"Word and Flesh" (John 1:1-14)

(Meditation for Gayton Road Christian Church's Sunday Worship on December 25, 2016, Christmas)

(With the help of the children and the youth)

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A Different Kind of Christmas Story

When you think of the Christmas story, what do you think of? What characters or places or events do you imagine?

In today’s scripture, John tells the Christmas story. It’s a different kind of Christmas story than the one we hear in Matthew and Luke, where we see stars and angels and the baby Jesus. John’s Christmas story is cosmic. It’s a little bit like those movies where the camera zooms out and you see all the planets and stars and galaxies.

The Word of Christmas and Creation

John says that the story of Christmas is also the story of creation, because both of them celebrate the same thing: God’s Word. A Word that brought life to the entire universe. A Word that came to life in Jesus.

All this talk about a word of great power makes me think about magic words. Do you know any magic words? What’s supposed to happen when you say them? (Does this really happen?)

What about in everyday life? Let’s say that you want a cookie, and your mom or your dad says to you, “Say the magic word.” What word do you say? And what happens?

All Words Are Magic

You know what I think? I think all words are magic. I think all words change the world.

When someone gives you a compliment, how does it make you feel? How does it change you?

Bodies Made of Words

In today’s Christmas story, John says that God’s Word became flesh. That’s sort of like saying that our bodies are made of words. That all the compliments we’ve received, and all the encouragement, and all the instruction—all these words have helped to shape us and make us who we are.

Think for a moment about who you are. What are some of the words that have shaped you—maybe words that your parents have said, or your friends?

Now I’m wondering about the baby Jesus, who’s with us today in the manger. I’m marveling about what John says: that Jesus is made up of God’s word. What do you think this means?

I think what John is saying is that as the baby Jesus grows up to be a young child, and then a teenager, and then a young adult, he keeps hearing a special word from God. Not “Abracadabra.” Not “hocus pocus.” Not even “please.” What words do you think God is saying to Jesus? I believe God’s saying, “I love you.” (I think God says the same thing to all of us, but I believe Jesus heard it most clearly and trusted in it with all his heart.)

I believe “I love you” is the Word of God that became flesh, that made up the body of Jesus.

The Word God Says

And according to John’s Christmas story, the Word that comes to life in Jesus is seeking to come to life in us. John says that if we hear this Word and trust in it, it’s like we are reborn.

So today as we welcome the baby Jesus into our world and our lives, we also welcome the Word that God says. What is this Word? What is it that God says to us?

I love you.

Prayer

Baby Jesus,
Holy Christ child,
Full of God’s love—
May we too hear that special Word of God,
And grow with you
In God’s love.
Amen.

For All the People (Luke 2:1-20)

(Meditation for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on December 24, 2016, Christmas Eve)

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Why Only the Shepherds?

If the angel in tonight’s scripture is to be believed, the good and joyful news of Christmas is for everyone. “For all the people.”

And yet in tonight’s scripture, it is only the shepherds who hear the good and joyful news. I wonder: why do only the shepherds hear it, if it’s indeed for everyone?

…Because They’re the Only Ones to Respond?

There is an old folk tale that the Jewish rabbis tell. Abraham, they say, isn’t the only person who received God’s call. He’s the only one who said, “Yes.” Israel, they say, aren’t the only people whom God invited into a special covenant. They’re the only people who said, “Yes.”

I wonder—I wonder if a similar tale might not also be told about the shepherds. Imagine with me for a moment. Could it be that on the night Jesus was born, the shepherds were not the only ones to receive a visit from the angel of the Lord? Could it be that the angel in fact delivered the good news of great joy for all the people—to all the people?

Perhaps first the angel went to the kings and princes of the world. But because they were merrymaking in the radiance of their palaces, they could not see the shine of the angel. Nor could they hear the angel’s message above the noise of their festivities.

And so maybe the angel went next to the merchants. But because they were counting money in the light of their lodging, they could not see the shine of the angel. Nor could they hear the angel’s message above the clang of their coins.

And who knows? After that, the angel may have gone to the soldiers. But because they were eating and drinking by the great light of their campfire, they could not see the shine of the angel. Nor could they hear the angel’s message above the clamor of their carousing.

And so it was that, finally, the angel went to the shepherds, who were keeping watch over their flock by night. Dark, silent, empty night. Only the shepherds saw the angel that night, because only they had nothing else to see. Only they heard the angel’s good news, because only they had nothing else to hear.

A Message That Means the Most to the Least

Of course there’s no way to know whether the angel actually visited others besides the shepherds on this night many years ago. But perhaps that question is beside the point. Perhaps the point of such a folk tale is to invite us into the story, to ask us, “Now what about you? Would you see the angel if the angel came to you? Would you hear the angel’s good news?”

If we return to the original story in Luke’s gospel, one thing we can say with certainty is that the shepherds did hear the angel’s good news. They received it joyfully. I think it’s more than coincidence that the shepherds are the ones to hear the angel. In the gospel of Luke, the heroes of faith are almost always on the underside of life. The poor, the crippled, the blind, the lame, the prostitutes, the sick…and here, the shepherds. The good news of a savior is for all people. But it means the most to the least among us, the people who presently have the least reason to celebrate. They are the most inclined to hear the good news, to see it, to rejoice over it. The folks who are satisfied and self-content, preoccupied with their pleasures and pursuits, like the princes and merchants and soldiers of our folk tale, are likely to miss out altogether on the angel’s proclamation. Even if they did hear it, they would be just as likely to think nothing of it. A child is being born somewhere? So what?

All of this makes me wonder. Can I really hear the angel’s good news tonight? I recently learned that my brother’s moving back to Richmond, and so my whole family really is in a festive mood this year. What does the good news of Christmas mean to folks like me and my family, who are relatively satisfied and self-content? Is it possible for us to experience what the shepherds experienced?

Standing with the Shepherds

I have a hunch that if we look deeply enough within ourselves, we will all of us find that we are standing with the shepherds tonight—in dark, empty stillness. Some of us feel the black silence of that night more immediately than others. Some of us are walking through the empty night of grief, feeling the absence of a loved one. Others of us may be walking in the shadows of uncertainty, worrying about a doctor’s prognosis or fretting about a rocky relationship. Still others of us, like my family this year, may really be doing just fine. But just fine is just as needful of a savior, of someone who will breathe new life into old routine, someone who will upset our complacency and excite us with holy adventure.

It’s like the angel says: the good news of great joy is for all people. So come. In our emptiness, our weakness, or simply our need for new life, let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.

Prayer

God of star and song,
Whose good news rings out
Across dark, silent, empty nights—
With the shepherds,
We rush eagerly
To look for you;
And with them,
We rejoice in your love,
Which is made flesh in our lives
As it was on this night long ago.

Amen.

The Shape of Immanuel (Isaiah 7:10-16)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Sunday Worship on December 18, 2016, Advent IV)

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A Nickname Heavy with Memory 

My earliest Christmas memories take me across the mountains to Kentucky, where my family would always drive to visit with Maga and Granddad, Grandpa and Grandma, and all my aunts and uncles. The most memorable scene among these recollections is the cheerful ruckus that would greet us upon our arrival. After a long journey in the car, listening to the same Christmas tapes again and again, playing twenty questions, solving crossword puzzles, and counting cows, we were completely exhausted. But in an instant, that all changed. Upon our arrival and before we could all get out of the car, my grandparents and aunts and uncles would be out the front door, swarming us with hugs. Uncle Noel would bend down, embrace me against his prickly whiskers, and say, “Big Jon!” Granddad would say something silly, like, “There’s my honey-bun!” (Please know that I was only three or four when Granddad called me this. I wouldn’t tolerate it for much longer.)

“Big Jon.” “Honey-bun.” They were nicknames that I only heard once a year, but I still hear their echo every Christmas. They remind me of times gone by, of a time when I was the smallest and hearing “Big Jon” made me feel on top of the world, of a time when I was the youngest and hearing “Honey-bun” made me feel most treasured among all the family.

Chances are, you have a few such nicknames yourself. Nicknames that whisk you away back into a very specific time or place. Nicknames that only a special friend would say, or nicknames that you would only hear on special occasions.

Jesus has just such a nickname. It’s a nickname that we really only hear once a year. We read it in both of today’s scriptures. “Immanuel.” In Hebrew, it means “God with us.”

Most of us are familiar with the name. It probably comforts and reassures us. Immanuel. “God with us”: not God above us, or God beyond us, or God against us. God with us.

But just like “Big Jon” and “Honey-bun,” just like any special nickname you’ve ever had, Immanuel—“God with us”—has a special history. Immanuel is a nickname heavy with memory and full of meaning. It whisks us all the way back into the world of the ancient prophet Isaiah, into the very words that he proclaims in today’s scripture.

