"The Holy Spirit and Fire" (Luke 3:1-22)

 

Fire-and-Brimstone Preaching

John the Baptizer does not mince words. He addresses his audience as a “brood of vipers!” (3:7). He warns them about “the wrath to come” (3:7). He talks about a mysterious ax and unfruitful trees being cut down and thrown into the fire (3:9). Later he talks about the messiah carrying a “winnowing fork,” separating wheat from chaff and burning the chaff with “unquenchable fire” (3:17).

Is John the Baptizer the father of fire-and-brimstone preaching? I wonder. The tradition of fire-and-brimstone preaching revolves around fear, which can be a powerful motivator. If your audience is faced with the threat of a fiery torment, they will likely be willing to do whatever you say.  Perhaps fear is the reason that the crowds are willing to change. Perhaps it is why they ask John, “What then should we do?”

Fast-forward two thousand years, and we now have an ample amount of data to study the effects of fire-and-brimstone, fear-based preaching. We can ask, “So, how’s that been working out for us?” For a long time, it worked well enough, institutionally speaking. It kept bottoms in pews. But one of its side effects is what we might call “moralism”—a tendency to see the world in good and bad, right and wrong, so that we can ensure that we are on the right side of the divide and out of the fiery flames.

But as Jesuit priest Greg Boyle observes, moralism hasn’t actually kept us moral. It’s only kept us apart. It doesn’t result in a genuine transformation of character, but rather leaves us jittery with judgement toward others and shame toward ourselves. Fire-and-brimstone, fear-based preaching is to our faith what sugar is to our body—an immediate rush of energy, followed by a crash; an unhealthy diet, an unsustainable way of living.

Is Fire Part of the Equation?

So I’m inclined to think there’s more going on in John the Baptizer’s wilderness escapades than simply fire-and-brimstone preaching. To be sure, his message of repentance is meant to deliver a shock to the system. But perhaps the shock isn’t what we, through centuries of fire-and-brimstone preaching, have been conditioned to hear. The whole point of fire-and-brimstone theology as we know it is to avoid the fire. But John the Baptizer says that the messiah will baptize with “the Holy Spirit and fire,” which to me sounds like saying that fire is part of the equation, a part of what it means to be baptized in the Holy Spirit.

What would it mean for fire to be part of the equation? Let me offer up a parable to explore the possibility that fire is not damnation but part of salvation. Like John the Baptizer’s preaching in the wilderness, this parable—which was originally crafted by Peter Rollins, a Northern Irish theologian—may be a bit of a shock. My hope is that, like John the Baptizer’s preaching, the shock might be constructive.

A Parable: Finding Faith

Once upon a time, there lived a fiery preacher. Early in his ministry, he discovered that he had a “powerful but unusual gift.” Whenever he prayed for someone, they would lose their faith. The preacher quickly learned to delegate the task of praying to others, lest he cause his parishioners to lose their faith.

One day, the preacher was flying across the country to attend a conference. The man beside him in the airplane struck up a conversation. The preacher learned that his neighbor was a businessman, “a very powerful and ruthless merchant banker.”[1] When the businessman noticed a Bible in the preacher’s hands, he shared that he was a Christian himself. “‘The world of business is a cold one,’ he confided to the preacher, ‘and in my line of work I find myself in situations that challenge my Christian convictions. But I try, as much as possible, to remain true to my faith. Indeed, I attend a local church every Sunday, participate in a prayer circle, engage in some youth work, and contribute to a weekly Bible study. These activities help to remind me of who I really am.’”[2]

“After listening carefully to the businessman’s story, the preacher began to realize the purpose of his unseemly gift. So he turned to the businessman and said, ‘Would you allow me to pray a blessing into your life?’”[3] The businessman nodded enthusiastically and bowed his head. The preacher prayed a short prayer as the plane landed, and the two men parted ways.

A few years later, the preacher was taking the same flight across the country to a conference when—lo and behold!—the businessman was sitting beside him. As soon as they recognized each other, the businessman broke into a story of how his last few years had gone. “You won’t believe it, but when you prayed for me, I lost my belief in the Bible, church, and even God. Suddenly, the rest of my life became incredibly unpleasant—like being enclosed in a hot, stuffy room without a fan or air conditioning or anything cold to drink. Without religion to make me feel good about myself, to assure me of salvation when I died, I had to face the reality that I was a hard-nosed and cruel businessman working in a corrupt business. I began to despise what I did. Within months, I had a breakdown. I resigned from my job, gave all the money I’d made to the poor, and began to use my expertise to help others.” He paused, and tears began to fall down his face. “I have to thank you, dear friend—for helping me discover my faith.”

