Mar 16 | “The truth will make you free,” (Sermon, March 16th 2016)

Before we look at this tiny puzzle piece from the Gospel of John, we need a pair of glasses. These glasses have a special set of lenses: IRONY lenses. They inform everything we read in this Gospel – everything.

Let’s look at this little piece: “The truth will make you free.”

It’s such a rich phrase, classic John. It has grown a life quite divorced from its original context. Jesus has been speaking to a group of clueless people about who he is. These people are identified as “Jews.” This is a highly problematic term in John, implying that the Evangelist was not also Jewish. I could preach a whole sermon on the damage wrought by this term, and on past and current scholarly debates on more appropriate translations of the term. But right now the label is important, because of the response to Jesus’ pronouncement.

‘We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone.’”

Really? I guess we’re writing off that whole Egypt thing?

Jesus doesn’t mention it. Our lenses add that extra layer – like seeing him roll his eyes. And he tells them they are slaves to sin.

Aren’t we all.

So how can truth make us free? Maybe it’s better to ask Pilate’s question: “What is truth?”

I think there are two different kinds of truth: small t truths, and Capital T Truth.

Small-t truths we discover throughout a lifetime and either disavow or ascribe to them. Many of them are so widely accepted that they become proverbs – “What goes around comes around.” “The apple never falls far from the tree” “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.” The ones that aren’t true for you are true for someone else. Other small t truths are personal to you and your story, and might be difficult to put into words.

I call them small t truths not to denigrate them, but to say that their verity often depends upon personal experience, and they are not really universal.

Then there is capital T Truth, which is God, the Creator of a universe that runs on love and self-sacrifice, what Paul calls “kenosis,” or “self-emptying.”

Capital T truth is not merely a Christian truth. This is something that is present in pretty much every established religion, and, to some extent, science as well!

I believe that our capacity to produce small t truths is part of what the writers of Genesis meant when they talked about being made “in God’s image.” God makes patterns and we seek them out, drawn toward the light because it feels like home.

I only think there’s a problem when a small t truth counter to the manifestation of the holy in the world becomes louder than Capital T Truth.

That’s what happening right now, not just in the States with Donald Trump, but around the world. There is a global movement hearkening back to a more brutal, proto-fascist way of being in the world. I don’t use the term fascist lightly. Fascism is defined as “radical authoritarian nationalism,” and is characterized by constant references to humiliation, a villainous “other” who seeks to undermine the virtuous majority, and referring to “the good old days.” Our friend Donald Trump does that a lot.

The small t truths of this increasingly popular worldwide movement as I see them are as follows:

• Once upon a time, the world was as it should be, but within the last generation it has gotten immeasurably worse.
• This is because a group of undesirables are undermining the power base of the strong and humiliating them.
• If the strong want to regain power and re-create the world to which they are entitled (that’s key), they must erase the undesirables by any means necessary, because diversity promotes weakness, and weakness is suspect and contagious.

Those are their small t truths.

To Christians, this should be blasphemous.

The Gospel of John is explicit. It’s not just about Jesus being the Messiah. The real message of John is that Jesus is enthroned not by violently deposing the Emperor – as the Zealots wanted him to do – but by being “lifted up” on the cross. This is why there’s no Garden of Gethsemane for John’s Jesus. John’s Jesus knows that his crown is one of thorns, his throne is a cross, and his triumph is defeat. That’s why our irony lenses are so important: that moment where the guards mock Jesus by dressing him as a king is a masterful piece of storytelling, because they don’t even realize what they’re doing. John’s a spooky, dangerous Gospel in that regard, because the Resurrection is really an epilogue to the crucifixion: It’s important, but less important than the moment of glory, where Jesus says: “It is finished.”

Friends, Lent is about divesting ourselves of small t truths that do not serve the Capital T Truth: the universe runs on love and self-sacrifice. We give things up to say to God, “I lay comfort at your feet.” We take things on to say, “True comfort is in you.”

On Palm Sunday, we’ll stand together and lift Capital T Truth up – not just in our hearts but also our bodies. We use our voices to sing it, and our hands to hold up little thrones. We tell each other the Truth through story: the enacted Passion. It will only get louder as we continue on through Holy Week and into the joyful dawn of celebrating that Truth with a word we can’t say yet.

Right now, let’s have a small celebration of this truth.

“Draw near and take the Body of your Lord, and drink the holy blood for you outpoured.”

Feb 23 | “Called to Lament,” (Sermon, February 21st 2016)

“Cé hé an fear breá sin
Ar Chrann na Páise?
Óchón agus óchón-ó!
An é n-aithníonn tú do Mhac,
A Mháthrín?
Óchón agus óchón-ó!”

This is a piece of my ethnic heritage – and John’s ethnic heritage – that I share with you. It’s called “keening,” and it was a widespread practice in Ireland and Scotland for generations.

The piece from which I just sang is called the Caoineadh na dTri Mhuire, and is a composition which puts a keening song into the mouth of the Virgin Mary at the foot of the cross. Keening is a form of lament, and it was most commonly practiced at funerals by women.

These women were not usually members of the family of the deceased, but professionals who could be hired for their services. In Celtic folklore, it was believed that the banshee – or “woman of the sidhe,” the Celtic underworld – was a conduit for the soul to depart into the next life. By taking on this role, a flesh and blood woman could not only aid the soul in its journey, but also provide a source of catharsis to the whole community.

I love the idea of hiring someone to give voice to the sound inside a grieving heart. I’m also so moved that this was exclusively women’s work. In fact, tradition often places the keening woman in the wild wastes, walking on the margins, showing solidarity with the dead by disheveled hair and torn clothes. She was the one who gave voice to all of the thoughts of grief that many of us would never share with anyone else. She would impress upon fellow mourners that bizarre sense of unreality following a death by describing the mundane details of life, and following it with what one scholar called “a brutally realistic description of the weight of the cold earth of the grave.” One of the truly beautiful things she did was to express anger at the deceased for dying, asking them who would plow their fields and raise their children, which gave other mourners safe space to air their own anger. She was like a Holy Fool…or a prophet.

The passage from Luke we read has the heading, “the lament over Jerusalem.” This heading (which is not in the original text) was the first thing that reminded me of this ancient practice of my ancestors. The fact that we are in Lent, and like a keening woman our Church provides us with a prescribed space of time in which to air our griefs so that we may neither bypass them nor be trapped within them, also made me reflect on lament. We lament our sins and our mortality on Ash Wednesday, and we lament the terrible cruelty we humans can inflict on one another, and the pain that was visited on our Beloved, on Good Friday.

It’s so important to take this time, as dreary as it may seem at first, to lament. I think lament has become incredibly counter-cultural in our time period today.

It may not look like that at first. Every day we get up and see news stories on TV about how horrendous the world has become. We may mourn “the good old days,” or feel powerless to halt the perceived tidal wave of human misery. People write articles and scream at their TVs and say, “I’m not angry, just disappointed.”

But I don’t think that is true lament. Lament is productive. Lament gives us a chance to bring things into the light and thereby disinfect them. Ever notice how, in the Bible, people gained power over demons by naming them? And God changed people’s names – Abram became Abraham, Sarai became Sarah – but refused to be named: “Tell them I AM has sent you.” I think it’s same principle here. Naming our feelings gives us power over them, and maybe by enfleshing with words what is incorporeal, like grief, we can subject it too to the slow erosion of mortality. We can’t remove its teeth, but in time they may grow dull.

Jesus lived a life that would have been somewhat familiar to a keening woman. He kept to the margins and expressed truths in a blunt and provocative manner that felt liberating to some and terribly uncomfortable to others. He made himself safe space for others.