Ahaz and the Bullies 

In Isaiah’s day, the king of Judah, Ahaz, faced a dilemma. On the one hand, the massive empire of Assyria was conquering people after people, nation after nation, and King Ahaz was next in line. On the other hand, there were a couple of other middling kings like Ahaz himself who were conspiring against Assyria. They came to Ahaz with a proposition: join us and fight back against the Assyrian juggernaut…or we’ll just conquer you ourselves and make use of your resources.

To put it more simply, King Ahaz found himself cornered in a dark alley. Off to the distance on one side stands the biggest bully in town. On the other side are approaching two smaller but no less capable bullies. There’s simply no way out. Beside Ahaz is his puny compatriot, Isaiah, a prophet. And while Ahaz contemplates whether to fling himself at the mercy of the big bully or the two smaller tough guys, Isaiah keeps whispering into his ear, “Don’t worry about these bullies. Just trust in God!”

Today’s scripture picks the story up at this point. God is repeating Isaiah’s plea: Just trust me. Ask for a sign, and I’ll prove to you that you can trust me (cf. 7:11). Ahaz responds, “I will not ask, and I will not put the Lord to the test” (7:12). He probably hopes that his response will pass for piety.[1] But the truth is, Ahaz doesn’t want to test God because Ahaz doesn’t want to trust God. He’s already made up his mind to trust the gods of power, which is to say, he’s decided to throw himself at the mercy of the world superpower, Assyria.

The God of Immanuel Versus the Gods of Power 

Isaiah calls his bluff: “Is it too little for you to weary humans, that you weary my God also?” (7:13). “My God,” Isaiah says. He already see that Ahaz trusts in different gods, in the gods of war with their thundering chariots and iron-cast weapons and fearsome warrior kings.

Even so, the Lord God insists on giving Ahaz a sign to prove that the Lord God is on his side. The bizarre thing is, the Lord God chooses probably the last sign that would convince Ahaz: a baby boy. His name is Immanuel. This baby boy is the sign that God is with Ahaz and the fearful people of Judah. This baby boy is proof that God stands with them.

So imagine with me again: Ahaz is cowering in that dark alley, cornered between the biggest bully in town and two other sizable bullies. The puny Isaiah suddenly presents him with a baby child and says, “See! You can trust God.” We can understand, perhaps, why Ahaz would shake his head with a smirk. If God had given him the sign of an angelic army or an unstoppable new weapon, then perhaps he would have trusted God.[2] As it is, Ahaz must be practical. He must be realistic. And so he chooses to submit himself to the greatest power he can see, Assyria. It’s only smart to join the side that’s going to win. Right?

God in the Shape of a Child 

Brigitte Kahl, a New Testament scholar in New York, grew up in the former East Germany. Her father, like many other Germans of his generation, served in Hitler’s army. When that army invaded the surrounding countries of Europe, the German soldiers wore belt buckles engraved with the words, “Gott mitt unz.”[3] “God with us.” Immanuel.

Over two thousands have passed since the time of Isaiah. But we have not progressed much further than Ahaz himself did. Much of the world still worships a warrior God, a God of power. For much of the world, the sign of “God with us” is triumph and success. The sign of “God with us” is the megachurch with thousands or the superpower nation that dominates the globe.

That’s why it’s important to remember the special history behind Jesus’ nickname, “Immanuel,” the memory that makes it heavy with meaning. When we sing, “O come, o come, Immanuel,” or when we read about Immanuel being born by Mary, we are also reciting the story of King Ahaz. We are proclaiming that in our darkest hour, God comes to us not in the shape of power but in the shape of a child. We are changing the tune of history, trusting in infants instead of infantry, cheering on children instead of chariots. We are singing a song of love instead of power. Indeed, if the rest of Jesus’ story is anything to go by, the story of Immanuel means that God’s “power” is love. A love that forgives people and empowers them to have new life. A love that welcomes outsiders and empowers them to have new life. A love that embraces the lowly and empowers them to have new life. A love that makes peace with the enemy and empowers them to have new life. Love is a powerless “power,” as powerless as a child. And yet it does what no warrior king or army of chariots ever can.

Love bears new life.

Prayer 

God who is Love,
Who stirs ever in the womb
Of a world shackled still to power—
Be born among us
In the little and the lowly.
As you entrust your life to us,
So may we entrust ours to you.
May the shape of your love
Shape our hearts
And bring heaven to earth,
Close by us, we pray.
Amen.

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[1] On the face of things, this seems like a pretty pious response. Jesus said something similar when Satan tempted him in the wilderness. But whereas Jesus refused to test God as a result of his trust in God, Ahaz refuses to test God because he does not want to trust in God. He’s already made up his mind to trust the gods of power, who at that time are embodied by Assyria.


[2] Cf. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas (trans. O. C. Dean Jr.; ed. Jana Reiss; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2010), 11: “A shaking of heads, perhaps even an evil laugh, must go through our old, smart, experienced, self-assured world, when it hears the call of salvation of believing Christians: ‘For a child has been born for us, a son given to us.’”


[3] Barbara Lundblad, “Commentary on Isaiah 7:10-16,” https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1942, accessed on December 15, 2016.

Irresistible Joy (Isa 35:1-10)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Sunday Worship on December 11, 2016, Advent III)

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Green Is Stronger

Some of you who have lived near Short Pump for a long time will know, it’s not always been like it is today. Today it is a happening place. In this season especially, it is spilling over with shoppers and stress and enough traffic to give you a headache just thinking about it.

But twenty years or so ago, there was none of that. I remember when there was nothing but trees across from Short Pump Elementary. I remember when the service station there at the corner of Pump and Broad still had that upended airplane sticking out of its roof. And I remember Shorty’s gas station. In my 5-year-old mind, I thought of Shorty’s as a country version of 7-Eleven. There was a sort of comfort that came from driving by its familiar, rustic presence. It smiled at us in an old country way whenever we passed by.

And so it was no little thing, when one day the building that was Shorty’s was dismantled. Not only that, but all the trees behind and around Shorty’s were razed to the ground. What was once a simple, sympathetic corner station, was now nothing but a wasteland of weeds, a wilderness without warmth. What once gave a friendly nod and said, “Howdy,” as we passed by, now uttered nothing more than a sorrowful sigh.

For years, the land on that corner lot remained sad and empty. I never paid it much attention until a few years ago—when my own eyes were surprised to see trees where before there had only been weeds! The glory and majesty of this green growth grabbed me with joy and gladness. The trees were singing a song of praise and thanksgiving. The land was alive again.

Apparently, the same sort of thing happens all over the world. I read recently that the rainforests are growing back in places where they had been bulldozed and burned to the earth. How relentless trees and plants and vines are. They cannot be repressed. They are, in a sense, irresistible.

Green is quietly stronger than our machines.

The Wilderness Is Glad, the Desert Is Singing

What I saw in that corner lot where Shorty’s once stood, and what we see all over this earth, is the mysterious gospel that Isaiah proclaims today. In today’s scripture, Isaiah rhapsodizes about blossoms and streams, about reeds and rushes. He sings about the green joy of creation.

But in the chapter before today’s scripture, the picture is entirely the opposite. There he speaks the language of death and decay. He talks about rotting and withering, about thorns and nettles and thistles, about a barren wilderness dominated by hyenas and hawks (34:4, 13-15). It is Isaiah’s colorful way of saying that the people of Israel’s self-destructive ways are about to catch up with them. And we know that this is true. To live by the sword is to die by the sword: as Israel neglected the love of God and sought worldly power, so they fell to the powers of the world.

Isaiah sees this fateful future and mourns the death and decay that fills his vision. But that death and decay is not the end of the story. In today’s scripture, Isaiah sees a bit further and proclaims what might be called a gospel of greenness. Looking out across the vast wasteland of Israel’s destruction, Isaiah sees the most curious thing: the wilderness is glad, the desert is singing. The earth that has been razed to its roots is now rejoicing. How strange! You’d think that such a fate would lead it to sorrow and sighing, not gladness and singing.

But having seen the transformation of the wasteland where Shorty’s once stood, I now have an inkling of the green gospel that Isaiah announces. The land is never completely silenced. It’s as though Isaiah hears the land vibrantly proclaim, “You can burn us, flood us, tear us up beyond all recognition…but you will never silence the Godly greenness from which comes our life.” And indeed, Isaiah sees the green beginnings of life blossoming across the land once more: he sees crocuses blooming where before there had been nothing, pools of waters where there had been sand, and reeds and rushes where there had been thorns.

We Are a Part of This Green Creation

But why all this focus on trees and water and blossoms? It’s inspirational, perhaps, but what does it have to do with us? What did it have to do with the people of Israel after they had fallen to the oppressive power of foreign empires?