A Refining Fire

The word religion comes from a Latin root that means “to bind.” In one sense, religion is the glue that keeps our world together, the center of gravity that holds everything in place. This can become problematic, though, when God is trying to change things as they are, to make all things new. “Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’” (3:8), John the Baptizer tells his Jewish audience, perhaps because their heritage as God’s chosen people has led them to settle and become comfortable in a status quo that serves neither them nor the wider world to whom they are meant to be a blessing. In a similar way, the promise of eternal salvation held everything together for the businessman from our parable. Only when his original beliefs went up in flames and he no longer had that promise to hold everything together, could he become honest enough about reality to make some real changes. The parable is left open-ended, but I choose to interpret that the businessman has actually returned to church and reading the Bible and praying to God. Only now, he does all of this in a different way. He no longer lives for the afterlife. He lives for the present life. He trusts that God’s kingdom is in his midst and that he is called to receive it by learning from the gentle and humble heart of Jesus. He changes his way of living so that he might enter the kingdom of God now, rather than later.

When John the Baptist talks about fire, about unfruitful trees being cut down and burned, about chaff being separated from the wheat and burned, perhaps he is not telling the crowds to avoid the fire, but rather to welcome it. Perhaps the fire is part of his way of describing repentance (and how it sometimes feels). Perhaps he is describing how God’s salvation works. We are baptized, he says, not only with the Holy Spirit but also with fire. There is a rich tradition elsewhere in scripture of fire as an image of refinement. The Hebrew prophets occasionally spoke of God as a consuming fire that refines us as fire refines precious metals.

Some of our prayers in today’s service have borrowed words and images from a poem-prayer of pastor Ted Loder (which I’ve printed extra copies of and left in the fellowship hall).[4] It is a challenging prayer, but one worth wrestling with. Loder acknowledges a host of difficult or negative experiences, such as hurt and fear and confusion and shame, and he finds God’s grace in each experience. Which is to say, he finds God’s refining fire in each experience. This does not mean that God causes these experiences, but only that God calls to us through them. God uses them. They become instruments of grace, axes lying at the root of unfruitful trees, winnowing forks separating wheat from chaff—inviting us to let go of perfection and grand expectations; inviting us to drop our masks and share more vulnerably with each other; inviting us to surrender our designs on the future (and our regrets for the past) and instead to find God in the present moment.

Fear-based religion and moralism hasn’t kept us moral. It’s only kept us apart. It hasn’t changed us, it’s only entrenched us in judgment and shame. As we hear John the Baptizer’s preaching today, maybe this time we can hear something a little different. Not the threats of a fire to avoid, but the encouragement to welcome the full baptism of our Lord, which includes fire. Maybe instead of running away from the pain in our lives, we can go through it, as precious metal passes through flames, as a baptized person passes through the waves.

Maybe…it’s only a suggestion. As always, you can take what rings true in all that I’ve said, and you can leave the rest.

Prayer

Holy God,
Whose love refreshes like water
Even as it burns like fire—
With the assurance that we are your children,
Beloved and pleasing in your eyes,
May we be encouraged and empowered
To welcome the fiery side of baptism,
To find your presence in the flames.
…
Help us to change and grow
In the manner that Jesus grew in wisdom and grace,
Not through gritted teeth and white knuckles,
But through a gentle and humble heart.
In Christ, who reveals God with us: Amen.

---

[1] Peter Rollins, The Orthodox Heretic: And Other Impossible Tales (Brewster, MA: Paraclete, 2009), 57-58.

[2] Rollins, The Orthodox Heretic, 57-58.

[3] Rollins, The Orthodox Heretic, 57-58.

[4] Ted Loder, “Pry Me Off Dead Center,” in Guerillas of Grace: Prayers for the Battle (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1981), 102-103.

Child of God (Luke 2:41-52)

The Darndest Things

I’ve never watched the television show Kids Say the Darndest Things. But as I read today’s scripture, I wondered whether the sentiment didn’t cross Mary’s own mind. I decided to do a bit of research and see just what kind of “darndest things” kids have said on the show. Here are a couple of my favorites:

In one exchange, a boy is asked, “Do you like school?” “Yes,” he responds, before explaining: “I like it when it’s over!” This begs the question, “What don’t you like about school?” to which the boy responds, “The homework. It’s like getting a job [and] you’re not even paid.”^[1]

In a more recent iteration of the show, the host Tiffany Haddish asks a six-year-old boy, “What does love mean?” The boy responds with a very relatable metaphor. “It means giving someone your last piece of candy … even if you really want it.” The host marvels at the response, “Aww, that’s so sweet! So, would you give your candy to someone?” The boys responds, “Only if it’s a lollipop. If it’s a chocolate bar, I’m keeping that.”^[2]

“Darndest” may be the word in the show’s title, but I wonder if “honest” or “truest” isn’t a more accurate description of the things children say. Children say the honest truths that we think or feel but have learned to hide. For example, love is a big sacrifice, and there are some things that maybe we’d prefer to hold onto—whether that’s chocolate or our independence!