Unfortunately, his life was similar to a keening woman in another way: after countless women passed down this oral tradition to the next generations, the practice is now almost extinct in Ireland save for a few holdouts on the incredibly remote Blasket Islands. The suppression of this tradition was led primarily by the Roman Catholic Church – it was seen as heathenish because of its lack of reference to the afterlife, and, in the 1800s, superstitious and embarrassing. One scholar I read believed that priests felt it inappropriate for women to act as conduits between life and death. Some priests even publically whipped women who tried to keen the dead up until the early twentieth century. The Marian lament that I sang earlier was part of a new art form created by women who, deprived of their ritual, took back the tradition in a way they thought would escape censure, by ascribing it and a host of traditional keening imagery, to the Mother of God.

Jesus, who clearly was doing something right in the eyes of these Pharisees, is warned to make himself scarce before Herod finds him. Jesus’ retort and message for ‘that fox’ (a title which in its context was more like ‘that skunk’) makes it clear that he is willing to brave whips and worse for the right to cast out demons and lament for Jerusalem, the blessed and holy city of God that stones prophets and murders messengers. We also have that exquisite line where Jesus longs to be as a mother hen gathering her brood under her wings.

Jesus, the prophet in between Pharisee and pauper, the stranger between master and mother. Jesus, lover of the lost and seducer of the civilized.

During the season of Lent, we shrug off our cloaks of pretense, and remind ourselves that the span of our days is like that of the flower of the field. We put our…secret “A” words in boxes and we stifle many of our songs. The closer we get to Easter, the more we strip away, until Good Friday comes and there is nothing left.

We lament.

We cry, “Kyrie eleison,” and “We are dust and to dust we shall return.” We say these things because it is so easy to forget, especially in this part of the world, that mortality and frailty are a natural part of every human life. It is so easy to forget that in so much of the world death and pain are not sanitized the way they can be here. Lent makes space for us to say, “Not only are death and pain real…our God lived them, and by doing so gave us life.”

We lament.

I think this is an incredibly prophetic opportunity. Every Lent, we the Church are offered the opportunity to keen on behalf of the world. Distance, oppression, and fear have been a padlock on so much grief. Let’s open it and expose that grief to air. Let us, during this season, walk on the margins. Let us show solidarity with the sad by making ourselves poor in spirit and righteously angry that the world is not always as it should be, and we will never be fully untangled until Christ returns to us. Let us provide the entire world with a safe space for grief, in the knowledge that making space for the awkward emotions also makes space for the joyous ones.

Let us cry out, “Óchón agus óchón-ó!” – “Alas, and alas” – knowing that after “Alas” comes another ‘A’ word…one we don’t say at this time, but it’s only a few syllables off, and just as raw, just as beautiful.

Alas, and so may it be – Amen.

Feb 02 | “Shedding our Armour,” (Sermon, January 20th 2016)

I used both of the readings for the day, which can be found here and here.

Last Wednesday I attended the first gathering of the Diocesan Indigenous Justice Circle. Facilitated by Diocesan Indigenous Justice Ministries Co-ordinator Brander Macdonald, the group was impressively diverse, with people of a multitude of colours, orientations, ages, stations, and genders, and a cohort of both lay and ordained Christians. Together we talked about how we might address the calls to action which were included in the official Truth and Reconciliation report, and listened to stories and songs from residential school survivors.

For many survivors, it is clearly becoming easier to tell the stories. That alone is a beautiful truth, and it is truly a gift to witness resurrection happening in real time, before our eyes.

But of course it is no easier for me to hear these stories then as it was to hear them in the listening tent at the TRC events when they came to Vancouver just under three years ago. It was a very raw time for all of us spiritually to bear witness to such devastating trauma.

And yet, the listening tent was always full, and not just with survivors.

With every day people, just like you and me, committed to listening no matter how much it hurt to be born into a new spiritual body able to process and accept the deep anger and pain of other human beings, often on behalf of those who were no longer on this earth but had carved that pain into flesh and soul in years long past.

It’s really hard work. But we were not there out of some toxic form of guilt. We were there because the Christian story teaches that taking on weakness voluntarily is one of the best ways to experience redemption, because that is the pattern of God.

In the stories of our Jewish ancestors, David refuses the armour held out to him by Saul, choosing instead what he knows best: his own tools and his own self. This honours the truth of God’s choice. David, the youngest son, not his stronger and bigger brother Eliab, will be king. Not only did God not choose Eliab, but God did not intend for David to adopt any of Eliab’s characteristics. God wanted David – the runt of the litter, the shepherd boy. God wanted the reckless one who believed in the sacred presence and showed no wavering in the face of frightening adversity. God wanted the one who would later mess up big time – something God surely saw coming – and chose him anyway.

David trusted. He wasn’t like Moses, who said, “Don’t you want somebody else?” and was still chosen. He wasn’t like Jonah, who ran the other way immediately and was still chosen. David didn’t seem to care what common sense decreed about his suitability for this work.

He stepped up. He stepped up with a slingshot and a couple of pebbles from the river and became king.

Jesus continues with his work even though there is a group of Pharisees following him around and sniping about him behind his back. Today’s story is the last in a series of skirmishes between Jesus and the Pharisees. It’s interesting to compare these stories, because the degree of engagement between the Pharisees and Jesus changes as they progress. It takes them quite a while to challenge Jesus to his face. They start by muttering among themselves, and then they gripe to his disciples. Eventually they do come to Jesus directly, but point out something objectionable his disciples are doing, saying, “Why do they do what is unlawful on the Sabbath?”

Jesus replies, “The Sabbath was made for humanity, not humanity for the Sabbath.”

These are sophisticated elites and Jesus is from a podunk town in the middle of nowhere, probably illiterate and certainly uneducated compared to them. Why does it take these professors a whole chapter to confront this backwoods preacher directly?

In today’s story, they are watching him closely to see if he messes up. How petty this is! And for the record, healing is absolutely permitted on the Sabbath under the law. Why would they have a problem with it? Why do they even care what Jesus is doing?

Once again Jesus displays his terrifying wit. He asks them, “Is it lawful for someone to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save life or to kill?”

There is no answer to this question. They are wise to be silent.

Jesus becomes angry. This might make us feel uncomfortable. I think it’s kind of beautiful. If he thought they were complete degenerates, beyond any redemption, he wouldn’t feel anything. He wouldn’t even bother to engage. But he does.

And he heals.

Take a moment to contemplate the awesome power that Jesus displays here. He doesn’t say any magic words or perform any ritual. He doesn’t even touch the guy. He just tells him to stretch out his hand, and it’s restored.

This is what you do with power. You don’t use it to police other people’s behaviour. You don’t use it to intimidate or bully people. You don’t conspire with other people of power to do harm to those who aggravate or threaten you.

You take it where it’s needed and you pour it all out to help someone who doesn’t have any.

You take off the helmet and give it to someone else, even if other people laugh at you. You bring degenerates to your banquet and gold to dark stables. If you have nothing to offer but flesh and bone, you use it to share the weight of another.

And then, you do it again, over and over, for the rest of your life.

So what’s the armour we might shed? Maybe an artifice, something that might seem protective but adds unneeded weight. What is the sword we don’t need, and what are the unexpected tools we can pick up, ones that we are already skilled in using but maybe never considered that God would have a use for?

And if there are people in our lives waiting to see us fail or mess up, who whisper behind our backs, or grieve and anger us: Are they not best served with our belief that even they can transcend petty fear?

In theory it’s easy. We all take the first step by being baptized into the death of Christ.

Even if you didn’t choose that for yourself, you are bearing witness to that choice by being here right now.

You died, and rose again.

The Holy Spirit rested on you then and it is resting on you now.

You have power, and it will never falter.

Pass it on.

Jan 10 | “The Magi,” (Epiphany Sermon, January 6th 2016)

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

Today is the day that my little wooden Magi finally make it into the nativity scene on my mantel! Throughout Advent and Christmastide they move around the house, a little closer each day, until they come to rest before the manger and offer their gifts.