What if Isaiah is telling us that the story of the wasteland—which is also the story of Shorty’s and the story of the rainforests—is also our story? What if Isaiah is inviting us to join with the rest of creation—or rather, to realize that we are a part of this green creation, that the green joy of God overtakes us as it does the rest of creation? If this is so, then Isaiah’s gospel for us is the gospel of greenness. It proclaims that nothing can extinguish life. Even when we are empty and lifeless and languishing in the shadow of death, even when we cannot see, cannot hear, cannot move, cannot find a single word to say—even then, there is among us and within us the tiny, green, budding promise of life.

For Isaiah, it is this promise of life that brings joy. What a timely reminder for us. In this season especially, folks confuse joy with certain outward signs of cheer, or with the feeling that these things bring. Folks confuse joy with big presents, lively gatherings, and sumptuous meals, or with the warm, fuzzy feelings of such things. This isn’t to say that Isaiah is against presents or gatherings or feasts or warm, fuzzy feelings. It’s only to say, rather, that he cares more about what’s behind these things, the unseen joy that inspires these things, that inspires us even when we don’t have these things.

For Isaiah, joy has nothing to do with the glass being full or the glass being empty, but with the promise of a pitcher that is always pouring more water. Joy has nothing to do with the forest or the wasteland, but with the irresistible green power that inspires life in either place. Joy is what inspired those trees on the weeded wilderness where Shorty’s once stood. Joy is what inspires those rainforests that keep coming back.

And this same irresistible joy, according to Isaiah, is what inspires us.

Death Does Not Have the Final Word

A short time ago, I attended a memorial service where I reunited with a couple of my cousins. One of them has a young old son, Luke, who has Joubert’s Syndrome. He walks with a firm limp, often requiring the aid of a walker, and he socializes with the simplest of gestures and words. He may also live a shorter life than many of us. On top of these complications, Luke also recently lost his mother and his grandfather to cancer. His circumstances are not what we would characterize as joyful.

We commonly hear at funerals and memorial services that death does not have the final word. At this memorial service, I saw that this is true. Because Luke, who has confronted death time and time again, was full of life. When the choir sang a beautiful anthem, he alone rejoiced with great applause. At the reception, he leapt around in his walker with the spring-step of a deer. His smile blossomed and brought joy to whomever he encountered. He was the “greenest” spirit around. His evergreen presence at that memorial service led people from “sorrow and sighing” to “joy and gladness.”

Joy:

All of Creation Believing in the Song That the Creator Sings

Little Luke helped to open my eyes to the truth of joy. Joy is not the conviction that things will turn out well, that we will all live happily ever after. Such a joy would be proved false and empty. Not everything has turned out well for Luke.

Joy, instead, means trusting that the life God gives us, and the love that we share, is good and beautiful and true, regardless of how everything turns out.

Joy is not a guarantee of happiness. Joy did not prevent the corner lot where Shorty’s stood from being razed to its roots, nor does it protect the rainforests from destruction at the hand of greedy corporations. Joy is simply the irresistible, evergreen spirit that inspires life. Joy is life believing in the goodness of life. It is all of creation believing in the song that the Creator sings.

Joy is the reason that the wilderness of Shorty’s blossomed once more. Joy is the reason that Luke was found frolicking at a funeral, bursting with life in the face of death. Joy is the reason that Jesus came to us years ago, keeps coming to us today—insistent that the life God gives us is good and beautiful and true.

Joy to the world, indeed—for it is through the God’s green joy that this world leaps back to life, again and again.

Prayer

Evergreen God,
Whose irresistible joy
Inspires blossoms in the dry desert
And abundant life at funerals—
May the empty and sorrowful spaces in our hearts
Become fertile ground for the new life
That your joy brings.
In the name of our song, Jesus Christ.
Amen.

The Peace of Broken Hearts (Isa 11:1-10)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Sunday Worship on December 4, 2016, Advent II)

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Dreams of the Fragile and Vulnerable

Anyone who has dreamed before will know that there’s often something askew in a dream, something not quite aligned with the real world. Maybe your pets can talk. Maybe you’re living in someone else’s house. Maybe you’re just going about your normal day—missing a key article of clothing!

Like any good prophet, Isaiah is a dreamer. His dreams depict a strange, surreal world. Last week, he dreamed of spears and swords being beaten into plowshares and pruning hooks. This week, his dream begins with a modest vision: he sees a small stalk growing from the stump of a great tree (cf. 11:1). For a prophet who proclaims nothing less than the salvation of all creation, how frail and feeble this dream. Just a stalk? This is how the world will be put right? While most prophets in Isaiah’s day would have been making grandiose announcements of military victory and the conquest of kings, Isaiah is dreaming of a single delicate shoot.

Typical Isaiah. His dreams are so humble. His other famous image? It’s one that we recite often in this Advent season: a child, a baby boy, born from a young woman (cf. 7:14; 9:6).

Anyone who has dreamed before will know that there’s often something askew in a dream. In the case of Isaiah, he dreams of the fragile and vulnerable, and calls it our savior.

How the World Will Be Saved?

Of course, we could give Isaiah the benefit of the doubt, and say that his frail dreams have a card up their sleeve, that actually this tender stalk will grow into an imposing tree, that this helpless baby will grow into a mighty ruler. Maybe Isaiah was just dreaming of a humble beginning to what would ultimately be a mighty triumph of power.

Or maybe not. Jesus, remember, gave pride of place to the little children. And according to Paul, Jesus himself is weakness and foolishness to the world (cf. 1 Corinthians 1). Far from growing into something mighty and powerful, he did the opposite: he emptied himself, becoming powerless in his love for us (cf. Philippians 2).

So when Isaiah dreams of a fragile shoot and a vulnerable baby, maybe he’s actually onto something. Maybe these are images of how the world will be saved, however askew that seems.

God with a Green Card?

Tender stalks and defenseless babies are not the only things askew in Isaiah’s dream. What comes next in today’s scripture really does seem like a dream, the kind of bizarre scene that makes us do a double-take when we awake. Did we really see that?

A wolf and a lamb living side by side. A little child leading a host of wild beasts around, leopards and livestock both. A bear and a lion grazing as cool as you like with the rest of the cattle.

If that weren’t enough, this scene becomes even more bizarre the closer we look at it. A literal translation of Isaiah’s vision zooms in on this strangeness: “The wolf,” Isaiah says, “shall sojourn with the lamb” (11:6). This word “sojourn” is the word used for strangers dwelling in a foreign land, outsiders “whose survival is dependent on the goodwill of the natives.”[1] In other words, this isn’t just a wolf resisting the temptation to chow down. This is a wolf immigrant, a wolf resident alien, a wolf carrying a green card, a wolf who has given up his former way of living and made his life dependent on the ways of the lamb, who has embraced the lifestyle of the lamb. And apparently it’s not only the wolf who is sojourning. If we continue to examine this bizarre scene of Isaiah’s dream, we’ll notice that the bear is grazing with the cow, and the lion is eating straw like an ox (cf. 11:7). Like humble immigrants among the cattle, the bears and the lions have adopted their bovine ways as their own. The mighty predators are making themselves dependent on their prey.

I don’t know how much Isaiah understood his own prophecies, if he could really foresee what kind of savior Jesus would be. But this image of the mighty ones making themselves dependent on the weak—as bizarre as it is, is it not what we see in Christ? Is it not in fact a scene of how God enters into relationship with us? Isn’t that what God does: make Godself dependent on us, being born into our world as helpless as any child of our own, living within the limits of a body just like yours or mine? Who is Christ but God with a green card, subject even to human judgment and corporal punishment?

“People Can Change…”

I can’t help but wonder, then, if this is how peace is made: by the powerful not only giving up their claim to power, but making themselves dependent on the weak? If so, this peace would look different than what passes for peace in our world. In our world, what we call peace is more often a truce, a treaty, or a ceasefire. It is more often a mutual separation, a live-and-let-live policy. Peace in our world tries to preserve the way things are, and usually the people who broker peace are the people in power, which means that the peace privileges the powerful.

So it was in times of segregation. Ultimately that “peace” was exposed for what it was: an unjust suppression of life. Only when the folks on the underside of this separation agreement spoke out, and only when the folks in power relinquished their unspoken privilege, could peace become an authentic possibility. It’s one that we’re still working toward today.

John Lewis, a black Georgia congressman, lived through the so-called peace of segregation. Several years ago, while he was riding a bus and reflecting on his life, he told a moving story that Quaker educator and activist Parker Palmer overheard.

