’t he speak up? Well, I don’t know, but in his silence he says more than we could ever hope to understand, more than we could ever hope to be able to say out loud.

Where are you from?

Silence.

Why even dignify it with a response?

“You have no power,” he tells us. “You have no power unless it comes from God.” We have to understand that before we can understand what comes next. As long as we lead lives of service to spiritual forces of wickedness, to hatred, to that which stands opposed to God, then we have no power.

But we do! We do have power. We have power to drive out the Muslims and the Mexicans!

No, Jesus is here to tell us we don’t.

Last year the Bishops of our Church heard him loud and clear. They issued a statement critical of our nation’s political climate during Holy Week saying, “We reject the idolatrous notion that we can ensure the safety of some by sacrificing the hopes of others.” [4]

They told us that even in a country shadowed by the lynching tree we continue turn against our neighbors. We seek safety and security at the expense of others, and we think nothing of it. Satan has made an idol of our privilege. Satan drowns us so deep in death that we are willing to stand by while our Lord is killed.

We have no power to save ourselves.

No, of course we don’t.

Only God can do that.

[1] Rene Girard, I See Satan Fall Like Lightning (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2001), 41.

[2] Girard, 38-41.

[3] Girard, 32-46.

[4] The House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church, A Word to the Church (Holy Week 2016).

Sermons

Everything To God In Prayer

La quinta semana en Cuaresma 4 de abril, 2017 – Numbers 21:4-9, John 8:21-30

I preached this sermon at one of our biweekly Spanish Eucharists. What an honor to be asked! I’m grateful for the seminary’s pastoral Spanish program. (See both Spanish and English versions below.)

Frecuentemente nos volvemos insatisfechos con Dios; no creemos que, en nuestras circunstancias actuales, le importemos a él. Vemos ejemplos de nuestra inclinación a la insatisfacción reflejada de vuelta a nosotros en ambas escrituras de hoy del Antiguo y del Nuevo Testamento.

Los israelitas eran impacientes, no confiaban en Dios, y empezaron a quejarse (algo que no resultó muy bien). En su impaciencia y desconfianza Dios les mandó serpientes para que les mordieran y muchos murieron. Solamente ante su muerte inminente admitieron su pecado y le pidieron piedad a Dios.

Del mismo modo, los judíos, como fueron representados en el evangelio de Juan, no aceptaron lo que Jesús les dijo. Muchos no lo tomaron en su palabra. Ellos también sufrieron una muerte, pero no una literal como la de los antiguos israelitas. Más bien es en su confusión y en su descuido que perecen. Es en sus pecados, en la seducción de este mundo.

Jesús les dice que no es hasta que el Hijo del hombre sea levantado – en la cruz, de la tumba, al cielo – que se darán cuenta de quién es. No es hasta que la serpiente de bronce es erigida en el desierto que vuelven a temer de nuevo a Dios.

Tenemos que admitir que, como nuestros antiguos antepasados, hay veces en nuestras vidas cuando estamos insatisfechos con Dios. La Cuaresma es un tiempo que puede traer insatisfacción al frente de nuestras mentes. Puede ser particularmente difícil de ver las maneras por la cual Dios trabaja en nuestras vidas al caminar por el desierto de Cuaresma y al prepararnos para recomprometernos a Jesucristo.

Cuando nosotros, como nuestros espirituales antepasados, nos volvemos impacientes, cuando no logramos entender lo que está haciendo Dios, cuando Dios parece estar lejos de nosotros, entonces tenemos que ser honestos sobre esto al orar.

Es en esta manera que somos llamados a observar una Santa Cuaresma. Somos llamados a orar, especialmente en horas de profundo aislamiento. Orar no es algo simplemente relacionado con agradecimiento o con júbilo. No es aún algo relacionado con enfermedad o muerte. Como me dijo un amigo hace varios años, somos llamados a orar el entero espectro de la experiencia humana. Cuando nos sentimos abandonados, somos llamados a orar una oración de los abandonados. Cuando nos sentimos olvidados, oramos una oración de los olvidados. Cuando estamos sin esperanza, oramos una oración de los sin esperanza.

No podemos simplemente apaciguar nuestras insatisfacciones recordándonos que “Dios está siempre con nosotros”. Ese tipo de respuesta trillada es inútil para nosotros cuando afrontamos una angustia profunda. Más bien, Dios nos llama a abrazar nuestros sentimientos de aislamiento, a ser honestos sobre como nos sentimos con nosotros mismos y con Dios, y asentarnos profundamente en una vida de oración a medida que nos preparemos para la mañana cuando podamos gritar, “¡Él vive!”.

_________

Often we become dissatisfied with God; we don’t believe that he cares about us in our current circumstances. We see examples of our propensity for dissatisfaction reflected back at us in both today’s Old and New Testament scriptures.