Some people take down all their Christmas decorations on Epiphany, but since my Magi don’t even join the crèche until then, I leave it up until later, sometimes until the Feast of the Presentation at the beginning of February! It just seems a lot more fair to give them their chance to be seen.

I certainly give them more time on stage than the writer of the Gospel of Matthew did. Their story is only found in that one Gospel, and it’s over and done in only twelve verses. There is also no mention of them in any parallel or contemporary texts.

The composer Gian-Carlo Menotti sought to flesh them out in his opera Amahl and the Night Visitors, which is where I first became familiar with their traditional names (Kaspar, Balthazar, and Melchior), and where I first began to imagine them as people with distinct personalities. Kaspar was always my favourite: he is portrayed as eccentric and quite deaf, and shows the titular child Amahl his special box, which has one drawer full of beautiful stones, one of brightly coloured beads, and in the third drawer…oh little boy, oh little boy…in the third drawer I keep…licorice.

But all of this is really midrash. In our one single solitary source, these people have no names, no descriptions – the text doesn’t even say how many of them there are. The tradition says there are three because there are three gifts. But who’s to say there couldn’t have been more or less? Some might even ask if they ever existed at all, having only been substantiated by one single source.

We’re not going to go any further down that road, because actually it really doesn’t matter. What was important to Matthew was what they represented, what they meant for the story of Jesus. This is what must be important to us as well.

So who were these people? What would their presence, their journey, their gifts have meant to the people of Matthew’s time? What would they have meant to this new family in Bethlehem in first century Palestine? When we know this, it might be easier to figure out what their story should mean to us.

First of all, the word Magi might not mean much to us today. It is where we get the words “magic” and “magician” from, and Magi did have these associations back then. But one thing we might not know as 21^st century people is that they also had a priestly function. The word Magi could also refer to a priestly caste of the Zoroastrian religion. Zoroastrianism is what I would call a “root faith,” one which heavily informed the major monotheistic faiths. Much of its worldview and vocabulary would be familiar to us as Christians, which makes sense as it arose out of Persia, and in fact still exists there and across the globe.

If our Magi were priests devoted to the Zoroastrian god Ahura Mazda, they would have believed that the purpose of all life was to make the world progress to perfection through adopting three tenets: Humata, Hukhta, Huvarshta (Good Thoughts, Good Words, Good Deeds). They would also have believed in fravashi, a personal spirit of an individual dead, living, or yet-unborn. According to one of the commentaries I read, it was commonly believed that the fravashi of a great man could be a star. This may have been one of their reasons for studying the stars so closely.

Either way they were members of a faith different from Judaism. Most of the references to Magi in contemporary Jewish sources were negative. Matthew clearly meant for us to see them first and foremost as foreign, perhaps even a little suspect.

Second, we know they are “wise,” mostly because this is one of the translations of the Greek word for Magi. But it’s quite an appropriate one. Despite the fact that they are Gentiles, they are learned enough to recognize the star of the Messiah when they see it, and they immediately begin to follow it.

This might not seem terribly wise at first. It seems downright reckless when they stroll right into the palace of King Herod and say, in essence, “Hi, there! We see that the real King of the Jews has been born somewhere around here. Can you tell us where to find him so we can go and worship him?” What kind of people are these guys?

When these questionably wise people ask this terribly reckless question, Herod does not respond by slaughtering them in an offended rage.

He is afraid. He immediately goes and consults his best think tank, and they give him the answer, and he goes to consult with the Magi again, asking them when the star rose, since that will help him determine the age of the child.

He clearly trusts that they know what they’re talking about.

Finally, he sends them on to Bethlehem, asking them to search for the child so that Herod can go and worship as well.

Of course we know that’s not what he really wants to do.

Here’s a question: Why would Herod not go with them, or send a servant along with them to both find and murder the child right away, instead of trusting that the Magi will come back (which of course, they don’t)?

Maybe he thought it was better to take his chances by himself…because maybe he was afraid of them too.

They are devout, and they are wise – so wise that they can afford to tell the truth to a king with a notoriously short temper.

Third, they are open. It’s downright heroic how open they are: to the truth, to humility, and to a little bit of craftiness when required.

They are open enough to think it’s a good idea to inform Herod of this birth, just on the off-chance that he would do the right thing.

They are open enough to not be surprised when they discover that the child is not in a grand palace, and his parents are not people of means.

They are open enough to accept and obey the dream which warns them not to risk Herod’s company again.

And they are open enough to trust that these people and their infant are about God’s work right where they are. They do not take the family with them to shelter them, or bestow upon them enough riches to sustain them for years. They offer them gifts fit for a king, which I like to imagine Mary and Joseph used to finance their trip to Egypt in the next chapter. They empower, but do not linger or demand anything more. Their presence before the King of Kings is gift enough for them.

They are open enough to understand that this child, born to desperately poor refugees and running the risk of murder by Herod’s soldiers, is the Messiah, no matter how tiny, weak, and vulnerable he looks.

They get it.

The foreigners, the ones who are outside the “true” faith, the ones who offer their gifts but return to their homes never having adopted this “true” faith, even after seeing the face of the Anointed One, get it.

The suspect, the strange, the exotic, the heathen, understand, and take it for granted that others would.

Their wisdom is invaluable to our tradition, no matter who they were or what happened to them outside of the few verses of this text. They teach us to be a little clownish, considering the ridiculous as sacred truth, entertaining the destitute as though they were royalty, expecting angels in alleyways and emperors in stables.

This Epiphany tide, as we bathe in the light which entered every corner of the world, let these wise ones and their star guide you into a new perspective, a new wisdom, a new openness.

Venture far afield, bring your gifts, and prepare to be surprised at where you find God among us.

Amen.

Dec 26 | “Lullabies for Angels,” (Sermon, Christmas Morning 2015)

8 In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. ⁹Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. ¹⁰But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: ¹¹to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is the Messiah, the Lord. ¹²This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.’ ¹³And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,
¹⁴ ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace among those whom he favours!’

15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.’ ¹⁶So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. ¹⁷When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; ¹⁸and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. ¹⁹But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. ²⁰The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

Luke 2:8-20

It is so good to be together on this holy day, singing the songs of the season, just as the angels did so long ago.

For several of the last few Christmases, the harp and I made a trip to the Art Institute near Renfrew Skytrain Station. I would meet my dear friend Byron and his cello, and the two of us would go to see his buddy Adam and Adam’s latest crop of sound-engineering students. For the next couple of hours, we provided the talent for these young people as they practiced their recording, mixing, and mastering skills. Cellos and harps are complicated instruments to mic well, so they got good practice with us.

Byron and I used our first time in their studio to lay down three tracks for an EP we called “A Quiet Quirky Christmas.” We chose songs we knew our mothers would like, and the results were better than expected. Then we were invited again the following year, and chose a few more songs. Finally, late one year, Byron became an uncle. The two of us met that Christmas and recorded the Austrian carol “Stille, Stille, Stille,” which the Vancouver Children’s Choir performed beautifully at our Carol Sing-Along a few weeks ago, for his niece Ember.

I was thinking of Byron and his joy at Ember’s birth when the choir sang that carol, and as I thought of my very dear friend, I also got caught up short by the simple beautiful fact that this was only one lullabye of hundreds that have been penned over the years by human beings to the Christ child.

Some of our best Christmas carols are lullabies to this holy child.

Pause for a moment and think of how amazing it is, that people have written lullabies to God; that the one who made heaven and earth was made incarnate among us and experienced so many of the holy rituals we have around childbirth and babies; that not only did one child many years ago hear his mother sing, but that two thousand years later we gather to sing songs written by those who died centuries after this child did; that in spite of all of the violence and inner weakness of the human creature, we offered up our simple cradle songs and expected they would be received by the one who lived among us as a squalling, kicking, wriggling baby.