In 1961—John Lewis said—while he waiting for a bus, he was attacked by several young white men. Bloodied by their bats, Lewis did not fight back. Nor did he press charges. One day, nearly 50 years after the incident, an old white man and his middle-aged son entered Lewis’ congressional office on Capitol Hill. The man introduced himself: “Mr. Lewis, my name is Elwin Wilson. I’m one of the men who beat you in that bus station back in 1961. I want to atone for the terrible thing I did, so I’ve come to seek your forgiveness. Will you forgive me?” Lewis forgave him, embraced him on the spot, and then the three of them cried.

As Lewis finished telling this story on the bus, he gazed out the window in a pensive silence. “Then, in a very soft voice—as if speaking to himself about the story he had just told and all of the memories that must have been moving in him—Lewis [whispered], ‘People can change… People can change.’”[2]

A Peace Born of Repentance and Dependence

Peace, according to Isaiah and John Lewis, is not simply a truce or a ceasefire. Peace is not private; it is not people living separate and self-content; and it is certainly not the preservation of power and privilege. Peace, instead, is public. It is people coming together. Peace is power emptying itself and putting others first. It is downwardly mobile. Peace is people changing.

In today’s other scripture, John the Baptist preaches a very short sermon: “Repent, for the kingdom…is near!” (Matt 3:2). That word “repent” means very literally, “to change your mind, your heart.” I wonder if we might not color this image in with the help of Isaiah’s wolf sojourning with lamb. I wonder if we might not say that to repent is to immigrate, to adopt a different way of life, to make oneself dependent on people with less power and privilege?

Only a Heart That Has Been Broken

But even if that’s the case, the question remains: How? How do people change? How do people choose to repent, to make themselves dependent on others? How does the wolf decide to sojourn with the lamb, the bear and the lion with the cattle? What made Elwin Wilson go to John Lewis after 50 years to seek forgiveness?

I don’t know about you, but in my own experience, genuine change only happens when I have been broken. Only when I am confronted with my own brokenness—my own wrongdoing, my own limits—do I change. Only a heart that has been broken asks for forgiveness. Only a heart that has been broken looks for healing and reconciliation. Only a heart that’s been broken acknowledges its dependability on others.

Isaiah says that our savior will “kill what is wicked”[3]—not with a sword or an army, but with “his mouth,” with “the breath of his lips.” John the Baptist says that the savior will baptize with the Spirit and fire. These images suggest to me that true change—true repentance—happens not by might and muscle that act on bodies but by conversation of the lips that breaks hearts and refines them like fire. Maybe the wolf finally hears the bleating of the lamb, listens more closely than it ever had before, and the sound burns within. Maybe the bear and the lion finally pay attention to the moos of the cow. Elwin Wilson, it seems, was convicted in his heart after 50 years. I imagine that his repentance was a slow, painful process, one that involved listened to a difficult voice in his heart, to a voice that burned like a refining fire.

The peace that Isaiah paints is a peace in community, a peace where the predator communes with the prey, where enemies dwell together. Perhaps this peace will only come from the fragile and the vulnerable, from people who become like tender stalks and helpless babies. Perhaps this peace will only come when hearts have been broken enough that they become dependent on others, the way the wolf became dependent on the lamb—the way that God becomes dependent on us.

Prayer

Tender stalk,
Helpless child,
God with a green card—
Dependent on us:
May your words,
And the many lips that speak them,
Break our hearts
And make them like yours:
Helpless and peaceable.
Amen.

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[1] John N. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah: Chapters 1-39 (New International Commentary on the Old Testament Series; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), 283.

[2] This story, and the quoted portions within it, were taken from Maria Popova, “Healing the Heart of Democracy: Parker Palmer on Holding the Tension of Our Differences in a Creative Way,” accessed on https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/11/23/healing-the-heart-of-democracy-parker-palmer/, November 30, 2016.

[3] Isa 11:4. The NRSV simply says “kill the wicked,” implying the wicked persons. But the Hebrew here uses the adjective “wicked” substantivally, which may also be translated “kill what is wicked.” This translation allows for the possibility that wickedness is not identified with certain persons among us all, but with certain tendencies among all persons.

No One Knows (Isa 2:1-5)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Sunday Worship on November 27, 2016, Advent I)

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The Hope of a Christmas List

Today is the beginning of Advent; it is also the day on which many children will begin that hallowed countdown ‘til Christmas. I remember counting down the days with the aid of one of those Advent calendars that rewards your daily patience with a bite of chocolate. Perhaps you have another tradition for counting down the days.

Today also begins that time of year when many children will write that venerated list and send it off to Santa.

When my brother, Curt, was younger, he acquired quite a reputation for his lists to Santa. The story goes that his first few Christmases, his hopes were quite modest. One year he asked for a soccer ball. The next year he asked for a movie. And each year, he got whatever he hoped for. So the little gears started turning in little Curt’s head. These requests, it seemed, were little more than a formality. Whatever he hoped for, he got. His Christmas list was a sure bet. And so the next year, little Curt shot the moon…and sent my parents into a veritable panic! The latest game console, a collection of soccer gear, toys—anything he could think of that he wanted, went onto that list.

I won’t go into the details of how that Christmas ended, other than to say that my parents had to sit my brother down for an honest little chat about Santa Claus and the virtue of modesty—after all, Santa has millions of children to take care of.

Two “Hopes”

My brother had such high hopes. He knew exactly what he wanted. If everything went according to his plan—and he had no reason to think it wouldn’t—then his hopes were a sure thing.

This first Sunday of Advent, we light the candle of “hope.” Why? For what do we hope?

The risk of talking about “hope” during this season, is that we may confuse two different hopes. According to much of the world, hope is simply knowing what you want and having a reasonable expectation that you can get it. This is the hope of Christmas lists. This kind of hope can see the future. It is calculating. It often makes plans, or campaigns, to achieve what it wants. It wasn’t too long ago that one of our presidents ran on such a campaign, using this word, “hope.”

When my brother wrote his Christmas lists, he could already see that portly man in red and white coming down the chimney; he could already see the desires of his heart, lying underneath the tree on Christmas morning. The hope that inspires much of this world is a hope that has clear designs on the future.

The hope that we see in today’s Advent scriptures, however, looks quite different. In the first scripture reading, Jesus says, “No one knows about the day or the hour.” For Jesus, hope is not about seeing the future; it is about receiving the future. For Isaiah too, hope means not knowing what’s next. In his vision, all the nations of the world say in unison, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord…that [God] may teach us [God’s] ways and that we may walk in [God’s] paths” (2:3). In other words, Isaiah dreams of a crazy world where all the nations drop their best-laid policies and plans, throw up their hands, and say, “We don’t know.” For Isaiah, hope is not a sure bet or a careful campaign or a vision of dancing sugarplums. The people’s hope is not in what they know but in what they don’t know—in what God will teach them, in the decisions and judgments God will make.

Relinquishing Certainty for Hope

Today’s scripture from Isaiah is most famous for its image of swords and spears beaten into plowshares and pruning hooks. It’s one of those images that seems to tap into a universal human desire, a feeling that, yes, it would be a better world if weapons were work tools. Plenty of folks within and without the Christian tradition have drawn inspiration from Isaiah’s vision. National icons, from Ronald Reagan to Michael Jackson, have used this image to talk about world peace. I know of musicians who have had guitars crafted out of AK-47s. And did you know that nitrogen mustard, which derives from the horrific weapon used in World War I, mustard gas, was developed into one of the first chemotherapy drug treatments? 

But I wonder if we’re selling the plowshares and pruning hooks short, limiting them only to an icon of peace. On this first Sunday of Advent, as I consider the plowshares and pruning hooks, they strike me also as a robust image of hope, of not knowing.

The spear and the sword are not only instruments of war. At their heart, they are instruments of certainty. To pick up the spear and the sword is to see the world in black and white, to be sure about things. When Isaiah imagines all the people of the world beating their weapons into work tools, he is dreaming of a world that has relinquished certainty for hope. He is praying for a world that says, “We don’t know. Let us go up to the mountain of the Lord…that [God] may teach us” (cf. 2:3). He is thinking of a world where people are humble instead of haughty. Listen to the way he describes this dream-world in the verses that follow our scripture today: “For the Lord…has a day against all that is proud and lofty, against all that is lifted up and high…. The haughtiness of the people shall be humbled, and the pride of everyone shall be brought low” (2:12-17). And then he says that all the idols—which are a symbol of our certainty—shall “utterly pass away” (2:18).

It is difficult to stress how unorthodox and strange is this hope, this not-knowing. Indeed, it is foolishness and weakness to our world. Our English language itself cannot understand it. Our primary word for “not knowing” is “ignorance.” And ignorance is an undesirable and unwanted trait. It is a negative attribute.

