Just Imagine Being Interrupted ...

Romans 5:1-5; 1 John 4:4-14

 

            Who here this morning likes to eat pancakes?   Especially when they are all greatly gooped up with butter and syrup?    And who here this morning also loves to make this meal?  Since pancakes are one of the things I can actually cook, I certainly do!  

            Years ago, I would use one particular bowl for the batter.    It wasn’t fancy, just basic dark blue and made of some kind of hard plastic.     But it was my go-to bowl for one specific and functional reason – it was molded with a perfect lip.   The batter poured so nicely over it and onto the skillet.   And I found that a good pour was quite important to making just the right sized golden, fluffy flapjacks.

            That simple, well molded bowl comes to mind now and again when I think about how God.   More specifically, about how God pours perfect love upon each one of us every single day.   This doesn’t exactly make us light and fluffy (especially if we’ve been eating too many pancakes!) but it does fill us with essential ingredients such as security, comfort, uplift and hope.

            But how does it happen?  How does God pour perfect love upon us?  This love that we believe in through Jesus Christ and that is a constant part of the great mix of our daily lives?

            The Apostle Paul reminds us that this sacred gift is graciously poured upon us by the power of the Holy Spirit.   This can seem like a fine sounding but otherwise abstract statement, so  this morning I invite us to consider today one particular way I strongly believe the Holy Spirit does this outpouring.  I invite us to consider how the necessary “lip” of God’s great big bowl of love is the spiritual gift of imagination.

            The Rev. Peter Gomes, late minister of Memorial Church at Harvard University, rightly urges us not to regard the Bible as a book of rules and regulations.   We should instead consider it a book meant to free our imaginations, to stir us up.    Throughout these sacred Scriptures, we read of all sorts of wonderful, totally unexpected events happening in the context of God’s great love.    And without the gracious spiritual gift of our imagination, we’d never really be able to relate to such happenings and to appreciate the full pour of God’s truth.

            Imagination, then, transports us beyond our strict focusing on facts and figures, rules and regulations.   It folds deeper, creative comprehension of what is holy and real into lives.   It is, as Albert Einstein said himself, “more important than knowledge … for knowledge is limited to what we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”    

            So, the words of the Bible teach us knowledge of God’s love.   We are taught that we are from God, that love is from God, and that if we love one another God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.     This is what we read, process with our minds and emotions, come to believe and therefore what we “know.”   But it’s the ongoing outpouring of our Spirit-sped imaginations that translates this knowledge into our everyday understandings and service.   It’s what inspires our faith and opens us up to realizing that God’s love is immeasurable, that it truly embraces the whole world.

            Sadly, I believe most of us, most of the time, expend a lot of energy suppressing our imaginations.   This isn’t necessarily done intentionally, it’s just we are more culturally trained to dull this spiritual gift in favor of disciplining our lives around details, order and control.  When imagination does manage to overwhelm whatever we are focused on (such as when we find ourselves daydreaming) we usually perceive it as an interruption.    We’ll then have some anxiety about having lost time to be thinking about or doing what we were “supposed” to be thinking about and doing.  

            I believe we should instead accept the interruption and pause to reflect on why the Holy Spirit stirred in a particular way and time.   We should ask ourselves what it is about God and God’s love that may be coming through in imaginative translation.

            Speaking of God’s love imaginatively coming through to a person’s life … there is a particularly good fictional story of this.   How many of you read or watched one movie version or another of Charles’ Dickens classic, “A Christmas Story” in recent weeks?   Let me ask you … what were those ghosts?  Representations of preternatural beings, or, could it be they represented figments of Scrooge’s God-stirred imagination?  

            Jacob Marley appears to interrupt Scrooge’s lamentable life.   This interruption was to warn him about the eternal peril of his having lived in such a selfishly unloving way all his days.   Do you remember Scrooge’s response?  He’s shaken, but not entirely convinced that he hasn’t simply hallucinated.   He tries to dismiss the interruption based on what he knows it could be.

            But something greater than everything in Scrooge’s knowledge ledger kept overcoming him.  I’m fine with interpreting it as his imagination.   And so came the visits of three more spirits, who, each in their own way, poured the truth of holy love upon Scrooge’s calloused heart.   In the end, ‘ol Ebenezer (whose name, by the way, means ‘stone of help’ in the Hebrew language) becomes a totally changed human being, one who joyfully exhibits the truth of transforming love by becoming a help to others.   Why do we all relate so well and find ourselves inspired by his story?   Because our imaginations help us make profound connections with it.  

