Feb 21 | “God seeks Covenant,” (Sermon, February 18th, 2018)

I made reference to the Hebrew Bible and Gospel readings in this sermon. They can be found here and here.

 

This is a full Sunday, friends! Lent 1, Vestry Sunday, Baptism…if there was a scorecard we’d all win.

It’s hard to find just one thread to pull on this one, because despite first impressions there are many common themes to these subjects. But for me, the one that shines through the strongest is covenant.

Our God – the God we honour in Lent, the God we serve in the work of the Church at Vestry, and the one we commit ourselves and our families to in baptism – is a God of covenant.

Let’s explore this.

First point: In the Genesis reading we hear the account of the covenant between Noah and God after the Flood has receded from the earth. We often get so enchanted by the image of the rainbow that we forget that the Hebrew text is quite clear that this is a weapon, an archer’s bow. And God is laying it down. This is a God no longer interested in making Her will manifest through violence and intimidation. This is a God who makes an eternal commitment to nonviolent communication and empowerment, a God choosing to enter into an adult relationship with the earth and its creatures, and modelling for us the way we should behave. What we don’t get in today’s reading is the reason for the Flood, which is given in Chapter 6: “Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence.” The God of justice is angered by this, and has every right to be. The ancient Israelite devotion to the oneness of God was so great that they believed good as well as bad came from God’s hand. This might not work for us today, but the story itself is still incredibly radical. God has promised to not send destruction even when we are at our worst. God is not a “tough love” God. God is committed to letting us live with the consequences of our decisions.

God has laid down Her weapon.

That alone should fill us with awe in this day and age.

I always think it’s odd when people criticize the Hebrew Bible as depicting a violent God without remorse. Obviously there are passages that are problematic, but even when the story has God angry enough to destroy everything…She doesn’t. She saves a remnant. You will see this popping up over and over in the Hebrew text: the penitent are forgiven, the broken and poor are lifted up.

Because God is in covenant with us, and the Israelites believed (and still believe) that this covenant with Noah extended to all of humanity. God’s mercy and desire for intimacy is not only for a special few. It is for all of us.

God the Creator seeks covenant.

Second: In the Mark reading for the first Sunday in Lent, Jesus is driven into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit, flung headlong into isolation from humanity…and yet, something amazing takes place, something utterly necessary as bedrock for the work that will follow.

Mark, in his characteristically no-nonsense way, describes in a few sentences what Matthew and Luke take most of a chapter to describe. We do not hear of Jesus’ conversations with Satan. Instead, we learn simply that he was tempted, and was with the wild beasts, and waited on by angels.

Don’t let the sparseness of the text fool you. This is a tremendous statement of faith. Christ, who is built up as a sort of “New Adam” by the Apostle Paul, is sent out into the wilderness to become a bridge between heaven and earth. Here in the desert, which of course is only deceptively barren and really full of secret life, Jesus lives in covenant with wild beasts, who somehow do not do him harm, and is waited on by angels. The word used for “waited on” is diakoneo, which is where we get the word “deacon,” those who assist at the altar. Here Jesus is, like Moses, the priest and prophet in exile. He is filled with the knowledge and power of God’s covenant with all of creation.

No wonder he came back and immediately began to heal and liberate and challenge.

Lent is a time to remember that as our Saviour was driven, so we too are driven by the Spirit into seemingly barren spaces. But do not let the barrenness of your fasting fool you. There is rich, secret life in the desert. You will find yourself remembering what it means to be in covenant with earth and angels. That covenant is invisible, so sometimes we need to walk away from the light pollution of our busy lives to really see it shining through. Like wheat we need winnowing before we can become bread.

Jesus the Christ seeks covenant.