When Jesus later recites from scripture, “Out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies, you [God] have prepared praise for yourself” (Matt 21:16; cf. Ps 8:2), I wonder if he’s not referring to this childlike honesty. What else is a child’s honest happiness (or hunger for happiness) but the praise of all the goodness of life, all the gifts of God?

Jesus’ Jewish Childhood

Today’s scripture records the only words attributed to Jesus before his ministry begins. He is only twelve years old. And it is only the briefest of snapshots. Yet all who hear him are “amazed” (2:47). It seems that Jesus may have said some of the darndest—or truest—things. I wonder what he said.

Luke sets the scene by explaining that Jesus has gone with his parents to Jerusalem for the Passover. It is a curiosity that in Luke, although Jesus grows up in the hometown of Nazareth, we only ever see him as a child in Jerusalem. The point is clear. Mary, Joseph, and Jesus are a faithful Jewish family. They order their lives according to the stories and symbols and laws of the Jewish faith, first circumcising the baby Jesus (Luke 2:21), then going to the temple to dedicate the infant Jesus as a firstborn child (Luke 2:22-24), and now going to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover (Luke 2:41), the festival that celebrates how God liberates us from the forces that enslave.

Although the tradition of the bar and bat  mitzvah, when a Jewish child becomes responsible for their faith and behavior, does not evolve until centuries later, commentators suggest that Jesus’ age of twelve is about the time when boys would begin studying the law. So it’s no surprise that we find Jesus “sitting” among the teachers in the temple (Luke 2:46), the position that disciples would take before their rabbis (cf. Acts 22:3). And it’s no surprise that we find Jesus “asking them questions,” which is what disciples would commonly do in the presence of their rabbis (Luke 2:46). Thus far, we see Jesus growing up as any faithful Jewish boy would grow up. He goes to Jerusalem for all the required rituals.He celebrates the Passover. He positions himself as a disciple learning from the rabbis. No surprises here.

But then Jesus opens his mouth, and there is a surprise. “All who heard him were amazed,” Luke reports, “at his understanding and his answers” (2:47).

Epiphany: Appearance and a Light-Bulb Moment

Today we are celebrating the beginning of Epiphany, the season that follows on the heels of Christmas. The word “epiphany” literally means appearance. Accordingly, Epiphany is the season when we celebrate the ways that Christ appears to the world. One traditional Epiphany story is the wise men, or magi, who come from afar to see Jesus. Because the magi come from distant lands, their encounter with Jesus symbolically marks Jesus’ appearance to all the world—not just to King Herod and the Judeans, but to distant kings and other peoples too.

But Epiphany is about more than Jesus appearing. Our common usage of “epiphany” as a light-bulb moment—such as, I was just washing the dishes, thinking about nothing in particular, when I had a sudden epiphany—suggests the significance of Epiphany. Not only does Jesus appear. His appearance opens the eyes and the minds of onlookers. His appearance results in a light-bulb moment for others.

But after Luke gives us the tantalizing detail that all who heard Jesus were “amazed” at his understanding and answers, he disappointingly reveals nothing about what Jesus actually said that amazed his teachers and all the onlookers. We’re left to wonder what the light-bulb moment was for his audience.

Son of God:
Exclusive Privilege or Shared Identity?

Just moments later, however, Luke does tell us the words that come out of Jesus’ mouth. In fact, these are the first words in Jesus’ life that are recorded in the gospels. When his mother chastises him, “Child, why have you treated us like this?” he responds with the darndest—or truest?—response, “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49). However you hear this response, Luke goes on to assure us that Jesus is not being a smart-alec; he returns with his parents to Nazareth and is obedient to them (Luke 2:51).

As these are the only words that Luke lets slip out of Jesus’ mouth, I wonder if they are not representative of all that Jesus has been saying that has amazed and astonished the people around him. In other words, I wonder if these words do not serve as a summary of Jesus’ stunning insight. And the insight is stunningly simple: I am a child of God.