            Last Monday evening, our Spirit fed imaginations were honed in on the miraculous, world interrupting reality of our Savior’s birth.   To keep the peaceful beauty and holy power of that silent night aglow within us, we need to foster our imaginations.   When a spiritual tap interrupts you, don’t swat it away as if an annoyance.    Even if just for a couple minutes, take the time to notice.  Receive the inspiring outpour.   Let it further form God’s love within and around you.    Maybe jot it down or doodle it for reflection later in the day.    I do this most often through writing little Haiku poems.   And as I prepare sermons week in and week out there are many random moments when imaginative connections with the Biblical text I’m studying are made.   These quick inspirations reveal relevance as they companion my focus on the plain words and historical context of the writing.    When they happen, I usually send a text to my email account to keep track of how our Lord is teaching me fresh interpretation.    Not while I’m driving, though, of course … though I have pulled over to the side of the road many a time so as not to forget an insight I’ve received.  

            As Einstein noted, our imagination is not just for our own personal growth.   God chooses to pour out creative love into all of our imaginations so as to fill the whole world.     This is a truth Bob Goff writes about in his New York Times bestselling book, Love Does.   I’ve only read a synopsis of and a couple quotes from this book, but enough to know this is pretty inspiring stuff.   

            Goff is a rather successful individual.   He is an attorney in his own law firm.   He also teaches non-profit law at Pepperdine Law School, and business law at Point Loma Nazarene University.   He is most widely known, however, for founding a nonprofit human rights organization operating in Uganda and India called Restore International.   

            And in his book, he’s written about one particular place that has helped him in all his successful endeavors – Tom Sawyer Island at Disneyland.  Specifically, a little picnic table at the end of a pier across from a pirate ship.   He considers this one of his offices.    He writes that there is no admission price to being in this place where people of all ages can do countless creative things.   He’s reached the conclusion that somewhere within each of us, we all have a desire to find our own Tom Sawyer Islands, where “the stuff of imagination, whimsy, and wonder are easier to live out—not just think about or put off until next time.”  

             Most importantly, he knows such open, freely imaginative space can help us receive vital outpourings from God and lead us to accept faithful responsibility in the world.    He writes, “On Tom Sawyer Island, I reflect on God, who didn't choose someone else to express his creative presence to the world … but chooses ordinary people like us to get things done.”[i]  Is there some space in your life that is like your own particular Tom Sawyer Island? 

            As 2012 ends, let’s all give thanks for all the ways the power of the Holy Spirit poured God’s love upon us and out into the world through our imaginations.    Let’s locate our own Tom Sawyer Islands, as well as become more open to imaginative interruptions.    By doing so, we find ourselves living with gratitude and gladly getting stirred up to share with one another and the world the great love of God in Jesus Christ.    Amen.  

           

           

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[i] http://www.preachingtoday.com/illustrations/2012/april/1041612.html

There is Calm, There is Bright

2012 Christmas Eve Mediation

 

                In 1974, when I was just five years old, a particular collection of children’s poetry and illustrations was published by Harper and Row.   Many, many millions of copies of this book have been sold.  It consistently gets high marks from schoolteachers for its creative telling of common childhood experiences.    I came to have a copy shortly after it was published.  I don’t quite recall if it was a gift from someone or if I purchased it for myself when the always awesome Bookmobile pulled up to what was then Lincoln Elementary School in Summit, NJ.   I have enjoyed reading these poems over and over again throughout my life.    It’s been particularly fun to share them with my children.    I’m speaking of Where the Sidewalk Ends, by Shel Silverstein.   

                Classics like “Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take the Garbage Out,” “Us” and my favorite, “Hungry Mungry,” all creatively tell about very human situations and their possible outcomes.   But one poem I have to say I’m in polite disagreement with.   It’s found on page 81, and titled, “No Difference.”    Being as short as it is, and since I suspect none of you brought your dog-eared copies with you this evening, I’m happy to read it for you –

                “Small as a peanut, big as a giant, we’re all the same size, when we turn off the light.  Rich as a sultan, poor as a mite … we’re all worth the same, when we turn off the light.  Red, black, or orange, yellow or white … we all look the same, when we turn off the light.   So maybe the way to make everything right … is for God to just reach out, and turn off the light!”

                I do appreciate the point being lightly addressed here.   A lot sure can go wrong between us humans when we only see our differences and fail to focus on what we have in common.   My polite disagreement comes from the suggestion of how God might choose to make things right when this happens.  

