christmas-eve-2019-st-peters.md

Christmas Eve, St. Peter’s 2019

December 24:Christmas Eve 2019

St. Peter’s Great Falls

Pre-liturgy

Announcement

The liturgy this year will be different from any you’ve experienced. I tried to structure our worship and celebration tonight around a couple of requirements.

• We should sing as many Christmas carols as we can
• We needed to not go too late
• We don’t have a professional choir – it’s just us

To that end the key element you will notice is a series of readings that are in fact selections from a longer piece. I will say more about it in the homily. For now my minimal hope is that at the end of it we can all say, “I’m glad I was here.” And for all of you who help make it possible tonight – Thank you!

Introduction

It was many months ago that Cindy had invited me to be with you tonight. Most liturgies I have led at this time of year have presumed that there were numerous gatherings in the church in the weeks leading up to this holy night. It’s a different story here. I tried to think of how we could celebrate a Christmas Mass with the solemnity that it deserves.

I wanted there to be lighted candles. I thought about the emotions I felt as a teenager when being up past midnight was an adventure all to itself. At our house in those days Christmas didn’t really start until Christmas eve mass. My mother kept Advent pretty strict for us.

I also thought about the tradition started in England over a century ago. King’s College, Cambridge. Truro Cathedral in Cornwall. There the singing of Christmas carols was accompanied by the readings from scripture, beginning with Adam and Eve in the garden, their rejection of the blessings of the garden, the human compulsion to prefer our own ways over God’s ways, the prophetic call to return to faith, and finally God’s response to the whole mess in the gift of His Son, Jesus.

I knew we didn’t have a professional choir here at St. Peter’s, so the enjoyment of singing was going to be up to us and our good cheer.

The main puzzle piece that fell into place for me was the thought of hearing some selections from a narrative I first learned about in the early 1990’s. Gretchen Pritchard told the story of the Bible – all in one sitting – at a workshop on the Easter Vigil and the baptism of adults in the Catechumenate. ¹

I have often read the entire narrative at the Easter Vigil in the various parishes I have served. I love its beginning and ending. She starts off saying, “It all begins the way all good stories begin, ‘Once upon a time …’” and she ends it – doing a fairly good paraphrase of Revelation 22 – by saying, “The prince and princess get married and live happily ever after.”

No of course the Bible’s message is more complex and sophisticated than that of a children’s fairy tale. Sort of like Christmas is more than the sum total of the Christmas carols we sing tonight.

It comes down to something as plain as:

There was a very great need for Redemption. God saw the need and had an un-dying love for humanity. He provided the Redemption in Jesus.

Grand Story of the Lessons

The big story is that God is a great and mighty God. He loves to make things. He loves to love. He is willing to do whatever it takes.

We in this place and this time are the characters in God’s great story. We may be small and insignificant in the larger context of the universe, but we are the most important people right here and right now, for telling the story. Tonight we celebrate and remember the power and meaning of the Incarnation. And we give thanks. To God.

A few weeks ago Mary Pat and I watched an amazing movie called Beasts of the Southern Wild. The main character in the movie is a 6 year old girl named Hushpuppy. Her wisdom is so far beyond her years that you can scarcely believe it when you hear it. And yet it is so true. At one point she says:

Hushpuppy: The whole universe depends on everything fitting together just right. If one piece busts, even the smallest piece. the whole universe will get busted.

What we celebrate tonight is God’s fixing the whole universe, all the busted pieces. And you and I are certainly included in that category: small and seemingly insignificant, but without us the universe is busted.

We are here to celebrate our place in the whole universe and in God’s redemption of that creation – His creation. That’s what the Incarnation is all about. The redemption is real – even, yea especially, when we can’t see it.

You may have heard the phase: “It will be all right in the end. If it’s not all right yet, it’s not the end.” That’s it. That’s the message. Or in the final words of the Gospel of Matthew:

“And look, I am with you always; yes, to the end of time.” (NJB)

Notes

lectionary

Seasonal Blessing

Christmas Season Blessing

May Almighty God, who sent his Son to take our nature upon
him, bless you in this holy season, scatter the darkness of sin,
and brighten your heart with the light of his holiness. Amen.

