 Luke 2:1-20 and John 1:1-14
By Rev. Heather J. Blais, Rector Merry Christmas!!! There is Good News of great joy today. Are we ready to receive it? More importantly, are we ready to be changed by it? While this morning we hear John’s Gospel reflecting the incarnation of God as the Word, I am going to draw on our collective memory, this creche, and reflect on last night’s Gospel lesson from Luke. In Luke’s nativity, we are reminded that God is not some far off entity who created the cosmos, only to silently watch and see what might unfold. Far from it. God is passionate about their dream for this world. God is paying very close attention, particularly to those whom society would make invisible and marginalize. And Luke makes sure the message is loud and clear:
These themes show up almost immediately, which believe it or not, begin with a bureaucratic decision from the Roman Empire. Emperor Augustus issued a decree that required everyone in the realm to be registered in order to gauge population and adjust taxes. In the region of Judea, it was Governor Quirinius who oversaw the census, which involved people traveling to where their family descended from in order to register. If we were to model this today, it would mean I would have to head back up to Maine, and my spouse would be on his way to Quebec. These days, the U.S. Census Bureau comes directly to our doors. But let’s pause here. There is already Good News. God can move in and through empires, emperors, decrees, governors, bureaucracy, and any variety of public policy. God is the Source of Love, and God is here with us. And nothing, nothing, will ever hold God back. Because somehow, God will move in and through even this census, to bring the holy family back to Bethlehem. A place where Joseph’s family has deep spiritual roots, reaching all the way back to King David. While the empire necessitated the trip, it was Joseph and Mary’s faith that allowed the experience to be reclaimed as a pilgrimage. They drew strength and resilience from Bethlehem, a place that connected them to their ancestors in faith, and the communities that formed them. When a woman is bearing down in labor, to bring a child into this world, she must draw on every conceivable ounce of strength within her person, plus that of all the women who have gone before her, and the God who birthed us all. And Mary did just that. She and Joseph may have found themselves in the simple accommodations of a manger, but none of that matters. Those are character details for retelling a birth story. What matters is that Jesus was born, and tenderly loved, as his mother wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger. What matters is that in and through Mary, God birthed their Love into this world in human flesh. As John writes in today’s Gospel, “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” (Jn 1:14) This year, more than most, I am moved by the way God birthed Love into our World. Proclaiming boldly and loudly:
Our Creator God called Mary, a young, unmarried woman in a patriarchal society - one of the most invisible people in her time and place - to be Jesus’ mother. And she said yes. She embraced her call with a joy that comes from liberation. We witness the freedom the Holy Spirit offers her in this pregnancy, in knowing and understanding God sees and stands with those whom our society makes invisible. She sings, and we sing with her: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in you, O God my Savior, * for you have looked with favor on your lowly servant… You have shown strength with your arm * and scattered the proud in their conceit, Casting down the mighty from their thrones * and lifting up the lowly. You have filled the hungry with good things * and sent the rich away empty.” (Enriching Our Worship 1, pg. 27) God is here with us. God is acting in the here and now. And God seeks out the vulnerable and invisible, lifting them up for all to see. Because the last will be first, and the first will be last. Mary’s call and liberating transformation shows us God’s Way of Love. Yet for Luke, God’s liberation of the invisible, is only just getting started with Mary. Immediately following the birth, Luke shifts his focus to the fields beyond Bethlehem, where shepherds were keeping their flocks. It is here of all places - not a palace, not even at a relative’s house - that an angel proclaims the birth of God’s child. The shepherd's social standing was a little lower than that of peasants.God’s liberation spread to the very margins of their society. Because this is who God is. God always begins at the margins, by bringing those on the outside to the very center and saying - there is a place for you. You are visible in my eyes, and I won’t stop until the world sees and knows there is a place for you in my kindom. The first will be last and the last will be first. Much like Mary, these