Of course, we might think this is obvious. After all, we’ve already read the story of Mary’s miraculous conception and Gabriel’s revelation that Jesus is the Son of God. But I wonder if “son of God” is meant to be the exclusive, unique designation that we have traditionally made it out to be, as though Jesus is something we’re never meant to be. The gospel of John explains in his prologue that Christ has given to all who trust in him “power to become children of God” (John 1:12). Athanasius, an Egyptian church leader in the fourth century, explained the purpose of the incarnation in similar terms, saying, “God became what we are, so that we might become what God is.” (He did not mean to imply, of course, that humanity would take the place of God, but rather that in Christ humanity might come to know their place in God—as, for example, children know their place in a family.)

Wondering What the Boy Jesus Said…

So I wonder if in the temple Jesus didn’t say some of the darndest—and truest—things revealing his sense of God’s nearness, God’s intimacy, God’s love. I wonder if he talked about God as his “abba,” his dad. I wonder if he talked about God’s kingdom as a world in which he was already living, a world that was already among the people, available to anyone who would live in God’s love. I wonder if he talked about other people—including the poor, the blind, the Roman centurion, the tax collector—as his brothers and sisters. I wonder if what so amazed the people at the temple was the same thing that so astonished his mother, namely, that he spoke with the precocious assurance that he was a child of God and this was God’s world and we could all enjoy and share God’s goodness if we but believed in it.

Prayer

Tender father and mother of us all,
Whose love we come to know most fully
Through our brother Jesus Christ—
Some days our faith is full,
Others it verges on empty.
May the words of Christ,
The darndest things he says,
Dwell richly in us
…
That we, like him, might grow
In wisdom and grace.
In Christ, a child of God: Amen.

---

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmcJCFFGGSM&ab_channel=Kyoot, accessed December 30, 2024.

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWVWUYxlD7A&ab_channel=27BoysFamily, accessed December 30, 2024. 

Looking for God (Luke 2:21-38)

Reading Slowly

This Christmas, I had the opportunity to read a book with my nephews, If You Take a Mouse to the Movies by Laura Numeroff. It is a spinoff on her classic If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. We would occasionally stop at the end of a page and ask, “Okay, what do you think the mouse will want next?”

This experience transported me momentarily to my childhood. I remembered how my teachers would occasionally pause and ask the class, “What do you think is going to happen on the next page?”

Of course, as I grew up, I stopped reading this way. I learned to read quickly. To read for content. To consume as much as I could in the time I had. I had professors who taught me how to speedread, to scan for items of interest or significance. To stop at the end of a sentence or at the end of a page and ask, “What’s going to happen next?” would be a waste of time. It would be inefficient. It would be slow.

Yet as I read slowly with my nephews, I felt closer to God. To ask the question, “What will this silly mouse want next?” was not just idle speculation. It was an act of paying attention. The focus was not just “What happens to the mouse in this story?” but “What’s the heart of the mouse in this story?” What is it that is moving this story along?

Simeon and Anna See More

Christmas was several days ago, but we are still firmly in Christmastide, the season of Christmas. Which is to say, we are still celebrating the arrival of God in our world in the most surprising of ways.

Today’s scripture tells of the first two individuals who recognize Jesus as the messiah without being told who he is. Mary and Joseph have been told by the angel. The shepherds have been told by a host of angels. But Simeon and Anna have not been told. Yet when they see this dirt poor couple enter the temple with an infant boy, somehow they see the messiah. The rest of the world sees an anonymous couple—so poor that they cannot afford a sheep for the customary sacrifice and must settle for a turtledove and pigeon (Luke 2: 24; cf. Lev 11). The rest of the world see a helpless infant, a baby boy incapable of anything more than inarticulate squeaks and groans and crying. But Simeon and Anna see something more. Why? 

Slowing Down

Luke likes to tell stories in pairs, two at a time. For example, Jesus’ birth story is actually paired with another birth story: John the Baptizer. In today’s scripture, Jesus is recognized by not one stranger, but two. What’s the link between them? The common thread? To my eyes, it’s simple. They’re both old. Simeon’s words indicate that he’s in the twilight of his life. “Now you are dismissing your servant in peace,” he says to God (Luke 2:29), suggesting that he is finally ready to die. And Anna is “of great age,” Luke tells us, an eighty-four-year-old widow who spends all her time in the temple (Luke 2:36-37).

Now, I know no one likes to think of themselves as old or elderly. Certainly no one here is old right? But we’re all familiar with the process of aging, and I think we can all agree that to get older usually means “slowing down.”