May God, who sent his angels to proclaim the glad news of the
Savior’s birth, fill you with joy, and make you heralds of the
Gospel. Amen.

May God, who in the Word made flesh joined heaven to earth
and earth to heaven, give you his peace and favor. Amen.

And the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit, be upon you and remain with you for ever. Amen.

or this

May Christ, who by his Incarnation gathered into one things
earthly and heavenly, fill you with his joy and peace; and the
blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,
be among you, and remain with you always. Amen.

---

1. Gretchen Wolff Pritchard is the author of Go, Tell It on the Mountain, a collection of pageant scripts, currently being revised and expanded. She also creates, illustrates, and publishes The Sunday Paper lectionary series for children. Other projects include Beulah Land felt story kits; Alleluia! Amen; and New Life. Check out Gretchen’s book Offering the Gospel to Children, and her blog at thesundaypaperblog.wordpress.com. ↩︎

advent-4-2019-monroe.md

December 22, 2019:The Fourth Sunday of Advent – St. Paul’s

Opening

Normally I would say “Thank you for inviting me back.” And, “I’m glad to be here.”

It’s not appropriate, somehow, today. "It’s good to be here. The reason for being here is decidedly not a happy thing.

Fr. Jim called me shortly after seeing the doctor back in November. Mostly I think he just wanted me to know. Further conversations and here I am this morning. I assured Fr. Jim and Susan and Charlotte that I would help in whatever way I could as you, the people of St. Paul’s, Monroe, journey through this conflicted time.

I am glad to be here, for all kinds of big and little reasons and with emotions that cover a range – and are all too human.

It’s one of the things I like about being here at St. Paul’s , Monroe – it feels real.

A couple of weeks ago we watched a movie.

Watched tonight Beasts of the Southern Wild. An utterly one of a kind movie that successfully portrayed metaphor (glaciers melting, wildebeest like animals tramping across the landscape portending doom).

A kind of aside – I realized while watching this film something that has troubled me about movies for a long time. It gets at the difference between reading a book and seeing a film made from the book. Movies tend to kill metaphors. They are made explicit and they are no longer metaphors. Movies have a subtle way of taking away the power of imagination.¹

In Beasts of the Southern Wild, The main characters are a father and daughter off the grid on an island forgotten in a Louisiana bay – called in the movie Bathtub. The film portrays the violence as well as the deep love of folks living in deep poverty.

The star is a 6 year old child. Amazing performance. Youngest person ever nominated for best actress (2012). The lead actor a baker by trade who at first preferred to keep baking for his people than to be a part of a movie. The directors wanted him, though, and they prevailed.

In a strange sort of way I can totally relate to the movie.

• Cosmic ordering.
• Small packages living in a big universe
• The deep significance of even the smallest package.

Hushpuppy I’m recording my story for the scientists in the future. In a million years, when kids go to school, they gonna know: once there was a Hushpuppy, and she lived with her daddy in The Bathtub.

Hushpuppy “There is an order to the universe, even if I am too stupid to see it”

Hushpuppy The whole universe depends on everything fitting together just right. If one piece busts, even the smallest piece. the whole universe will get busted.

Hushpuppy When you’re a small piece of a big puzzle, you gotta fix what you can.

Miss Bathsheba (the teacher): The most important thing I can teach you? you gotta learn to take care of people smaller and sweeter than you are

Time of year a powerful blend and mixture of emotional forces.

It is often observed that this time of year is a strange amalgam of different emotions.

Like the mixture of reasons for my being here this morning. Both joy and sadness. It’s like love. I’ve thought for a long time that the popular sentimentalism of that word was completely misguided. To love someone is to enter into both the celebration and the mourning, … marriage vows: “sickness and health, richness and poverty, birth and death.”

Christmas blues is a time that brings all that together. The thoughts and memories and emotions can take on mythic power, like the movie we saw. Joining the smallest child to the universe which is so big – all of it under the dominion of a big, big, God.

Sometmes the news is joyful, like: “Behold a young woman is with child” and it’s spectacularly good news. Sometimes the phrase, “Behold a young woman is with child” is a great bittersweet news, like if the father was killed last week while rescuing survivors of a disaster.

