Baptism of the Lord 2013
Water changes everything.
We know that here in the Northwest. The rains of Fall bring lots of changes to our roof if it is not watertight. The water falling shows us rapidly whether or not we have cleaned our gutters anytime lately. The earth receives the water to make the passionate green growth that we take for granted until we fly to the Midwest and see how brown everything is. The rain can also overwhelm the earth and turn it to brown goo, even making nice big houses in the West Hills slide down into gullies.
Water is the strongest force on this planet. Each great storm, like the vast hurricane on the East Coast, demonstrates its power. We need water to live day to day. We love water when it is gentle and kindly, poetic streams making music on the stones, the surf sighing and calming our souls as we walk on the beach. We fear water when leaky roofs or surging seas threaten our fragile houses and our very lives.
Water changes everything.
Today God changes everything with water.
We have waited for God’s promised One through Advent. We have rejoiced in the mystery and wonder of his birth. At Epiphany we are lost in wonder, love, and praise as the Christ-light shines forth in the world. And now, we fast-forward through a childhood and a youth and find a man by the side of a river. Jesus has come, as have so many, down to the river to pray, there to find that good old way as the old-timey song says. And here God changes everything, with water.
Water is death and life. Water is ending and beginning. “Every new beginning is some other beginning’s end.” As his wild cousin preached and as the river water closed over his head, what did Jesus think was ending, what old way of life? As he rose gasping in the Palestinian sunlight, what new life was he expecting, how did Jesus think his own life was beginning again?
The Bible doesn’t say. The Bible almost never gets into anyone’s head that way. I think that’s good. In that open space left because in the Bible we don’t hear anyone’s inner monologue, we are left to wonder and to ask “What is my place in this story? What does God through water do in my life?”
Today the heavens open and we are led to a space we have never seen before. And one word spoken, God says one word that changes everything, that rushes into Jesus and rushes into us like the waters of a flood. “Beloved”
It seems fragile, that word. But “beloved” changes everything. “Beloved” is the water-word, the word that overwhelms Jesus and will drive him first into the desert to understand what it means, and then will lead him out of the desert singing, the waters of Baptism dry on his skin but ever-flowing in his soul. That water-word “beloved” will continue to shape his life and make his life a wondrous, upsetting, astounding gift to the world, a life that will disturb the proud and comfortable but will give hope to the poor. That water-word “Beloved” will follow him through his ministry and through betrayal and trial. One priest I knew said he believed that at the moment of his death on the cross, God the Father shouted that word “Beloved” in Jesus’ ears. In the tomb did he whisper the word “Beloved” as he raised Jesus from a cold stone slab? I wonder.
That very same water-word “Beloved” is spoken to us in Baptism. It is our word today. How has the Baptism water-word changed our lives?
Water can be very patient. A Desert Father said that the word of God is like water on a stone—very gentle and fragile, but with time a deep groove is worn. How has Baptism-water shaped our lives? As the waters say each day “Beloved” like a stream laughing over stones, how have we been shaped, changed, and empowered? How do we wish to be? How do we long to open our arms and heart to God’s Baptism-rush of water, to God’s Baptism-word “Beloved”, and be shaped, changed, and transformed?
God is patient, and Baptism-water is patient. But today is a good day to break down a levee, open a flood-gate, or maybe just crack the water-tap a little and let God’s water work. As people called, as a church-community, today we let Baptism-water do its work. In a brief moment we felt the waters on our skin. Invisibly, powerfully, the waters still flow. They laugh and say “Beloved”, and shape us to be the Beloved of God, to be the Beloved community, to be a God-shaped presence in a dry and parched world.
Today water changes everything.
archived musings and preachments
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Drawn by light
The Epiphany 2013
http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearABC_RCL/Epiphany/Epiph_RCL.html
“Arise, shine, for your light has come.”
Today is the day we raise our eyes and let them be dazzled by the Christ-light. Today is the day we shake the dust from our shoes. Today is the day that we look around us, to the right and to the left, and realize that we are all pilgrims, all called, all led by the amazing, awesome Light shining from the ever-new face of Christ.
Draw strength and renewed wonder from fellow-pilgrims. That’s how the story is told today. In the ancient land of promise long ago, weary people slept and rose and lived their careful, fearful lives under the gaze of Rome’s soldiers and a brutal king. So many promises made by God, so long the wait to see them fulfilled. When would the Reign of God arrive? When would the faithful and the poor see their freedom?
And then, the unexpected: strange wanderers from the East, not the official people, not the rabbis, not the scholars from the Temple, not the High Priest. Strangers, outsiders, speakers of another language, suspicious people, magicians, astrologers, New Agers... Tradition calls them kings and counts them as three, but the Gospel makes it clear that these pilgrims were not the “usual suspects”, not expected, not even invited into the weary watchful quiet of Palestine.
They told a tale of their own wonder. Watching the stars, casting their horoscopes, they saw a star they did not expect. They could have catalogued the star, made some predictions about how the star foretold the success of their own king in some war or some new marriage for the Prince. But the wise scholars chose a different way.
They chose to admit they were amazed. They chose to lift their feet from their comfortable elegant cities and their predictable jobs making star-charts for the wealthy. They chose to be pilgrims, wanderers in the desert of the Middle East and in the desert of their own weary hearts. They chose to believe that a new thing could happen in their predictable lives, that a new road could open at their feet. They chose a new and unknown way. Legends tell of how long and weary was their path, and of how many people they met along the way. The Gospel tells of the frightening meeting they had with a paranoid king, and I feel sure they knew how dangerous was their conversation with Herod, how slippery were the lying words, how they were lucky to walk away with their heads still on their shoulders. Herod wanting nothing to do with stars and the newness that God brought to birth. In fact, he was willing to kill to keep things the same.
But the journey did not end with Herod’s tense throne room. The light, the star, led on to a strange place, a forgotten and poor place, where the final step for pilgrim feet lay ready for the wanderers from the East. We imagine it was easy for the wise pilgrims to recognize that the newborn Jewish baby was the wondrous end of their road. Was it? Or was that moment in the stable one more invitation of faith—yes here, in the ordinary truth of birth, in the fresh face of this poor baby born homeless, that he was the Now and the True and the Promised and the Hope that every lonely, desperate moment of their hearts needed and cried out for.
And so, they allowed themselves to be lost in wonder, love, and praise.