And furthermore, isn’t it beautiful that the creator made a sort of musical trade with creation – in exchange for the lullabye of a poor peasant girl, God offered the songs of angels to a pack of rough shepherd folk on the night shift in the hills.

What a trade! It seems ridiculous, doesn’t it? God would rather hear the frightened, trembly, ecstatic voice of an exhausted teenage girl than a seraphic symphony. God’s generosity is almost appalling here, trading pearls for stones.

But this is the one who has come into the world.

Anointed One? Yes. Kingly One? Yes.

But more than that: Wild One. Daring One. Reckless One.

Think about it: Why would we write and sing lullabies for Jesus?

Because we say he was a baby, and like all babies he cried and needed to be soothed to sleep.

This is why I take such issue with lines such as “The little Lord Jesus no crying he makes,” or “Christian children all must be mild, obedient, good as he.”

At some point we have to face the truth and ask ourselves, “Who do we really believe God to be?”

One of the most excruciating and beautiful things about babies and very young children is that they are so often explicit about their need for help. They are, to coin a phrase, aggressively vulnerable.

Now obviously a child must be socialized to be independent and conscientious of others’ needs, but pushing them to do so before they are ready or silencing them instead of acknowledging (if not always meeting) their needs usually turns out poorly for everyone. At its worst, I believe the same behaviour underlies all of the worst “isms” of our time – the ignoring and silencing of those who dare to say that to become independent they need extra help from those of us who don’t.

Isn’t it funny that we so often try to be angels, when God chose shepherds where and as they were to receive angels? Isn’t it strange how we are often so flummoxed by our own vulnerability that we try to get rid of it in ourselves and then so often come to realize that our unwillingness to ask for help is what has made us sick or unhappy?

And therefore: Isn’t it wonderful that children are born with this instinct because they are so vulnerable; born with the instinct to demand help while so many of us stumble along unable to ask, or sometimes even resenting the people around us for not being psychic and knowing that we need it?

Source: Caitlin Reilly Beck

Last Saturday, I took part in a special outdoor Christmas Pageant at St. John’s Shaughnessy. It was a deanery-wide event which included in-character interactions with those who attended by the intergenerational cast, a petting zoo, music, a hilarious script, and a real baby Jesus, wrapped up in a furry red blanket. Despite the very best efforts of singing angels, gentle shepherds, and the twelve-year-old girl playing Mary, our Jesus, who was clearly very tired, couldn’t get herself to fall asleep and refused to be soothed.

There were two performances of the Pageant and she cried all the way through both of them, from her entrance to her exit and beyond.

And not just fussy whimpering: this was the full-on stutter-y wail of an exhausted infant that parents in the congregation today are all wincing to remember.

Having noticed that she seemed to calm down when there was music, I leaned over Mary’s shoulder and sang quietly to her, thinking this might calm her down. Mary joined in the song as well, and adjusted the pacifier that kept popping out of the baby’s mouth.

No dice.

As we formed a tableau around her toward the end of the performance, the St. John’s choir began to sing the Huron carol, and we joined them. As we sang the line, “The earliest moon of wintertime is not so round and fair as was the ring of glory round the helpless infant there,” I found myself completely overcome. Here barely sheltered from the freezing cold of a rainy west coast December afternoon, among a couple of bales of hay put out for the live donkey to munch, wearing a ridiculous pair of butterfly wings and a tinsel halo, I felt transported in time to a sacred place.

Not a palace and not a soft, gentle, cosy barn. A place not fit for humans to sleep, much less give birth… and yet the place where the Mother of our Lord and faithful, righteous Joseph were dumped because the inn was packed so full of people, staying in Bethlehem in order to be counted in the census and thereby taxed.

A place full of animals, who despite how cute they look in a petting zoo, are just as smelly and obnoxiously needy as any infant.

A place where there was no bassinette, no cradle, no bed. Only a trough. (I sometimes avoid the word “manger” specifically because of the weird baggage it has obtained over the years as so many of us lost our agricultural roots. I’m a city girl and when I hear the word “manger” I think “Christmas,” not “box where the animals eat.”)

A trough, which may indeed have had an animal face-deep in it when the baby was laid there. The Godly Play Holy Family figures beautifully include “the cow who was surprised when she came to her feeding trough, and instead of her breakfast found a little baby in it.”

All of the angels, shepherds, and Magi in the world do not make the barn anything other than what it was.

And that’s where the awestruck beauty of Christmas lies.

God didn’t choose something else.

God didn’t choose something better.

This is a reckless God, who gives us angels in exchange for our lullabies, and undying love in exchange for a cross. God chooses us – and not for our treasure, or our best offerings.

Because we are not always good at knowing our best.

Our best is not Herod’s palace of sumptuous gold, or Caesar’s vast empire of vassal states.

Our best is not a picture perfect Christmas with mountains of gifts and a flawless family dinner.

Our best is an unmarried teenage girl saying yes.

Our best is her betrothed accepting her as she was instead of putting her to death as was his right in those days.

Our best is a babe wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.

Our best is the lullabies that we write to the creator of the stars of night.

Our best is aggressive vulnerability – the true gift of a child – because this was God’s gift to all of us.

And it’s Christmas morning…so go ahead and open that gift.

It’s the best one you’re ever going to get.

Merry Christmas.

Dec 23 | “The Spiral Journey,” (Blue Christmas Sermon, December 23rd)

Several weeks ago I gathered with other youth workers of many denominations to complete Godly Play training. Godly Play, as you know, is a Christian education program we use here at St. Philip’s. Developed by an Episcopal priest, it seeks to empower children by giving them space to “wonder” about God and introducing them to the stories, words, and concepts we encounter in church.

To complete our training, each of us had to tell one of the stories to our classmates. I chose “The Circle of the Church Year,” which teaches about the different feasts and seasons we celebrate in church.

I wanted to share with you just one (slightly adapted) piece of this story today, and I’ll explain why afterward.

So, if you’ll permit me, let’s talk a little bit about time.

“Time, time, time. There are all kinds of time. There is a time to get up, and a time to go to bed. There is a time to work and a time to play. But what is time?

Some say that time is a line…but what would that look like? Oh! What’s this? Time. Time in a line. Look at this – this is the newest part. This is just being born. This is brand new.

Oh, now look. The newest part has become older. Now this is the newest part. Hmm. Oh, and it keeps going. Does it ever end?

Oh! It ended! Look at the ending.

Now the part that was once brand new has become old…and the ending is the newest part. So we have a beginning that’s like an ending, and an ending that’s like a beginning.”

What a mystical thing, time: something that moves forward but also spins. Sound familiar? The earth makes its yearly journey around the sun, and yet every year is slightly different than before. Likewise, the earth spins on its axis, giving us night and day: same journey, slightly different every time.

This truly is what it means to be “a soil creature,” the literal translation of “a’dam.” We are born and progress through stages of development: learning to walk and speak, learning to reason and doubt and hold faith. We move forward and yet often shed pieces of ourselves only to pick them up again. Cells die and reproduce. As children we speak truth and learn to share with others and clearly express our needs only to so often shed the instincts and then pick them up again later.

I think our most powerful emotions can play with our sense of time. They can make it stand still or go whipping by. Ultimately, like the seasons and our planet, our emotions dance within the space between “time in a line” and “time in a circle.”

We really see it in the experience of emotional pain. We move through the journey and yet we so often circle back and forth through the accompanying emotions: sadness, anger, joy, acceptance, and back again, for our entire lives.

As a couple, Elizabeth and Zechariah are well-respected people from the sacred house of Aaron. But they have no children. Ancient Near Eastern folk would have seen that as a source of shame – for Elizabeth, not Zechariah.

Elizabeth begins the cycle of this story in a place of dishonour and sadness.