Something Is Coming

But this season of Advent is all about not knowing. It is all about a sort of holy ignorance. Or let’s call it “hope”—but let’s be sure to remember that this hope isn’t the calculating and self-certain kind. Advent comes from the Latin word, advenire, which means “to come.” At the heart of Advent, then, is something that is coming, something that we don’t know completely. If we knew it completely, it would already be here. It could not “come.”

So what are we to do in Advent? Simply wait? That would be the opposite error to certainty. In other words, hope is like a tightrope; on the one side one may fall off into certainty, and on the other passivity.

The images from our scripture today suggest that hope is active and seeking. When Jesus says that “no one knows,” he doesn’t then say, “Tough luck,” or, “You’ll just have to wait it out.” He says, “No one knows…so keep awake!” (cf. Matt 24:36, 42). Keep your eyes open for what is coming. And Isaiah envisions a worldwide quest, a universal search that leads all the people to the mountain of God. So hope is wide-eyed and walking, curious about what lies beyond the corner, beyond the horizon, in the shadows.

Hope: A Luxury or Life Itself?

Many of you know Stuart Wilkinson—who by the way sends his greetings to everyone. Stuart is the grandfather of the fleet-footed Sean, who once infused our youth group with copious amounts of energy. Stuart is bound to a wheelchair and severely limited in his ability to move about. His days look much the same from one week to the next: physical therapy, lunch, television, sleep.

For many of us who enjoy the privilege of being able to plan out our lives for ourselves, who always have a list of things to look forward to, who virtually design our own future, hope is a casual thing, a luxury. We have little need for what we don’t know, for what we cannot see coming. For Stuart, though, hope is woven into the fabric of his life. When your schedule, your meals, and your recreation are already decided for you, it is in the things that you don’t know, the things that you cannot plan for or expect, that you find salvation. One day when I was visiting with Stuart, and we had very little to say, his grey cat, Titan, came waltzing into the room without a care. Rubbing against both our legs, she then hopped up beside Stuart and curled into a sleeping ball. Stuart smiled and shook his head, “That Titan…she’s a good cat.” 

I don’t mean to diminish hope to little moments of chance, to spontaneous serendipities. Rather, I’m wondering if these small, offhand moments are not in fact the sacred cracks through which hope enters our lives. Whether it’s Titan’s unplanned afternoon visit, or an unexpected treat in his dinner, Stuart has come to find the abundance of life in the things that he does not know or cannot plan for.

“No one knows about the day or the hour,” Jesus says. “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,” say the people in Isaiah’s dream. “Look—” says Stuart, “something I never would have expected.”

Welcoming an Unexpected God

If the season of Advent and Christmas teaches us anything, it’s that God makes the most unexpected entrance. Two teenagers. A pregnancy out of wedlock. A little baby born in a manger.

Only with a holy ignorance that wonders what’s around the corner can we truly seek God. Otherwise we’re only seeking ourselves—what’s already on our list, what we already “know”, what we want for ourselves. Only a hope that cannot see what’s coming, can welcome an unexpected God.

Prayer 

God who is coming, 

Whom we cannot see coming— 

Relieve of us our certainty, 

Our swords and spears, 

And spark within us 

A humble hope 

For what is far different 

And far better 

Than we can imagine. 

In the name of your unforeseeable gift, Jesus. 

Amen.

The Lord Is My Shepherd (Jer 23:1-6)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Sunday Worship on November 20, 2016, Reign of Christ Sunday)

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How God Shepherds Us

Today’s scripture is overrun by shepherds: bad shepherds, good shepherds, and most importantly God, who is also a shepherd. It reminds me of a hall of mirrors. Some mirrors are distorted or dirtied or cracked. These are the bad shepherds. Other mirrors are relatively proportionate and clean. These are the good shepherds. And then there is the one shepherd who is not a reflection. This is God.

According to Jeremiah—and contrary to common sense—God does not see the world from a God’s-eye perspective. God does not see the world through the eyes of an impartial judge or a cold, calculating scientist. Instead, God looks tenderly on the world as a shepherd looks over his or her flock. Listen to the way God talks about the people of Israel: “I myself will gather the remnant of my flock…and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply” (23:3). Centuries later, Jesus will compare God to a shepherd who leaves the flock of 99 in order to seek out the one lost sheep. In both cases, God cares for the world—especially the lost and the hurting—as a shepherd cares for his sheep. 

But Jeremiah isn’t naïve. God may be the shepherd of the world, but that doesn’t mean that God shepherds the world with a supernatural staff in the way that Zeus rules the world with thunder and lightning bolts. God shepherds the world not as a puppeteer who pulls strings or as a magician who simply waves his wrist and presto! Instead, God shepherds the world…through people. According to Jeremiah, the divine shepherd raises up “shepherds” among us, good shepherds, shepherds who gather us together and encourage us (cf. 23:4). I think what Jeremiah is trying to say, then, is that God’s shepherding takes on our flesh. 

What We’re Saying When We Say “Thank You”

And so I wonder: “Through whom has God shepherded me? Who has gathered me in and brought me back to the fold, who has multiplied the life within me, who has gently overseen and encouraged me?”

With Thanksgiving just around the corner, my mind is spilling with memories of that special day when much of the family was “brought back to [the] fold,” when dishes “multiplied” on the table, when “fear” was the furthest thing from my mind; when life felt for a moment like a complete puzzle, like everything was in its right place (cf. 23:3-4). I’ve never thought about all of this as an experience of being shepherded. But I wonder now if my parents and other family were not shepherds of a sort, mirrored reflections of a Shepherd whose love takes the shape of gathering, nourishing, and encouraging.

I recognize, of course, that not everyone’s Thanksgiving memories are the same as mine. And chances are, whatever your memories are, Thanksgiving this year will not feel the way I described. You may feel instead rushed or anxious or simply exhausted. Perhaps that’s because you are doing a bit of shepherding yourself.

In any case, today’s scripture offers us a timely suggestion. If Thanksgiving is all about saying “thank you” not for the life that we think we’ve earned or achieved, but rather for the life that we’ve received as a gift, then perhaps Thanksgiving is really a day of gratitude for the ways we have been shepherded. When we say “thank you” to no one in particular, when we say it as a reflex, impulsively, filled with gratitude for what we’ve received, to whom are we speaking? What are we really saying? Perhaps at its root, our gratitude is nothing other than a profession of faith, because our gratitude does not really stop at the personal shepherds around us but extends to the Shepherd of whom they are a reflection. Perhaps saying, “Thank you,” is just another way of saying, “Yes—the Lord is my shepherd.”

We Are Not Proclaiming the Superiority of God’s Power

Today is not only the Sunday before Thanksgiving. It is also the last Sunday in the church year: the Reign of Christ Sunday, when we declare that Jesus is Lord.

That declaration by itself is earth-shattering. In ancient Rome, the slogan of the day was “Caesar is lord.” To say “Jesus is Lord,” as the early Christ-followers did, was a revolutionary pledge of allegiance, a way to say, “Caesar is not Lord.” It’s no different today. When we say, “Jesus is Lord,” we’re also saying that the free market is not lord, the constitution is not lord, the president is not lord, Hollywood is not lord.

To declare our allegiance to Jesus is revolutionary enough. But today’s scripture makes it even more subversive. Because when we say, “The Lord is my shepherd,” we are not proclaiming the superiority of God’s power. We are proclaiming that God’s power is completely different from the powers of this world. We are proclaiming an altogether upside-down reign, a reign unlike the reign of princes and presidents, power and prestige. 

We are proclaiming the reign of a shepherd. According to Jeremiah, leadership does not take the shape of rulers with iron fists, but shepherds with tender hands. In other words, Jeremiah redefines leadership as servanthood. A good leader is like a good shepherd who attends to the flock to the very last sheep, especially if it’s lost.

Does this sound familiar? To me, it sounds a lot like Jesus, who said, “I am the good shepherd [who] lays down his life for the sheep” (John 10:11; cf. 10:14-15). It sounds a lot like our savior, who said, “Whoever wants to be first must be…servant of all” (Mark 9:35).

A Shepherd’s Power

In our first scripture today, Luke’s account of the crucifixion (Luke 23:33-43), we see just what the world thinks of Jesus’ powerless power, his upside-down reign. First the leaders mock him, “Let him save himself if he is the anointed one” (Luke 23:35). Then the soldiers mock him, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself” (Luke 23:36-37). Finally one of the criminals mocks him, saying, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” (Luke 23:39).

I wonder if these mockers had read the prophecy of Jeremiah that we read today. On the one hand, they would have read the grand promise of a future king in whose days “Judah [would] be saved” (Jer 23:6). Perhaps they were justified to expect some saving, to anticipate a king who would deliver himself and the whole nation with a strong fist. On the other hand, if they had read Jeremiah, they would have also read that the reign of God is the reign of a shepherd. And a shepherd cares for his flock, tending to the least, the last, and the littlest, as Jesus did. A shepherd’s power takes the shape of not a sword but a staff. 