Today is our day to join them. No matter if we have heard this tale of wonder over and over, no matter if we have seen countless tinsel stars held by generations of kids in robes in countless Epiphany pageants, today is the Now and the Wonder and the Glory. Today is our day to raise our eyes and join with humility the mystic pilgrims from the East. Today is our day to join with all pilgrims in our own midst, all those who still seek us out because their steps have led them here, all those who refresh our own weariness with the wonder in their eyes and in their hearts. The church of old chose this as one good day to celebrate Baptism, and called it “coming to the Light.” Sometime today let’s all reach up in silence and touch our own heads where the Baptismal waters once flowed, and renew our wonder and thanks that we too have been called to the stable, to the One who is Light and Hope and Life, to the One who is ever-new. He is ever-new, and our journey to him is ever-new.
Here is a prayer from another Baptismal pilgrim, the Celtic monk Brendan, as he set forth on his journey from the East, choosing the sea:
“Shall I abandon, O King of mysteries, the soft comforts of home? Shall I turn my back on my native land, and turn my face towards the sea?
“Shall I put myself wholly at your mercy, without silver, without a horse, without fame, without honor? Shall I throw myself wholly upon You, without sword and shield, without food and drink, without a bed to lie on? Shall I say farewell to my beautiful land, placing myself under Your yoke?
“Shall I pour out my heart to You, confessing my manifold sins and begging forgiveness, tears streaming down my cheeks? Shall I leave the prints of my knees on the sandy beach, a record of my final prayer in my native land?
“Shall I then suffer every kind of wound that the sea can inflict? Shall I take my tiny boat across the wide sparkling ocean? O King of the Glorious Heaven, shall I go of my own choice upon the sea?
“O Christ, will You help me on the wild waves?”
Shall we all walk our own pilgrim path today?
http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearABC_RCL/Epiphany/Epiph_RCL.html
“Arise, shine, for your light has come.”
Today is the day we raise our eyes and let them be dazzled by the Christ-light. Today is the day we shake the dust from our shoes. Today is the day that we look around us, to the right and to the left, and realize that we are all pilgrims, all called, all led by the amazing, awesome Light shining from the ever-new face of Christ.
Draw strength and renewed wonder from fellow-pilgrims. That’s how the story is told today. In the ancient land of promise long ago, weary people slept and rose and lived their careful, fearful lives under the gaze of Rome’s soldiers and a brutal king. So many promises made by God, so long the wait to see them fulfilled. When would the Reign of God arrive? When would the faithful and the poor see their freedom?
And then, the unexpected: strange wanderers from the East, not the official people, not the rabbis, not the scholars from the Temple, not the High Priest. Strangers, outsiders, speakers of another language, suspicious people, magicians, astrologers, New Agers... Tradition calls them kings and counts them as three, but the Gospel makes it clear that these pilgrims were not the “usual suspects”, not expected, not even invited into the weary watchful quiet of Palestine.
They told a tale of their own wonder. Watching the stars, casting their horoscopes, they saw a star they did not expect. They could have catalogued the star, made some predictions about how the star foretold the success of their own king in some war or some new marriage for the Prince. But the wise scholars chose a different way.
They chose to admit they were amazed. They chose to lift their feet from their comfortable elegant cities and their predictable jobs making star-charts for the wealthy. They chose to be pilgrims, wanderers in the desert of the Middle East and in the desert of their own weary hearts. They chose to believe that a new thing could happen in their predictable lives, that a new road could open at their feet. They chose a new and unknown way. Legends tell of how long and weary was their path, and of how many people they met along the way. The Gospel tells of the frightening meeting they had with a paranoid king, and I feel sure they knew how dangerous was their conversation with Herod, how slippery were the lying words, how they were lucky to walk away with their heads still on their shoulders. Herod wanting nothing to do with stars and the newness that God brought to birth. In fact, he was willing to kill to keep things the same.
But the journey did not end with Herod’s tense throne room. The light, the star, led on to a strange place, a forgotten and poor place, where the final step for pilgrim feet lay ready for the wanderers from the East. We imagine it was easy for the wise pilgrims to recognize that the newborn Jewish baby was the wondrous end of their road. Was it? Or was that moment in the stable one more invitation of faith—yes here, in the ordinary truth of birth, in the fresh face of this poor baby born homeless, that he was the Now and the True and the Promised and the Hope that every lonely, desperate moment of their hearts needed and cried out for.
And so, they allowed themselves to be lost in wonder, love, and praise.
Today is our day to join them. No matter if we have heard this tale of wonder over and over, no matter if we have seen countless tinsel stars held by generations of kids in robes in countless Epiphany pageants, today is the Now and the Wonder and the Glory. Today is our day to raise our eyes and join with humility the mystic pilgrims from the East. Today is our day to join with all pilgrims in our own midst, all those who still seek us out because their steps have led them here, all those who refresh our own weariness with the wonder in their eyes and in their hearts. The church of old chose this as one good day to celebrate Baptism, and called it “coming to the Light.” Sometime today let’s all reach up in silence and touch our own heads where the Baptismal waters once flowed, and renew our wonder and thanks that we too have been called to the stable, to the One who is Light and Hope and Life, to the One who is ever-new. He is ever-new, and our journey to him is ever-new.
Here is a prayer from another Baptismal pilgrim, the Celtic monk Brendan, as he set forth on his journey from the East, choosing the sea:
“Shall I abandon, O King of mysteries, the soft comforts of home? Shall I turn my back on my native land, and turn my face towards the sea?
“Shall I put myself wholly at your mercy, without silver, without a horse, without fame, without honor? Shall I throw myself wholly upon You, without sword and shield, without food and drink, without a bed to lie on? Shall I say farewell to my beautiful land, placing myself under Your yoke?
“Shall I pour out my heart to You, confessing my manifold sins and begging forgiveness, tears streaming down my cheeks? Shall I leave the prints of my knees on the sandy beach, a record of my final prayer in my native land?
“Shall I then suffer every kind of wound that the sea can inflict? Shall I take my tiny boat across the wide sparkling ocean? O King of the Glorious Heaven, shall I go of my own choice upon the sea?
“O Christ, will You help me on the wild waves?”
Shall we all walk our own pilgrim path today?
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
First Sunday After Christmas
(Guest preacher: Malcolm Heath)
The gospel today was the first
thing we tried to translate when I took Greek in college. We sat down, with very little of the language
under our belts other than a rough approximation of how we might pronounce the
words, and attempted to apprehend the meaning of this passage.
En arche – we sounded this out
En arche ain ho logos – In
beginning was the word
kai ho logos ain pros ton theon –
and the word was towards the God
This is heady stuff to read in the
original. We got the meaning, but not
necessarily the _meaning_. The
translator is a traitor, goes the old saying.