And then, she finally conceives and bears a son. She cycles out of shame and into a place of honour among her peers, and they rejoice with her.

Zechariah’s story is a little different. He is the honoured one, the priest performing the most sacred duty at the Temple. He receives the good news of his coming son from an angel with doubt. This reaction causes the angel to take his voice away.

He cycles out of privilege into imposed disability.

Now although the people of the ancient Near East interpreted many disabilities as punishments, obviously it’s not appropriate to do that today. So for our purposes in the 21^st century, let’s say that this muteness is not punishment for Zechariah, but an opportunity for Elizabeth.

It is an occasion of cosmic balance.

The one who had previously enjoyed honour is now dis-abled. The one who had endured shame is now exalted.

The one who had a voice has lost it, and the one who had no voice has found it. In the story it is not until Zechariah is made mute that we get to hear Elizabeth speak. She rejoices with Mary, and in today’s passage names her child John.

The cycle continues, and yet progresses. Elizabeth will never be the same, and neither will Zechariah, having had this experience.

See, there is something really amazing about this passage that I didn’t realize until I’d read it several times through. During Zechariah’s earlier meeting with the angel, he is informed that the child will be called John. Shortly after this, before he leaves the Holy of Holies, he loses his voice. This means that he is unable to share the content of the vision with others before the child is born.

But in today’s passage, the people are about to name the child Zechariah, and Elizabeth says, “No, he is to be called John.”

How does Elizabeth know that the child’s name is to be John?

Did the angel also visit her? Did Zechariah write it down for her? Or did she choose it for her own reasons?

Either way, Zechariah affirms his wife, and once he does that – once he knows what it means to be without a voice – he regains it again, and immediately praises God.

They are both changed.

Now we don’t see what happens to them after John grows up. He is affirmed in his wisdom by the text, but the next time we see him he is on his own, wandering in the wilderness.

What did his father, the priest, think of this? What about Elizabeth? Did they cycle through shame again at his weird antics? Did they remember the circumstances of his birth and defend him to the skeptics? Did they simply accept that their service had been rendered and step back to make room for him? Did they also become advocates and prophets? Did they have other children?

We don’t know. The apocryphal Infancy Gospel of James claims that Zechariah was killed after hiding baby John and refusing to surrender him to Herod’s soldiers during the slaughter of the innocents.

From honoured priest to executed criminal. Another cycle.

This cyclical progression is an utterly necessary balancing act. In the times of deep sorrow and pain, we cannot be too focused on progression forward. This does not allow us to heal fully. But likewise we cannot be too focused on the cyclical nature of the experience. This may trap us in unhealthy patterns.

Balance is key. Reminding ourselves that we are in a cycle will help us from feeling too down when we feel we are not moving fast enough down the road. Reminding ourselves that we are on a spiral path outward helps us not to get trapped in our spinning.

With the Earth we all turn on an axis, and move around our sun.

My sun, my anchor, is Christ, the one who cycled from the greatest height to the deepest depth; the one who walked the road knowing full well that it ended in pain, degradation, and death, and chose it anyway to close the gap between heaven and earth – son of God, son of Mary.

You will have your own sun – and like Earth you’re affected by the gravity of other bodies. This community is one of mine, as well as my family and my friends. In the deep space of loss, it can be difficult to see these other bodies. Like Neptune they may affect our orbit invisibly at first.

But they are there.

Time in a line – time in a circle.

For every beginning, there is an ending, and for every ending, there is a beginning.

When Christmas hurts, reach out to your sun…and reach out to one near you, one who loves you.

I’m here.

Thank God you are.

Dec 21 | “He will come like child,” (Sermon, December 13th)

John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, ‘You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? ⁸Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, “We have Abraham as our ancestor”; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. ⁹Even now the axe is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.’

10 And the crowds asked him, ‘What then should we do?’ ¹¹In reply he said to them, ‘Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.’ ¹²Even tax-collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, ‘Teacher, what should we do?’ ¹³He said to them, ‘Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.’ ¹⁴Soldiers also asked him, ‘And we, what should we do?’ He said to them, ‘Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.’

15 As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, ¹⁶John answered all of them by saying, ‘I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. ¹⁷His winnowing-fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing-floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.’

18 So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.

Luke 3:7-18

“He will come like last leaf’s fall.
One night when the November wind
has flayed the trees to the bone, and earth
wakes choking on the mould,
the soft shroud’s folding.
He will come like frost.
One morning when the shrinking earth
opens on mist, to find itself
arrested in the net
of alien, sword-set beauty.
He will come like dark.
One evening when the bursting red
December sun draws up the sheet
and penny-masks its eye to yield
the star-snowed fields of sky.
He will come, will come,
will come like crying in the night,
like blood, like breaking,
as the earth writhes to toss him free.
He will come like child.”

This beautiful poem, entitled “Advent Calendar,” was written by former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams about twenty years ago. In 2011 it was set to music by the composer Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, and since then has been featured yearly at the Cathedral’s Advent Carol Service. It’s a haunting piece that always moves me to tears.

Despite its beauty, it is also at times quite ominous. The last stanza builds, with frantic discord, and the words “toss him free” are cut off abruptly at the end of the line, as though an invisible cord has been snapped.

Finally, the last line, “He will come like child,” is quiet and moving, full of awe, slipping into a major key right at the end, like a gentle smile.

He will come like child – like this child here with us today, brought among us to be baptized into the Body of Christ.

This truth is the essence of joy for me. How appropriate: this Sunday is traditionally known as “Gaudete” Sunday, or “Joy” Sunday. Some churches mark Gaudete Sunday with a pink candle on their Advent wreath. It’s a great Sunday for a baptism.

You can hear it in the readings for the day. If I might summarize quickly for you again:

Zephaniah: “Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem!”

Philippians: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.”

Oh…yes, Lord!

Luke: “You brood of vipers!”

:/ Ooohh.

John the Baptizer? John the Buzzkill – the spooky wild-eyed preacher, the unexpected son of Zechariah and Elizabeth’s, dunking folks in the Jordan and munching on locusts in the outback – the one to whom the word of the Lord came.

Not to anyone from that long list of names that prefaced the chapter, not to Emperor Tiberius, or the governor Pontius Pilate, or King Herod; not even to either of the high priests, Annas and Caiaphas.

To John, the weirdo in the wilderness, a man dedicated to the Lord and yet mucking about in the wasteland, all alone, accruing no royal position for himself like some of the prophets of old.

Why not? Was his message not for them? Rich and poor alike came to him.

Perhaps his message was not a message for gilded halls. Perhaps it was too hard to hear in such places.

John’s message was to “repent.”

Repentance is not just “turning over a new leaf,” or “being born again.”

Repentance is shadowed by the past.

It means turning around, getting back to the right path.

It’s about newness marked by hard times.

It’s about open arms and wounded hands.

It’s about recognizing the many systems within which we are tangled – infants and elders alike – and using that knowledge to break free, over and over.

It’s about birth, in the same way that resurrection is about birth.

And it is a joyful thing.

See, I think joy is not the same as happiness. Happiness for me is an uncomplicated, pure, and sunny emotion. Joy is woven with darker threads of grief and past pain. Joy is tied to hope, and hope does not exist without a portion of emptiness, longing to be filled.

Joy has teeth.

This tension is where the necessity of the season of Advent really hits us at the core. In the wider world there is such a desperate, rabid focus on fellowship, noise, and colour at this time of year, and I love every minute of it. But it’s out of balance.

In moments of joy, the world is so bright and the heart so large. It is wild…but not chaotic.

It is radical.

The word radical comes from the word radix, or “root.” I think the sharp edge of joy comes from that connection to earthiness. Its sharpness comes from the ache of our hearts stretching up as high as they can go, and the rest is ecstasy at the realization that the reaching could even be possible.