shepherds who are accustomed to living on the margins, embrace God’s call. As soon as the angelic visitation had ended, they went to Bethlehem with haste. They sought out Joseph, Mary and their newborn child to bear witness to God’s Love, the Word made flesh. And these shepherds, now made visible, were forever changed. “The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.” (Lk 2:20) Luke tells us Good News of great joy, and does so through those his society would have deemed invisible. It begs the question: Who does our society deem invisible? Because God is going to those corners, those margins, and seeks to work in and through those who our society would make invisible. Who is God speaking through right here, right now? The answer can be found on the margins, when we pay attention to who is being most harmed by changes in public policies. Based on changes in public policy this year, it would seem it is our transgender neighbors, our undocumented and refugee neighbors, our Palestinian and Jewish neighbours; our neighbors in need of food, housing, and healthcare assistance. This year has been challenging, as society’s center has grown smaller and the crowd on the margins has grown exponentially, and is still growing. But do you know what happens if this trend continues? With time, with the Spirit’s guidance, it flips. The margins are realigned as the center, as the Word made flesh stands alongside those on the margins, calling on the Church to do the same. When we fail to stand in solidarity with our hurting neighbors, in our thoughts, in our prayers, and most especially in our actions - we misunderstand the miracle of Christmas. When God’s Love became incarnate in the Word made flesh in Jesus of Nazareth. When God the Holy Spirit moved in and through Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, and all of creation, and made the invisible visible. Yet just as God made Mary and the shepherds visible, we know God will not stop until their dream has come to fruition. God will continue to call on her Church to stand with those on the margins, working alongside and for our neighbors who are most hurting right now. The Holy Spirit will continue to work in and through us, and all of creation. Because God is here with us, and in God’s dream, no one is invisible. And nothing, nothing, will ever hold God back. There is Good News of great joy today. Are we ready to receive it? More importantly, are we ready to be changed by it? Amen.
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 By The Rev. Ted Thornton
It’s a Waiting Game If you got to church on time this morning, a few moments ago you sat through a major event in the geophysical history of our planet. It happened at three minutes past ten while we were listening to Heather’s welcome. Happy Solstice! Spring is right around the corner, right? And, here’s one more word about today: today in the Anglican tradition, December 21st is the Feast Day of Saint Thomas, perhaps the most famous voice of doubt in all Christian history, Thomas, who in John’s Gospel says he won’t believe in Jesus unless he can touch the wounds made by the nails of the cross; Thomas, who, in turn then also in John’s Gospel, is invited by Jesus to put his fingers in those wounds, and thereupon utters the strongest affirmation of Jesus’ divinity found anywhere in the Bible, “My Lord and my God.” (John 20:28) I was ordained to the Priesthood on the eve of the Feast of Saint Thomas, the evening of December 20th, 1978 (forty-seven years ago last night). Thomas has always held a special place in my heart. Advent: It’s a waiting game. Our gospel eyes and ears this morning turn to Joseph, one of the great biblical models of faithfulness, endurance, and patient waiting: patience, faithfulness, and endurance in the face of powerful social and cultural forces aligned against him, against his decision to stay with Mary and help her raise the son of God. In Joseph’s part of the world, women pregnant out of wedlock and their male partners were and remain to this day targets of honor killings, carried out usually, by the unlucky woman’s father and brothers. Thank God Joseph listened to and heeded that dream! Joseph, patron saint of all fathers, and, I like to think, the unofficial patron saint of all step fathers, step fathers like me. The patience, faithfulness, and endurance of Joseph are visible in some of the greatest Christian art in history. By the seventh century Byzantine period, artistic conventions of the manger begin centering our attention more fully on Mary and the baby Jesus. Joseph is more often moved to the side, standing among the animals, and we all know what stabled animals do on stable floors. Sometimes he’s brooding. Often he looks lonely. Often he’s depicted as a much older man, more of a grandfather to the adolescent Mary than a husband. Beginning in the sixteenth