Third: While all of creation is called into covenant with that which is uncreated, those of us who are called to baptism are called to enter into a different covenant. Not better or worse, but different, and deeply prophetic to the world. The Christian commitment made in baptism is that we pledge to enact the truth of God’s redemption of the world with our bodies, minds, and spirits. There are as many ways to do this as there are believers, but the root is the same: we come forward, or are brought forward by those who love us, to be consecrated by God through the Holy Spirit to the work of incarnation, of making the Kingdom of God’s love and justice and reconciliation known not just to those whom we love but to all people.

This is why infant baptism is so prophetic. Today we are saying that God’s power is such that even infants can do this work – not later, but now. On some level we know this is true, but it’s easy to forget. Infants giggle and screech and hold nothing back. They can make strangers smile and transform the hearts of those who love them. They change lives by re-orienting our priorities. They make love and delight blossom where once was cynicism. They do this all without language or conscious thought. Every infant is capable of doing this, but in baptism we not only acknowledge that power, but consecrate it to Christ. We make a decision on behalf of a child – like we do in matters of health, education, and ethics – to empower them for the work of making manifest God’s Kingdom. It’s not up to us what happens next. Really, it’s not even up to them. It’s up to God.

God’s covenant is available to be discovered by an individual any time. But it is only together that we can truly discern God’s will for the Church. Vestry proceeds in the way that it does to honour this truth: that the Spirit comes when she is invited, and is with us whenever we conduct business dedicated to God, even when things don’t go the way we planned. She can still be made known through what we learn from each other, and what our community learns going forward based on past decisions good and bad.

The Holy Spirit seeks covenant.

So, let us honour the God of the covenant: by winnowing ourselves in Lent, by doing our work together as a family, and by baptizing this precious child, called before she was born, to make known this sacred truth: that God is for us, and God is with us, and God loves us beyond measure.

Feb 18 | Holding Fast Track #2 – Maybe

Feb 14 | Holding Fast Track #1 – Seeds

Feb 02 | Imbolc Album Project: Goblin Market

Jan 15 | “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” (Sermon, January 14th, 2018)

The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, ³⁶and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, ‘Look, here is the Lamb of God!’ ³⁷The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. ³⁸When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, ‘What are you looking for?’ They said to him, ‘Rabbi’ (which translated means Teacher), ‘where are you staying?’ ³⁹He said to them, ‘Come and see.’ They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. ⁴⁰One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. ⁴¹He first found his brother Simon and said to him, ‘We have found the Messiah’ (which is translated Anointed). ⁴²He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, ‘You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas’ (which is translated Peter).

43 The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, ‘Follow me.’ ⁴⁴Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. ⁴⁵Philip found Nathanael and said to him, ‘We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.’ ⁴⁶Nathanael said to him, ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’ Philip said to him, ‘Come and see.’ ⁴⁷When Jesus saw Nathanael coming towards him, he said of him, ‘Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!’ ⁴⁸Nathanael asked him, ‘Where did you come to know me?’ Jesus answered, ‘I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.’ ⁴⁹Nathanael replied, ‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!’ ⁵⁰Jesus answered, ‘Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.’ ⁵¹And he said to him, ‘Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.’

John 1: 35-51

 

“DO YOU KNOW JESUS?”

Who in this church didn’t just have a full body shudder at that question? I ask that without making assumptions. Some of you probably didn’t have that reaction, and I’m so glad! Because there’s a reason that for many of us that question is shorthand for a horrifying inescapable interaction, utterly alien to the actual experience of meeting Jesus.

For too many people, this question is a trap, because there’s no answer that will extricate you from it. If you say “No,” prepare to be treated as not only a future victim of hell, but a victim too stupid to know how much danger you are in. But if you say, “Yes,” that can actually be worse, because then all too often you will be treated to a longer conversation where you will be led down dark theological pathways where there most definitely be dragons. You’ll be asked if you or your church is “Bible-believing,” and we all know what people who use that phrase think it means, don’t we? You’ll probably be asked if you made a personal commitment to a one-on-one relationship with Jesus, who is all too often treated as a sort of celestial boyfriend slash school principal having long walks on the beach with you while also keeping a tally of your many errors. You’ll be asked what you and your church think about women, queer folks, and non-Christians. You’ll be given sword drills, and God help you if you think it’s less important to know the letter of the law than to know the spirit, and God help you twice if you don’t even know what sword drills are.