Truly this time of year brings the whole range of reality and truth together, under the umbrella of the one who shelters and shields it all – the God and Father of us all.

Joseph

In our scripture readings we get a similar shift of themes. We started Advent – in fact we ended the month of November – with Apocalyptic messages.

Then the prophet John the Baptist takes center stage for a couple of weeks.

Now we shift the focus and aim for Christmas. Today we get the Christmas story with Joseph. If you come back in a couple of days you will get the Christmas story with Mary as the lead actor. But for today, Joseph.

I honestly think that hearing Joseph as the focus is almost like – “Wait, what? That’s not the Christmas story!”

The gospel of Matthew is distinctive in the way in which it treats the Birth narrative. Joseph from the book of Genesis you may recall has dreams. His parents and grandparents had all talked directly with messengers from God. Joseph in Matthew’s gospel also encounters angels through dreams.

When I was in my 20’s, and testing the “new” translations of the Bible that were coming out – I thought a test was to see how it treated Isaiah 7 and Matthew 1 – today’s readings. The passage from Isaiah that I was taught was a “prediction” of Jesus – or at least Mary’s virginity. I knew by then a little about the Hebrew and Greek words in the two passages.

I’m quite a bit less interested in those kind of nuances and details today and more interested in questions like, "What is this passage saying to us today. If Isaiah was addressed to King Ahaz in the 8th c. BCE and Matthew’s gospel was aimed at a community of the 1st c. wrestling with the separation of the Jewish and fledgling Christian communities, what do either or both of them have to do with us today?

For myself the connection is at least partly illustrated in that movie that we saw, Beasts of the Southern Wild. I hear God telling us that each of us has a vital role to play in the unfolding of the universe, no matter how insignificant we may feel ourselves to be.

Maybe we’re a “Hushpuppy”. Maybe we’re a leader. Maybe we’re all alone, having lost the connections that once bound us to community. We may be at the beginning of things or at the end. Nevertheless …

“There is an order to the universe, even if I am too stupid to see it”

And no matter where we are in the scheme of things, no matter how insignificant we may feel, we can make a difference.

The most important thing I can teach you? you gotta learn to take care of people smaller and sweeter than you are.

“Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means, “God is with us.”

Closing

Today we have been handed a platter. Like Joseph we may be inclined to say, “What am I supposed to do with that?”

Today one thing I know with a certainty is that the angels are telling us: “Do not be afraid.”

Today one thing I hear Jesus telling us through the words of Matthew is “Emmanuel. God is with us. I am with you.”

And, indeed, the very last words of Matthew’s gospel in Chapter 28 is: "And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Notes

lectionary

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1. See also the death (Nov. 15) of Sallie McFague. She had a profound impact on the way I think about theology, talking about God, Christian faith. Cf. her book Metaphorical Theology and David Tracy’s Analogical Thinking. ↩︎

2-advent-2019-our-saviour.md

December 8:The Second Sunday of Advent – Our Saviour

Homily

Bumping into …

Some years ago I was at a retreat center to the west of Chicago. I was there for a provincial working group dealing with issues related to small churches. It was a Catholic retreat center and had what I thought was a wonderful chapel. I am a sucker for places with significant baptistries, having been taught way back when in seminary of the primacy of baptism for understanding who we are as Christians.

There was a wonderful pool for a baptistry at a Protestant seminary in Indianapolis. I like the font at Mary Pat’s family parish back in Dayton. There is a large pool, about 10’ across and then a small font that flows into it – obviously used for dabbing infants with a few drops of water.

At this particular retreat center there was a great baptismal font – not as large as the one in Dayton – but it was placed in a small chapel at a small retreat center. You walked in through the back doors and within a few steps there you were at a tiled font. It was about 5 feet high, with a large basin, that flowed in stages down to a larger basin at the floor level.

I had occasion to discover and talk to the person who had designed the font for them. I related how much I liked it. The designer said that he particularly likes the way anyone who comes into the chapel will immediately bump into their baptism.

I, too, like that a lot.