century, at the behest of Counter-Reformation theologians like Johannes Molanus, this trend is reversed somewhat and artists are encouraged to bring Joseph back to center stage, now depicted as a younger, more vigorous man, as most fathers of newborns tend to be. And, for all the attention devoted to Mary and the baby, it’s a very vigorous Joseph who in his own way makes the story move, especially in his efforts to save his little family from the wrath of Herod by leading their escape into Egypt, Herod, the Roman puppet King, whose paranoid jealousies led him to murder one of his wives, along with his eldest son and heir, and before that the high priest of Jerusalem, whom, according to the Jewish historian Josephus, Herod drowned at a pool party at his winter palace in Jericho. The story of Herod’s “slaughter of the innocents” in Matthew 2, all boys under the age of two, certainly fits with what we know of his paranoid, murderous proclivities. Advent is the season of waiting in our Christian calendar. Patience, endurance, and faithfulness, as embodied in Jesus’ step-father Joseph, are the marks and the fruits of waiting. Much of life is spent waiting for things to happen. We wait to board flights. We wait for people to arrive. We wait in lines at checkout counters. Life is largely a waiting game. If we know what’s good for us, we learn early on to do our waiting with patience and mindfulness. Doctors and nurses refer to us as “patients” because we spend a lot of our time in their offices patiently waiting to see them. Our younger daughter, Annie, learned the word “wait” at a very young age from her grandmother as they sat in a doctor’s office before one of the countless medical appointments and procedures Annie has had to endure since her birth. “We’re waiting, dear,” her grandmother would say. Since that first time, Annie, who has multiple health issues, was encouraged to regard the word “wait” in an active sense, as an opportunity, never as a passive chore, never something that happens to her. Waiting is a discipline. She doesn’t like it, but, now in her forties, she does it, time after time. Perhaps the greatest literary meditation on waiting and what it means is Samuel Becket’s play “Waiting for Godot.” It’s a play about two men on a lonely road who await the arrival of a third named Godot, who, you may have guessed by now, never shows up. It’s also about the hopes and fears that go along with waiting. It’s a play that underscores the importance of patience and how to endure the discomfort and lack of certainty when we’re waiting for something to happen. When it was first performed in the United States, it starred two great American actors: Bert Lahr and Tom Ewell. Some of you may have never heard of Tom Ewell, but I’m quite sure many of you know who Bert Lahr is. He played the cowardly lion alongside Judy Garland in the classic 1939 film version of “The Wizard of Oz.” The first performance of “Waiting for Godot” in the United States occurred in – of all places – the Cocoanut Grove nightclub in Miami. The year was 1956. Now, it turned out that choosing a Miami night club filled with vacationers to open a play about waiting for something to happen was a really bad idea. Think about it: do people go to nightclubs where the entertainment features waiting for something to happen? No, people don’t go to nightclubs to wait for things to happen. People go to nightclubs expecting instant gratification, instant satisfaction in the forms of drink, food, and entertainment. So, they started walking out in droves only minutes into the show. The play bombed; it closed after a very short run. One year later, in 1957, the play was produced in – again of all places - San Quentin Prison, one of the most notorious jails in the country and the former home of California’s gas chamber. The ferry into San Francisco from Larkspur passes up close right alongside the prison. I’ve ridden that ferry. San Quentin - close up - is a frightening sight. As the ferry glided along in the channel, an inmate stared out at us through a fenced in exercise yard, his fingers clutching the chain link wires, the high, thick walls of the cell blocks looming behind him. They put the play on in an old shed where, in the days before the gas chamber, condemned prisoners were hanged. The actors were nervous as the lights went down in the room with its 1,400 noisy inmates. Everyone in that shed knew that, contrary to what happened at the Coconut Grove, no one in the audience was going to be walking out. But, fifteen minutes into the play a miracle happened: a deep hush descended on the room as the inmates began listening with rapt attention and kept listening all the way to the end. It turned out the play made such an impact on the inmates that they started a drama group inside the prison. Why? Why was the experience at San Quentin so different from the one