                Good Christian friends, rejoice, with heart and soul and voice!   Hear this Good News -- it is not the way of our God to “make things right” by flicking off the light switch, snuffing out the candle, and casting us into deeper darkness when life in this world goes wrong.    Our God is not okay with our being completely blind to realities that try to place a pall of dark despair on the holy light of love, peace, justice, and unity.     By God’s loving grace and through the light of our faith, we are summoned to clearly see such things, name them, and work together to dispel the dark from our hearts and from everywhere in God’s world.     Our sacred scriptures reveal again and again that God is forever a first responder -- igniting our faith, lighting our way to better days, and revealing pathways where signs of unconquerable calm and inextinguishable bright can be found and followed.

                We are gathered here in this beautifully peaceful, hope-filled, joyfully unifying hour to recognize and celebrate this good way of God.   We do so by our singing, our praying, our listening to the Greatest Story Ever Told, and, soon, our lighting candles.    This is Christmas.    The Christmas we most truly desire and need.    At the heart of our gathering, the true reason for this time together, is our celebration of an ultimate darkness-chasing, world changing moment in time …

                This was the time that fully proved once and for all that God’s holy response to the sinful dark disasters and violent desolations of this world is to turn on the Light.    The Light of the world.    God has called on a great many faithful people to help reveal this Light since the beginning of Creation.     But it wasn’t personally and purely revealed until the time when starlight pierced a dark sky to shine upon a sparse guest space where a poor, humble, and blessed young family welcomed their first child.   

                This child, a son, had been long expected; way longer than just nine human months.   His arrival started with His sacredly sudden presence within the womb of young mother Mary.     This was a complete shock to her and her fiancée Joseph, but it had been anticipated by ancient prophets for thousands of years.   They knew this child’s arrival was to be love’s pure light, the radiant beam from God’s holy face, the very dawn of God’s redeeming grace.     

                Mary and Joseph responded to God’s vital actions by faithfully doing all that was asked of them.   Most especially, they named the boy Jesus, a name that literally means “Savior.”    According to Luke’s Gospel, by his birth in this world “the tender mercy of our God” dawned from on high “to break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” (Luke 1:78-79)  So humankind also and eventually came to identify this child Jesus another way, as the Christ, a word meaning “the anointed one.”  

                Good Christian friends rejoice, with heart and soul and voice!   Christ was born to save!   We who believe in Jesus Christ, the One divinely anointed to save us from our sin, share in a powerful common unity.    We live as one great mass of our Lord’s light and love in this wounded, wounding world.    We are a Christ-mass every second of every day of every year of life, worshipping and serving as our Savior continues to cast light upon all darkness.   

                Goodness knows it’s been a particularly intense, stormy, sorrowful fall season this year for many living along our stretch of the country, in our immediate community, in our families.   We’ve all desperately needed our Christ-mass.    And glory be to God, we’ve been faithful in both giving and receiving it.  

                Neighbors have helped neighbors move through disruptions, devastations and on toward restorations. Grief-filled gatherings have quilted loving comfort for communities.  Countless candlelight prayer vigils in homes and holy spaces have brought the peaceful, healing, and redeeming light of holy love to evil’s most horrifying violence.    Yes, through the power of the Holy Spirit, the darkness dispersing starlight, the calming Christ-mass light, has been faithfully displayed where it’s most dearly been needed.  

                I don’t have enough words to express how strongly I feel that we need to stay steady and true to this way of life, to keep paying close attention to the ways God keeps igniting, illuminating, inspiring us.   This path, this sacred sidewalk, never ends.   

                The wonderful artist and author Jan Richardson has written that we need to pray for God to keep training us.   We receive this instruction from our holy first-responder through our daily faithful practices and our coming together as we are tonight.   In her beautiful words, we to so to pray for God to help us always know that “what brings life … we may with persistence hold … and that which wastes our souls … we may with grace release.”   

                Our life together is a constant Christ-mass.   It is never going to be as easy as just saying or singing all is calm and all is bright.   This our great hope, but this “all” will happen at a divine darkness chasing time that is yet to come in Christ.   In the life-supporting meantime, we bear our faithful witness to the Light of the world through out words and deeds.   We do so believing deeply that Jesus Christ is never just away in some distant manger.  He is everywhere, in all places, at all times, and that in Him there is calm and there is bright to both behold and be held by.   

Amen!