How else could it be? Take a
text, any text, in any language far removed from your own, in time, in space,
and attempt to figure out what it meant to the person who wrote it, and to those
who first heard it. What, indeed, would
an ad for post-Thanksgiving “doorbuster” deals mean to someone 1500 years from
now?
And this particular text, well this
particular text is among I think the very hardest to really understand, because
it deals with who Christ is, and was, and perhaps even, who He is to be.
We just celebrated the Incarnation,
Christmas, and we say that this is the time we celebrate a remarkable happening
– that God became human, manifest in flesh, and came into the world.
But, what does that mean? As it turns out, this has been a central
question for Christians for centuries.
And it’s an important question, even know, and I would say, a question
that will always be important to us.
It’s a question that’s fraught with complexity, and no small part of
danger, theology so thick and dense and difficult that it’s the life work of a
believer to attempt to apprehend it.
If we place too strong an emphasis
on the divinity of Christ, we may make him too much a God, and too little of a
man. God becomes human, but only in
appearances, not in reality. Clothed in
flesh, certainly, but not actually human.
This has all sorts of implications, doesn’t it? That he didn’t _really_ suffer on the Cross
(for how can God feel pain?) That he knew
all the answers, and never doubted himself, and thus, never cried out, never
wept, not really, and always knew exactly what to say.
If, on the other hand, we place too
much emphasis on Jesus as a man, we run the risk of making him merely a sage, a
wise man, a leader. Indeed, in the
Jewish conception of a messiah, that’s exactly what he was supposed to be – a
leader, a king, someone sent and inspired by God, but not God himself. And if we believe that Jesus was that sort of
messiah, then he failed. After his
death, the Romans still ruled over Jerusalem.
The temple still stood. No golden
age followed.
He must be both – both the God who
existed before anything else, in the beginning, but also the babe born of Mary
– the one who will come again, to judge the quick and the dead, but also the
man who cried out on the cross in pain and fear.
The god who healed the sick. The man who yelled at his mother. The God who walked on water and calmed the
storm. The man who overturned tables in
his Father’s house.
The man who was more than just a
man, but wasn’t any less than one. The
sort of man who could convince fishermen to follow him with a word or a glance
– and the sort of God who could conceive of a victory not over another God
King, like Ceasar, but over death and fear and sin.
I find it odd that we’re so quick
to think we understand the powers of a God.
That we can detail those qualities of the divine which we seem to easily
be able to summon up in our minds – overwhelming love, powerful justice, miracles
of healing, and vast creative energies.
And I also find it odd that we are so terribly slow to realize that the
power in this story comes not from the powers of a God, but the powers of a
human – a human who would stop to heal a leper, who would try to help the blind
see and the lame walk. It’s the God that
he is that did those things, but the human he was that thought to do them in
the first place. That thought that it
would be good to teach. To wander far
from family and place to try, in however small a way, to heal the world.
Jesus the Christ – who said his
father was God. And who said that we,
too, are children of the most high. And
who raged and cried and laughed and drank and ate, and eventually died. The secret here, my friends, is not that he
was God who was man, or that he was a man who was also God, but that by his
very life, he showed that the two are not that far apart – that there can be a
union of the divine and the human, with neither sacrificing what each is to
join with the other. God and human,
together, at long last.
And now, and still, and forever.
Amen.
Saturday, December 29, 2012
Recognize
CHRISTMAS DAY, 2012 10:00 a.m. - Low Mass with Carols The Parish of Ss. Peter & Paul, Portland
+++++
Biblical scholar and teacher of preaching Fred Craddock tells the story of a missionary sent to preach the Gospel in India toward the end of World War II. After many months, the time came for him to return home for a furlough.
His church wired him the money to book passage on a steamer; but when he got to the port city, he discovered that a boatload of Jews had just been allowed to land temporarily. These were the days when European Jews were sailing all over the world, literally looking for a place to live. These particular Jews were now staying in attics and warehouses and basements all over that port city.
It happened to be Christmas, and on Christmas morning, this missionary went to one of the attics where scores of Jews were staying. He walked in and said, "Merry Christmas."
The people looked at him as if he were crazy and responded, "We're Jews."
"I know that," said the missionary. "What would you like for Christmas?"
In utter amazement, the Jews responded, "Why, we'd like pastries, good pastries, like the ones we used to have in Germany."
So the missionary went out and used the money for his ticket home to buy pastries for all the Jews he could find staying in the port. Of course, then he had to wire home, asking for more money to book his passage back to the States.
As you might expect, his superiors wired back, asking what had happened to the money they had already sent. He wired that he had used it to buy Christmas pastries for some Jews.
His superiors wired back, "Why did you do that? They don't even believe in Jesus."
He wired in return: "Yes, but I do!"
Jesus will not always be found where we expect to find him. We tend to look for him in the easy, the nice, the clean, the pristine, the proper: we look for him in churches and in other Christians, in Scriptures, and in our Christmas carols, in church-sanctioned activities and clearly-defined tasks of ministry. But if these are the only places we are looking for him, then we're not looking in the stable, in the dirt and the straw and the deprivation where the real story, the actual birth took place.
We are not looking for him at a shopping mall a few blocks down 82nd Avenue from us. We are not looking for him in the faces of children and their mentors brutally murdered by a crazy man with a powerful weapon available to the public. Or at the little ones who will be forever traumatized by that horrible day a week ago last Friday.
Michel Quoist, the late French Roman Catholic priest who's quite famous for Prayers, his monumental small book of personal, and yet very profound, prayers for everything from "Prayer in Front of a Dollar Bill" to "Prayer of a Priest on Sunday Evening." He wrote about Christmas:
I am not made of plaster, nor of stone, nor of bronze. I am living flesh throbbing, suffering. I am among men and women and they have not recognized Me. I am poorly paid, I am unemployed, I live in a slum. I am sick, I sleep under bridges, I am in prison. I am oppressed, I am patronized. I sweat men's blood on all battlefields. I cry out in the night and die in the solitude of battle. And yet I said to them: "Whatever you do to My brothers or sisters, however humble, You do to Me."
Gathered at Bethlehem's manger, we are poised between love's completion or frustration, between love's triumph or tragedy. God's enfleshment in Jesus is love's risk. It is God's vulnerability. God's fullness made empty. God's richness made poor. God's "otherness" become flesh and blood--for us and for our salvation. The power of response is in our hands.
Let us pray, then, for the gift of recognition, which is indeed the message of Christmas. Today we can contemplate together what has unfolded at Bethlehem and acknowledge the meaning of Jesus as the holiest, riskiest sacrament of God's love that ever occurred.