For some people, “slowing down” is a bad thing. They fight it. They want to maintain the illusion of control that is so easy to maintain when you’re younger, when you’re in good health and advancing in your career and building your little kingdom. To “slow down” would be to admit defeat.

But I think Simeon and Anna have embraced the reality of “slowing down.” When we slow down, we can pay more attention. Just like pausing at the end of a sentence or the end of a page and asking what’s really going on, slowing down invites us to pay attention. And paying attention is, in essence, an act of prayer. It is looking for the heart of God in the world around us. It draws us beneath the surface of what’s happening and nearer to the heart of God.

The Surprise of God

French philosopher Paul Virilio once wrote, “Speed is violence.” This is literally true and manifested in the danger of fast-moving objects like bullets and cars. But it is equally true in a more figurative sense. Living at a fast pace does violence to our attention. Speed kills attention. Just think about the last time you tried to do three things at once, like cook and talk on the telephone and entertain a grandchild or a pet. Chances are you overlook a key ingredient or you measure out one cup instead of one tablespoon and your dinner is…disappointing—if not a complete disaster. Similarly when I speed-read, I miss important details. I miss implied connections. I may well miss out on the underlying meaning of the text.

Sometimes people talk about old age as a second childhood. I think we see that in Simeon and Anna in the best of ways. They have both embraced slowing down. They have relinquished the illusion of control. They pause at the end of each sentence, each page, and ask, “I wonder what’s really going on?” Which is to say, they’re paying attention. They’re drawing nearer to the heart of God. And so they’re able to recognize when God arrives in the most surprising of ways.

While most Judeans are expecting a conquering messiah who will restore Israel to national greatness, Simeon has discerned in his slowing down that God’s salvation is for everyone, that the messiah is not only, as he puts it, for the “glory [of] Israel” but also also “a light for revelation to the Gentiles” (Luke 2:32). While most Judeans are expecting a messiah whose greatness will be seen in his power and his prestige, Simeon and Anna seem to have discerned in their slowing down that true greatness comes in the little and lowly things, in a humble faith in God; they recognize the messiah in the baby boy of this dirt poor couple.

The Gift of Growing Older

I’ll confess, I’ve projected into the story a little bit of my own experience. We cannot know for certain why Simeon and Anna recognize the Christ child, other than that they were both looking for God. Luke tells simply us that Simeon was “looking forward to the consolation of Israel” and that Anna fasted and prayed in the temple “night and day” (Luke 1:25, 37).

But my experience has been that, generally, when I live at a fast speed, frantic, hurried, I pay less attention to what matters. I try to stay in control of things. I feel more distant from God. Conversely, when I live slowly, I relinquish control and pay more attention to the world around me, and I feel closer to God.

The new year is fast approaching, a reminder that time marches on and we’re not getting any younger. Perhaps it feels sometimes like things are passing us by and we can’t keep up. Or simply like we’re slowing down. 

But Simeon and Anna remind us that growing older and slowing down is not a sad thing to resist. On the contrary, it is a gift. Slowing down invites us into the reality that we are not in control and that God is near, perhaps in surprising ways. Slowing down is an invitation to pay attention. And to pay attention is to draw near to the heart of God…which we might discover to be bigger than we thought and dwelling in the littlest, lowest of things.

Prayer

Surprising God,

Who shows up, day after day,

But so often disguised in the ordinary—

Open our hearts to receive your gift

Of aging and slowing down.

…

May we learn to look for you

Not in success and spectacle,

But by prayer and paying attention.

In Christ Jesus, child of poverty, child of God: Amen.

"Nothing Will Be Impossible" (Luke 1:26-38)

 Optimistic Prognostications

“Nothing will be impossible.” Does that sound familiar? I feel like I’ve heard it before somewhere. Was it an advertisement for some new piece of cooking ware? The Instant Pot, maybe? Cheesecake, yoghurt, rice, roasted chicken, barbecue, baked potato…what can’t it make? Nothing will be impossible in your kitchen with an Instant Pot.

More likely I heard the phrase “Nothing will be impossible,” or something similar, in the advertisement for some new piece of technology. At the launch of one of the Samsung Galaxy smartphones, the Samsung CEO referred proudly to the company’s innovation and explained, “This is how…the impossible becomes possible.” 