                                 

                 

Framers of Holy Love

Psalm 26, Matthew 1:18-25

The Fourth Sunday in Advent 2012

 

            Last summer I made a new friend.  A friend who was sent a family Christmas card.  A friend who very kindly called my cell phone to see if we all were ok in the aftermath of Super Storm Sandy.     His name is Mark.    He lives in West Virginia.  Despite the distance and the fact that our contact is extremely occasional, he feels more a friend than an acquaintance.  He’s definitely not someone I shared an experience with and, as can happen, whose welfare I never again gave much thought to.    I, along with a wonderful work crew, first got to know Mark while repairing his home, which we were assigned to as part of the Appalachia Service Project.  

            In many ways my getting to know Mark was similar to other folks I’ve gotten to know on these love of the Lord building mission trips.      But what distinguishes and places Mark in my friendship bank is one particular moment when the home repair work was paused.  Pausing at various points on the worksite is when important space for other repair work can happen, such as helping someone rebuild, even if just a bit, from all sorts of brokenness in their life.  

            The moment that stays on my mind and heart is when I stood with Mark in his kitchen listening to country music.    It sounded like what I consider classic country, which I like a great deal.  It was much more like Hank Williams, Sr. than Jr., and it was at the very farthest other end of the spectrum from the tasteless punk stuff of Hank Williams III.    This male singer’s voice was nicely mellow and melodic, accompanied by solid guitar work.  

            The music came from an old looking piece of equipment I’d never seen the likes of before.   It appeared to be an early prototype of a combo cassette and CD player.    What we stood listening to was a cassette -- and, as I quickly learned, a rather old one.    I was so pleased when Mark indicated (shyly, I should add) that it was his music, a demo of his originally written songs that he had recorded when he was roughly the same age as when I was singing in a band.   Mark had mentioned early on in the week that he used to sing and play, and I recall first thinking to myself something like, “Well, so many folks down here do.”   But standing there in his kitchen, I was struck with the thought that his talent could have orange blossomed into something really special.    This was the sound of his God-given gifts … before the days of his physical disabilities, before the days of suffering the early death of a child, before his divorce.    It was clearly important to him to share this demo from back when life and love filled his young ambition and hope.  

            I once had singer-songwriter career ambitions myself – ambitions also forged from hardships in life -- so I felt a definite bond being built with Mark.  This bond was then strengthened on Thursday of that ASP week, when we got a chance to play music together at the ASP volunteer and family picnic.     What song did we play?  Do you even need to wonder?  It was, of course, John Denver’s “Country Roads.”

            If I’d never chosen to go down those country roads, never gone on an ASP trip and thus never experienced ministry in that constructive context, I would have missed experiencing some really powerful spiritual bonding.  This kind of bonding that solidly builds and frames faithful displays of Christ’s love in this world.  

            I share this word of witness today because it’s the time of year when we focus in on the biblical account of the beginning of Jesus’ life.    We, of course, recollect the miraculous aspects of this amazing moment in holy and human history.   We also, though, should consider well what the more ordinary, easily relatable aspects of his coming into and growing up in this world were.     

            One such important aspect is that he was raised in a context that was all about a particular kind of building and bonding that happens between people and in community.  He grew up the son of a carpenter.   We know this from Matthew 13:55 and Mark 6:3.   There were many projects Joseph dutifully carried out in providing for the needs of his community.   Of all hard work, I like to think Joseph’s finest project, the most faithful frame he ever put together with his time and talent, is what was begun the moment he committed to his role God’s plan of salvation.    His was a powerful yes to abiding by Mary, to loving and raising Jesus as his own, to teaching this boy the physical and interpersonal tools of his trade as was the custom of that day.   

            This focusing on Jesus as Joseph’s son while Jesus also gradually fulfilled his life as Son of God, our Savior, is the topic of a fine book that gets promoted by ASP.   It’s called Lessons from the Carpenter, authored by Presbyterian pastor H. Michael Brewer.    

            The book’s main point is that the whole craft of carpentry is comprised of twin tasks – “building what is needed and restoring what is broken” and that these twin tasks shaped the child Jesus’ view of life and the unfolding understanding of his holy identity.     Learning the lessons of a woodworker was, Brewer writes, “part of God’s plan to mold the mind and heart of the Messiah,” in that it “mirrored his purpose for coming into the world.”   The author rightly notes that carpentry makes the world a better place, and that while far from being glamorous work, “after the sweat dries and the fatigue passes, the accomplishment remains.  The table serves, the door keeps guard, and the house stands.”   I find every chapter of this small book to be a very good theological reflection on things Jesus likely had to have learned from Joseph.   Things such as discovering potential within rough wood, and therefore in rough edged people the likes of the apostle Peter; meeting needs while building to last; and restoring whatever can be saved.   