And baptism is the same, isn’t it? We are buried in water, and burst forth into new life – brand new and soaking wet. Death and chaos clings to us – and it is through those that God plunges to pull us into air and light. We affirm and celebrate the deep and the zenith together.

This is the incarnation: the descent of the perfect one into imperfect creation, and our hope for his return.

But is this return really joyful news? “Even now the axe is lying at the root of the tree. Every tree that does not bear fruit will be cast down and thrown into the fire.”

Do we really want the perfect one to return to us, as we are? We are an apocalypse-haunted culture. Today, we worry about Daesh, or ISIS, or whatever name we choose to give them. Before them, though, there were other terrorists, other freedom fighters, other victims, and other heroes – all of whom were far more nuanced and faceted – far more human – than we could ever realize over the course of a lifetime.

However we feel about it, this violence, this chaos, is nothing new.

In only a few weeks we’ll tell the story of a family forced to relocate for tax purposes only to be chased into exile by a murderous king. Jesus grew up walking the major Roman trade routes through his country, walking under the shadows of crucified Jewish rebels, strung up to warn potential zealots of the price of rebellion.

The people of Jesus’ time whispered together, “We shall be avenged by God’s Anointed One. Just as God saved us from exile, so will God’s messenger save us from the yoke of the Romans.”

And then, generations later, people huddled in house churches and arenas and whispered, “We shall be avenged by God’s Anointed One. God’s messenger will return and bring about the end of the age.”

Neither of these things occurred as expected. The Temple was destroyed and the Jewish people forced into diaspora. The Christians were imprisoned and executed, and Jesus did not come. Later, the Christians gained the Empire, and the Church grew far bigger than expected, and fell prey to all the same temptations to which every Empire had fallen and will fall.

But the stories don’t end there.

This is the truth that gives incarnation its light: the Anointed One is never the one we expect.

It is not the one who rules through violence, or the strong, clean, muscular Superman who descends in power and majesty, adorned in gold.

It is the infinite one robed in finitude, the king clothed as a slave, the ageless wrapped in swaddling clothes.

Like a child, he was terribly perceptive and spoke whatever came to mind. Like a child, he was terribly vulnerable, and accepted it wholeheartedly without question.

There is no need to fear his advent.

Our judge was judged unjustly, and returned speaking peace. Our king served us, and commanded us to love one another. Our Son of God came to us as a beloved son born to the poor and dying with the poor. Our Messiah anoints us with the fire of the Holy Spirit.

This is the one to whose care we will commit the life of this child: a child himself, with all the wisdom and vulnerability of a child.

When John calls the crowd “a brood of vipers,” it probably leaves you with a nasty mental image. But the Greek word for brood is “offspring.” You offspring – you children – of vipers.

The same word can also be used for “fruit.” You fruit of vipers.

“Break the cycle,” John says. “Don’t continue to bear the fruit of vipers. Bear fruit worthy of repentance. You can. You are not lost. You can turn around. It’s never too late.”

What must we do, they ask him.

It’s so simple: Be kind to one another. Give what you have in abundance, and be satisfied with what you have.

It’s an incredibly empowering message. It doesn’t presume that the poor cannot contribute. It doesn’t presume that the rich will not. It doesn’t presume that this child here among us today, who will go down to the waters and come up again a new creation, marked by the Holy Spirit, cannot be a minister among us right now, right here, simply by our own joy in her presence.

Be kind. Give what you have in abundance.

A child can do it. An elder can do it. All genders, all ethnicities, all sexualities, all ages, all capabilities, all people.

In baptism, in Advent, at Christmas, we affirm this truth: that the divine has come down not merely to touch or teach, but to be veiled in flesh, and all to close the gap we imposed between us – and to do this all because it is just that stupid in love with us.

“Bear fruit worthy of repentance. It is never too late. It is never too early. And the one who is coming after me is more powerful than I.”

He will come not like a warrior. He will come not like a king.

He will come like child.

Rejoice in his coming. I say again, rejoice.

Dec 02 | “The Spirit is loose,” (Sermon, December 2nd)

“After Jesus had left that place, he passed along the Sea of Galilee, and he went up the mountain, where he sat down. Great crowds came to him, bringing with them the lame, the maimed, the blind, the mute, and many others. They put them at his feet, and he cured them, so that the crowd was amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the maimed whole, the lame walking, and the blind seeing. And they praised the God of Israel.

Then Jesus called his disciples to him and said, ‘I have compassion for the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat; and I do not want to send them away hungry, for they might faint on the way.’ The disciples said to him, ‘Where are we to get enough bread in the desert to feed so great a crowd?’ Jesus asked them, ‘How many loaves have you?’ They said, ‘Seven, and a few small fish.’ Then ordering the crowd to sit down on the ground, he took the seven loaves and the fish; and after giving thanks he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And all of them ate and were filled; and they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full. Those who had eaten were four thousand men, besides women and children. After sending away the crowds, he got into the boat and went to the region of Magadan.”

Matthew 15: 29-39

If you’ve been following what I call the Media Outrage Machine, you’ll know that there’s been a kerfuffle over Starbucks recently.

This controversy (which really deserves the most exaggerated of air quotes) concerned a perception that Starbucks’ unadorned red cups (featuring no seasonal designs like snowmen or ornaments or stars) represented yet another assault in the non-existent “War on Christmas.”

I thought it was a hoax at first. It sounded exactly like the kind of thing someone cooked up to get people self-righteously buying coffee to stick it to the perpetually offended. I thought this because I have seen too many potshots taken at my conservative brothers and sisters in Christ, and also there was absolutely no way to support a claim like that. I’d been in Starbucks. Everywhere you look there are signs of Christmas, including Advent calendars and “Christmas blend” coffee.

So I was terribly depressed when I finally traced the story to its source: an angry video posted by Christian Youtube personality Joshua [Fewer-stine] Feuerstein. The video of him standing outside a Starbucks using “politically correct” as a slur and berating this corporation for hating Jesus went viral.

Feuerstein also advised that customers tell Starbucks employees that their names are “Merry Christmas,” so employees will be forced to write the phrase on the cups and to call it out when the drinks are ready to be picked up.

“That’s right, Starbucks,” Feuerstein gloats into the camera, “I tricked you.”

The first time I heard that it made me laugh out loud, because it reminded me of a hilarious moment in one of my favourite TV comedies, American Dad. American Dad is a cartoon about Stan Smith, a CIA operative living with his family in suburban Virginia. In one episode an ex-KGB operative who was once a bitter rival of Stan’s moves in across the street and continues his war against consumerist America by showing up at Stan’s door one morning and asking menacingly, “Did you notice your showerhead was on the pulse setting this morning? That was a mere appetizer at the banquet of my revenge!”

Now I’m not going to waste too much outrage on this. For one thing, the internet has already done that for me. I’m becoming convinced that a lot of folks have such bad self-esteem that, to feel better about themselves, they will loudly and gleefully point out the flaws of anyone else, even complete jerkstores.

(By the way that’s an insult from my Millennial arsenal you can add to your collection).

In my research on the absolute tidal wave of vitriol the video generated on both sides of the issue, I discovered a thoughtful article featuring two intriguing quotes.

One was offered by Jim Chern, director of the Newman Catholic Centre at Montclair State University. He said, “If we’re worried about the war on Christmas, what does Christmas really mean to us?”

What indeed?

The other quote made me laugh until I cried – not because of the content, but because of who said it.

Here it is. Quote: “Starbucks has become a place of sanctuary during the holidays. We’re embracing the simplicity and the quietness of it. [It being the minimalist design of the red cup]. It’s a more open way to usher in the holiday.” End quote.

What a fascinating little piece of theology. The seeds of Advent, a time of contemplation, reflection, and quiet, are really sprouting here – or maybe it’s the beans of Advent brewing?