“Nothing will be impossible” might well be the implicit motto of our optimistic tech industry. Sam Altman, the CEO of Open AI, talks about artificial intelligence as though it will be the salvation of humanity. “I believe the future is going to be so bright that no one can do it justice by trying to write about it now; a defining characteristic of the Intelligence Age will be massive prosperity. … [A]stounding triumphs—fixing the climate, establishing a space colony, and the discovery of all of physics—will eventually become commonplace.” “Eventually we can each have a personal AI team, full of virtual experts in different areas, working together to create almost anything we can imagine.”

Whether it’s on behalf of cooking ware that promises to simplify and speed up your cooking or on behalf of artificial intelligence that promises to fix every problem, the proclamation “Nothing will be impossible” ultimately trains our eyes—and our hearts—on an object of power. When that object, that power, finally intervenes, the battle will be won. Our problems will be over. Life will be good.

The God of Power and Intervention

When religious folks hear these overzealous promises from the tech industry, we usually take them with a grain of salt. As much as we might enjoy the comforts and conveniences made possible by new technologies, not to mention the health benefits of correlated advances in medicine, we know that technology cannot save our souls. No number of years added to our lifespan, no amount of luxury and ease would satisfy our spiritual yearning for transcendence.

Yet it strikes me that our religious fixation on God’s salvation is often structurally the same as tech enthusiasts’ fixation on technology’s salvation. In other words, religious folks also are waiting for an intervention. We too are hoping for the eventual arrival of a power that will overcome all our problems: war, sickness, sin, death. In one sense, we may be worshiping the same god as the tech enthusiasts. A god of power and intervention.

Mary Has a Choice

Let us turn now to the scripture where we actually hear the promise, “Nothing will be impossible” (Luke 1:37). What captivates many readers in today’s passage is the extraordinary depth given to Mary’s character. She is perplexed. She ponders. She doubts and questions: “How can this be?” (Luke 1:34). And ultimately, she consents, with the famous words, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).

In poems and paintings of this scene, Mary is almost always depicted with a lily and a book nearby, as though to indicate that she is scenting and reading this strange guest, this incredible message. She is interpreting what this means. She is deciding how she will respond. Which is all to say, she has a choice. God gives her a choice. This is not an imperial God imposing his way upon her, decreeing a Word that will happen regardless of her response. This is a God of relationship, a God who gives space for feelings, for doubts, for a response. This is a God who desires consent.

The fifteenth-century painter, Sandro Botticelli, gives exquisite expression to this dynamic of relationship in his painting Cestello Annunciation, where we can see Mary in the throes of her decision. Her body is simultaneously pulled away in fear and doubt and drawn forward in wonder and love. The painting foregrounds the real drama of this scene. The real drama is not about God doing whatever God wills. It’s about God begging, hoping, waiting—and Mary deciding.

Tzimtzum

The god of Greek philosophy, the god that most of our world thinks about when it thinks about god, is the god of omniscience and omnipotence. God all-knowing and all-powerful. But for Jews and Christians alike, the God of the Bible has long challenged and complicated the image of this all-powerful, all-knowing God. Rabbi Isaac Luria, a Jewish mystic of the sixteenth century, interprets the mystery of the biblical God with a Hebrew word, tzimtzum, which means something like “diminishment” or “withdrawal.” He explains that the process of creation requires tzimtzum. Creation requires God to restrain Godself, to reduce Godself, to withdraw and make space. God makes space for the world and humanity. “Human freedom … exists because of divine self-limitation.” Thus Adam and Eve have the freedom to eat from the fruit of the tree. Cain can kill Abel. Great harm can be done. But in the same way, in the same space, Joseph can show to his brothers the same grace God has shown to him. Ruth can stay with and support her mother-in-law, Naomi, and embody the steadfast love of Naomi’s God. Great good can be done too.

What we see in today’s scripture—and what is captured in Botticelli’s painting—is God’s tzimtzum. God does not impose God’s will on the world. God waits for a response. God makes space for the pondering, the questioning, the deciding. God is reduced to the powerlessness of asking, begging, hoping, waiting.

A Love Story

When my dad proposed to my mom, she was not expecting it. So she responded, in all honesty, “Let me get back to you.” She needed space to be perplexed. She needed space to ponder. In the meanwhile, my dad was left with the painful consequences of his vulnerability. To ask, to propose, to make space for a response is to make oneself vulnerable to indecision, to rejection. My dad waited on pins and needles. Even so, he suffered just a fraction of what God must suffer as God makes space for us.

When she eventually responded, her heart assured and mind made up, “Yes,” they shared their joy. Perhaps there was even a hint of the feeling that, together, nothing would be impossible. 