            So Jesus didn’t just grow up being taught to love his neighbor as some idyllic concept. He grew up learning all sorts of tools needed for building and restoring people’s lives.   Pastor Brewer writes that he takes comfort in knowing “the one who shapes us for service is a loving craftsman taught from childhood to take pride in his work.  The universe at large and our lives in particular are safe and secure in the skilled and callused hands of this Carpenter.”

            In the middle of my reflecting about how we are disciples of this Holy Carpenter, and about my bonding, building experience with Mark while on ASP, I happened to notice that one of our church leaders posted a new quote on her Facebook page.    I read it and immediately gave the Holy Spirit praise for calling the freshly posted quote to my attention in such a relevant fashion.   It’s a quote by novelist Anne Lamott, who in her life has personally experienced more than a few rough edges.   Here’s what it said --

            “It's funny: I always imagined when I was a kid that adults had some kind of inner toolbox full of shiny tools: the saw of discernment, the hammer of wisdom, the sandpaper of patience. But then when I grew up I found that life handed you these rusty bent old tools - friendships, prayer, conscience, honesty - and said 'do the best you can with these, they will have to do'. And mostly, against all odds, they do.”

            We find the shiny and the rusty tools in Jesus’ blessed toolbox.   This carpenter’s son, our Savior, teaches us by example how to use these tools to build our frames for displaying his holy love where building and restoring is desperately needed.     

            What projects in your life do you need to work on with Him and alongside your fellow faith construction workers?  

            What holy hewing tasks for others is Jesus calling you to commit your yes, your true trust, your time, your talent to in the coming year?  

            I ask these questions in Jesus’ name, Amen.  

           

Renewing and Rejoicing in Love

The Third Sunday in Advent 2012

Romans 12:9-17; Zephaniah 3:14-20

            There were several sort of dinosaur looking yet still quite talented creatures making quite a raucous in my living room late last Wednesday night.    They were strutting.  They were vocalizing.   They were making loud clashing noises.   They demonstrated durability and tenacity for living, as their very presence before me exclaimed, “We aren’t extinct!  We’ve survived personal and world disasters and so can you!”  

            The creatures weren’t exactly in my living room.  They were on the T.V.  And they had world famous names such as The Rolling Stones, The Who, Eric Clapton.    Paul McCartney was there too, along with New Jersey’s own rock legends Bruce Springsteen and Bon Jovi.    This 12-12-12 televised gathering form Madison Square Garden of music greats and many other performers was a fundraising concert benefitting Super Storm Sandy relief.    Through television, online computer streaming video, and good ‘ol radio, it’s estimated that some 2 billion people had a chance to experience and support this event.    It was a bold, big way to broadcast some hope and even joy in the aftermath of this natural disaster that struck our metropolitan area and is still striking our home spaces and our hearts.     

            There is another specific broadcast of hope and joy that I paid good attention to this week.   Although it’s available all the time, this one can be easily missed.   It’s from the Bible, and even if you keep an open Bible right in your living room, I’m guessing it’s not ever open to the Book of Zephaniah.  

            Oh, this is a very small section of the Old Testament and it truly doesn’t command much attention at all.      One Bible commentator light heartedly wrote that “lodged between Haggai and Habukkuk – if the book were called ‘Hephania’ at least we would have a shot at finding it.”[i]    It is certainly dwarfed by more famous prophetic names, such as Isaiah, who prophesied fifty years earlier, as well as Jeremiah, whose oracles arrived after Zephaniah’s day.    

            In typical prophetic fashion, Zephaniah’s bold words to the Hebrews in seventh century BC Jerusalem are about disaster.  The book is only three chapters long but really packs an emotional punch.  Most of it is very hard to read warnings about awful disasters to come upon humankind from the hand of our very angry Creator.    This terrible forecast of divine judgment needs to be considered within the context of what Zephaniah declares are the causes of such holy indignation.   He has quite a list, a list that really should also make us unsettled and upset.  

At the root of all these is a single, ancient epic disaster.   If this disaster hadn’t happened, there would be no need for scare-us-straight prophetic words, words that convey just how seriously God cares about humankind, and, which, deeper down are really all about God experiencing great frustration, grief and sadness.    The disaster that set off the domino effect of drastic consequences can be summed up in one small word – sin.  