The Israelites were impatient; they did not trust God, and they began to complain (which didn’t turn out so well). In their impatience and distrust God sent snakes to bite them, and many died. Only in the face of their impending death did they admit their sin and ask God for mercy.

Likewise, the Jews as portrayed in John’s gospel, did not accept what Jesus told them. Many did not take him at his word. They too experienced a death, though not a literal one like that of the ancient Israelites. Rather it is in their confusion and neglect that they perish. It is in their sins, in the seduction of this world.

Jesus tells them that it is not until the Son of Man has been lifted up—on the cross, from the tomb, up to heaven—that they will realize who he is. It is not until the bronze serpent is erected in the wilderness that they come to fear God again.

We must admit that, like our ancient predecessors, there are times in our own lives when we are dissatisfied with God. Lent is a time that can bring dissatisfaction to the forefront of our minds. It can be especially hard to see the ways God works in our lives as we walk through Lent’s wilderness and make preparations to recommit ourselves to Christ.

When we, like our ancient spiritual ancestors, grow impatient, when we fail to understand what God is doing, when God seems distant from us, then we must be honest about it in prayer.

It is in this way we are called to observe a Holy Lent. We are called to prayer especially in times of deep isolation. Prayer isn’t just about thanksgiving or joy. It’s not even just about sickness or death. As a friend told me some years ago, we are called to pray the whole spectrum of the human experience. When we feel forsaken, we are called to pray a prayer of the forsaken. When we feel forgotten, we pray a prayer of the forgotten. When we feel hopeless, we pray the prayer of the hopeless.

We cannot simply placate our dissatisfactions by reminding each other that, “God is always with us.” That kind of trite response is useless to us when we face deep anguish. Rather, God calls us to embrace our feelings of isolation, to be honest about our feelings with ourselves and with God, and to settle deep into a life of prayer as we prepare ourselves for the morning we can cry, “He lives!”

Sermons

Born From Above

Lent II—March 12, 2017—John 3:1-17

I preached this sermon at St. John’s Episcopal Church, Decatur, Alabama where I am doing my field education. I am blessed in having the opportunity to spend time with and learn from them every week. I am especially grateful for them recording my sermon which can be found by clicking here.

It’s fitting that Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night. The image of darkness creates a mysterious atmosphere, especially in our Lenten setting, one that hints at a time of uncertainty, a search for meaning, and further discernment.

Nicodemus came to see Jesus for a reason. Maybe because Jesus recently took the Passover festivities by surprise, angrily driving out the moneychangers from the temple with a whip and performing miracles.

Nicodemus says, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.”

Jesus responds, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”

That kind of language is familiar to us; we’ve heard it all our lives. There’s a type of American revivalistic Christianity that attaches itself staunchly to this image as a way to describe the personal commitment of the believer. You have to be born again.

For many Christians, this statement implies a kind of conscious choice. “Are you saved?” is a question that implies that any Christian could make that decision for themselves.

But to Nicodemus it just sounds like a bad joke.

“Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”

As Nicodemus becomes overly involved pondering the physical implications of Jesus’ statement (“one cannot enter a second time his mother’s womb”) Jesus begins to reassure him.

“Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

All of the sudden Nicodemus’ whole theological worldview has been completely upended, his spiritual world shaken.

To be born “from above” or of the “Spirit”…It’s not tangible.

It’s elusive—think of the wind in the trees.

You can’t see a gust of air, you know it only by the results of its presence. So it is with being born from the Spirit. You can’t see the Spirit itself, but if you pay attention you can see evidence of its work over time.

Jesus helps us identify the Spirit, not by giving us a strait-forward glimpse of it, but by offering an invitation for us to discern how it is at work in our lives.

Often, unless we pay really close attention, we don’t notice changes in ourselves or in the world around us until we look back and find the evidence.

We don’t see those changes occurring in ourselves each day, we only notice them when we reach for a photo album.

“Did my stomach really used to be that flat?!”

God’s creation might be evaporating right in front of our eyes. Our bodies might be subtly changing everyday. But we don’t recognize the change until we take time to look for the evidence.

Jesus invites us to see an unexpected perspective.

During this season of self-denial and repentance we are called to accept Jesus’s invitation to discern the work of the Holy Spirit in our own lives.

We are called to examine ourselves and our lives so that we too might recognize the moments of grace that open our eyes to Jesus—God’s saving gift to us—sent not to condemn us but to reveal in our likeness the promise of new birth.

It’s time to take stock of that grace.

Some people are really good at it, including my friend Pam. Each time I hear from her she tells me about how God has been working in her life.

It’s almost instinctive.

She tells me about her deliverance from health struggles. She talks to me about her daughter’s new job. It really is a spiritual gift I think, to be able to recognize God at work in your life like that.