Thanksgiving and a New Way of Living

“The Lord is my shepherd.” Maybe we’ll say these words this Thanksgiving. For it is our Shepherd whom we have to thank for being gathered together, for being nourished, and for being encouraged.

But within these words—“the Lord is my shepherd”—there also echo the anarchic tones of revolution. For to proclaim, “The Lord is my shepherd,” is to declare, “Jesus is Lord.” It is to declare allegiance not to the dollar bill or to the silver screen or to the flag but to a homeless Jew in whom God’s love took on flesh most fully. It is to exchange the sword for the staff, to give up the love of power for the power of love. 

To utter the words, “The Lord is my shepherd,” is to declare that the kingdom of God is not only coming. It is here already, where our thanksgiving is one and the same with a new way of living.

Prayer

Christ our leader,

Who cares for the lost

And lays down his life

For the least and the littlest:

Thank you for gathering us together,

For nourishing us and encouraging us.

You are our shepherd,

And we delight in your reign.

Amen.

Like the Days of a Tree (Isa 65:17-25)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Sunday Worship on November 13, 2016, Proper 28)

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“A New Heavens and a New Earth” 

Last week, we heard from the prophet Haggai as he gave encouragement to the Israelites who had returned to their homeland after 50 years of living in forced exile. Do you remember what he promised them? A “glory greater than before.” As we discovered, however, this glory looked a bit different than might be expected, for ancient Israel would never reach the heights of its former power or prestige again. Its temple was smaller than before. It no longer housed the ark of the covenant, and so it was emptier than before. And the nation itself was weaker than before, as it would always play second fiddle to a foreign empire.

The glory that Haggai proclaimed was smaller, emptier, and weaker than before. That probably struck us as a bit odd. But then we recalled the tiny glory of God who is born in a manger, the emptying glory of God who took the form of a servant, and the weak glory of God whose crowning moment was a cross. For Jesus, glory had less to do with might and material, power and prestige, and more to do with a love that lives for others.

Jesus called this way of life “the kingdom of God.” Haggai caught a hint of it, I think, and called it “a glory greater than before.” Today, Isaiah catches sight of it too and calls it a “new heavens and a new earth.”

A Daydream 

…The sun is beginning to set, and I’m walking along a dusty road lined with field and forest. There are also gardens and vineyards, where young men and women are kneeling among leaves and branches, pruning, planting, scooping, filling baskets with fruits and vegetables. Occasionally I pass by a small home. Each one glows with a warm orange light inside, and through the windows waft the smells of dinner. If I listen closely, I can hear the clink-clank of dishes, the gentle tones of overlapping voices, the odd burst of laughter. As I pass by the fourth or fifth home, a couple of children run out the front door, chasing one another. So great is their vigor, they are out of my sight in a matter of seconds. A couple more homes down the road, I notice an elderly couple sitting silently on the porch, enjoying the evening breeze. Their silence feels like a smile, a quiet nod to the dusk. It’s getting dark, and so I decide that I will need to end my journey soon. I have a feeling—a trust—that any one of these homes would welcome me for the night.

As Down-to-Earth as You Could Get 

I didn’t even mention the wolf and the lamb together, or the lion and the ox, but you’ve probably already guessed the whereabouts of my daydream. Isaiah’s vision transported me there. Some people have called it “the peaceable kingdom.” That seems like a reasonable enough name, considering how God promises that predators will no longer “hurt or destroy” in that place (Isa 65:25).

If Haggai’s promise last week suggested that the kingdom of God might look smaller, emptier, and weaker than we expect, then Isaiah’s vision today develops the picture a bit further. In Isaiah, the picture is one of simplicity and sharing. There are no mentions of a grand temple or great riches or a war to end all wars. The dream is as down-to-earth as you could get: people who build homes and live in them; children who are born healthy and who grow up without fear; people working the field and eating its fruit with satisfaction; elders growing old and grey in the comfort of their community.

“Lord, Make Us All like Trees” 

Like any prophet worth his salt, Isaiah uses a strange image to get his point across. He says life in the kingdom will be like “the days of a tree.” To put that more bluntly, he’s saying that in the peaceable kingdom, we will be like trees.

Think about that the next time you pray the Lord’s prayer and say, “Thy kingdom come.” According to Isaiah, what you’re really praying is, “Lord, make us all like trees.”

I jest—but only partly so. In fact, I’m only taking a page from the book of Hildegard of Bingen, a Benedictine abbess of the 12th century. Hildegard was a creative and visionary church leader, which was a highly unusual thing for a woman in the 12 century. She had a unique word to describe the power of God: “greenness.”[1] She proclaimed that all of creation contained God’s greenness. God’s power was not a matter of might or muscle, but a matter of sap and spirit. What better word to describe the power of God that Isaiah envisions? “Greenness.” Growth. Life. Children in good health, gardens full of produce, workers whose hands multiply the life of their patch of land, elderly whose last days are as beautiful as their first, as beautiful as the autumn leaves.

“To Life—Here, Now!” 

What will heaven be like? If Isaiah has anything to say about it, heaven will be a lot like earth. It won’t be some white, spotless, luxurious place where we all just float about happily. How boring. Heaven will be life: that includes building houses and planting gardens, cooking meals and setting tables, children playing and elders tinkering. In other words, in Isaiah’s mind, heaven has nothing to do with eternal rest. It’s eternal life—which includes work, but fulfilling work; relationships, but fulfilling relationships; change, but fulfilling change.

But to focus on Isaiah’s vision as a vision of the afterlife is an injustice to Isaiah, I think. In Isaiah’s vocabulary, “afterlife” would be an awful word because of that prefix “after.” For Isaiah, life is the main course, and anything “after,” or other than, cannot compare. For him, heaven would not be an “afterlife” but simply “more life,” or “better life.”

When Isaiah delivered this dream—God’s dream—to the people of Israel, he wasn’t comforting them with a picture of what would happen after they died. He was inspiring them with a picture of the life that God wanted for them now. Like Jesus, who prayed, “Thy kingdom come…on earth as it is in heaven,” Isaiah was crying out, “L’chaim! To life—here, now! More life, better life!”

More than Pliable Propaganda 

Of course, dictatorships have been built on such promises. A safe and healthy environment, homes for everyone, food on every table, worthwhile work for every able body. What distinguishes Isaiah’s dream from the dangerous dreams of a dictator?

I think Hildegard got it right. It’s the “greenness” of God that makes all the difference. Dictators cannot appreciate the greenness of God in all things. They are ultimately concerned with the selfsame, not the other; they care only about certain homes, certain tables, certain able bodies. But for Hildegard, all of creation is green, which means that God dwells in all things—and all people. It’s this greenness that brings Isaiah’s vision down to earth, that makes Isaiah’s vision more than simply the pliable propaganda of a power-thirsty dictator. And it’s this greenness of God in all things and all people that makes Isaiah’s vision particularly pertinent today.

No Weeds in the Kingdom of God 

In the wake of this last week’s elections, tensions are running high. Sometimes when we see someone who voted differently, we have trouble seeing the image of God. The greenness of God. The potential for beautiful and abundant life. For all we care, perhaps, that person is a weed. The world would be better without weeds.

But horticulture teaches us a valuable theological point: a weed is not a reality but a matter of perspective. A weed is merely a plant that a person considers unnecessary. In the kingdom of God that Isaiah envisions, that Jesus prays for, there are no weeds. Every person and thing is filled with God’s greenness, blessed with an uncounted possibility for life. The first task in the great garden of God, then, is not to change people but to love people. It is to “water” them, to tend to them in ways that help them to grow. In doing so, we may find that the change happens first not in their green hearts but in ours.

The Kingdom of God Is Growing 

The kingdom of God, Jesus says, is like a mustard seed.[2]

Which means the kingdom of God grows. It does not appear overnight. It is not be achieved by a final victory or a quick fix. It will not be accomplished by might or muscle or material.

It will come forth like a shoot from the stump of a tree.[3] Slowly. Inconspicuously. By a green power that is unseen in all things.

It will come forth with the simplest gestures, the kind available to us everyday. Smiles and “hellos” that grow into invitations and homes of hospitality. “I’m sorrys” and “I forgive yous” that grow into shared tables and healed hearts. Working hands and caring faces that grow into environments for healthy childhoods and worthwhile living for elders in their twilight.

The kingdom of God will come forth, and we will be surprised, perhaps, to discover that it was here all along—in the gracious greenness of God.

Prayer 

God of abundant life—
Make us all like trees.
Open our eyes
To the greenness in one another;
Teach us your loving touch,
That we might tend
To the life all around us.
In the name of our vine, Jesus Christ.[4]
Amen.

