Second Sunday after Epiphany

 

"Can you hear me now?"

Unity without Uniformity--Diversity without Division

           

Thus week begins Christian Unity Week, which raises awareness of what we as Christians share in common rather than what divides us. According to the Center for the Study of Global Christianity (CSGC) at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, there are approximately 41,000 Christian denominations and organizations in the world. Each of these groups defines themselves in some manner that distinguishes them from the other 40,999.  At first, this may seem rather disheartening, but Christianity since its proliferation in the first century has been diverse; in fact, it is probably more accurate to discuss first century “Christianities” to accurately represent the depth of the early divisions.  Early on, some believed Jesus was not divine, but a person “inspired” by God.  Some believed that one must first become a Jew to be a Christian.  Some believed in a Christian God of Jesus and an Old Testament God. Such issues, for the most part, resolved themselves by the early fourth century at the First Ecumenical Council of Nicea. However, from this unity (and some would argue uniformity) came the Great Schism of 1054 where East and West divided, and later in the sixteenth century when there was a split within the Roman Church that began the Protestant movement and ensuing multiplicities. Did I mention the Popes and anti-Popes between the third and fifteenth centuries? What are we to make of all this?  What is the difference between division and diversity?

            Today, we begin reading St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian church.  Like Christianity at large, Paul’s large Church at Corinth was on the verge of splintering into several different communities.  In his letter, he addresses three key issues: Division—no one could decide on whom to follow; Sexual Immorality---one member of the church was sleeping with his stepmother; and Lawsuits—on top of all this turmoil, it seems there was a rash of lawsuits among the community. Paul’s wise counsel is still valid today. Regarding division, Paul remarks “It is not important who does the planting [of the seed of faith] or the watering. What’s important is that God makes the seed grow”(3:6-7). Regarding sexual sin, Paul counsels confrontation and the opportunity to repent. For lawsuits, he counsels handling disputes internally. The point is that the community must place Christ at its center and the love of Christ must animate the community in all it does. There is no “rule book”, but rather the Spirit of discernment. Paul famously declares “Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible…. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.   I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.”  Paul’s understanding of freedom wasn’t to go one’s own way but to use freedom to enter into the world in an intimate and meaningful way, to use one’s freedom to establish relationships rather than abandon them. In short, Paul speaks of the freedom to love as God’s love reaches through and beyond Israel to the “nations of the world”. Devotion, not doctrine gives Christians unity.

            Jesuit father John Whitney, in a recent NY Times article, is addressing the issue of the protest of the firing of a gay vice principal and the reaction to the students “making a mess” in their opposition to the firing.  He responds in the article by putting “making a mess” as being consistent with church tradition. More importantly, he discusses the dynamics of controversy without division over the issue as to whether or not Gentiles could become Christians.

           

            “What is most amazing about this moment in the Church [the Gentile controversy] is how the community comes to decide, together, what is to be done. There are debate and disruption, but it is not seen as division; rather, it is the way the Holy Spirit is working within the community. Further, this debate is grounded in human experience, and not on tradition or on the power of office. Rather than beginning with Scripture—with the Torah or the Prophets—the community begins with the experience of the faithful: with the testimony of Peter, Paul, and Barnabas—none of whom claim special authority in the face of the communal discernment, but all of whom, instead, simply testify to the way in which they have seen the Gentiles touched and filled with the grace of the Holy Spirit…. Here is diversity without division, complexity with separation, debate, and dissent without the need for punishment or condemnation. In listening for the living Spirit of Christ Jesus, the Church begins by listening to the sinners and seekers who are his body in the world.”

            This is true diversity and unity rather than division spawned from insistence on uniformity. When we orient ourselves to listen to the other and honor the experience of faith, we don’t abandon unity because this listening is done as our worship. The Spirit is alive when there are people speaking from the heart and confronting the community out of love.  Because some of our practices and doctrines differ, we worship God insofar as we love one another, listen to one another, and honor the Spirit present in all our communities.  Very often, as in the case of Israel, God speaks through a community as well as to a community. What is your neighbor saying?  Are you listening?