Think of how much easier it was when, in answer to the question “Do you know Jesus?” you could say, “Yeah, that guy,” and point.

And yet I wonder if that particular occasion ever really occurred, because the story we read today, and many other stories we have read in church, show us that it was never so simple as “that guy over there.” Because Jesus was, above all things, compelling.

This tale of Nathanael cements the writer of the Gospel of John as a master storyteller. Jesus finds Philip and says, “Follow me.” And what is the immediate response? No hesitation. Part of that is John’s Jesus, who is almost supernatural in his attraction, and who knows each of his sheep by name. But I can’t help but believe that there was some truth to this trait of his, because we find evidence for it in the very fact that the Christian faith exists today, two thousand years after the fact. This person was a spiritual magnet. Jesus finds Philip and says, “Follow me,” and Philip not only thinks, “Okay!” but he runs immediately to find someone else to join him. He has to tell someone about this person.

He finds Nathanael.

Nathanael makes a very old joke, one which seems most appropriate this week in light of a certain president’s comments, and one which is still repeated today in Nazareth. Actually I was in Nazareth a year ago, and we learned that there is an answer to that question: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” “No – the good ones stay.”

City pride aside, Nazareth was such a podunk place that up until very recently archaeologists were arguing about whether it ever actually existed in Jesus’ time. It was likely just a few families, maybe no more than 200 people at the most, living together and resisting the Greek lifestyle that the Jewish puppet kings were promoting, trying their best to live a Jewish life. There were probably rebels among that crowd, Zealots and fundamentalists praying for the redemption of Jerusalem and the overthrow of the Roman Empire. A sketchy profane place which surely could never produce the titanic spiritual figure that those Jewish peasants believed would be the Messiah. A sh – well, you know.

So Philip comes to Nathanael with wild starry eyes, and you can imagine now why Nathanael was skeptical. But here’s where we really get to the heart of the matter. When Nathanael asks his famous question, Philip cannot even provide a real response.

All he can say is, “Come and see.”

This is a very special phrase in John, a Gospel which is basically a Jenga tower of special phrases and words. It does not only mean “Come and see.” It has thousands of millions of strata beneath it. It should not be disentangled from another phrase which comes up a lot in John: zoē, the Greek word translated “eternal life.”

“Come and see. Come into the presence of eternal life.”

Christianity cannot be distilled into one prayer of salvation, or one service, or one set of rules, or one church, or even one important book. If Christianity is a tree, the roots are a series of thousands of charged encounters between disciples and this strangely compelling person who walked the dusty roads of forgotten towns changing lives with his words and his presence – a presence so powerful, so utterly seductive, that his followers claim it left a sort of afterglow when he had gone, like the smear a bright light leaves on the eyes; a presence that left everyone who came into contact with it inexplicably changed; a presence which filled those people with a holy wildfire that could not be contained but spilled out across the whole earth; a presence which people were willing to die proclaiming and honoring.

The story doesn’t end with “Come and see.” Nathanael comes to find Jesus, and Jesus makes his own joke: “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” This isn’t just an assessment of character. The word Israel comes from the name that God gave to Jacob, which for Greek-speaking Jews was tied to the Greek word dolos, which means “cunning,” or “crafty.” Here is a son of Jacob in whom there is no Jacob! We can read it as Jesus knowing about the kind of person Nathanael is, or Jesus making reference to Nathanael’s biting honesty in his earlier comment about Nazareth. It doesn’t really matter, because what the writer of John is trying to say here is, “Jesus is the Good Shepherd, who knows his own.”