John the Baptist is a little like that.

Before we encounter Jesus, we have to bump into John the Baptist. Here we are – Advent 2 – and we bump into John.

And not just because he was a baptizer.

All four gospels provide testimony that John was the forerunner of Jesus. He was older and part of an older tradition.

You may not be aware of how few elements of the gospel narrative are present in all 4 gospels. They tend to be the basic building blocks of the narrative:

1. crucifixion and death
2. condemned to death by the Romans
3. accused by Jewish authorities
4. betrayed by one of his own
5. triumphal entry into Jerusalem
6. feeding of the multitude
7. Peter’s profession of faith
8. calling of the disciples
9. John the Baptist was a forerunner and (as it were) introduced Jesus

Clearly John’s place in the Good News of Jesus Christ is important.

He was preparing the way for Jesus.

When I taught at a college in the 80’s, I was especially blessed by the core curriculum we taught with. One of the things that it allowed was a good rationale for inviting significant speakers to campus, often the speakers were authors of books that all of the student body read together in the core curriculumand that much of the faculty taught. Two that I remember were Maya Angelou and Martin Marty.

My place in the faculty was to revive a Philosophy and Theology department that had been disbanded some years previous. I was the theology guy – so I was the one they asked to introduce Marty when he came to speak. He was a major church historian from the University of Chicago. The work he did on the rise of fundamentalism in the 1980’s was important and still relevant today.

I felt intimidated and inadequate to the task of introducing him. I think I did ok – but the point of it all was not me, but Marty.

John the Baptist was a little like that in “preparing the way” for Jesus.

John’s message had to do with threshing.

Separating the true believers from those who were just hangers on.

This is threatening to many of us because for many centuries the church has been dominated by hangers on. Really century after century there have been reformers, looking out at a church that seems to be just coasting, and they have proclaimed “out with the chaff – in with the wheat.” They are the voice of John the Baptist for new generations.

It can sound like fire and brimstone preaching. It’s really about harvesting, getting the job done.

We have to encounter John on the way to Jesus. He is preparing the way for Jesus. He is preparing for those who come after so that they will be able to meet and know the Lord. He himself is not the Lord.

His message was: Baptism for forgiveness. Baptism as a chief sign of conversion of life, a turning from going in the wrong direction.

Taking stock of John

For much of my adult life I have regularly prayed the Morning Prayer canticle Benedictus Dominus or Song of Zechariah – canticle 16 (p. 92) in the BCP. The prayer, from the gospel of Luke, was offered by John’s father at the time of John’s birth. It includes the following:

And you, little child, you shall be called Prophet of the Most High,
for you will go before the Lord to prepare a way for him,
to give his people knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins,
because of the faithful love of our God
in which the rising Sun has come from on high to visit us,
to give light to those who live in darkness and the shadow dark as death,
and to guide our feet into the way of peace.

That prayer has allowed me to absorb the vocation of John into my own life. To appreciate and incorporate the spirit of John, the initiator, the preparer, the forerunner of the Gospel.

I have imagined that I was the “little child” being referred to here. That it was I who was charged with preparing the way for the Lord. That it was I who was the advanced man sent to arrange for the major entrance of the only one who’s really important. That I had some importance because if I screwed up, the ones who come after may not get to hear or see the Lord.

John is a strong reminder that there can be no hangers on. Everybody is important in making sure that the world knows and hears and meets the Lord – who is to come.

If we are to follow in John’s steps we must be ready to be advanced laborers, preparing the way.

If we are to follow in John’s steps we must be patient to introduce all comers to the one who is to come after.

If we are to follow in John’s steps we must be prepared to discard the chaff for the sake of the wheat.

We are all prophets. We are all called to live into our Baptism – for we have been baptized with the fire of the Holy Spirit, in the name of the Trinity.

How might you be ready to prepare the next person you meet to encounter the Risen Lord?

Notes

lectionary

Blessings

Advent

May Almighty God, by whose providence our Savior Christ came among us in great humility, sanctify you with the light of his blessing and set you free from all sin. Amen.

May he whose second Coming in power and great glory we await, make you steadfast in faith, joyful in hope, and constant in love. Amen.