Baptism of the Lord

 

"This is my beloved Son, with Whom I am well pleased"

            It is easy to treat today’s Baptism of the Lord as an historical feast.  Indeed, there are good historical reasons to believe Jesus was baptized by John, since there has always been a controversy between the Christians and “Baptists”(those who continued to follow John the Baptist) over this event; however, what is at work in today’s readings is connected with epiphany, God’s healing presence in the world shown in Jesus. God acts through Jesus and is therefore made manifest to the world.

            In the scripture reading from Isaiah, we learn of the servant-messiah.  Jesus, as this servant-messiah, will extend God’s covenant between his chosen as “a light for the nations, to open the eyes of the blind, to bring out prisoners from confinement, and from the dungeon, those who live in darkness.”  Jesus’ baptism is a mandate of healing and a drawing together of the nations. In Luke’s Acts of the Apostles, which was originally a second part of the Gospel of Luke, it is God acting through Jesus, not Jesus simply obeying orders from on high; Jesus is in perfect relationship with the Father, and his life among us brings God’s blessings. This gives us a crucial insight as to what it means to be a follower of Christ.

            To follow Christ is more than an imitation of Jesus’ actions; it is a call to a deepening relationship with God the Father.  As Christians, we must become animated with God’s love for humanity, and that animation is only possible through God’s Holy Spirit.  As apprentices in our spiritual journey, we begin like all good apprentices by imitation. We learn to love, to heal and represent ourselves as ethical and moral people with a high calling, but this is not our end.  Our end is perfect communion with God.  What we imitate in Christ goes beyond his actions on earth and focuses on his relationship with the Father.  It is only from this fuller communion with God the Father that our true vocation as Christians is being fulfilled.  While living a life based on high moral and ethical standards is important, the much more enduring significance of Jesus’ baptism resides in coming into full communion with God the Father from whom we have been estranged since Eden.

            This need for a deeper, fuller communion is achieved only through prayer and God’s grace received in the Spirit.  That is why baptism is so essential; it invites the Holy Spirit to enable this essential communion.  To put it a different way, Thomas Merton, a monk, and mystic, wrote that the Christian must do more than simply do the will of God.  He or she must will the will of God.  We cannot have this deeper communion without the Holy Spirit and the baptism that bestows upon us the calling to move beyond imitation and to manifest God to the world as Jesus made God known to the world.

The Solemnity of the Epiphany of Our Lord

Epiphany means "manifestation", that is, a revealing, an illumination, which is precisely how we experience the jubilation of Israel experiencing the fulfillment of Isaiah 40.  This passage is the joyful song of those who have returned from exile and whose reinvigorated relationship with God will serve as a beacon for "the nations" which signifies the non-Jewish peoples.  The God who has delivered Israel in an act of great salvation becomes, for Christians, the sign of God's supreme act of salvation that saves not only the people of Israel but the world.  Paul's epistle picks up this theme in "the mystery made manifest" and the notion of the Gentiles being "coheirs, members of the same body".  In the Gospel, we have the ultimate revelation of God's salvation in the form of Jesus' birth, being announced to Gentiles, who then come to worship the Christ child; again mirroring the idea expressed in Isaiah that "Nations shall walk by your light, and kings by your shining radiance."  This king has qualities of the Davidic kingship of justice and concern for the poor contrasted with the megalomaniac paranoia of King Herod.  There are a few important ideas developed in today's readings, I think.