Everyone should be so lucky as to have the ability to reflect in that way.

Nicodemus first visited Jesus because he was curious about Jesus’ teachings, and his spiritual outlook ended up drastically changing from a set of well-organized beliefs once he learned about this mysterious birth by the “Spirit.”

But it didn’t stop there.

He appears again a few months later (in chapter seven of John’s gospel) during the Jewish Festival of Booths.

The chief priests and pharisees are plotting to arrest Jesus, and as they argue with the temple police about the best method for doing so, Nicodemus speaks in Jesus’ defense.

“Our law does not judge people without first giving them a hearing to find out what they are doing, does it?”

He stands up for Jesus.

Give the man a fair hearing. It’s our custom. He at least deserves that.

And then several months later we meet Nicodemus again.

He accompanies Joseph of Arimathea to embalm Jesus’s body after it has been taken off the cross.

The scripture says, “Nicodemus came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about a hundred pounds. They took the body of Jesus and wrapped it with the spices in linen cloths, according to the burial custom of the Jews.”

He arrives to tend to the limp and broken body of the Lord.

Give the man a proper burial. It’s our custom. He at least deserves that.

Is this the same skeptical pharisee that appeared in the middle of the night? It would seem that his first visit to Jesus had quite an affect—a lot’s happened to Nicodemus since then.

I wonder if, the day Nicodemus laid Jesus in the tomb, he thought back on that first time he met with him.

I wonder if he’d recognize himself?

I wonder if he’d recognize the Spirit’s work in his life.

I wonder if, as he laid Jesus in the tomb that day, he’d hear the wind rustle the treetops and think of a birth, his birth, from above.

Sermons

Help My Unbelief!

February 20, 2017 – Mark 9:14-29

You can watch and listen to this sermon by clicking here.

Take a trip with me back to Mark chapter six. Jesus called the disciples, “and began to send them out two by two and he give them authority over unclean spirits.”

Their confusion is understandable, then, when in chapter nine they ask, “Why could we not cast it out?” It says right there that he gave the Twelve authority over demons.

So why didn’t it work with this boy?

Jesus’s answer is revealing: “This kind can only come out through prayer.”

“Teacher,” the boy’s father calls, “I brought you my son; he has a spirit that makes him unable to speak; and whenever it seizes him, it dashes him down; and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid; and I asked your disciples to cast it out, but they could not do so.”

Again, Jesus’ response is revealing. “You faithless generation, how much longer must I be among you? How much longer must I put up with you? Bring him to me.”

“You faithless generation!”

We don’t know how exactly he said it. We don’t have any “non-verbal” clues. It can be tempting to manufacture our own, but forget any imagined tone of voice—just look at the words.

“How much longer much I put up with you?”

“This kind can only come out through prayer.”

The disciples and the scribes had been arguing, but their arguments only point toward themselves, a natural response when we feel like we’ve got something to prove.

While attempting to defend their own efforts, they forgot that it’s really about prayer.

“If you are able to do anything, have pity on us and help us,” the father cries.

He’s in an impossible situation. He’s come to a group of supposedly-certified healers and they’ve not been able to do anything for his son.

His faith it’s at the breaking point. “If you can do anything, Jesus, please just do it!”

That “if” language doesn’t exactly exemplify the unblemished faith that we all strive for, but nevertheless it is the reality of our own days and nights.

Every day we stare into the faces of faithless people, and we too lose faith. In an effort to reclaim that faith we often look to ourselves. Sometimes we are as sure as we can be that we will be saved by our own efforts, that we have all the prayers, all the faith—ALL it takes.

It’s not about winning an argument in order to *prove* that we have the ability. It’s not about us.

It’s about prayer, and faith, and God.

Jesus tells each of us: you have the power to be self-aware enough to recognize that it’s not about you.

He reminds us that we still need God.

He reminds us not of the basic truth that God can do anything through us, but rather he calls to mind the complex realization that we cannot do anything without God.

We depend on a God who wants what is best for us.

Do you hear it?

Our participation in God’s glory is not limited to our inwardly-focused testimony, “I believe.”

Rather it is more fully realized in the courage of our humble refrain: O God, “Help my unbelief!”

Sermons

Experiencing The Joy

December 25, 2016 – Luke 2:1-14

Thanks to the fine folks at my home parish, you can watch me preach this sermon here. The sermon starts at 7:30.

Merry Christmas!

And what a merry occasion it can be. The good news for us is, even in the silence we can experience it.

Eh, maybe music would be nice, but we’ve done that. The organist is with his family. The choir members are home watching their children rip open the packages from Santa. Members of the Alter Guild are playing with their grandchildren.

Phillips Brook’s is pretty eloquent. He wrote “O Little Town of Bethlehem.”