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[1] Shane Claiborne, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, and Enuma Okoro, Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010), 444.

[2] Mark 4:30-31; Matt 13:31; Luke 13:18-19.

[3] Cf. Isa 11:1.

[4] John 15:5.

Greater Glory (Haggai 1:15b-2:9)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Sunday Worship on November 06, 2016, Proper 27)

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The Glory of Holidays Gone By

The holiday season, like it or not, is more or less upon us. Some of us have already begun shopping. Others may sneak a tree up before the month has ended.

As our anticipation heightens and we look ahead, many of us will also look behind. In the same way that our mashed potatoes are covered in gravy, or our pumpkin pie is smothered in whipped cream, the holiday season is spread thick and deep with nostalgia. We are besieged by memories, by the glory of years gone by. Some of us may recall a particularly meaningful gift that we received. Other minds might wander back to a legendary sled ride or snowball fight. Still others will simply remember putting up a tree, hanging up some lights, and then watching as day by day the gifts underneath began to accumulate.

I think this nostalgia is part of the reason that so many folks have made a holiday tradition out of watching the 1983 classic, A Christmas Story—you know, the one about that boy and his desperate hopes for a Red Ryder BB gun. That entire movie is a like a sepia-tinged photograph. It resonates with our own memories of a glory gone by. Remember when Christmas meant carefree weeks with no school? Remember when it meant big gifts? Remember when it meant the fullness of family and feasting and fun games beside the fireplace?

“Remember the Glory of Before?”

According to our scripture today, the ancient Israelites were probably asking similar questions when their forced captivity under the Babylonians ended and they returned to rebuild their homeland. “Remember when the temple was bigger?” “Remember when we still had the ark of the covenant?” “Remember when our leader was a true king, and not the powerless puppet of some other empire?”

According to one of Haggai’s contemporaries, the priest Ezra, when the older Israelites saw the measly reconstruction of their homeland, they wept with a loud voice (Ezra 3:12). Haggai himself appears to acknowledge that things are not quite as great as they once were: “Who is left among you that saw [the temple] in its former glory?” he asks. “How does it look to you now? Is it not in your sight as nothing?” (Hag 2:3). You can almost see the elders shaking their heads ruefully in the background, their hearts full of nostalgia, their eyes glazed over with the past. They cluck their tongues, saying to each other: “Remember the glory of before? Remember…? Remember…?”

Glory Greater than Before

I can only imagine, then, that what Haggai says next would have been music to their ears: “‘I will fill this house with glory,’ says the Lord of hosts. ‘The silver is mine, and the gold is mine…. The glory of this house shall be greater than before!’” (Hag 2:7-9).

When the crowd heard him speak these words, they probably erupted with joy. Their glazed eyes probably glowed even brighter. Silver. Gold. Glory greater than before.

Funnily enough, it appears that the translators of this passage were also mesmerized with the dream of greater riches. Because the word that they had previously translated as “glory”—indeed, the word that is translated as “glory” throughout the Old Testament—here they translate as “splendor,” suggestive of the shine of that gold and silver. And not only that. In Haggai’s next prophecy, where God promises shalom, or “peace,” the translators tell us that in fact God promises “prosperity.” Haggai’s crowd is not alone. Our translators too have fallen under the spell of wealth and comfort, assuming that when God promises glory and shalom, what God really promises is what they really want: “splendor” and “prosperity.”

“Smaller, Emptier, and Weaker…”

The only problem is, this “splendor” and “prosperity” would never come true. The reconstructed Israel would never reach the heights of its past. It would never attain its former splendor. The temple was smaller than before. It no longer housed the ark of the covenant, and so it was emptier than before. And because the people’s leader was no more than a puppet of a foreign empire, the people of Israel were weaker than before. Seen from this standpoint, the reconstructed Israel was a ghost of its former self. It was smaller, emptier, and weaker than before.

So when Haggai promised greater glory than before, either he was lying or he was talking about a different kind of glory. Either he was one of those false prophets who tells the people what they want to hear, or he was talking about glory in a different kind of way.

I can’t know for sure what Haggai meant. But when I listen to other prophets in the Old Testament, I hear them proclaim a different kind of glory, a glory less concerned with material and might. There are some prophets, like Isaiah and Hosea, who warn people that the material religion of the temple often masks an empty heart.[1] There are others, like Jeremiah, who dreams of a day when the ark of the covenant will no longer be missed or even remembered.[2] And it’s no secret than many prophets were critical of the monarchy and its power. For all of these prophets, the problem with being bigger, fuller, and more powerful, was that this threatened to distract the people from God. It tempted the people to trust in themselves.

In other words, maybe smaller, emptier, and weaker than before isn’t as bad as it sounds. Maybe that’s what some of the prophets were pointing toward. Maybe that’s even “the greater glory than before” that Haggai was pointing toward, whether he knew it or not.

“…Is What the Glory of God Looks like.”

I can’t help but notice a vague pattern forming. After the exile, ancient Israel was smaller, emptier, and weaker than before. To the world, it might appear as if their glory had been stripped from them.

Years later—so the story of our faith goes—a little baby Jesus was born. His life is the glory of God. And yet what a different kind of glory it is. Paul proclaims this paradoxical glory best in his letter to the Philippians:

Though he was in the form of God,
He did not regard equality with God
As something to be grasped,
But emptied himself,
Taking the form of a slave,
Being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
He humbled himself
And became responsible to the point of death—
Even death on a cross.[3]

“Humbled himself.” “Emptied himself.” “Death on a cross.”

Smaller, emptier, weaker. This is what the glory of God looks like.

The Presence of God

The promise of Haggai that likely mesmerized his ancient audience—and that certainly mesmerized our translators today—was the promise of “a glory greater than before.” To an audience that dreams of material gain and might, this promise is irresistible.

But the key to Haggai’s promise comes just a moment earlier. “‘Take courage, all you people of the land,’ says the Lord…. ‘I am with you…. My spirit abides among you’” (Hag 2:4-5). The glory of God is none other than the presence of God. And if the life of Jesus is any indication, the presence of God is manifest not in power, prestige, or possessions, but in a love that lives for others.

The Heart of Things

There was a wonderful little piece of street art near where I lived in Sheffield, England, with a picture of two children playing together, and a caption that reads, “The best things in life are not things.” It is a truism whose truth we forget all too often. Is this not the truth of the holiday season?

Nostalgia parades all around us, reminding us of how great it was when we were younger, when the holidays were bigger, fuller, and more intense, when they were full of fun and free time and big gifts. But is it these “things” that made the holidays such a memorable experience? Was it really the Red Ryder BB gun that made Christmas so memorable for Ralphie? I don’t think so.

Nostalgia tempts us with things: bigger, fuller, better things. But what we really miss is not these “things,” but the heart of things—like faith, hope, love, all of which are on full display in Ralphie’s story. And the funny thing is, we always have the heart of things with us, however small, empty, or weak our lives may feel. Deep down we know that. We all know that the real glory of the holidays is not found in the big presents or the shiny ribbons and bows, but in family and friends and strangers. The real glory of the holidays is not things but the heart of things, and we always have the heart of things with us. Which is another way of saying, what Haggai said, “‘I am with you,’ says the Lord of hosts.” “My spirit abides among you” (Hag 2:4-5).

The Demise of the Church—or the Glory of God?

The “greater glory” that Haggai proclaims, which is to say the glory that takes on a smaller, emptier, and weaker shape, is not only a helpful reminder for us as we step into the nostalgia-themed halls of the holidays. It is also worth pondering as we consider the church in today’s world.

Haggai could just as well have been preaching to us. Like his audience in ancient Israel, the church too is smaller, emptier, and weaker than before. Its numbers are dipping, its sanctuaries are emptying, and its voice in the world of politics is weaker than before. What then should we say? Is this the demise of the church?

Our nostalgic memories might suggest so. But then nostalgia never remembers things quite as they were. It doesn’t remember the exclusion and discrimination practiced against people of other ethnicities and orientations. It measures by the bodies in the pews but not by the hearts in those bodies.

Taking heart from Haggai, and from Jesus Christ himself, I would suggest that a smaller, emptier, and weaker church is not the demise of the church, but in fact a holy opportunity for greater glory. Church never was about being powerful or successful or effective. Church is about being the body of Christ, given faithfully for the life of the world, come what may. That is the smaller, emptier, weaker—and greatest—glory of God.

We see it first in the life of ancient Israel. We sense it deeply in our holiday experience. And we know it most fully in Jesus Christ, whose life—we pray—is our life.