It strikes me that God's revelation over time with the Jewish people, and then to the Gentiles, has been expansive.  Rather than simply lavishing all His attention on his "chosen", we come to see that the choosing is for a role in salvation history.  It is the God who is incredibly lavish with his love and attention, that is a key element in understanding God's manifestation to the world.  It is a God of great inclusion rather than exclusion, yet so much of what we see in Christianity today seeks to privatize God, limits access to communion, sets up laws of access, decides who's "in communion" and who isn't, goes against God's essential movement to embrace humanity, all of humanity, in all the messiness and chaos that this momentum encounters.  We promulgate doctrines that attempt to put a legal tabernacle around God and deny anyone access except through priests who have the stamp of approval from the corporate office; perhaps chaos isn't so much a sign of evil in the world as the facade of unity that is really uniformity.  When we put "Christian" in front of nouns to transform them, like "Christian writer," we mistake God's act of salvation.  The transformation of Christ in the world came from the center of lowliness, vulnerability and exile as a child in a manger, and expanded through acts of healing and resurrection rather than from the outside in.  A "Christian writer" becomes in this new world a "writer of Christ," one whose work brings Christ to the world, helps manifest Christ.  Now we can ask if the writing brings Christ's healing and resurrection rather than concentrate as to whether or not the writer is a Christian.  "The writer who is Christian" is the focus on Christ's presence through the boundless and expansive energy of the Holy Spirit, "the Christian writer" is an investigation as to the legitimacy of affiliation with the Christian community.

When we make decisions as a faith community that defines ourselves over and against those who are not-like-us, we make feeble attempts to limit the Spirit.  When we reach across denominational and even religious boundaries to recognize the dwelling of the Holy Spirit, and of Christ, in those not-like-us, we act most in concert with God whose saving act in Christ is for "the nations", not "the nation." It is shameful that those who most need God's love and salvation are often handed literature rather than a hug, a dismissive tone rather than a place at the table.  In a modification of St. Francis's admonition, we need to go out and preach the Good News, and if we must, use words.

The Solemnity of the Nativity of Our Lord "Midnight Mass"

"Do not be afraid;  for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For today in the city of David a savior has been born for you who is Christ and Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger."

Who Woulda Thought?


I want to begin this Christmas season by focusing on the call of the shepherds rather than moving right to the Nativity.  In fact, if you follow the various gospel readings that the Church offers, you would find the vigil Mass (afternoon of the 24th) through the daytime Mass (Sunday mid-morning) you would find the Christmas story and the theology of the Christ across three of the four gospels--quite a rich fare which few, unfortunately, experience.

Back to the shepherds, then.  Shepherds were a despised lot in Jesus' time. You can lump them in with tax collectors, prostitutes and Samaritans.  Of course, as we have seen throughout God's interaction with humanity, this makes them prime candidates for a special grace.  So, it was to them the invitation was extended.  The much discussed "wise men" or magi, come later (probably didn't arrive until a year or so after the birth).  

So, as the story goes, as with all angelic visitations, it begins with fear.  It takes a lot to scare a shepherd who defends his flock from any number of hazards; they are a grizzly lot.

  

But, as the gospel records, "...they were struck with great fear".  The appeal of the angel not to fear is based upon the message of a savior that will "be for all the people."  This is followed by a "multitude of the heavenly host" singing "Glory to God in the highest".  Quite a night for the shepherds, and some essential truths about the nature of God and salvation for us tonight.

Like God's appointing David as king (the least likely candidate), God's favor rests on Mary, Joseph, outsiders like the magi and shepherds.  Notice the absence of anyone really important like Temple priests, scribes, pharisees, important legates or even the chief priest.  God's dealing once again with the consummate outsiders, widely believed to be outside of salvation history.  How ironic, then, that these were the people most intimately associated with God's arrival as the Christ.

If Advent has sharpened our senses for seeking justice and finding a place with the poor to be in the right place, this visitation of the shepherds remind us that we are now in the right place at the right time---with the poor, alone, late in the night. Dismal.

But it is with the outcast, far from the comfort of day, deep in the night, that God's greeting arrives proclaiming joy and salvation.  The line from T.S. Eliot's poem Four Quartets comes to mind "...and now, under conditions that seem unpropitious."  Like so much of what God has done in his relationship with humanity: "Who woulda thought?"