            Have you ever given thought to sin being a great disaster?    I find it can help our understanding of just how devastating it is to God, to humankind and to our world.   The Life with God edition of the Bible, a favorite of mine for personal study and devotional reading, makes it clear that Zephaniah’s writing is about the disaster of sin, about the devastations of “a people indifferent toward God, living as though God didn’t really exist and looking after themselves as independent of God.”[ii]   It’s about people failing “to live as though God mattered,” failing to keep in mind and heart the good truth that their loving God is present in every moment of every day.    It’s about people who had become self-centered and disastrously apathetic towards God’s sacred prescriptions for life-sustaining love, unity, peace and justice.       In Zephaniah’s own words, his people had shamelessly lept over a sacred threshold to fill “their master’s house with violence and fraud” (1:9) and become like dregs, the least valuable part of anything (1:12).  He calls the holy city of Jerusalem a “soiled, defiled, oppressing city,” that had not “trusted in the Lord.” (3:1).    His prophetic despair came from this vita understanding that people’s gross sin isn't merely offensive to God -- it is absolutely disastrous to all the innocence, beauty and goodness God originally intended us in our world to be.

            All in all, Zephaniah’s original hearers were held accountable for being rebellious, negligent foreigners to their own historic faith, for following false gods, and for prizing self-sufficiency above all else.    Despite identifying themselves in their tradition as faithful Hebrews, they had become “practical atheists.”   What wasn’t there for God to be angry about?

            Yet despite strongly calling our sin to account by boldly describing God’s understandable anger, Zephaniah’s prophecy is, after all, and above all, about disaster relief.    He may not have a big stage -- his being tucked there between the more famous prophets and so hard to find -- but his voice is ultimately one that loudly heralds “hope, rejoicing and reprieve.”[iii]   

And so after we read the holy indictment against the disaster of sin, we are given a wonderfully surprising verdict from God.   It comes in the form of a promise about a day of holy judgment that instead of wrath instead offers a gracious, renewing, rejoicing new beginning.  This new beginning pointed to a time in history when sinners would not be put to shame because of rebellious deeds.   It pointed to a time in history when God would take away judgments, rejoice over us with gladness and renew us with holy love.    This would be the divinely appointed time when, according to Zephaniah 3:20, God would bring us safely home from all sin-disaster.   After the arrival of this promised day, humankind would joyfully “offer true worship to God, experience new unity, be freed from fear, oppression, and the pursuit of things that corrupt and spoil,” and “know that they are loved and secure in God.”[iv]

            You may be wondering -- why read Zephaniah so close to Christmas?    Because, and in the words of one Bible professor, “Jesus was born into a world very like the world of Zephaniah, a world of idolatry and rapaciousness and false religious practice.”[v]    Every moment and every year that we celebrate the long promised day of His birth, we joyfully acknowledge it as the very personal arrival of God’s forgiving, renewing, restoring love.   In this we find hope, for Jesus was born to rescue us, forgive us, shepherd us, and lead us to our promised holy home.    In Him, our Messiah, sin’s darkness and disaster and death are not allowed the final word.  

            And we visit Zephaniah because even though we’ve been celebrating the birth of our Savior for over 2,000 years, even though that holy day long ago arrived to give peace, forgiveness, freedom, justice and unity to all of humanity, all of our kind on all kinds of levels have continued to freely choose the disaster of sin.   Be it passive complacency, knowing complicity, or almost unimaginable crime, we continue to need holy rescue.

            This past Friday, we, along with the whole world, took painful notice of yet another horrible, heart-wrenching manifestation of this sad fact.    The weight of our personal and collective grief about the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT is unbearable.   Heartsick doesn’t come close to expressing how we feel.  We are soul sick.  The precious part of us so personally fashioned by and forever connected to and love by our Creator feels crushed and crippled by this loss of innocent life from the systemic hand of gun violence.    Twenty children.  Six adults.    These were not somebody else’s kids and school staff, they were brothers and sisters in our human family.  The survivors aren’t strangers to us, for we recognize ourselves in their devastation.    And, yes, alongside our rage and demand for answers, we can also find grief for all that went so tragically wrong within the mind of the suicidal young adult shooter and for his other victims -- his mother and the survivors of his entire family.

            After reading countless news reports and Facebook updates, one word seemed to pop up again and again.    It’s the word “incomprehensible.”    I understand this word choice, because who among us wants to ever admit we find anything understandable about this horror?

            Well, I’ll faithfully admit it.   I’ll admit it because I admit that evil exists, and that I personally understand this to be the accumulated mass of all human sin that is always spilling over into human lives and societies.  It spills over through disastrous choices with deep consequences that end up covering us all.   And I’ll admit to some understanding because prophets like Zephaniah help me to recognize and to teach that our rage and sorrow are an extension of the angry, grieving heart of God who rightly judges against every instance and avenue of evil.   