Prayer

Companion Christ,
Who is always with us—
When our heavens and earth shake,
And we are tempted by nostalgia,
Open our eyes to see
Not demise
But the coming of your glory,
Small, empty, and weak, though it may be.
May we live faithfully for you,
As you have lived for us.
Amen.

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[1] E.g., Isa 1:10-17; Hos 6:6.
[2] Jer 3:16.
[3] Phil 2:6-8.

Unlikely Saints (Luke 6:20-31)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Sunday Worship on October 30, 2016, All Saints' Sunday)

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“Count Your Many Blessings”

In just a few weeks, many of us will gather around a table. And there we will give thanks to God for our many blessings: the food that fills our bellies; the friends and family that fill us with contentment; the comfort and conveniences that fill our lives with ease and satisfaction.

There are a number of songs associated with Thanksgiving—my favorite being the Shaker tune, “Simple Gifts”—but the one that stands out in my thoughts today is the old hymn “Count Your Many Blessings.” Perhaps you know it. “When upon life’s billows, you are tempest-tossed, when you are discouraged, thinking all is lost, count your many blessings, name them one by one, and it will surprise you what the Lord has done.” In other words, we have much to be thankful for, if we take the time to stop and think about it. Our blessings are many: relationships, food, money, well-being.

A Different Understanding of Blessing?

If today’s scripture is any indication, though, you wouldn’t hear Jesus singing this song. In fact, on the evidence of today’s scripture, I would suggest it’s best not to invite Jesus to your Thanksgiving dinner. Given his track record of overturning tables, you might be putting your turkey at grave risk.

I’m teasing, of course. I can’t imagine that Jesus would overturn our Thanksgiving tables. But I wouldn’t be surprised if he raised an eyebrow when we recited our blessings. I wouldn’t be surprised if he raised an objection, however gently. Because according to our gospel reading today, Jesus has a very different understanding of blessing than we do.

An Upside-Down Thanksgiving Gospel

For us, blessing means a steady income and a secure financial future. Jesus says the poor are blessed. For us, blessing means a full belly. Jesus says the empty bellies are blessed. For us, blessing means smiles and laughter and sunshine. Jesus says the tear-stained faces are blessed. For us, blessing means good relationships and plenty of connections. Jesus says the hated and excluded are blessed.

As if that weren’t enough, Jesus goes on to say that what we consider blessings, are in fact curses. Woe to the financially secure, woe to the full bellies, woe to the smiling faces, woe to the popular and well-liked.

Jesus may not have overturned our table and ruined our turkey. But he does proclaim a rather upside-down Thanksgiving gospel. Our blessings, it seems, are in the exact place we’d never think to look.

The Beatitudes: 

Stretching the Boundaries of Sainthood

Today is All Saints’ Day. In some churches, there is an official list of saints. In ours, there is not. I like that. Saints are not superheroes. Saints are simply people who echo Christ. We have all encountered saints in our own lives. Earlier today, some of us lit candles for the personal saints in our lives who have passed—parents, grandparents, dear friends, everyone whose words and touch linger on within us, reminding us of the love that has changed our lives and, we believe, will change the world.

Surely at Thanksgiving we will give thanks for these personal saints.

Perhaps, though, our gratitude should extend a bit further. Because Jesus’ upside-down Thanksgiving gospel—his set of bizarre beatitudes—points us to blessings in places we’d never think to look. Which is also to say, it points us to saints in people whom we’d never think of.

Elliot Was a Loser

Elliott’s parents divorced when he was six months old. Growing up, he suffered abuse at the hands of his stepfather. Then, as a teenager, he moved across the country from his mother’s home in Texas to his father’s home Oregon. He could not, however, outrun his depression, and so he looked for other means of escape. It wasn’t long before he began to dabble in drugs and alcohol. For the next fifteen years or so, his life resembled the life of many addicts and junkies. He would come clean and recover. Then he would relapse. The cycle continued until, at the age of 34, Elliott died.

Elliott was a loser. Some might cast an eye over his life and call it worthless.

I never knew Elliott personally. I know Elliott through his music. Through the spellbinding melodies he weaved on guitar and piano, the crackled register of his hushed, hangdog voice, and his plainly profound lyrics. Some would simply say that his music is sad. But within that sadness, I hear the beat of a blessed heart.

Elliott Smith talked about the world in a strange, sort of upside-down way. He lamented the myth of self-sufficiency that rules our world, that drives us to work harder, earn more, feel happier, be better than others; he called it “the cult of the winner.” “You can’t get away from it,” he said.[1] When asked about his musical achievements, he suggested that his achievement wasn’t a big deal. Achievement is what the world programs us for. “I didn’t have a hard time making it,” he said. “I had a hard time letting go.”[2]

The Blessing of the Losers: 

Letting Go

It is hard to let go. We would rather trust in ourselves. We would rather win.

And so here’s where we can finally understand Jesus’ peculiar beatitudes. The blessing of the losers—of the poor and the hungry, the tear-stained and the excluded—is the blessing of a broken heart. It is the blessing of letting go. It is the blessing of crying out for help and the blessing of having a heart that is open to receiving help. The white-knuckled fists of our world may indeed succeed in many small personal achievements, but a quick glance at the world at large will tell you that its rulers and leaders have done very little to welcome the kingdom of God. It is the weary, broken, open hands of the losers that are most ready to receive the kingdom.

Being Led by Losers

All of us know such persons. Chances are, they’re the people that we tend to hide from others. They’re the black sheep in our family whom we keep quiet about when we’re catching up with old friends. They’re the friends whose names we whisper with pained faces. They’re the addicts, the depressed, the hospitalized, the distraught.

And Jesus calls them “blessed.” Jesus calls them saints.

To be sure, Jesus isn’t calling their addiction itself a blessing, or their depression or their illness or their poverty. But whereas the rest of the world treats these conditions as diseases or marks of failure, and writes the persons off as losers, Jesus sees that their hearts are the most welcoming to the kingdom of God. Losers have let go and are ready for something more, something better.

The reason that Jesus proclaims “woe” upon the winners of our world, is because oftentimes when the kingdom comes knocking on their doors, it is greeted with a, “Thank you, but I’m pretty satisfied with what I’ve got right now—a secure future, a full stomach, a light heart, a good reputation.” But when the kingdom comes to the losers and the lowly, to folks who have let go of the myth of self-sufficiency, it finds fertile ground. It is they, Jesus suggests, who will lead us into the kingdom. These unlikely saints may in fact be our salvation, if we have eyes to see.

The Kingdom from Down Low

Once when Jack Kerouac was asked on television what characteristic defined the Beat movement, he responded in a heartbeat: “Sympathetic.”[3] Such a response makes me think that maybe the Beats were marching to the step of the beatitudes. The blessedness of losing and letting go is an increased sympathy and compassion for others. The poor, hungry, sad, and hated know just how impossible life is when you try to live it on your own. They know just how much we need each other. Their broken hearts are inclined toward sympathy more so than are the hearts of winners.

Jesus’ senseless and impractical instructions—love your enemies, do good in the face of bad, bless those who curse, give to whoever asks—these will only make sense to a heart that’s already been broken, to a person who’s already let go of his drive to win, her need to succeed. It only makes sense to love your enemy, to pray for those who hurt you, if you have a sympathy deeper than your desire for personal triumph, a compassion that seeks not only your own good but the good of others. Winners are tempted simply to win out against their enemies. But I’m guessing that the losers and the unlikely saints in our lives will point us in a different direction. Their addiction and sadness and reputation may make it harder for us to see the depths of their heart, but I’m guessing that if we look deep enough, we’ll find that they’re already welcoming the kingdom of God in their own lives.

The grand comedy of faith, I think, is that when heaven finally makes its way to earth, we’ll be surprised to discover that it was here all along. Not in the top dogs and world-beaters, but in the losers and unlikely saints. Jesus once said, rather provocatively, that the tax collectors and prostitutes would enter the kingdom of God before the chief priests and the elders (Matt 21:31). Here it is no different. If his words are any indication, the kingdom of God will not come from on high but from down low, for it is among the losers and the lowly that the kingdom finds fertile ground. It is from among our unlikely saints that the kingdom grows.

Prayer

Christ of magnificent defeat,
Whose kingdom finds welcome
Among blessed losers:
Inspire us today
Through the unlikely saints
Who direct us toward you;
Break our hearts
And loosen our fists,
That we too might welcome
Your kingdom of sympathetic hearts and turned cheeks.
Amen.

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[1] “Elliott Smith: Emotional Rescue,” http://www.magnetmagazine.com/2001/01/02/elliott-smith-emotional-rescue/, accessed October 26, 2016.

[2] Quote commonly attributed to Elliott Smith. I was unable to determine an original source.

[3] David Dark, The Gospel According to America: A Meditation on a God-Blessed, Christ-Haunted Idea (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2005), 58.