"The things she knew let her forget again:
The voices in the sky, the fear, the cold,
The gaping shepherds, and the strange old men piling their clumsy gifts of foreign gold.
Let her have laughter with her little one.
Teach her the endless tuneless songs to sing.
Grant her the right to whisper to her son the foolish things one dare not call a king; keep from her dreams the rumble of a crowd,
The smell of roughcut wood, the trail of red,
The thick and chilly whiteness of the shroud
That wraps the strange new body of the dead.
Ah, let her go, kind Lord, where mothers go,
And boast his pretty words and ways,
And plan the proud and happy years that they shall know together, when her son is grown a man." (Dorothy Parker)
Delivered by the Rev. Phil Ayers
+++++
Biblical scholar and teacher of preaching Fred Craddock tells the story of a missionary sent to preach the Gospel in India toward the end of World War II. After many months, the time came for him to return home for a furlough.
His church wired him the money to book passage on a steamer; but when he got to the port city, he discovered that a boatload of Jews had just been allowed to land temporarily. These were the days when European Jews were sailing all over the world, literally looking for a place to live. These particular Jews were now staying in attics and warehouses and basements all over that port city.
It happened to be Christmas, and on Christmas morning, this missionary went to one of the attics where scores of Jews were staying. He walked in and said, "Merry Christmas."
The people looked at him as if he were crazy and responded, "We're Jews."
"I know that," said the missionary. "What would you like for Christmas?"
In utter amazement, the Jews responded, "Why, we'd like pastries, good pastries, like the ones we used to have in Germany."
So the missionary went out and used the money for his ticket home to buy pastries for all the Jews he could find staying in the port. Of course, then he had to wire home, asking for more money to book his passage back to the States.
As you might expect, his superiors wired back, asking what had happened to the money they had already sent. He wired that he had used it to buy Christmas pastries for some Jews.
His superiors wired back, "Why did you do that? They don't even believe in Jesus."
He wired in return: "Yes, but I do!"
Jesus will not always be found where we expect to find him. We tend to look for him in the easy, the nice, the clean, the pristine, the proper: we look for him in churches and in other Christians, in Scriptures, and in our Christmas carols, in church-sanctioned activities and clearly-defined tasks of ministry. But if these are the only places we are looking for him, then we're not looking in the stable, in the dirt and the straw and the deprivation where the real story, the actual birth took place.
We are not looking for him at a shopping mall a few blocks down 82nd Avenue from us. We are not looking for him in the faces of children and their mentors brutally murdered by a crazy man with a powerful weapon available to the public. Or at the little ones who will be forever traumatized by that horrible day a week ago last Friday.
Michel Quoist, the late French Roman Catholic priest who's quite famous for Prayers, his monumental small book of personal, and yet very profound, prayers for everything from "Prayer in Front of a Dollar Bill" to "Prayer of a Priest on Sunday Evening." He wrote about Christmas:
I am not made of plaster, nor of stone, nor of bronze. I am living flesh throbbing, suffering. I am among men and women and they have not recognized Me. I am poorly paid, I am unemployed, I live in a slum. I am sick, I sleep under bridges, I am in prison. I am oppressed, I am patronized. I sweat men's blood on all battlefields. I cry out in the night and die in the solitude of battle. And yet I said to them: "Whatever you do to My brothers or sisters, however humble, You do to Me."
Gathered at Bethlehem's manger, we are poised between love's completion or frustration, between love's triumph or tragedy. God's enfleshment in Jesus is love's risk. It is God's vulnerability. God's fullness made empty. God's richness made poor. God's "otherness" become flesh and blood--for us and for our salvation. The power of response is in our hands.
Let us pray, then, for the gift of recognition, which is indeed the message of Christmas. Today we can contemplate together what has unfolded at Bethlehem and acknowledge the meaning of Jesus as the holiest, riskiest sacrament of God's love that ever occurred.
"The things she knew let her forget again:
The voices in the sky, the fear, the cold,
The gaping shepherds, and the strange old men piling their clumsy gifts of foreign gold.
Let her have laughter with her little one.
Teach her the endless tuneless songs to sing.
Grant her the right to whisper to her son the foolish things one dare not call a king; keep from her dreams the rumble of a crowd,
The smell of roughcut wood, the trail of red,
The thick and chilly whiteness of the shroud
That wraps the strange new body of the dead.
Ah, let her go, kind Lord, where mothers go,
And boast his pretty words and ways,
And plan the proud and happy years that they shall know together, when her son is grown a man." (Dorothy Parker)
Delivered by the Rev. Phil Ayers
Thursday, December 27, 2012
The Christmas sermon I need to hear
Christmas 2012
http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearABC_RCL/Christmas/ChrsDay1_RCL.html
Light is for traveling.
Just the other day we drove through the usual Portland winter mix of daytime murk and rain. I strained to see out of the windshield. The windshield wipers, de-fogger, and the outside washer did not seem to clear the glass. I realized that the inside of the windshield was lightly covered with a haze that comes simply from people breathing. Only if that would be washed away could enough light break through to let me see.
And light breaking through is necessary to travel anywhere.
Another Christmas has arrived, thank God. Frederick Beuchner said that no matter how commercial and crass and clichéd we have made it, we simply cannot quite ruin Christmas. This is due to the absolute power, the unthinkably pure and bright Light that has blazed upon us, the outrageous claim that not only in the polite and well-ordered portion of our lives, but in the darkest corners, in the earthiest and most shadowy parts of our lives and of our world, uncreated Light has blazed forth. I have seen the gentle light of a single candle in a quiet room. I have also seen a lighthouse beam lance dazzlingly across storm-tossed waters. I have seen gentle, silent dawn. I have also been blinded by a headlamp in my eyes when I lay lost and helpless in a tunnel in a Missouri cave. I have opened a door in a tenement apartment to reveal the lonely, impoverished elderly woman living in fear in a crime-infested neighborhood. I have seen the Light, in many different forms. I suspect you have too.
It’s all light, and at the risk of using another old cliché it is all good. The Light reveals us and reveals what we need to see. The Light reveals what is real. In the New Testament the same word is used for “truth” and “real.”
But we do get used to the dark. That’s good, because darkness is everywhere and if we could not adapt then we could not survive. Eyes grow accustomed to the dark, if we wait long enough. People grow accustomed also to other forms of darkness—sadness, hopelessness, fear, oppression, poverty…how easily things become the “new normal”, and we accept what before seemed unthinkable. Most recently we have been tempted to accept as normal a world filled with violence and with the ready availability of weapons that should never find their way into the hands of the irresponsible or the mentally ill, perhaps into no one’s hands at all.