May you, who rejoice in the first Advent of our Redeemer, at his second Advent be rewarded with unending life. Amen. And the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be upon you and remain with you for ever. Amen.

May the Sun of Righteousness shine upon you and scatter the darkness from before your path; and the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be among you, and remain with you always. Amen.

Wreath

Lord our God,
we praise you for your Son, Jesus Christ:
he is Emmanuel, the hope of the peoples,
he is the wisdom that teaches and guides us,
he is the Savior of every nation.
Lord God,
let your blessing come upon us
as we light the candles of this wreath.
May the wreath and its light
be a sign of Christ’s promise to bring us salvation.
May he come quickly and not delay.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.
R. Amen.

advent-1-2019-winnsboro.md

Dec. 1 St. John’s Winnsboro: Advent 1

Introduction

I want to talk about time¹ this week. Well, I really started talking about time last week when I reflected on beginnings and endings.

Last week’s concept of time was endings and beginnings. This week I turn to the contrast between two different kinds of time. I frequently remember the joke I heard long ago about there being two different kinds of people. There are those who divide the world into two different kinds of people … And there are those who don’t.

When it comes to people I come down firmly on the side of there being just one kind of people not two. Well in this case I come down on the side of two kinds of time. But time, well time can fairly usefully be divided into two: there is sacred time and there is ordinary time. One religious thinker from earlier in the 20^th century divided things between sacred and profane. For our purposes it’s probably enough to just use the word ordinary.

There is the kind of time that is measured by the alarm clock that goes off beside my bed. In retirement I have tended to keep the alarm clock off. But sometimes I still need to get up at a certain time. Sometimes – I don’t wake up until the alarm clock wakes me up. That’s ordinary time – or profane time.

There is another kind of time. The moment that came to mind for me was the moment when the doctor held up my healthy, breathing, first born. In those days we didn’t know if it was a boy or a girl. And all I wanted was a healthy child and mother. The doctor looked at me and asked, “What is his name?”

That was a sacred moment. It utterly changed my life. I burst into uncontrolled tears – for the first time in many years. In some important way I learned in that moment what it really meant to love.

Sacred

The most wonderful time. link to recording

It’s that time of year. In the words of the legendary song: ²

It’s the most wonderful time of the year
With the kids jingle belling
And everyone telling you be of good cheer
It’s the most wonderful time of the year
It’s the [hap-] happiest season of all
With those holiday greetings and gay happy meetings
When friends come to call
It’s the [hap-] happiest season of all

What makes it that? Is it what Andy Williams sang about? Or is it something less obvious? Less tangible?

Is there some kind of clock that can measure sacred time? Is there something about it that makes it clear? At this time of year the words of Jesus encourage us to pay attention – don’t just rush through time without noticing the sacred when it slips on by.

Kairos

Some of you may watch late night television. Do you have a favorite comedian? If so, then you know something about the importance of timing. Those entertainers are acutely aware of timing.

They know time not with their head so much as in their gut or maybe in their heart.

Knowing time like that means that you may be able to recognize when ordinary profane time slips into sacred time.

We are referring to a special kind of time when we say "this would be an opportune time to … [fill in the blank] Ordinary time is quantitative. We count the minutes, days, years. Sacred time is all about quality time. When we are living in quality time the time on the clock really doesn’t matter very much.

Scripture

In fact the Greek used in our NT has two different words used for two different kinds of time: kairos and chronos.
Kairos refers to sacred time. It is used to refer to the “appointed time”, the time of the Lord, It is especially prominent in Matthew and Luke. Chronos is chronological time. It is the kind of time we count with a clock – of course in the New Testament there weren’t clocks as we know them. But people kept track of that kind of time – clock and calendar kind of time.

The Lessons are all about time. And the New Testament in particular distinguishes between sacred time and profane time by the use of two words: kairos and chronos. It is clearly more interested in kairos which is used almost twice as many times as chronos. ³

Isaiah the prophet is …

… about focusing on a time to come. It’s a time not yet apparent but just around the corner. Isaiah is anticipating a time to come. Hope for what we cannot yet see.