at Miami’s Coconut Grove? Because, the play is a masterful exploration of what it means to wait, and those convicts – many of whom were lifers with no hope of parole - knew what it means and what it takes to wait, and wait, and wait, and wait. Are there prisons in your life? What do you need to do to walk out of them? Do your cellmates include despair, hopelessness, and worry? If you’re feeling locked in a prison of some kind this Advent and Christmas season, try cultivating prayerfully the capacity to wait patiently for release. And while you’re waiting, remember that the good life is a life of good doing. What good things can you do while you wait? Take a lesson from the San Quentin inmates who, after watching Waiting for Godot, were inspired to start their drama group. It’s Joseph with whom we stand this time around on the threshold of one of the two chief theological pole stars of our faith - Christmas and Easter - the mix of flesh and spirit that constitutes our human nature: the two pole stars of our our Christian faith when what we’re made of becomes most intensely revealed to us. Christmas is one of those pole stars. Christmas is that point in history when Spirit, Logos, the Word, the omnipotent power of God becomes flesh incarnate, born into human form in Jesus. The Easter season is the other pole star of our faith, and the more important one. The weeks of Easter mark that time when Jesus’ earthly life ends and returns to Spirit. The dialectical relationship of flesh and spirit at Christmas and Easter, a relationship often experienced as tension, is a mirror reflecting our human nature, recalling in the story of Jesus’ our own birth, foreseeing in Jesus’ death and resurrection at Easter our own death and return to God, and pervading everything we think and do in the time between those two great events in our lives: the who we and the who we can be. It’s a waiting game. What are you waiting for this Advent? Perhaps the answer will come to you this Christmas. I pray that it will. If it doesn’t, keep waiting with patience and prayerful trust in God that in time your release will come. My wife wears a ring on the small finger of her right hand bearing her family’s motto, an inscription first ascribed to the Roman poet Horace. It reads, “Nil desperandum,” (“Never despair!”). Horace is also credited for first uttering the famous phrase, “Carpe Diem (“seize the day”).” Seize each day this Christmas season to love others even better. And don’t forget to love yourselves as you love others: get plenty of sleep, eat and drink sensibly, and do what you can to alleviate stress. You know the drill. Merry Christmas and Every Blessing! Amen.  By Rev. Heather J. Blais, Rector
Isaiah 11:1-10 | Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19 | Romans 15:4-13 | Matthew 3:1-12 In Advent, we await the coming of Christ. We ready ourselves to recall the birth of Jesus’ in Bethlehem, and his eventual ministry. This part of the waiting feels clearer. In our family, there is a long tradition of setting up our creche. As a child, I remember eagerly setting up my grandmother’s creche, and together we would recall the story of Jesus’ birth. This tradition carried on with our oldest and in recent years it has been our youngest, who takes responsibility for setting up our creche. Together we remember the great mystery of God, Love in human flesh, breaking into our world in the form of a newborn child. In remembering this, we reground ourselves in the incredible joy and hope that comes from being in relationship with God. It strengthens us for the journey, empowering us to wait faithfully. What is less clear, is the other kind of waiting we do in Advent. As we await the Coming of Christ that is yet-to-be. The ambiguity of that Coming is deeply uncomfortable - especially for those of us who prefer a sense of order or working with a clearly articulated plan. Except we are not privy to such plans. Those are known by God alone. The early Church thought this Coming that is yet-to-be would be in their lifetimes, and strived to live their lives as such. Over the centuries, the arrival of that someday-soon became more ambiguous. With that shift it has become easier for us to stop living our lives with the same sense of urgency that once guided the actions of our ancestors in faith. After all, it’s unlikely to even be during our lifetimes. Without that sense of urgency it is easy to become cavalier about the necessity of living our lives as faithfully as we possibly can. Instead we get bogged down by the challenges and responsibilities that consume our daily lives. The work of bringing about God’s dream for this world so we might prepare for that Coming that is yet-to-be begins to sound like a meeting that could probably get rescheduled for next month, or maybe tabled altogether. When we pause to recall the meaning of Advent, we remind