But the Light that has come into the world, the Light of the Incarnation, the light of Christmas, chases away every shadow and allows us to see clearly. All we need to do is clear our sight just a little, just like clearing the glass from inside a windshield.
A contemporary church thinker sent out a post entitled “The Sermon I need to hear this Christmas.” I think his title works well as a question—what is the sermon you most need to hear this Christmas?
That is a question worth chewing on, and perhaps we can all chew on it during these 12 days of Christmas. I share with you the sermon I most need to hear this Christmas, because preachers usually preach what they themselves most need to hear, what they most need to work on.
This Christmas I most need to hear the message of the Angels, that born long ago in the city of David was the Messiah, the Lord. I need to hear that that birth is not a long-ago truth, as beautiful as that truth may be. I need to hear that the Son of God is always being born, in our midst, especially among the poorest and most forgotten. I need to hear that God-made-flesh is born in me, is constantly coming to birth in me, that the new Light of Bethlehem is the new Light made flesh in my flesh. This is no new idea; it is good solid orthodox faith. So many saints and scholars have said it. So many quiet people have lived it. That gift, the birth of the Christ-light in me and in you, is the gift that lies always at the foot of the Christmas tree and lies at our feet ready each day of our lives. All we need do is unwrap it.
I most need to hear that the Light of the world shines not only in a lovely church service and in cherished family gatherings, but also in the darkest and most sorrowing places of the world. The ever-new Light shines in Newtown even though the grieving people there are not sure if it is time to celebrate it. It shines in Palestine, in Bethlehem of today which is surrounded by a 25 foot high wall that would keep the shepherds from visiting the manger without passing through a checkpoint. It shines in the shadowy corners of the city where homeless people will huddle tonight, just another night of seeking warmth. If these dark places threaten to eclipse the Light of Christmas, then I have not heard the message of the angels and have not opened my eyes to see the true Light that enlightens everyone, everywhere, for all time.
And I most need to hear that the Light of the Incarnation, the Light of Christmas, will follow me from this place and will follow me after this night and the day after, and will stay with me to throw light upon my path. I need to hear that during whatever challenge or trial the days ahead might hold for me and for the world, the Light will show me what to do and give me strength to do it.
And I most need to hear that I shall not be alone, that the Company of the Light, those who seek to live by the Light of Christmas, of the Christ-Mass, are with me, both here in this church and abroad in the world. I need to hear that others who seek and serve and delight in the Light will be with me, will join hands with me, and that together we will be vessels of the Light of Christ in a world that has adapted to the shadows.
That’s the Christmas sermon I need to hear.
Light is for traveling. We are here so briefly, together, by the light of candles, basking in the glow of song and prayer and sacrament. When we leave, we will switch on headlights or bicycle lamps, or maybe walk by the glow of street-lamps to find our way home. Light is for traveling. The world grows accustomed to stumbling in darkness. May we gently wipe our eyes and our hearts, that we may receive each day the uncreated Light that illumines our souls.
http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearABC_RCL/Christmas/ChrsDay1_RCL.html
Light is for traveling.
Just the other day we drove through the usual Portland winter mix of daytime murk and rain. I strained to see out of the windshield. The windshield wipers, de-fogger, and the outside washer did not seem to clear the glass. I realized that the inside of the windshield was lightly covered with a haze that comes simply from people breathing. Only if that would be washed away could enough light break through to let me see.
And light breaking through is necessary to travel anywhere.
Another Christmas has arrived, thank God. Frederick Beuchner said that no matter how commercial and crass and clichéd we have made it, we simply cannot quite ruin Christmas. This is due to the absolute power, the unthinkably pure and bright Light that has blazed upon us, the outrageous claim that not only in the polite and well-ordered portion of our lives, but in the darkest corners, in the earthiest and most shadowy parts of our lives and of our world, uncreated Light has blazed forth. I have seen the gentle light of a single candle in a quiet room. I have also seen a lighthouse beam lance dazzlingly across storm-tossed waters. I have seen gentle, silent dawn. I have also been blinded by a headlamp in my eyes when I lay lost and helpless in a tunnel in a Missouri cave. I have opened a door in a tenement apartment to reveal the lonely, impoverished elderly woman living in fear in a crime-infested neighborhood. I have seen the Light, in many different forms. I suspect you have too.
It’s all light, and at the risk of using another old cliché it is all good. The Light reveals us and reveals what we need to see. The Light reveals what is real. In the New Testament the same word is used for “truth” and “real.”
But we do get used to the dark. That’s good, because darkness is everywhere and if we could not adapt then we could not survive. Eyes grow accustomed to the dark, if we wait long enough. People grow accustomed also to other forms of darkness—sadness, hopelessness, fear, oppression, poverty…how easily things become the “new normal”, and we accept what before seemed unthinkable. Most recently we have been tempted to accept as normal a world filled with violence and with the ready availability of weapons that should never find their way into the hands of the irresponsible or the mentally ill, perhaps into no one’s hands at all.
But the Light that has come into the world, the Light of the Incarnation, the light of Christmas, chases away every shadow and allows us to see clearly. All we need to do is clear our sight just a little, just like clearing the glass from inside a windshield.
A contemporary church thinker sent out a post entitled “The Sermon I need to hear this Christmas.” I think his title works well as a question—what is the sermon you most need to hear this Christmas?
That is a question worth chewing on, and perhaps we can all chew on it during these 12 days of Christmas. I share with you the sermon I most need to hear this Christmas, because preachers usually preach what they themselves most need to hear, what they most need to work on.
This Christmas I most need to hear the message of the Angels, that born long ago in the city of David was the Messiah, the Lord. I need to hear that that birth is not a long-ago truth, as beautiful as that truth may be. I need to hear that the Son of God is always being born, in our midst, especially among the poorest and most forgotten. I need to hear that God-made-flesh is born in me, is constantly coming to birth in me, that the new Light of Bethlehem is the new Light made flesh in my flesh. This is no new idea; it is good solid orthodox faith. So many saints and scholars have said it. So many quiet people have lived it. That gift, the birth of the Christ-light in me and in you, is the gift that lies always at the foot of the Christmas tree and lies at our feet ready each day of our lives. All we need do is unwrap it.