Who would say something like this? It sounds like something a theology professor or student, relaxing at the campus Starbucks location might say. Or maybe a priest or parishioner of a church located close to a Starbucks?

Nope.

That little piece of Advent wisdom is from Jeffrey Fields. He’s the Starbucks vice president of design and content.

This guy understands Advent better than the most (allegedly) devout among us.

This is what we’re talking about when we say that the Spirit of God is loose in the world.

It surprises me, but Matthew the Evangelist would not have batted an eye. Our passage today is only one in a series that explores this very topic.

We need context here. Some time ago I preached on Jesus’ encounter with a Canaanite woman in the same Gospel. Remember, Canaanites were ancient enemies of the Jews. They were the heathen hordes that in the biblical accounts were flushed violently out of the Promised Land by the invading Israelites – problematic stories, to be sure. Jesus at first refuses to help her with that stinging comment about throwing food to the dogs, but her wit makes him change his mind.

That passage is what immediately precedes this one.

We see that Jesus has gone on to heal many Gentiles, and, like the Canaanite woman who calls Jesus “Son of David,” they recognize him for who he is, giving praise to the God of Israel.

As they do, Jesus tells the disciples that he has compassion for them, because he knows they are hungry. He feeds 4,000 of them and they leave seven baskets of leftovers. Like the twelve baskets left over by the earlier crowd, seven is a significant number. Seven represented the Gentile nations.

There is enough for all of these heathens, these unbelievers. And they are the ones who recognize the incarnate one walking among them as the Holy One of Israel. They thank Israel’s God for his presence.

The elders of Jesus’ tradition, of course, scold him for breaking the laws of his faith.

Now I often cut the elders some slack. They were defending a faith that had been under fire for about as long as it had existed – under fire from countless invading empires which always had different attitudes toward other faiths, and under fire from the Roman Empire, which only tolerated their differences as long as it suited them.

I cut those elders a little more slack than my angry Christians brothers and sisters, because I do believe that threats to the Christian faith in North America are far less prevalent and aggressive than War on Christmas alarmists seem to think, especially in the United States. But the fact remains that many of us feel like our faith is under threat. Some of us, myself included, cling rigidly to Advent specifically to drown out the chaos of this season, which begins earlier every year and focusses so much on consumerism, and invite stillness into our lives. As our children at St. Philip’s learn in Godly Play, it takes time to enter the Mystery of Christmas, and if you don’t take the time you might walk right through it and not even know it’s there.

But, as one frightened child learned long ago, “All things are possible with God.”

The Spirit of God is brooding over the tempestuous waters of creation. In my imagination (what I might better call my prayerscape), she has always made a sound like pigeons in the eaves at dusk – a low, placid, maternal murmur that fills me with awe.

The Gentiles knew the work of God when they saw it.

The Starbucks juggernaut, for all its faults and worldliness, knows the longing of the human soul for quiet in this time, and decided to offer up its own work for the purposes of that longing.

This is the truth we celebrate in this season of Advent: the incarnation of the divine within our fragile, broken, and yearning fleshly bodies, not where we think it is going to be, but in the most unlikely and irreverent of places.

This is the truth that changes the world.

It happened long ago…and it is still happening today.

Amen, amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

Nov 19 | “A Different Kingdom,” (Sermon, November 11th)

“When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:

‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

‘Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

‘Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

‘Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

‘Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

Matthew 5:1-12

“Oh stay at home, my lad, and plough

The land and not the sea,

And leave the soldiers at their drill,

And all about the idle hill

Shepherd your sheep with me.

Oh stay with company and mirth

And daylight and the air;

Too full already is the grave

Of fellows that were good and brave

And died because they were.”

I learned this heart-breaking poem by A.E. Housman from my mother. It is one of many poems that she wrote down in this book by hand. Her collection also includes the more famous World War I poems “For the Fallen” by Laurence Binyon and “The Soldier” by Rupert Brooke.

I find it interesting that so much poetry, both idealistic and realistic, arose out of World War I. I suppose Death, that great mystery, encourages us to use symbols, the building blocks of poetry. Symbols hold infinity in the palm of a hand by giving flesh to the intangible.

A poppy is a symbol. It has different meanings for different people. For some, it represents sadness and glory – both “fellows that were good and brave” and “Take up our quarrel with the foe.” These poles can lack balance and slide one way into a mawkishness divorced from context, or the other way toward nationalistic imagery of a homeland baptized in the blood of martyrs (imagery put to use by the Nazis in World War II).

I have difficulty with the poppy because I am a pacifist, but I always wear one. I do it for my grandparents and I do it for me.

For me the poppy is a symbol of an entire generation cut down in their youth. It is a symbol of the trauma of those left behind; of the terrible complicity between state and church in the recruiting and drafting of these young people; of a world in which peace can only be won through war, a concept advanced by the Roman Empire with which Jesus would have been very familiar.

For me the poppy is like the cross, a symbol of torture and degradation. The difference is that the horror of the cross has been flipped upside down in the resurrection. Darkness and light are held in perfect balance.

I don’t think that balance has quite happened for me with the poppy yet.

Jesus lived and died in a Pax Romana kingdom – and that peace was won through battle. It was out of balance.

For the imperial Roman God-Emperors and the elites of Judaea, it was skewed toward the light. The destitution of those below them fueled their wealth, and they believed that this was a blessing bestowed upon them by the gods. The Jewish elites were so scarred by lengthy battles with empire after empire that they had learned to accept gains when they were offered. They knew the alternative was far worse.

For the poor majority, it was skewed toward the dark. Crushed by heavy taxation and the fear of their new overlords, who had desecrated the temple and martyred many of their people, zealots struggled and met violent ends while others kept their mouths shut and tried to survive.

Jesus, the Light of the World, spoke of a different kingdom – the kingdom of heaven, which is not pie-in-the-sky when you die but is to become incarnate on earth. Jesus told its story in parables, and finally made a parable – a symbol – of himself by re-purposing an instrument of terror to bring the cosmos into balance.

We live in a Poppy kingdom.

Light does exist here. We remember, and we teach our children about the horror of war and injustice. But the balance is still skewed.

For me, it’s too dark. Today we say “Never again…” knowing full well that the poppy is a World War I symbol – a war once referred to as “the war to end all wars.” And we in the 21^st century know that it was not.

For some, though, it’s too light. It glorifies those who die exploded in trenches but often cares little for the veterans who return, scarred by innumerable losses and haunted by the fear and tension that combat (and combat training) imposes. And of course it completely ignores the civilian casualties of war, calling them “collateral damage.” It has no time for a deeper narrative of why we fight, resorting to platitudes and abstract concepts like “defending our freedom.”

The Poppy Kingdom says, “Honoured are the rich, because they must work harder than everyone else.”

“Honoured are those who are satisfied with their lot in life and never wonder how they came to have it.”

“Honoured are those who are tough on crime, because they know that the root of all crime is evil and selfishness.”

“Honoured are the hawks who raise up armies to fight terror but know their expertise is too valuable to risk fighting it themselves.”

“Honoured are those who are killed invisibly and can then be crafted into idols of any cause the world may choose to impose upon them.”

“Honoured are the honoured.”

This kingdom would have sounded familiar to Jesus, even if he didn’t make use of the same symbols. And he believed that it was a lie. He told us that God’s plan would look like complete foolishness to our Pax Romana/Poppy kingdom.

His blessings, the Beatitudes, are not actually prescriptive. They are a present incarnate reality which we may imitate but ignore at our peril.

“Blessed are those who battle mental illness.”

“Blessed is Abdullah Kurdi, father of Alan.”

“Blessed is Antoinette Tuff, who prevented a school shooting not with guns but with empathy, but still doesn’t have her own movie.” (I guess she’s just not as interesting as Steve Jobs).

“Blessed are Romeo Dallaire and Chencho Alas, working every day for justice having allowed themselves to be changed by the people they met.”