“How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given; so God imparts to human hearts the blessings of his heaven. No ear may hear his coming, but in this world of sin, where meek souls will receive him, still the dear Christ enters in.”

Yes. We’re fine.

We don’t always need an organ pipe blaring to broadcast the “still small voice of God.”

The truth is, try as they might, no trumpet fanfare could do such a voice justice. No organ riff could measure up to it, breaking forth in the chilly air, hay rustling beneath the tiny newborn limbs.

If you listen closely enough, you might just hear a little bit of it.

It’s much more than the voice of a baby.

I saw a woman in the grocery store this week. You’ve probably seen her, too. The woman who is pushing a cart full down the aisle and she has quite a long list in her hand, written out on the back of last month’s receipt. She looks stressed, confused even, by the time she gets to the relishes. Why do there have to be so many brands of pickles?

Another woman was pushing her cart the opposite way, she’s considerably younger, and there’s a baby in her cart.

For a moment it all just stops.

The older women locked eyes with the young child and they smiled at each other and she waved to him and he giggled and she forgot where she was or that she had a list or that the prices had gone up.

Everything was right there in that moment. It was unexpected joy. Mountains of things to buy and do, but she had to stop and make funny faces at him for a while.

It took her from that place. She’s somewhere else.

The other stuff will be there when they’re done.

Do you know anyone who has a cat or a dog? And it just comes and sits down in the lap whenever it feels like it?

My friends sometimes post pictures on Facebook: With a computer in their lap, books open on the table, and Scruffy plops himself right down, sprawls along the keyboard.

It’s annoying! Get off. I’m trying to finish these reports!

Well, maybe.

But what a joy. It alleviates something. It takes you away.

“Oh! I love this little guy!” And that love is unconditional.

The other night my mom texted—it was a group text to the whole family. It was a picture of a photograph of our dog, Winston, hanging on the refrigerator. It was from several Christmases ago, and he was all dressed up in his reindeer costume. We lost Winston earlier this year.

“Cheered me up before leaving the house today,” she wrote.

She was somewhere else, just for a moment.

My friend Richard, he’s such a character. I really love him, but we can sure get stuck in some places.

“How are you doing today Richard?”

He mutters, smiling, quoting a local author, “Oh Warren, we live in a fallen world.”

“Well, yes we do Richard.”
“Gosh, the burden of existence is just so much sometimes!”

“Yeah, Richard…I hear ya.”

It’s easy to get down in these things. It’s easy read a news headline on your phone or a glance at a ticker on the bottom of a cable news channel while you’re waiting on your oil change and you’re just done. You’ve bottomed out. I don’t know if what I’m dong in life makes sense anymore. Onerous troubles creep to mind and you become more aware of the fall than you are of any hand extended to help you up.

But tell a good joke, use a funny accent, or quote 30 Rock at just the right time, and Richard laughs so hard, just loses it. I’ve got videos on my phone to prove it. He can’t keep it together. It’s hard to breathe, you’re abs start to hurt when you laugh that hard.

It’s a joyful episode.

For some people, their whole lives have become so predictable, their activity has become so restricted, that the day their granddaughters come into town and visit them, they finally have something wonderful to talk about instead of everyone’s aches and pains or who died this week. For just a moment, they leave all that negativity aside and focus on the joy.

If we go through life thinking only of that which we have to peel off the bottom of our shoe, we miss the dew-drenched meadow at dawn that we walked through to get it.

There’s plenty to get us down. It seems all too real. It is all too real. Then, Christmas bursts in. Christmas reminds us that joy is also real. It’s too easy to get stuck in the junk of life and forget about—or miss—the joy.

Jesus walks the same path we do during the liturgical year. He walks it with us. Through times of repentance and anguish and temptation and examination and expectation, but also times of joy—and that’s what it’s time for now.

We’ve had our Advent. We’ll get our Lent.

Let us settle in to the joy of God’s immanence.

That’s what it’s time for now.

This joy does not impede our witnessing the occasions of suffering darkness, but it does helps us forge a Way with Him to walk.

When you walk out of the Eucharist today many things will still be the same.

The homeless man will still be standing at the bottom of the exit ramp.

The children of Aleppo will still be experiencing shock waves of relentless terror.

By any standard of American democracy the men and women who won on Nov. 8th will still be victors, and those who lost will still be losers.

But there will be one difference—you have been here—in the midst of the miracle.

You have sat here and experienced the silent joy of the incarnation.

You have met Him (in the body and the blood).

Cold. Alone. Scared. Helpless. Human. Hungry. Giggling. Remembering. Laughing. Loving.

This is a joy that transforms the moment. This is a joy so full and complete that it transports us away from our reality and into the heart of God.

A joy that knows no boundary

A love that knows no condition.

A peace that passes all understanding.

And…here’s what’s really cool—you can take all that with you when you go.