I most need to hear that the Light of the world shines not only in a lovely church service and in cherished family gatherings, but also in the darkest and most sorrowing places of the world. The ever-new Light shines in Newtown even though the grieving people there are not sure if it is time to celebrate it. It shines in Palestine, in Bethlehem of today which is surrounded by a 25 foot high wall that would keep the shepherds from visiting the manger without passing through a checkpoint. It shines in the shadowy corners of the city where homeless people will huddle tonight, just another night of seeking warmth. If these dark places threaten to eclipse the Light of Christmas, then I have not heard the message of the angels and have not opened my eyes to see the true Light that enlightens everyone, everywhere, for all time.
And I most need to hear that the Light of the Incarnation, the Light of Christmas, will follow me from this place and will follow me after this night and the day after, and will stay with me to throw light upon my path. I need to hear that during whatever challenge or trial the days ahead might hold for me and for the world, the Light will show me what to do and give me strength to do it.
And I most need to hear that I shall not be alone, that the Company of the Light, those who seek to live by the Light of Christmas, of the Christ-Mass, are with me, both here in this church and abroad in the world. I need to hear that others who seek and serve and delight in the Light will be with me, will join hands with me, and that together we will be vessels of the Light of Christ in a world that has adapted to the shadows.
That’s the Christmas sermon I need to hear.
Light is for traveling. We are here so briefly, together, by the light of candles, basking in the glow of song and prayer and sacrament. When we leave, we will switch on headlights or bicycle lamps, or maybe walk by the glow of street-lamps to find our way home. Light is for traveling. The world grows accustomed to stumbling in darkness. May we gently wipe our eyes and our hearts, that we may receive each day the uncreated Light that illumines our souls.
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Tears and joy
Advent 3C
http://lectionarypage.net/YearC_RCL/Advent/CAdv3_RCL.html
Today is Gaudate Sunday – Literally “Be Joyful” Sunday. It is quite a paradox – this command to be joyful - standing in stark relief to the overwhelming sadness of this week. I do not think there are adequate words to make sense of the violence, the loss, the pain, the darkness of our world that was so violently made clear in Connecticut and in Clackamas this week. So this is real – at first all we can do is wail and cry and pray: Here is a prayer from a Christian Century in response to Friday’s shootings:
God of the broken-hearted,
God of the broken heart,
Receive our sighs
too deep for words.
In your time
by your grace
heal us.
In this meantime
hold us
as we weep.
Hold us and rock us
with the rhythm
of your own
grief-struck
quaking
body.
Amen
We start there, crying the tears that are our own, and crying the tears that belong to the God of love. Perhaps this is where the paradox of joy enters, that we have a God who weeps and wails at this loss.
Kafka tells a story of a little girl who was late coming home. When her mother inquired about where she had been she shared that she had stopped to help a friend who had broken her doll. When the mother asked if she had helped fix the doll the girl proclaimed, “oh no, I do not know how to fix it. I stopped to help her cry.” We cry and pray today for our own grief and for those who are too sad, too angry, too lost to do it for themselves.
This broken world – this is where God chose incarnation – vulnerable flesh – a quiet light in a world already filled with darkness. There were perhaps not guns, but he chose to come into a world in which a King would kill innocent babes to secure his reign, where oppression and occupation dictated daily life…and he chooses to come now, into this world where innocents continue to die – a world as much in need of a savior as ever. We wait again to experience his choice to come willingly into this darkness, to love its people.
And so it is the wisdom of these lectionary texts and of the traditions of the church to command joy in the face of the evil of the world. Because, as Paul proclaims, “the Lord is near” and the story of our faith would proclaim that this violence, death, and pain do not have the final word but that “the light shines in the darkness and the darkness will not overcome it!”
So, what does it mean to be joyful in the face of such tragedy? The readings today give us a very different picture of joy than we expect. They tie up this experience of joy with repentance, with hope when things seem lost, and with generosity. The theme of joy here is this: Hope and generosity must rule our hearts even when we are tempted with fear and despair.
After getting the crowd’s attention with colorful comparisons of the crowd to a frightened, spawn of snakes John presents the first step in the life of Joy… “bear fruits worthy of repentance”.
To talk of repentance in the midst of tragedy perhaps seems harsh. And I want to be clear that I am not in any way suggesting that these events are God’s wrath in response to our sinfulness, but am talking about that sense of repentance in which we are able to see the ways that our choices embrace rather than reject a culture in which such tragedy could happen. All of the readings today, to some extent, equate the depth of joy with turning away-repenting from- death.
Can we tolerate asking ourselves today what parts of our existence contribute to a culture of death? Can we, like the crowds stand before John and our God and ask, “what then shall we do?”
One thing I believe repentance means today is a turning away from what would be our natural response to violence: fear, a desire to lock ourselves away, to choose protection above connection to the marginalized people of our world…we would wish to seek comfort. But John doesn’t let the crowds fall back into comfort and safety. He defines this fruit, this joy, very differently. “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.” They will not be able to hold onto the safety of their careful planning or to their strength, they are asked to risk their safety and comfort for their neighbor. He asks for an act of trust and hope. Here it is again, hope and generosity must win over fear and despair.
What does this mean for us today? I imagine a contemporary writing to include language like: “If you have power, use it for the powerless. If you have a voice, speak for the unheard. If you have been heard, give your ear to the discounted. If you have been loved, love the unloved.”
What is it we hold onto that John would challenge us to share? In what places do we allow fear and despair to trump hope and generosity? Do we trust that in sharing we will experience joy?
I think it is a natural temptation, but one we must resist, to respond to the events of this week with fear of those struggling with mental illness. Every day that we open our doors here at Saints Peter and Paul we are gifted with the face of Christ in the poor and his voice in the often confused, lost words of those who are plagued by insanity. We could, right now, choose to close our doors, or at least our hearts, out of fear. But joy means holding on to hope for each of those souls. It means trusting and giving even when we are afraid. If we have ten dollars we give five…if we have two cups of coffee we give one. And maybe like Kafka, Paul’s message echoes that of John: “Rejoice in the Lord always (not sometimes…not only when times are good) again I say rejoice. Let your gentleness be evident to all” –Hope and generosity not fear or despair. And how can we do this? Well, Paul proclaims, “the Lord is near!” Weeping beside us, lighting the path in the darkness. This is the source of our hope, the motivation of our generosity.
As we light the pink candle this week we are called, like Mary, so long ago, to sing a song of rejoicing to the lord - even in the face of very real brokenness - and to wait expectantly for Light to come into the darkness of the world.
Gadaute!
Amen.