Nathanael is perplexed that this guy not only knows him, but saw him “under the fig tree.” We’re not sure exactly why this excites Nathanael so much – does it demonstrate a sort of second sight? It’s not clear – and Jesus is right in his teasing response: “What, you believe because I say I saw you under the fig tree?” It’s true: Nathanael will surely see greater things than these – he will see angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man. This is a continuation of that earlier joke, referring to Jacob’s ladder. Nathanael, a new Jacob, shall not only see but befriend a ladder for angels – not in dreams, but in his waking life. Nathanael, and all of the disciples, shall find themselves always walking on holy ground.

And we children of these latter years, far removed from the dusty roads of the Galilee, will and have seen greater things than these. We see these things in our churches and in our day to day lives. We have inherited a robust faith which engages hearts, minds, and bodies. This is why it’s so important to look beyond the kind of faith that relies solely on miracles and superstition. Jesus himself pushes us past this. It’s not just about seeing people under fig trees, or performing magic tricks. It’s about affirming that the holy came down to us in order to call us upward. It’s about becoming like Nathanael, seeing angels ascending and descending upon the Son of Man, the one who put on our flesh in order to bridge the gap between created and uncreated order and thereby became a channel for all creation to ascend.

It’s about being lifted up to join our ancestors, to become saints, in our earthly lives.

It’s about being invited into eternal life – on earth, as in heaven.

Do you know Jesus?

Look around you. You do.

Jan 08 | “Andia and the Wild Star,” (Story sermon, Epiphany tr. January 7th 2018)

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, ²asking, ‘Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.’ ³When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; ⁴and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. ⁵They told him, ‘In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet:
⁶ “And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for from you shall come a ruler
who is to shepherd my people Israel.” ’

7 Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. ⁸Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, ‘Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.’ ⁹When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. ¹⁰When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. ¹¹On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure-chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. ¹²And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.

Matthew 2:1-12

 

It was still dark when Andia awoke, left her warm bedroll, and walked down the gentle slope to the river with her water jar. In the distance she could see the strange brilliance of what she called the “wild star.”

As she approached the campsite, she saw movement.

The Magi had awakened.

She still couldn’t believe they had brought her on their journey.

“She’s just a little girl! She is not strong or fast or wise!” her father had cried.

“Neither am I!” laughed cheeky Kaspar, and winked at Andia. He was her favourite.

“She has much to learn from us – and we from her,” said thoughtful Melchior.

“What can you learn from a child?” grumbled her father.

Andia loved her three teachers, but she feared he was right.

She did her very best to be helpful. Whenever anyone gave her an order, she ran to do it as fast as she could. She had tripped a lot, but she hadn’t cried once. Not loudly, anyway.

When the Magi were ready to depart, Andia mounted Kaspar’s camel and waved until her parents were tiny dots in the distance.

That was months ago.

Now Andia joined the Magi in their morning Yasna prayers before the sacred flame, then enjoyed a simple breakfast around the cooking fire. Kaspar asked how she slept.

“I had a dream!” she said.

“What was it?” Balthazar asked. He always asked about her dreams.

“I saw the wild star come to rest in a valley,” she said.

“Did you see where the valley was?” asked Melchior.

“No. But it felt safe.”

Melchior said, “Hmmmmm.”

“Andia, do you know what a fravashi is?” asked Balthazar.

“It is a gift from our god, Ahura Mazda. Before we are born it is one with our soul. While we live, it protects us, and when we die, we will be one with it again.”

“Very good,” Balthazar said. “Important people have special fravashi, and they can appear as stars.”

He pointed to where the wild star burned its cold fire. “We think that this is a fravashi.”

Andia was amazed. “It must belong to a very important person.”

 

When the sun began to set that day, Andia saw lights in the distance. “What’s that?”

Balthazar smiled. “That’s Jerusalem. We will meet someone there.”

“Who?”

“King Herod,” said Melchior.