When I read today’s scripture, more and more, I see a love story. Not just between God and Mary, but between God and all of us. I see a story of God’s desire and how God’s desire comes to fruition. Not with a sword, not a wave of the wand, but in the vulnerable space of relationship. The traditional god of our world, a god of omnipotence, could just snap his fingers and get what he wants. But there would be no space for us in such a world. It would be like a computer program. It would be devoid of love and life.

Much of our world worships a god of power and intervention, whether that takes the shape of technology or the shape of a Greek god of omnipotence. Our world believes that “nothing will be impossible” when power comes, when some object—some great tool or weapon or god—arrives and erases all our problems. It thinks that there’s nothing we can really do until this power intervenes. But Advent reminds us that the truth is nearly the opposite: there is nothing God can do until we consent. Because our God is the vulnerable God of tzimtzum. Our God is a God of love, who makes space for us.

“Nothing will be impossible” is not the proclamation of a force that will one day arrive and fix all our material problems. It is the ecstatic proclamation of love. It declares that the power of the heart is greater than the power of the hand. It glorifies not the mindless obedience of a soldier but the loving consent that makes possible the abundant life of relationship. It holds within it the space of pondering and questioning…and ultimately responding, “Yes!”

Prayer

Tender God,

Who desires not empty obedience

But a heart that reciprocates,

That says “Yes!”—

This Advent, we have tried to make space for your arrival.

Now we find that you are making space for our response.

Grant us the honesty to share our heart with you

…

And to trust in the power of your love,

With which you say nothing is impossible.

In Christ Jesus, who was conceived by God's love and Mary’s consent: Amen.

"Good News" (Isaiah 61:1-11)

The Greatest Gift

When I think back to the first Christmases I can remember, I can remember only one gift. A stuffed seal that would issue a loud bark if you hugged it hard enough. I hugged it hard enough so many times that, today, it no longer barks.

I cannot remember any other gifts. But that is not to say that I do not remember anything else. I remember plenty. I remember arriving at Granddad’s house after the long car drive to Kentucky, how he would greet me by saying in the deepest voice he could manage, “Big John!” and how he would hug me so hard I would almost bark and how his beard would prickle roughly against my cheek. I remember how my grandmother would prepare hot chocolate as an excuse for us all to gather at the table. I remember how at Grandpa and Grandma’s house (my other grandparents), there would be berries in the cereal each morning because they knew my brother and I loved berries. Grandpa and Grandma weren’t quite as huggy as Granddad, but they hugged us in other ways. Berries were one of them.

What these memories tell me is that, as a young child, the greatest gift I received was not a gift tied with a ribbon or a bow. It was not a gift I unwrapped. It was a gift that wrapped around me, embraced me, hugged me. It was the gift of another person who delighted in me. What I remember best from these first Christmases is being delighted in.

Not Correction, But Healing

Father Greg Boyle, a Jesuit priest in Los Angeles and the founder of Homeboy Industries, the largest gang intervention program in the world, preaches a simple gospel. God delights in you. 

In his experience, gang members are not evil people who need to be fixed. They are diamonds covered in dirt, children of God who do not know it yet. The problem is not them, but the tragic wounds of their upbringing that keep them from the truth that God delights in them. Boyle writes that, “during Advent, we are called to prepare the way…to ‘make straight the path’ and make smooth what is rocky. … Our hardwiring is such that we hear these invitations as a demand to ‘straighten up’ or ‘get our act together’. But it’s not we who need changing—it’s our crooked path that needs to be smoothed…so we can be reached by God’s tenderness.” 

Greg Boyle explains that a common question asked at Homeboy Industries is, “What’s the thorn underneath?” In other words, these former gang members are not viewed as bad people who need to be reformed, but as God’s children who have great wounds and need to be healed. In this light, the gospel is not that we are crooked people who need to be corrected, but wounded people who need to be healed. 

And if that strikes you as being too warm and soft and fuzzy, as letting these hardened gangsters off the hook too lightly, it may help to remember that Jesus himself speaks in these very terms. When he’s eating with Levi the tax collector and others are grumbling that he hangs out with sinners—that is, bad people—he explains: “Those who are well have no need of a physician but those who are sick” (Luke 5:31). Jesus does not look around and see evil people. He sees wounded people who need to rediscover the truth that God loves them.

“She Has Become a Filthy Thing”

When the empire of Babylon conquered Israel and destroyed the temple and forcibly expelled the survivors from their homeland, many Israelites understood what happened in terms of God’s judgment. And, to be clear, they were not entirely wrong. It’s just that, as my grandfather would put it, they were putting the em-pha-sis on the wrong syl-la-ble. The biblical story is clear that the Israelites had strayed from God’s way of caring for each other. What happened was the natural consequence—which is another way to say “judgment”—as greed and pride grew into competition and oppression, and ultimately resulted in social disintegration and collapse.