In your deepest moment of darkness and doubt,  when your prayers are bouncing back off of the ceiling, ridiculing  your attempt to reconnect with God after seemingly failing every time, I want to remind you that those prayers that you think mock your devotion made it through.  They were in God's heart before they ever left your lips. Like the shepherds, the most unlikely folks in the most unlikely place, God finds us.  Search no further than your need, your loneliness, your feelings of being left out. For the still small voice of God speaks to you here, now, in this blog, inviting you to come home and find the sign of God being with you in the most humble of circumstances.  Join with Christians world wide to not give up following the light until it rests over the manger where Christ is to be found---in the most unlikely place, at the most unlikely time. 

Reprinted from Christmas, 2012 

Fourth Sunday of Advent

It's All in the Family

            Today’s Old Testament short reading needs a bit of background:

 So, the Jewish world is divided during the time referred to by Isaiah; the northern and southern kingdoms.  The northern kingdom is Israel and the southern one is Judah (of which Jerusalem is a part and where the Temple is located).  To make a long story (a few thousand years) shorter, Israel’s king was in cahoots with the king of Aram to lay siege to Jerusalem.  Judah’s king (Ahaz), against the advice of the prophet Isaiah, makes an alliance with Assyria saying “I am your servant and vassal. Come up and save me out of the hand of the king of Aram and of the king of Israel, who are attacking me.”  Ahaz gives the Assyrian king treasure from the Temple (and palace) as an incentive to help.  Ahaz knows this is wrong to rely on outside help, and Isaiah counsels unconditional faith and reliance on God; Ahaz piously refuses. Ahaz’s son Hezekiah became the “savior” of his people, likely the child referred to by Isaiah in his prophecy to Ahaz:” …the young woman [also translated virgin] shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall name him Emmanuel.”  Hezekiah restores the righteousness of Judah and defeats the king of Assyria.  He re-centralizes the Passover worship and invites all tribes to Jerusalem for Passover and restores righteous rule in Jerusalem.

            Both Matthew and Luke pick up on this narrative framework in their account of Jesus’ birth. God’s help for Judah was of great comfort to the early Christians who, like Judah, were under “siege”.  Jesus’ birth under the Davidic line assures Matthew’s audience of a savior that is the final fulfillment of God’s promise of salvation, the ultimate Emmanuel.

            Although Jesus did not make much of his ancestry---probably to de-emphasize the nature of his reign as spiritual rather than temporal---the post-Easter Christian community re-emphasized this as a source of authority and claim on messiahship.  The Davidic emphasizes in the New Testament emphasizes Jesus’ lowly, earthly life when contrasted with the risen savior of the Resurrection (Reginald Fuller).

            The remarkable birth of Jesus as a convergence between the earthly lineage and divine is a great symbol as to the genesis of our restoration with God through Christ’s earthly ministry and the subsequent indwelling of the Holy Spirit; God with us, after the Resurrection, becomes God within us. Christmas is the promise realized to its fulfillment the post-Easter community.  We have become part now of the Davidic line, through Christ, and by God’s adoption of us as co-heirs (not heirs!) with Christ of God’s promise of salvation. As the saying goes, God has no grandchildren; Jesus is our brother. We are family by God’s choice.

           

Third Sunday of Advent

“Are you the one who is to come,or should we look for another?”—John the Baptist asking about Jesus

  The most striking part of today’s gospel is John’s disillusionment with Jesus embodied in his question sent as by messenger to Jesus: “Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?”  Jesus’ reply, however, is even more striking.  Instead of simply saying, “Yes, I am he”, he asks the messenger to report back to John what he has seen:

“…the blind regain their sight,
the lame walk,
lepers are cleansed,
the deaf hear,
the dead are raised,
and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them.”

            Notice Jesus isn’t saying “I give the blind their sight, I heal the lame”, but is directing the attention to the acts themselves as evidence of God’s presence surrounding his ministry.  Jesus isn’t trying to prove his divinity, he is announcing God being in their midst; practice before doctrine.