“Is that his palace?” she asked, pointing to a massive building at the top of the hill.

Kaspar laughed. “That is the temple of Adonai, the god of the Jewish people.”

Andia was filled with awe. That god must be a great god indeed.

They entered the city gates. The rabbit warren of cobblestone streets were fragrant with exotic spices, adorned with colourful fabrics, and ringing with voices. But Andia also saw many poor and disabled people begging for food.

Finally, they arrived at Herod’s palace.

They were welcomed with great ceremony. Servants brought food piled high on golden dishes. Beautiful women danced and an orchestra played.

And yet Andia felt uncomfortable. She couldn’t explain it, but a little frost had formed on her heart.

She thought it was Herod himself. It wasn’t just that he was chubby while outside there were so many hungry people, or even that he laughed when Melchior explained Andia was receiving religious education. She couldn’t explain it.

Finally, their bellies full, Balthazar told the king about the star, and that it belonged to the King of the Jews.

Andia frowned. Wasn’t Herod the King of the Jews?

King Herod’s mouth curved in an ugly, mean way that made Andia shiver. He snapped his fingers, and a crowd of old men appeared with scrolls. After a hurried conversation, King Herod turned back to the Magi.

The smile on his face did not meet his eyes.

 

The Magi and Andia left in the morning laden with provisions. Herod urged them to search for this king so that he could also pay homage.

Andia did not trust him. She was relieved to leave the palace.

They left Jerusalem and retreated into the countryside again. One night as the sun set, they crested a hill. Spread out in the little valley below was the small town of Bethlehem.

Balthazar cried, “Look!” and they craned their necks upward.

The wild star had stopped.

They urged their camels on. Shepherd boys gaped at them as they passed. Andia waved.

They passed through the sleeping city. The few people outside stared at their camels and resplendent robes. But the Magi did not stop.

Eventually, they came to a shabbier part of town. A little light burned up ahead, and they found themselves before a run-down hut.

Andia gasped. “This was in my dream!”

“This can’t be right,” said Balthazar. “This is no place for a king.”

Kaspar chuckled. “Andia’s wild star must belong to a wild king.”

The door was a woollen blanket hung on the inner lintel. Melchior reached for it, but Kaspar stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

“A wild king will not be impressed by men like us,” he said gently. “Andia should go in first. You were right. I think we’re learning a lot from her.”

They all turned to look at her.

Andia took a deep breath and approached the doorway. She heard a soft voice inside, singing what sounded like a lullabye.

“Hello?” Andia squeaked.

The blanket was pulled aside. A bearded man with kind eyes, dressed in threadbare clothing, stood in the doorway.

“Hello.”

“Hello. Um…my name is Andia, and I am here with my teachers,” Andia replied.

The man’s eyes widened as he saw the Magi.

“We are here to see the King of the Jews,” said Balthazar.

The young man stepped back, leaving space for Andia to come in.

She entered, and the Magi followed.

The house was tiny, with a packed dirt floor. A small fire burned in a pit toward the back wall, and by the fire sat the woman who had spoken. She was young, with a bundle in her arms.

King Herod had made Andia’s heart frosty. This woman made it feel like embers stirred up in the morning for a new fire.

The woman smiled. “Come closer, little girl.”

Andia did, and the woman shifted the bundle in her arms. It was a baby.

The embers of Andia’s heart caught fire.

The woman handed the baby to her. He looked like an ordinary baby, and yet Andia somehow knew that he was not.

Andia turned to the Magi, full of awe. “This is the King of the Jews.”

The Magi stared, then looked at each other, confused.

After a long moment of silence, though, the three fell to their knees.

“We have gifts for the king,” Melchior said with great reverence.

The baby snuffled and wiggled.

The Magi produced their treasure chests. The young woman opened them, and Andia laughed to see the baby’s eyes grow big as the gold flashed, and his little nose wrinkle at the bitter smell of the herbs.