            But then I come back.  I come back again and again to the delivering divine verdict.   I come back and we come back by God’s grace and through our faith to the advent of our Savior, of God with us.   In coming back, we affirm the peaceable reign of Christ alive in our communities, our nation, our world; a renewing, restoring, and life rejoicing love that no disaster of sin can conquer.    As Rev. Mark Moore of St. John’s Episcopal church in Sandy Hook declared a day ago, "Evil is a choice. It does not come from God.   Even though evil can overcome us, it cannot overcome God.”

            As we continue to prepare for Christmas, may we not neglect to center this season on Christ Jesus, who is ultimately and eternally our disaster relief.    We respond to every awful, horrendous expression of evil by faithfully coming together in His name.  

            We do so to pray by the power of the Holy Spirit that the deep peace and justice Jesus made possible to us through His voluntary violent death is known and shared when and where it is most needed. 

            We do so to pray His eternal, loving arms receive every victim of deadly violence, welcoming them to the life-restoring rooms prepared for them in glory.    

            We do so to pray His amazing grace will heal and sustain witnesses and survivors of evil, that all will be able to regain hope and trust in goodness, in the human race, in God.  

            We do so to pray for courageous inspiration and clear instruction about how we can be in concert with our Savior’s sin-disaster relief – how we can let love be genuine, hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good, rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep and live in harmony with one another (Roman 12:9-17). 

            And we do so to recognize and rejoice in His historic incarnation while also further awaiting the advent of His second coming, when there will be no more sorrow, no more sin, and only eternal restoration and jubilation.    Amen.  

 

 

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[i] http://www.patheos.com/Progressive-Christian/Hope-Scarce-John-Holbert-12-09-2012.html

[ii] Foster, Richard J.; Peterson, Eugene H.; Willard, Dallas; Brueggemann, Walter; Demarest, Bruce; Renovare; Howard, Evan; Massey, James Earl; Taylor, Catherine (2010-06-18). The Life with God Bible NRSV--Old Testament (Kindle Location 56628). Harper Collins, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

[iii] http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?lect_date=12/16/2012&tab=1

[iv] Ibid, Foster, et al.

[v] Ibid, Holber.

 

 

Magnificent Peace!

2^nd Sunday in Advent 2012

Daniel 9:20-23a; Luke 1:26-38

 

            In the deepest and truest center of her entire being, Mary knew God’s great blessing upon her life.   She, so very young and poor and pure, of all the billions of people on earth, of every single generation of children since Adam and Eve, she had been chosen to vitally help unfold God’s great design for the salvation of humanity from sin.  She was asked to grow and then give birth to Jesus, son of God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.   She said yes.   

            Mary believed in this blessing with all her heart, mind, soul and body.   The question on my mind on this Sunday in Advent, how did she live with it?   Once miraculously impregnated with our Emmanuel, what did she say and do while carrying Him to full term?

              One thought I have is that she could have gone around and bragged about how tremendously special she was.   She could have kept calling attention to herself, reminding everyone absolutely all the time of just how very favored she was by God.   

            I mean, if this Advent happened in America today, perhaps she would have boasted about her blessedness by signing a self-enriching deal for a reality show.   Episode 1 would show her visiting a pastor and a psychiatrist to see who offered her the best explanation for the vision she had about an angel named Gabriel.   Episode 2 would recount the dramatic moments when she approached her fiancée and said, “Honey, put your saw down for a second, because, boy, and I mean BOY, have I something really big to tell you about myself …”   Another episode would show her bragging about how her blessed baby-to-be got her cousin’s Elizabeth’s blessed-baby-to-be to worship him even from the womb.  

            Ah, we can be greatly thankful that Mary did not reply by trying to make herself the center of the universe.   Any pointing to herself was positively for the purpose of pointing back to God, whose claim on her otherwise ordinary life she responded to with complete trust and faithful obedience.    She lived knowing there is no deep peace in sinful self-glorification.   She understood the Polaroid picture of the personal word of holy peace bestowed upon her was going to be enlarged into the panoramic picture of peace for all suffering the oppressions of sin.

            Mary’s faith, trust and obedience were all a response to receiving a direct address from God.   The announcement of God’s unfolding plan and her blessed part in it arrived through one of God’s most loyal agents, the angel Gabriel.    “Greetings, favored one! God is with you!” were the words of Gabriel’s wonderful welcome.   “Do not be afraid … nothing is impossible with God!” were his further encouragements as he explained all the holiness that was to happen.   This is the same figure, described as both humanlike and swift as a bird in flight, which had spoken to the repentantly praying, historic Hebrew person of Daniel and declared, “You are much loved!” 