Preached by the Rev. Tracy LeBlanc
http://lectionarypage.net/YearC_RCL/Advent/CAdv3_RCL.html
Today is Gaudate Sunday – Literally “Be Joyful” Sunday. It is quite a paradox – this command to be joyful - standing in stark relief to the overwhelming sadness of this week. I do not think there are adequate words to make sense of the violence, the loss, the pain, the darkness of our world that was so violently made clear in Connecticut and in Clackamas this week. So this is real – at first all we can do is wail and cry and pray: Here is a prayer from a Christian Century in response to Friday’s shootings:
God of the broken-hearted,
God of the broken heart,
Receive our sighs
too deep for words.
In your time
by your grace
heal us.
In this meantime
hold us
as we weep.
Hold us and rock us
with the rhythm
of your own
grief-struck
quaking
body.
Amen
We start there, crying the tears that are our own, and crying the tears that belong to the God of love. Perhaps this is where the paradox of joy enters, that we have a God who weeps and wails at this loss.
Kafka tells a story of a little girl who was late coming home. When her mother inquired about where she had been she shared that she had stopped to help a friend who had broken her doll. When the mother asked if she had helped fix the doll the girl proclaimed, “oh no, I do not know how to fix it. I stopped to help her cry.” We cry and pray today for our own grief and for those who are too sad, too angry, too lost to do it for themselves.
This broken world – this is where God chose incarnation – vulnerable flesh – a quiet light in a world already filled with darkness. There were perhaps not guns, but he chose to come into a world in which a King would kill innocent babes to secure his reign, where oppression and occupation dictated daily life…and he chooses to come now, into this world where innocents continue to die – a world as much in need of a savior as ever. We wait again to experience his choice to come willingly into this darkness, to love its people.
And so it is the wisdom of these lectionary texts and of the traditions of the church to command joy in the face of the evil of the world. Because, as Paul proclaims, “the Lord is near” and the story of our faith would proclaim that this violence, death, and pain do not have the final word but that “the light shines in the darkness and the darkness will not overcome it!”
So, what does it mean to be joyful in the face of such tragedy? The readings today give us a very different picture of joy than we expect. They tie up this experience of joy with repentance, with hope when things seem lost, and with generosity. The theme of joy here is this: Hope and generosity must rule our hearts even when we are tempted with fear and despair.
After getting the crowd’s attention with colorful comparisons of the crowd to a frightened, spawn of snakes John presents the first step in the life of Joy… “bear fruits worthy of repentance”.
To talk of repentance in the midst of tragedy perhaps seems harsh. And I want to be clear that I am not in any way suggesting that these events are God’s wrath in response to our sinfulness, but am talking about that sense of repentance in which we are able to see the ways that our choices embrace rather than reject a culture in which such tragedy could happen. All of the readings today, to some extent, equate the depth of joy with turning away-repenting from- death.
Can we tolerate asking ourselves today what parts of our existence contribute to a culture of death? Can we, like the crowds stand before John and our God and ask, “what then shall we do?”
One thing I believe repentance means today is a turning away from what would be our natural response to violence: fear, a desire to lock ourselves away, to choose protection above connection to the marginalized people of our world…we would wish to seek comfort. But John doesn’t let the crowds fall back into comfort and safety. He defines this fruit, this joy, very differently. “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.” They will not be able to hold onto the safety of their careful planning or to their strength, they are asked to risk their safety and comfort for their neighbor. He asks for an act of trust and hope. Here it is again, hope and generosity must win over fear and despair.
What does this mean for us today? I imagine a contemporary writing to include language like: “If you have power, use it for the powerless. If you have a voice, speak for the unheard. If you have been heard, give your ear to the discounted. If you have been loved, love the unloved.”
What is it we hold onto that John would challenge us to share? In what places do we allow fear and despair to trump hope and generosity? Do we trust that in sharing we will experience joy?
I think it is a natural temptation, but one we must resist, to respond to the events of this week with fear of those struggling with mental illness. Every day that we open our doors here at Saints Peter and Paul we are gifted with the face of Christ in the poor and his voice in the often confused, lost words of those who are plagued by insanity. We could, right now, choose to close our doors, or at least our hearts, out of fear. But joy means holding on to hope for each of those souls. It means trusting and giving even when we are afraid. If we have ten dollars we give five…if we have two cups of coffee we give one. And maybe like Kafka, Paul’s message echoes that of John: “Rejoice in the Lord always (not sometimes…not only when times are good) again I say rejoice. Let your gentleness be evident to all” –Hope and generosity not fear or despair. And how can we do this? Well, Paul proclaims, “the Lord is near!” Weeping beside us, lighting the path in the darkness. This is the source of our hope, the motivation of our generosity.
As we light the pink candle this week we are called, like Mary, so long ago, to sing a song of rejoicing to the lord - even in the face of very real brokenness - and to wait expectantly for Light to come into the darkness of the world.
Gadaute!
Amen.
Preached by the Rev. Tracy LeBlanc
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Casting off
1 Advent C 2012
http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearC_RCL/Advent/CAdv1_RCL.html
It was my job to cast off the lines.
My earliest memories are of salt water and my father’s boat. In those days, back on Long Island, any working-class guy could have some sort of leaky wooden boat and old, worn-out motor and spend time out fishing. That was Dad’s great joy, and so little Kurt just like my older brothers before me would be bundled in a stained orange life-vest and would help Dad get the boat ready.
There was a lot of “get ready”—mixing the gas and oil in the old-fashioned orange tank, gathering the gear and loading it. The boat would rock gently, tied up there next to the old wooden dock with its planks bleached grey by sun and salt. But finally the time would come—the time to cast off.
It was my job to move first to the stern, then to the prow, and slip the loops at the end of the ropes off of the cleats that held our old boat safely to the worn, familiar dock. It was a moment that placed us in the ancient tradition of sailors and voyagers, even if we were only going a couple of miles out to fish. The weight of the boat would hold the line too tight to easily slip off the cleat, and so I would have to exert a moment’s effort to pull the line taut, then suddenly slacken it so for a moment it was loose enough to lift from the cleat. As I slipped the final loop from the cleat, I would always glance down, and even the oily water next to the dock would seem deep and mysterious below our fragile wooden shell.
Finally, a shove would give the boat enough of a surge of motion away from the dock that it would float free, rocking gently, making itself and we who depended on it creatures of the restless water. A philosopher said that you never cross the same river twice. It is even more true of the sea—it is restless and ever-moving, never the same from moment to moment. I would sit and as the motor sputtered into life and the boat surged forward, I would feel a momentary thrill, a sinking in the pit of my stomach as if I were flying. You never knew what awaited you, even in the harbors and bays of Long Island. You never knew where the voyage would take you, once you had cast off.
“Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness…”
Most of us love Advent and find many words to express that. This first Collect of Advent is filled with contrast—“cast away”, “put on”. This Advent it is the “cast away” part that snatches my heart. I love this Collect, but often find myself a little embarrassed by that expression “works of darkness.” I am certainly a sinful man, self-absorbed and petty, but my sinfulness never quite seems to live up to the ominous grandeur of “works of darkness.” Voldemort and Sauron and the White Witch in fantasy books do “works of darkness.” My sins seem to lack the kind of evil courage and initiative implied by the majesty of “works of darkness.”
But there are many “works of darkness”, and most of them are not fame-worthy. I also remember, when we would cast off from shore how many years ago, how littered and shabby and drab was the dock and the shoreline where we would ready the boat. No one would want to spend any more time on that grubby shore of Centerport Harbor than they needed to.
The “works of darkness” can be that familiar and drab and hope-less place where we have been accustomed to hang out in, for no good reason other than it is familiar. What is our equivalent of the dry, dirty, familiar harbor-side in our own lives? A faith that has grown cold and routine? Habits of resentment or self-pity? A general hopelessness that does not cripple us, but casts a shadow over every day? A pattern of distraction, of noise or virtual communication or repetitive entertainment, that keeps us from seeing the heart-breaking beauty and wonder of the world around us? Or keeps us from seeing the pathos and silent courage and struggle of those around us?
Today our patron Saint Paul reaches out in hope and love and pity to us, wishing that we ccould recover that beauty and delight that we may have lost even without our knowing. “Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may …restore whatever is lacking in your faith… And may he so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.”
A Celtic Christian said, “Jesus is the memory of what we have forgotten about God.”
As we cast off on this Advent Sunday, what have we forgotten? What is lacking in our faith? What part of our hearts has grown weak, even without our knowing?
Years ago, we would usually cast off before dawn. As it rose and fell with the surge, I used to imagine that the boat itself was remembering that it was not just a rickety old wooden shell flipped upside-down on sawhorses in our yard. It was a free creature of the sea, part of the surge and swell and power of the waves.
The sun would rise and turn the waves into gold and fire. We too were creatures of the sea, and of the dawn, part of the surge and the light. I would wake up from the drowsy, chilly walking dream in which I had helped to get the boat ready to cast off. That’s right, I would think. I remember. That’s why we came. This is who we are. This is why we cast off.
http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearC_RCL/Advent/CAdv1_RCL.html
It was my job to cast off the lines.
My earliest memories are of salt water and my father’s boat. In those days, back on Long Island, any working-class guy could have some sort of leaky wooden boat and old, worn-out motor and spend time out fishing. That was Dad’s great joy, and so little Kurt just like my older brothers before me would be bundled in a stained orange life-vest and would help Dad get the boat ready.
There was a lot of “get ready”—mixing the gas and oil in the old-fashioned orange tank, gathering the gear and loading it. The boat would rock gently, tied up there next to the old wooden dock with its planks bleached grey by sun and salt. But finally the time would come—the time to cast off.
It was my job to move first to the stern, then to the prow, and slip the loops at the end of the ropes off of the cleats that held our old boat safely to the worn, familiar dock. It was a moment that placed us in the ancient tradition of sailors and voyagers, even if we were only going a couple of miles out to fish. The weight of the boat would hold the line too tight to easily slip off the cleat, and so I would have to exert a moment’s effort to pull the line taut, then suddenly slacken it so for a moment it was loose enough to lift from the cleat. As I slipped the final loop from the cleat, I would always glance down, and even the oily water next to the dock would seem deep and mysterious below our fragile wooden shell.
Finally, a shove would give the boat enough of a surge of motion away from the dock that it would float free, rocking gently, making itself and we who depended on it creatures of the restless water. A philosopher said that you never cross the same river twice. It is even more true of the sea—it is restless and ever-moving, never the same from moment to moment. I would sit and as the motor sputtered into life and the boat surged forward, I would feel a momentary thrill, a sinking in the pit of my stomach as if I were flying. You never knew what awaited you, even in the harbors and bays of Long Island. You never knew where the voyage would take you, once you had cast off.
“Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness…”
Most of us love Advent and find many words to express that. This first Collect of Advent is filled with contrast—“cast away”, “put on”. This Advent it is the “cast away” part that snatches my heart. I love this Collect, but often find myself a little embarrassed by that expression “works of darkness.” I am certainly a sinful man, self-absorbed and petty, but my sinfulness never quite seems to live up to the ominous grandeur of “works of darkness.” Voldemort and Sauron and the White Witch in fantasy books do “works of darkness.” My sins seem to lack the kind of evil courage and initiative implied by the majesty of “works of darkness.”
But there are many “works of darkness”, and most of them are not fame-worthy. I also remember, when we would cast off from shore how many years ago, how littered and shabby and drab was the dock and the shoreline where we would ready the boat. No one would want to spend any more time on that grubby shore of Centerport Harbor than they needed to.
The “works of darkness” can be that familiar and drab and hope-less place where we have been accustomed to hang out in, for no good reason other than it is familiar. What is our equivalent of the dry, dirty, familiar harbor-side in our own lives? A faith that has grown cold and routine? Habits of resentment or self-pity? A general hopelessness that does not cripple us, but casts a shadow over every day? A pattern of distraction, of noise or virtual communication or repetitive entertainment, that keeps us from seeing the heart-breaking beauty and wonder of the world around us? Or keeps us from seeing the pathos and silent courage and struggle of those around us?
Today our patron Saint Paul reaches out in hope and love and pity to us, wishing that we ccould recover that beauty and delight that we may have lost even without our knowing. “Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may …restore whatever is lacking in your faith… And may he so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.”
A Celtic Christian said, “Jesus is the memory of what we have forgotten about God.”
As we cast off on this Advent Sunday, what have we forgotten? What is lacking in our faith? What part of our hearts has grown weak, even without our knowing?
Years ago, we would usually cast off before dawn. As it rose and fell with the surge, I used to imagine that the boat itself was remembering that it was not just a rickety old wooden shell flipped upside-down on sawhorses in our yard. It was a free creature of the sea, part of the surge and swell and power of the waves.
The sun would rise and turn the waves into gold and fire. We too were creatures of the sea, and of the dawn, part of the surge and the light. I would wake up from the drowsy, chilly walking dream in which I had helped to get the boat ready to cast off. That’s right, I would think. I remember. That’s why we came. This is who we are. This is why we cast off.
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