Joseph insisted they spend the night. Andia was glad they still had provisions to share, for the couple did not have much food. Later, they all bedded down in the same room. Andia put her bedroll next to the baby’s, and fell asleep watching him kick his tiny feet.

She woke up a few hours later in a cold sweat. Balthazar was on her other side, and she snuggled against him, afraid.

“What’s wrong, Andia?” he said sleepily.

“We can’t go back to Herod. Something bad will happen.”

“How do you know?” he asked, eyes dark with concern.

“A man told me in my dream. He shone brighter than the sun.”

Balthazar’s eyes widened. “Don’t worry. We won’t go back that way.”

She was afraid to say more, but felt comforted by his trust.

“I saw more things in my dream. A tree on a hill. It blossomed, withered, and blossomed again.”

“What do you think it means?” he asked.

“I don’t know. But it feels…important. Do you know?”

He shook his head and told her to go back to sleep.

She could tell he was hiding his thoughts from her.

 

When the Magi awoke in the morning, Balthazar mentioned Andia’s dream. Melchior looked at her for a long time, then nodded. She was amazed at their trust.

The young woman, Mary, hugged Andia for a long time. The baby grabbed her finger and squealed, which made Andia laugh.

They left not long after, although Andia wanted to stay forever.

The further away they got from the little hut, though, the more the previous night began to feel like another dream.

Andia could not stop thinking about the wild infant king, and her dream of the tree.

Somehow, she knew in her heart of hearts that she would never dream a more important dream.

Jan 02 | Sancta Viscera Track #7: Silent Night

Dec 24 | Sancta Viscera Track 6: Don oíche úd i mBeithil

Dec 24 | Sancta Viscera Track 5: Nunc Dimittis

Dec 11 | “Prepare ye the Way of the Lord,” (Sermon, December 10 2017)

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

2 As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,
‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way;
³ the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
“Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight” ’,
⁴John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. ⁵And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. ⁶Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. ⁷He proclaimed, ‘The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. ⁸I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.’

Mark 1:1-8

 

“Prepare ye the way of the Lord, prepare ye the way of the Lord.”

These words are so familiar to us that they may have lost some of their power. The idea of prophecy itself may seem archaic, weird, maybe dangerous. We might think of some of the stuff we’ve been hearing about end times, about the moon turning to blood or plagues of locusts. Prophecy to us often means the ability to predict the future, which is not actually a full understanding of the word or the concept, because in Jesus’ time prophets were known as much for telling the present as the future – and speaking truth to power, saying that all was not as it should be, was what usually got them in trouble.

“Prepare ye the way of the Lord, prepare ye the way of the Lord.”

John the Baptizer doesn’t help matters. Do you ever stop and think about the kind of image he actually cut? I feel like in church we often think of him with an odd sort of affection – wacky uncle Jack with the weird clothes and the funny quips. But really, think about it. Aesthetically speaking, he probably had more in common with…well, a homeless guy. Camel’s hair coats and leather belts sound kind of rustic and charming to us, but to the people of ancient Palestine, they were less charming and more utilitarian. Like a guy who dons hundreds of layers so the cold won’t bite so hard and the damp won’t sink so deep, because when you live outside you’ve got to fight both or they’ll kill you; when you live outside you have to keep everything you own with you at all times if you want to keep it at all.

John the Baptizer, howling in the wilderness, the kind of person that most folks would probably avoid. The peasants don’t, because he had more in common with them. Poverty makes for strange and beautiful friendships. It can also make for some real insight into what’s important for the soul – not in a sentimental way, but in a raw, inelegant way that tends to be imposed and is therefore not so much a spiritual gift as a survival mechanism, hard-won wisdom borne out of heavy burdens.

And yet it is right in the centre of this colonial bondage that the path of light is being laid, brick by brick.

“Prepare ye the way of the Lord, prepare ye the way of the Lord.”