“Blessed are the Amish whose forgave the man who shot their daughters at school.”

“Blessed are Malala Yousafzai and her friends who risked it all for school.”

“Blessed is Keshia Thomas, an 18-year-old black woman who put herself between a KKK member and those who sought to beat him.”

“Blessed is Maximilian Kolbe, who was executed at Auschwitz voluntarily taking the place of another prisoner whom he didn’t even know.”

With the Beatitudes, Jesus shows us that the Poppy Kingdom has more light than we think. But we are called to bring it into greater balance: with words, actions, compassion, and love. Your kindness and your care for one another are first steps. Today’s Eucharist is another step: an acceptance of the life poured out so generously, so carelessly. It was a gift, which can be more difficult to accept than a loan. A gift demands nothing…and permits everything. Careless – because the vessel through which love is offered is totally broken open.

Today, as we gather to proclaim and share this gift, let us also remember those who sacrificed, and those who are sacrificed. Let us remember those who return home, and those who are still fighting. Let us remember those who are not soldiers but find themselves caught within the struggles of the powerful. Let us remember our mother earth who often bears the brunt of our wars.

Let us remember that the kingdom of heaven is not like any kingdom we have on earth.

Let us re-member, and bring the world into balance.

Nov 08 | “Who are these like stars appearing?” (Sermon, November 1st)

“When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’ When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, ‘Where have you laid him?’ They said to him, ‘Lord, come and see.’ Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, ‘See how he loved him!’ But some of them said, ‘Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?’

Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, ‘Take away the stone.’ Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, ‘Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead for four days.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?’ So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upwards and said, ‘Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.’ When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go.’”

John 11:32-44

Sometimes, to put things in perspective, I read about the life cycles of stars.

Image converted using ifftoany

In very simplified terms: Within a nebula, which is usually composed of the leftover matter of previous stars, gravity draws a deep breath in. Particles, even galaxies, begin to collide, and everything heats up until finally it is hot enough to burn. The light bursts forth and the main sequence of the star begins. Hydrogen is fused into helium over millennia until it begins to run out, and outside the helium core hydrogen is fused into a shell and the star begins to expand into what is called a red giant. It swells and swells like a balloon, growing cooler as it does. The core begins to degenerate, fusing helium to carbon and oxygen, until, depending on its size, the star pushes this outer shell away and becomes a white dwarf, small, incredibly dense, and unable to sustain itself. It burns out slowly over millions of years until, we think, it becomes a black dwarf – but we’re not sure, because scientists estimate that the time it takes for a white dwarf to become a black dwarf is longer than the current age of the universe, and so the existence of those cold stars is still only hypothetical.

Just imagine it: Untold eons of ceaseless burning; contracting in, expanding out, and finally speckling the universe with the echoes of one wild, precious life.

I can’t tell you how my faith has been tested by this knowledge. Every truth, every prayer, every accomplishment, every personal tragedy, everything in existence pales in relation to this amazing natural phenomenon – and it is only one of the amazing things that occurs in our universe and has been occurring since before the world began, and will continue after all of us are gone.

It reminds me that the Israelite God who might, in the face of this cosmic truth, seem so small – the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob – is in fact more incomprehensible than I could possibly imagine.

And surprisingly enough, I find that a comfort.

Where indeed is the sting of death in the face of such vast power?

I don’t mean to say death is not real, that it does not scar us. Mary and Martha knew that. All of you know that. I know that. I think being made in the image of God is living with a woven cord around our hearts, and perhaps one of the strands of that cord is grief. For all our vice and selfishness, we have the virtue to protest the loss of those whom we love. We have the capacity to feel so deeply for someone that when they die we yearn and moan and cry and blame each other and God. “If you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

Everyone does it differently. Martha adds the proclamation of faith at the end – “I know God will give you what you ask.”

Mary doesn’t even bother. “If you had been here…”

Some commentators try to soften things by saying that this is a proclamation of faith on its own. When I read stuff like that I think, “Oh, come on. Stop trying to make it easier. Wrestle with the angel. Yearn. Rage.”

That’s what we do with death, especially when it imposes upon us unexpectedly. We rage against the natural order of things.

Or – what is believed to be the natural order of things.

Because Jesus shows us that the true natural order is not what it seems.

You know, the lectionary cheats us by cutting off when it does. The raising of Lazarus does not actually have a happy ending. Immediately after he is raised, the religious leaders plot to kill him and Jesus.

They are afraid. Jesus exposed death for the very human construct it is. The narrative of death is often followed by a desperate grasping for control. Once, folks made sure their purity or their prayer lives or their indulgences were in order. Today people use diets and beauty products and fitness fads and medicines. We all find ourselves inundated with death on the news, even though many beautiful things happen across the globe every day and receive no coverage, because peddling fear is far more lucrative than peddling peace. No-one stockpiles expensive weapons or buys into the notion of forging an inner identity through brand names when they are feeling at one with the universe.

But death in truth is such a small thing. The movements of interstellar space show us that death as we understand it (i.e. an eternal ending) is perhaps the greatest lie ever told.

Remember: Science itself teaches us that energy can never be lost.

The true natural order is continuous cycling through birth, life, and death, only to begin again.

The true natural order is resurrection.

The truth is “Lazarus, come out!”

The truth is the descent of God to dwell among mortals; the mutual building of the holy city on top of humus, soil, earth; the bursting forth of light which cannot occur without gravity drawing in the leftovers: the little ones. (The last shall be first indeed.)

The truth is our deceptive fragility. Our lives are so very small – like blades of grass – and yet God knows that we can only change through our encounter with each other; our brushing up against each other as the wind which once stirred the waters now stirs us.

A child needs things to be concrete in order to learn – and isn’t it funny that we use that word “concrete” when what we really mean is “flesh”?

We, the children of God, need flesh to learn.

So God gave us Jesus.

We also have the saints – a gift from ourselves to ourselves. In the past they were singular persons who existed shackled by time and space and circumstance and who now look down from the paradox of the overflowing void. Today they are us, we who look out (and sometimes up, but remember, the kingdom of God is among us, not above us). And we also have those who look back, from countless years in the future. These ones are the most exciting to me. I can’t imagine what they will look like, or how they will glorify God, but I know they are there, swirling in the nebula, waiting to be breathed in.

Do not doubt that we have our place among these saints, we frightened few who may not feel so terribly sanctified or solemn or reverent. You may be surprised to learn that reverence and solemnity have very little to do with it. We do well to remember two things:

(1) The Christian story is cosmically ridiculous (God is human! The kingdom is here but not yet! Death is life!)

(2) It has changed the history of an entire planet.

One man’s death, whoever he was, had an effect, however distant, on the life of every human being on this planet.

That is how I know that Emmanuel, God-With-Us, IS. One man, strange and wonderful, who couldn’t read, who probably had never been further than thirty kilometers from his hometown, inspired his friends to shout a creed of utter nonsense to the world…and the world listened, because our hearts knew that it was all true.

Is this what our life is about: unbinding the truth over and over again, and letting it go?

Our Bishop Melissa often refers to a process called “Gather, transform, send.” This is what we do in church services, and in all of our many ministries.

And oh: This is what stars do.

And this is what saints do.

At first glance it probably sounds terrifying – how could anyone possibly do something so momentously “macro” on such a micro level? – but we’re not on our own.

It really is a macro truth on a micro level. In the first line of the Gospel of John, the word “God” is sandwiched in between two instances of the word “Logos.”

It’s a beautiful way of showing, in a sort of ‘word painting,’ the truth of the incarnation.

“Gather, transform, send” is like that too. We – people – do the gathering and the sending. God does the transforming.

This All Saints Day, take joy in the gifts God gives to the world through you.

With the hands of a saint, receive the fuel you need to burn here, at this table.

Let your heart become a star.