December 29, 2019
The First Sunday After Christmas Day
St. Paul’s, Monroe
Introduction
Last week I called attention to the distinctive nature of Matthew’s gospel and the birth narrative in particular. Today we have an equally distinctive and very different gospel – John’s gospel.
None of the gospels came with a copyright or registration with national registry of authors. We don’t actually know the authors of any of the gospels – they are attributed as they are because of the names that later generations gave them. It has seemed a liberating thing to me because it has encouraged me to listen to each gospel on its own, with its own distinctive narrative, its own focus, its own personality if you will.
The magic time of Christmas itself is past.
We are in the echo time of Christmas. The emotions, whether pleasant or not so pleasant, have peaked in the last week. The church calls this the “octave” of Christmas – which is to say the week following Christmas. It ends, of course, with New Year’s Day.
But Christmas and Easter are such important feast days for the church – the Incarnation and the Resurrection – that they are celebrated not just for a week but for a season. The Easter season lasts for 50 days. The Christmas season until Epiphany (Jan 6) – which of course varies.
My mother and her sister, my aunt, helped me to establish what became my norm in the 1980’s to send out Christmas cards in the Christmas season not in Advent. I observe, then, Christmas for the whole "Christmas season.
The 1st Sunday of Christmas comes in the middle of that season. The ripple, echo, of Christmas.
It is, then, an in-between time. [I’ve preached about such time on many occasions.] It is a particularly sacred time.
Isaiah
The first reading today ushers us into sacred time. It uses beautiful, evocative, poetic language to paint for us the reality of the universal redemption that the Incarnation delivers to us and was clearly promised through prophetic voices down through the ages.
I will greatly rejoice in the Lord,
my whole being shall exult in my God;
for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation,
he has covered me with the robe of righteousness,
as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland,
and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
For as the earth brings forth its shoots,
and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up,
so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise
to spring up before all the nations.
For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent,
and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest,
In effect, Isaiah asks us in the opening reading from Scripture today, "Have you readied yourself to see the glory? Are you prepared?
As glorious as the invitation is, for the most part I have to answer for myself, “I’m not ready.”
Paul
Paul doesn’t very often speak to me as a poet. But he often speaks with power. He does so in today’s reading from his letter to the Galatians.
But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children.
As clear and straightforward a statement of what the Incarnation means as any I know. And then in a voice that for me rumbles through the ages:
“And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God.”
On retreat the day before my ordination, our bishop spoke these words to us in one of his meditations. He spoke to us with the same kind of power that Paul must have used. I was transported. For a few hours that day – and on random days ever since – I am able to say, “Yes, I am set free. I am a child. God is not remote – but my Father. Abba.”
Sacred in between time.
John
When I was in my 20’s, like most young adults, I pretty much knew everything I needed know. I was kind of crafty then but in artistic kind of way. The crowning achievement of that period of my life was a harpsichord and clavichord that I built.
In addition to craft sort of things, I was also on my way to embracing my Christian faith as an adult. For many people that’s the most important time in their faith-life. For some it happens in the 20’s. One of my closest friends had it happen to him in his 60’s. It’s too bad we don’t have a way of marking that liturgically and sacramentally.
Anyway I was working out my faith.
I got it into my head to carve a linoleum block that would feature the opening of John’s gospel in Greek. My plan then was to print from the block and give them as gifts.
Well, I spent several weeks carving the piece. John’s Prologue was etched around the outside edge and in the center were symbols of the classical Greek 4 elements: earth, air, fire, water.
It was pretty cool. But only after finishing it did I realize that for it to work it all had needed to be carved in reverse, mirror image. I spent weeks and it seemed useless. I was out of time, also.
I ended up printing on very thin Japanese rice paper that one could see through. I pulled a kind of victory out of a catastrophe.
But the real lesson for me has been somewhat different. It is often in the darkest hours of my life that I have been able to score the important victories of my life.
It’s an illustration of what I take to be a basic principle of life, that it is only in the empty places, the broken places, that we can really experience grace. – as sung by Leonard Cohen.
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in
In between time
In the 1980’s I was assigned the task by the rector of leading the youth of the parish. That’s the typical thing that a “curate” or “associate” is supposed to do. It doesn’t matter, of course, whether or not you have any particular gifts in that regard.
Well, I discovered along the way of trying to faithfully do what I was supposed to a set of workbooks for young people, edited by Lyman Coleman. I used them some and they were helpful. But much more importantly I discovered an edition of the Bible that he edited titled the Serendipity Bible. It had built into it a huge number of discussion questions, prompts for deeper reflection, and so on. In the intervening 30 years there have been many such Bibles published. But the Serendipity Bible was one of the first and by far has been the most useful to me in my ministry.
Do you know what the word serendipity means? “chance, accident, fluke” are some of the synonyms. For myself I’ve always thought of it as surprise. Serendipity means “coming out of the blue, so as to surprise us.”
What that Serendipity Bible did for me – and really continues to this day – was to convince me that God is most active – or probably I can most easily perceive – God’s presence and action in my life by looking for the surprises.
Where are the empty places? Where are the silences that are uncomfortable for me? What was I not expecting? Where are the in-between times? These are the kinds of questions that have been most important to me throughout my adult life.
They are the kind of questions that are vital I think to a useful self-examination – often done at the end of a day. Classically it has had the name examen. A time for looking back and asking how you’ve done during the past day. And among the questions I think you should ask are: “What surprised you this day?”
It will give you a clue as to what God is doing in your life. How he is working out his redemption in your life, right now.
Closing
When I went away on retreat prior to ordination I did not expect God to break in. I was intimidated by the bishop and thought that I wasn’t anything like him. I wasn’t expecting it, but:
I went away from that day expecting heaven to break in at any moment. And God has continued to break in – particularly at the times I didn’t expect it. Watch out!
And it doesn’t just happen at special times. Christmas. Ordinations. No, and even especially, it applies to the most ordinary times and places. A powerful expression of this ordinary sacred time was written about in a powerful book by Kathleen Norris. She was accustomed to her life as an author in the cosmopolitan world of New York city. And then – much to her surprise – she found herself living in, of all places, South Dakota.
Lots of emptiness there. Lots of potential boredom. But it was there that Kathleen discovered God at work. The incarnation. She wrote:
"As it turns out, the Plains have been essential not only for my own growth as a writer, they have formed me spiritually. I would even say they have made me a human being.
“St. Hilary, a fourth-century bishop (and patron saint against snake bites) once wrote, ‘Everything that seems empty is full of the angels of God.’ The magnificent sky above the Plains sometimes seems to sing this truth; angels seem possible in the wind-filled expanse.” — Dakota: A Spiritual Geography by Kathleen Norris.
O God, who wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully restored, the dignity of human nature: Grant that we may share the divine life of him who humbled himself to share our humanity, your Son Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you,in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (BCP)
Notes:
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.
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