Advent is a time for us to remember that the path is always laid here: in places of subjugation, places of pain and oppression, places of corruption and decay.

Not because God wishes for anyone to remain in that state, or sentimentalize it, or minimize it.

Because God wishes for us to go there, because that is where She chose to be born.

Not in a palace. Not in a mansion. Not in a golden tower.

On a byway, in occupied territory.

In the wilderness, to refugees, to colonially enslaved people.

She is still being born there. This year I enter into Advent with new memories. In January I was in Bethlehem, occupied Palestinian territory in the West Bank. The Church of the Nativity – appropriately both beautiful and rather shabby – presides over much of the city, but further down the wall has curved in, splitting the main road in half and blocking Christians and Muslims from devotions at the Tomb of Rachel. Beautiful protest art covers the wall at that particular section, which we approached with great caution. Our guides warned us that if we got too close and were seen by the guards in the tower above, we ran the risk of being sprayed with tear gas from jets set right into the concrete.

There were several large posters with reflections from locals about what Christmas in Bethlehem had been like before the wall went up. One poster included lyrics from a Danish carol:

Jesus, love down the wall

And bring peace to Bethlehem.

“Prepare ye the way of the Lord, prepare ye the way of the Lord.”

The way of the Lord is not the way of our world, not the way of violence, tyranny, oppression; not the way of war and walls.

The way of the Lord is not the way of class or station, or racism, or sexism, or homophobia, or hate crimes, or murder, or environmental degradation, or bullying.

The way of the Lord is not the way of riches or family values or meritocracy.

It is a reckless way, a narrow way of wide open hearts, a way of truth-telling and welcoming and forgiving and letting go and constant personal transformation, a way of purposeful release, intentional divestment of all that is not conducive to life and love – not the sanitized love of a Hallmark Christmas special but what I’ll call, for lack of a better word, wildfire love.

This is why the words of John can seem so harsh to us. John, the messenger, the prophet, needs us to know how important this is. This is a holy movement, in every sense of the word. Why would you not want to be a part of it: a sacred dance that is big enough for every created being to join in, a sacred dance of eagles and angels and cedar trees and oceans and polar bears and mountains and people, all colours, all creeds, all bodies.

If you don’t get onboard, you don’t just risk mild annoyance. You risk your spiritual health. Repentance can sound judgemental, but it just means “turning around,” re-orienting yourself, re-centering your heart, your soul, your mind on God – the Source of Life and Love.

It can feel impossible. It can be easy to forget. How could it not be when we turn on the TV or look at our phones and see a world full of mistakes and wilful ignorance and apathy and just plain evil. We might think that God isn’t listening, or maybe isn’t even there, and it’s okay to feel that way – that’s why we were given the gift of hope, and that’s why we celebrate Advent over and over, every year.

It can be so to forget because wildfire love isn’t easy.

It’s probably the hardest thing in the world.

I have to say it because in this church we are family and there should be honesty in families.

But all of you are here for a purpose, and God has chosen you for wildfire love – and just like we learn as little children at Christmastime, it’s not only about receiving, it’s about giving.

As hard as wildfire love is – and both receiving and giving can be difficult for different reasons – the church has given us tools and gifts to help us.

So I invite you, beloved, wherever you’re at in life physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually, to open yourself to the wildfire love that is all around you. Do it in silence. Do it with friends or family or precious ones. Let it fill you up, and when you are filled, allow it to spill over and out of you.

Become a channel, like John, for the Holy Spirit of truth.

And if you’re like me and you prefer the concrete to the metaphysical, the church has you covered there too. Come forward and receive the body of our Lord, the one who is coming into the world. Imagine it as love, nourishing you, filling you, radiating from you, showing you the way to be to each other and the world.

Imagine it as love, because that is what it is.

And this is only the smallest taste of what is in store when Christ comes again.

“Prepare ye the way of the Lord, prepare ye the way of the Lord.”