At this time to come the people who are scattered among the nations will be gathered together.

At this time to come swords will be beaten into ploughshares, then there will be a peace which passes understanding.

Paul (Romans)

Paul says to us: "You know how to tell time. You know how to respond to the alarm clock when it goes off. You know how to keep appointments – more or less. But all too often you don’t recognize the kairos time that is almost upon us. “Salvation is nearer now than ever before,” he says.

When my first child was born I became aware of new dimensions of life and love that I had not been able to recognize before that. When Paul tells us its time to wake up that’s something of what he means. It’s time to notice the sacred moments that want to be woven into our lives.

[perhaps skip?] The day is near at hand. I caught some of my students off guard when we were discussing Elie Wiesel’s book NIght. The setting of the book is Auschwitz and from one perspective it can be pretty depressing. But I explained that the Jewish reckoning of time, the Jewish understanding of what constitutes a day is that the day begins at sundown. That means that sunrise comes after the night is spent. Day follows night.

Paul tell us to forget about the trappings of our life, the clothes we wear, the comforts we come to depend on – and instead put on the Lord Jesus Christ.

Matthew

We hear from almost the end of Matthew’s gospel. It is the first reading from this gospel during this year of Matthew. Most Sundays – until next December – we will hear from Matthew’s gospel.

It is distinctive at many levels. Listen through the year for some of those distinctive elements of the book. You might want to do a bible study, alone or with others, to learn about it.

But today we hear from Matthew’s account of the last days of Jesus’ life when he is teaching his followers about how to live at a time that feels like the last days.

He tells them keep awake! and he urges them to be ready.

Jesus directs us to:

Act as if – at any moment we may encounter the face of God, or hear the most important words of our life or see the most beautiful sight we will every see.

Act as if the next moment may be our last and this moment is the most important of our life.

Act as if the next moment is the beginning of the rest of our life. That moment I was asked for the name of my first born changed my life forever.

Act as if you are about to meet a new friend who will someday save your life.

Act as if the next conversation you have will change a person’s life.

Jesus tell us to wake up, to be ready. That’s not a literal command. It is a command about how to live our life. To see in the world around us the “grandeur of God” – to borrow a phrase from the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins.

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?

The poet Emily Dickinson said:

We turn not older with years but newer every day.

And on my business cards you will read from William Blake:

“To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.”
― William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

Sacred time is all around us. All the time. Take the time to notice.

Notes

This coming week:

• December 1:Nicholas Ferrar, Deacon, 1637

• December 2:Channing Moore Williams, Missionary Bishop in China and Japan, 1910

• December 4:John of Damascus, Priest, c. 760

• December 5:Clement of Alexandria, Priest, c. 210

• December 6:Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, c. 342

• December 7:Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, 397

• kairos cf. summary

• Advent 1 lectionary

Blessings

Advent

May Almighty God, by whose providence our Savior Christ came among us in great humility, sanctify you with the light of his blessing and set you free from all sin. Amen.

May he whose second Coming in power and great glory we await, make you steadfast in faith, joyful in hope, and constant in love. Amen.

May you, who rejoice in the first Advent of our Redeemer, at his second Advent be rewarded with unending life. Amen. And the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be upon you and remain with you for ever. Amen.

May the Sun of Righteousness shine upon you and scatter the darkness from before your path; and the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be among you, and remain with you always. Amen.

Wreath

Lord our God,
we praise you for your Son, Jesus Christ:
he is Emmanuel, the hope of the peoples,
he is the wisdom that teaches and guides us,
he is the Savior of every nation.
Lord God,
let your blessing come upon us
as we light the candles of this wreath.
May the wreath and its light
be a sign of Christ’s promise to bring us salvation.
May he come quickly and not delay.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.
R. Amen.

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1. After I had delivered this homily I read a marvelous article on bbc.com that provides an empirical justification for discarding our over-emphasis on linear time. ↩︎

2. “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” is a popular Christmas song written in 1963 by Eddie Pola and George Wyle. It was recorded and released that year by pop singer Andy Williams for his first Christmas album, ↩︎

3. kairos 86 times, chronos 54 times. ↩︎