ourselves this season is about awaiting the greatest Love ever known, breaking open our world, and breaking each of us open along the way. If we slow down long enough to notice, we will find the hope and courage needed to recall God’s dream, and reignite our collective sense of urgency. An urgency that is necessary. It helps us better understand how to wait faithfully, by increasing our capacity to tolerate, and live into, the ambiguity of a life of faith. At the same time, that urgency emphasizes our collective call to work in concert with the Holy Spirit to bring about God’s dream for this world through acts of mercy, justice, and kindness. One reason we gather in weekly worship is to collectively remember what God has told us about their dream for our world and the qualities and characteristics that will help us journey towards that dream. Both readings from Hebrew Scriptures - Isaiah and Psalms - point us towards the kind of leaders needed for that dream to draw near. Isaiah paints a picture of a righteous and just king: The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; (11: 2-4a) Isaiah goes on to make the point - as only a poet can do - that under this kind of leadership, the wolf and lamb can live side by side. Isaiah offers such rich imagery; so much of which can be read as fulfilled in the life, death, and ministry of Jesus Christ. Yet in many ways, when we read it with only our Christian lens, we miss the deep longing of ancient Israel and the prophetic hope for what is possible in God’s dream. This deep longing and prophetic hope for what can-be but is still yet-to-be is visceral at this hour in our common life. This year we have seen injustice carried out in the name of justice, as:
The curtain has been torn away, and we are forced to see the true ugliness that is possible when fear, self-interest, and greed inform the actions of those in power. The end result is a world where justice feels somehow further away than it did five or ten years ago. And to be clear - this is not about political parties or even particular politicians. This is about humanity, in our corner of God’s world, shifting our overall values from concern for our collective wellbeing to concern for our individual wellbeing. It reflects a turning - away from our neighbor, away from our siblings, and away from God. That is the definition of sin. It is why in Matthew’s Gospel both John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth begin their public ministries with the same exact words: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near ” (3:2; 4:17). Repent. Turn back towards God. Turn back towards our siblings. Turn back towards our neighbors. Turn back towards our collective wellbeing. Turn back towards our care of creation. May we, as the people of God in this corner of God’s world, repent. May we turn towards God’s dream and one another. The psalmist in today’s reading has the right idea - of how we turn from the injustices of those in power towards the prophetic imagination of what true leadership looks like in God’s eyes. The psalmist is offering a prayer for ancient Israel as they yearn for God to grant them a king with a deep understanding of God’s sense of justice and righteousness.* A king that would defend and rescue those facing poverty, while crushing down those who implement systems and structures of oppression (72:2,4). A leader who would bring prosperity for all - including creation itself, bringing an abundance of peace into God’s world (72:3,7). Like the psalmist, we can collectively turn to God in prayer, while holding onto the prophetic imagination and hope articulated in Isaiah. If we are to heed John and Jesus' words, to repent, and turn towards God’s dream and one another, we need to be people grounded in prayer. Praying that our elected officials and community leaders may be wise and granted a deep understanding of justice and righteousness. To be clear - not because these leaders need to be Christian or religious. Rather because we need leaders who concern themselves with the wellbeing of all people, especially those most marginalised, and with all of creation. What if in the coming year we each were to pray daily for leaders of every level of governance and community, that they may be granted wisdom and understanding, and to be just leaders who act with mercy for the betterment of all they serve, and all whose lives they touch? How might hearts and minds soften and shift? We will only know if we lean in and trust the Spirit. As we prepare to head back out into an aching world today, I would invite each of us to keep reflecting on the themes that arise in Advent.
Amen. * See fuller discussion of psalm in commentary https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/second-sunday-of-advent/commentary-on-psalm-721-7-18-19-6 |
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