 

         Gabriel is only one of two angels in the entire Bible given a name (the other being Michael, also mentioned in the Book of Daniel), and his name says much about his mission.  It has been translated to mean, “God has shown himself to be mighty.”   Mightier than any worldly power, be it the Babylonian Empire of Daniel’s day or the Roman Empire of Mary’s day.   Mightier than we can ever imagine.   Mightier than all of our sinful judgments combined.   And mighty enough to judge that the world is worth saving, and to then decide to rescue us by becoming embodied in Jesus, by way of the totally unexpected person of Mary.

            I haven’t read or heard of any recent stories about what Gabriel is up to these days.   It’s the biblical ones that matter most, anyway.   But still, for all of us who are hungering to be filled with the deep peace of God that Mary knew, which guided her to accept God’s claim on her life and to live as a faithful servant with great trust and obedience … wouldn’t we love a visit from this big time angel?   In a world where criticisms and doubts and failures constantly try to kill hope and slowly implode our sense of self-worth, aren’t we all desperate to hear a word about how we are in God’s favor?  That we needn’t be afraid?   That we have been chosen by God to participate in holy purposes?   That we are much loved?  That there is nothing we can’t hope for because nothing is impossible with God?

            I suppose we could spend our time searching for celestial beings.   That sounds like an adventure.   And it would be a much better use of our days than consistently conjuring up ways to make ourselves the center of the universe.   Again, there is no deep peace in sinful self-glorification.   Christ Jesus is the center of the universe, the only one we should ever be glorifying.   

            Yet waiting around on angels to speak God’s word to us might not be terribly productive.   It might not be the best way to broadcast the news of God’s peace when and where it’s needed most.  Plus, we might grow apathetic from all the waiting and watching.   After all, the timing of such visits follows God’s unbounded and thus eternal clock, not our finite, controlled measurements.    So what is something we can do every day to hear God’s word and be strengthened in faith?  To be reminded that God is mighty, that God has plan of salvation in Jesus Christ, that God deeply loves each one of us ordinary human beans and invites all of us – even and especially the least expected among us -- to share Good News with everyone we know?

            We can read the Bible!    We need to listen for God’s call and claim on our lives through its words.  We need to read it, hear it, pray with it, and entertain faithful interpretations of it.    We simply can’t rightly glorify God if we don’t get reminded on a very regular basis of God’s great love story, God’s deep word of peace, and God’s magnificent holy promises.   We can’t magnify God like Mary if we keep these sacred Scriptures closed.

            One survey, conducted by Barna Research this year, revealed some good and bad news on this front.   First the good news – 85% of American households reported owning at least one Bible (most, on average actually reported owning about four), and 69% of the Americans surveyed confessed their belief that the Bible provides guidance on how to live a meaningful life.    Now for the not so good news – about one third of those surveyed admitted to reading the Bible less than once a year, saying they “never have enough time to read it.”   Half of this same survey group also could not name the first five books of the Bible, despite saying they are knowledgeable about the Bible.[i]    Did you get a call from Barna?  Would you have wanted to?

            As I preached last week, Advent is a time for proactive waiting on our Emmanuel, God with us.     Not passive waiting, as if any copy of the Bible – be it in print or on a tablet computer – will ever just open itself up.   I don’t believe those not so good stats are really about not having time enough to read; I know from my own life that it’s more about feeling awkward, uncertain, ill-equipped and perhaps even unworthy to understand what the Bible has to say.    We can feel oppressed by the holy claims we anticipate it holds out for us, especially if we have parts of our past or present we feel ashamed of.  

            Here is precisely where being reminded – through our Bible reading -- of Mary’s blessed calling and her humble example is such an inspiring help.   She wasn’t chosen because she was perfectly faithful or without sin.    And her yes to God had the opposite effect of being shielded from shame, since she and Joseph were not quite wed yet.   She was as ordinary as all of us, suffering worldly insecurities and injustices like we all do.  

             How amazing, how wonderful it is to believe that it’s from the ordinary that the utterly out of the ordinary Good News of Jesus Christ comes to us.      We have no reason at all to ever feel inadequate when opening ourselves up to receive God’s Word.   We can be at peace with believing we are blessed, and that through us others might be blessed, for each of us has found favor with the Lord.   Amen.    

 

           

 

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[i] American Bible Society, The State of the Bible 2012