But many Israelites interpret God’s judgment as a matter not just of what Israel had done, but who Israel was. Listen to this song of lament from Lamentations: “Jerusalem sinned grievously, so she has become a filthy thing; all who honored her despise her, for they have seen her nakedness; she herself groans and turns her face away” (Lam 1:8). Through the lens of shame, these Israelites see God as one who has rejected them because they are a “filthy thing.” While they hope for restoration, there lingers the fear that, as the same song puts it, “you [God] have utterly rejected us and are angry with us beyond measure” (Lam 5:22). 

“I Delight in You”

It is into this doubt and despair that Isaiah proclaims, “The spirit of the Lord is upon me…” Now, before we listen to a word that Isaiah says, it’s worth remembering that when the spirit of God descends upon Jesus at the beginning of his ministry, a voice from heaven declares, “You are my beloved child; with you I am well pleased” (Luke 3:22). In other words: “You are my child, and I delight in you.” With that good news echoing in his heart, Jesus proceeds to share the same message with others, and especially the wounded who have no inkling that God delights in them. 

Returning to our scripture today, we can begin to trace the outlines of the same message in Isaiah’s prophecy. With the spirit of God upon him, Isaiah begins to proclaim in all sorts of ways God’s good news: “You are my child, and I delight in you.” Isaiah does not condemn and call for correction. Isaiah proclaims unconditional restoration: healing for the brokenhearted, freedom for the enslaved, comfort for the grieving. The language here echoes the laws in Leviticus about the jubilee year, which was a special occasion prescribed for every 50 years when all Israelite debts were cancelled and land was restored to its original owners. What is so radical about the jubilee year is that it obliterates the accumulations of savvy business people and restores a baseline equality in Israel. It prevents a meritocracy where the rich get richer and poor get poorer. It guards the dignity of every Israelite.

Cherished People Cherish People

Perhaps you’ve heard the adage, “Hurt people hurt people”? It echoes the wisdom that Father Greg Boyle expresses when he points to the underlying wounds (“the thorn underneath”) of the ex-gang members in his community. If we invert this adage, if we turn it inside out, I think we end up with the gospel on display in today’s scripture: “Cherished people cherish people.”

There is a subtle inside-out movement in Isaiah’s prophecy. Yes, God delights in Israel and will restore the Israelites, but the process doesn’t stop there. The people of Israel will become “priests of the Lord” and “ministers of … God” (Isa 61:6), which is to say, they will do unto others as God has done unto them. Isaiah imagines being clothed with “the garments of salvation” and “covered … with the robe of righteousness” (Isa 61:10). It is as though Isaiah is saying, the people of Israel will wear God’s delight in them “on their sleeves”; they will be unable to hide it. They will radiate God’s joy and will delight in others. Cherished people cherish people.

Greg Boyle tells the story of one of his ex-gang members, who came into work at Homeboy Industries on his day off. Thinking that maybe he’d gotten his days mixed up, Greg asked him, “What are you doing here?” “I just came by to get my fix,” he replies. “Of what?” Greg asked. “Love.” Again and again, Greg sees the same transformation. An ex-gang member hears the good news that God delights in them. They get off the streets. They begin to care for themselves and their family. They begin to delight in the community around them.

God’s delight is like a seed. It does not stop with the person who receives it. It grows into all kinds of restoration (cf. Isa 61:11). It grows into delighting in others, actually wanting to be in their company. It transforms life from a battle or an obligation or a test into a gift.

When we try to be good, to measure up, or when we try to save other people, we ultimately burn out because we’re not in control, and it’s exhausting when you try to do what cannot be done. But, as Greg puts it, when we let go of saving others and can simply savor them, that’s when the real saving happens. When we know God’s delight in us and we delight in others, that’s when the saving really happens.

My first Christmas memories are, I think, the truest. It’s not things that save me. Nor is it anything I can do or achieve. It’s the good news that I am delighted in. Or as Jesus heard on the banks of the Jordan, “You are my beloved child; with you I am well pleased.”

Prayer

Holy God,
Whose good news seems too good to be true—
We instinctively divide our world up
Into good and evil, winners and losers, saved and not,
And in the process miss out on your delight
In all your children.
Restore us to your embrace, your cherishment,
Where we can take it easy
And savor others around us,
Trusting that we are all being saved in your love.
In Christ, whose good news we believe: Amen.