            The Kingdom of Heaven is, above all other things, built upon acts of healing and justice as signs of God’s presence.  To find the Messiah, you need to look where the Messiah hangs out: with those who are outcast, sick, with those who are poor.  God’s kingdom, as Jesus proclaimed to Pilate “is not of this world”, but what he didn’t explain was that it can be found in this world. He knew that the hardness of Pilate’s heart would prevent him from seeing God’s grace in action because like so many, Pilate would have looked for the Messiah as groups of devoted Jews looking to establish a new political order.

            Like many of us, John found it difficult to believe that God’s justice does not involve some new political order, a new way of organizing society, yet another manifesto that if we interpret it correctly and follow it faithfully, are guaranteed “heaven on earth”; that is not the kingdom of heaven. The Kingdom is built around a way of being in this world but not being of this world. 

            It is telling the reaction of the crowd who encountered Jesus in John’s place.  In the next section of the gospel, after Jesus declares “…blessed is the one who takes no offense at me” we see the crowd leaving and Jesus calling out to them:

“What did you expect to see?  A reed swayed by the wind?  Then what did you expect to see?  Someone dressed in fine clothing?  Those who wear fine clothing are in royal palaces.  Then why did you go out? To see a prophet?”

            Jesus then affirms John’s role as the preparer of the way while proclaiming “The least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he”. It is time to begin our journey on the way rather than to stay preparing the way.  It is time to follow God’s trail that leads to the poor, the diseased, the discarded humanity who are beacon’s for God’s presence in our world today. When we are in the presence of these people, away from power and influence, we find the Christ child.

The Second Sunday of Advent

Ready the Way of the Lord

"His winnowing fan is in his hand; he will clear his threshing floor"(John the Baptist)

Today, we make a shift from focusing on the “end times” to the other end of our journey, preparing for the coming of Messiah!  It is a preparation that harkens back to the time when John the Baptist was preparing the way by preaching repentance in the wilderness, but it is also the preparation we live today that anticipates the revelation of God’s kingdom more perfectly.

            We begin our story as we Christians often do, with our Jewish brothers and sisters who first heard and responded to God’s revelation.  Isaiah’s text celebrates the arrival of the perfect king with three sets of distinguishing virtues: deep wisdom and understanding, might and counsel, and knowledge and fear of God—virtues of intelligence, practical ability and piety.  What more could one ask of a leader?  Alas, this hope faded over time. 

            With the birth of Jesus, King of King and Lord of Lords, Emmanuel—God-With-Us, the kingdom was not fully realized, but Jesus’ coming set in motion the building of the kingdom.  Just as John pointed the way of Messiah, Jesus pointed the way of God’s Kingdom, and the Holy Spirit continues to guide us and provide us with hope.  John’s “reading of the way” now is transformed into our mandate to “walk the way” made by Jesus for a people who were originally known as “People of the Way”.

            John’s preparation of repentance for the coming of Jesus the first time is still valid today for us who set out on the way of Christ.  Before we plot a course, we have to know where we are in relationship to our destination; that is why repentance is part of Advent.  Repentance, as the word suggests, orients us a hundred and eighty degrees from our present course; it turns us around and gets us going in the right direction. John uses the image of the winnowing fan separating the valuable wheat from the waste of the chaff.  The chaff is the lighter and unusable part of the wheat and must be separated from the valuable kernel of the wheat itself.  Often this is preached as a metaphor for God punishing the unrighteous as “chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire”.  While this may be valid, for us it is also an opportunity to see a more personal dimension to repentance. The chaff are all those things that accumulate in our lives that obscure the true wheat of Christ; the Good News.  Though the ministration of the Holy Spirit, the Breath of God, we can let go of all that is not Good News both for ourselves and for others. Advent is a time for looking at what we cling to that keeps us from paying attention to our destination, for dulling our sense of direction as well as destination.