The Gift of the Magi

'In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, "Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage." When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, "In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet:

`And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,

are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;

for from you shall come a ruler

who is to shepherd my people Israel.'"

Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, "Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage." When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.'

--Matthew 2: 1-12

Merry Christmas! Again. I trust everyone’s Christmas trees are still up. You know who does keep his tree up? That’s right! Thistlehair the Christmas Bear! He dances ‘round the Christmas tree every single New Year’s Eve; then he and all his furry friends gather ‘round the fire again; singin’ ‘bout those angels’ wings; the gifts of love that Christmas brings. Thistlehair knows that Christmas isn’t over yet. Did any of you dance around your Christmas tree on New Year’s Eve?

Leave it to ole Thistlehair to remind us that the celebration of Christmas is not over. This is one of those rare years when we actually get a Second Sunday in Christmastide, and, I suppose, because of that rarity, our Revised Common Lectionary actually gives us three choices for Gospel passages: there’s the one above, which we read in my parish from Matthew, which, chronologically, fits nicely because it comes shortly after the birth of Jesus; the second choice is the passage that comes right after this one, which is the Holy Family’s migration to Egypt, where they lived as refugees while King Herod hunted down the baby Jesus; and the third option, which is from Luke, jumps about 12 years in time and shows a young Jesus teaching in the Jerusalem Temple. I suspect Matthew 2: 1-12 is given as a choice because it tells the story of an event we call the Epiphany, which is its own celebration that falls on January 6; and since our parish won’t be having a service that day, we got to hear the story of the Magi coming to the cradle of baby Jesus, guided by that star....and everything that it stands far! (If you read my Christmas Eve blog, you know!)

An epiphany is a moment of sudden and great revelation or realization. So what is being revealed or realized? The super official, fancy-dan church name for the event is the Epiphany of Our Lord Jesus Christ, but to whom? I would add: to the world. Our siblings in the Orthodox Church call it the Theopany, an encounter with a deity that manifests in an observable and tangible form. Through the eyewitness of Magi from the East, God appears in this observable, tangible form of this baby Jesus. Don’t even know a word yet, so cuddly, but still omnipotent.

An Ethipian depiction of the Magi visiting baby Jesus.

The Magi are a curious lot, aren’t they? We associate that word, Magi, with these three kings or sages, but the word itself is simply the Greek word for “wise people.” These folks were pretty common in the ancient world; in fact, rulers often had Magi in their courts to serve as astrologers who could read the stars and decipher the signs of the times. Other ancient sources like Dionysius and Seutonius also make mention of Magi as envoys sent from neighboring lands to welcome the arrival of a new leader. They are described as being from “the East,” so off the bat we can assume that they are not Jewish; most likely they are Zoroastrians, the oldest monotheistic religion in the world, and though their precise country of origin is not known, they probably hail from what folks at that time would’ve called the lands of the Parthians, or modern-day Iran. We don’t know exactly how many they are – the number three gets assigned because the three gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh are mentioned – and while Scripture doesn't tell us their names, an 8th century religious chronicle called the Excerpta Latina Barbari first gave them the names Caspar, Balthasar, and Melchior.

Perhaps who the Magi are isn’t as important as what they represent. Being from “the East” they come from the region where two different empires – Assyria and Babylon - had previously come and conquered the people of Israel. The East represented darkness, and “other”-ness. They dress in a flamboyant manner, and offer gifts that seem pretty strange. Any mothers out there ever ask for gold, frankincense, or myrrh at your baby shower? Yet the gifts would come to represent three qualities of Jesus: gold for his sovereignty, frankincense for his divinity, and myrrh for his mortality. Though they come from a foreign land, dress in a garish manner with peculiar gifts, and have a different religion – and did not, it would seem, convert once they met baby Jesus – they remind us of Jesus’ own words spoken later on in the Gospel of Mark, that “those who are not against us are for us.” In other words: this is the Epiphany, the realization of these Magi, that the Good News that this child will bring is not proprietary in nature; it is, truly, of cosmic and astronomical importance for ALL people.

This story, found only Matthew’s telling of Jesus’ birth, captures the real wonder and mystery of Christmas. It is improbable and a bit ridiculous that these astrologers from a foreign land would travel to Jerusalem, only to learn of their true destination from one who wants to kill the very individual they seek, and then for them to bring this boy, born in some dusty backwater town, gifts that befit royalty. It’s pretty absurd. But spoiler alert: it’s only going to get more absurd from here! The poor will be blessed in this child, the last will be first, and the Messiah everyone thought would overthrow Herod the puppet-king will be killed by the state and rise again. Yeah, it’s a pretty absurd story.

But as Fr. Jud in the recent film Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery asks: “Do these stories convince us of a lie, or do they resonate with something deep inside us that’s profoundly true, that we can’t express any other way except storytelling?” Because what the Epiphany, the Theophany, expresses to us is the ever-present reality that the grace, love, and mercy of God are real, found in the human condition; and in this particular human, this Jesus born of Mary, we see the very face of God. As Linus might say: that’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown!

Fr. Jud (Go see Wake Up, Dead Man!!)

And it’s not over. Christmas, that is. What was revealed to the Magi, proclaimed so loudly to the world in the gentle coos and cries of a baby, has not been debunked or erased in any way, shape, or form, despite the Herods of our time who attack sovereign nations in the morning of the 10th Day of Christmas. No, the work of Christmas, has barely begun. Howard Thurman summed it up best: “When the song of the angels is stilled; When the star in the sky is gone; When the kings and princes are home; When the shepherds are back with their flock; The work of Christmas begins – to find the lost, to heal the broken, to feed the hungry, to release the prisoner, to rebuild the nations, to bring peace among brothers and sisters, to make music in the heart.” What a story! Thanks be to God for our stories. And a very Merry Christmas to us all.

The Flesh Was Not Ashamed

'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth.'

--John 1: 1-14

No manger. No cattle or their shepherds. No Mary or Jospeh. Not even a star. Christmas morning greets us not with the familiar trappings and trimmings of that all-too-familiar story. What we have is the Word. In the beginning. The same three words that introduce the story way back in the Book of Genesis, announce the start of the Good News proclaimed by John, son of Zebedee. Only now, instead of the lifeless void of darkness, there is the Word. Capital W. Or Λόγος in Greek. Capital Lamda. The very Word of God that existed before existence itself. Coming into the world. 

The nature of this Word is reconciliation and all-encompassing love, made known in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Love came down at Christmas, says the old song, manifested in the belly of a teenage girl, and was given form and flesh and feeling. In his life, death, and resurrection, Jesus showed people this way of being, the way of love, so much so that those who followed his teachings would be called the followers of his Way. And folks would know that they were part of this Way by their love, by their love; yes, folks would know that they were part of this Way by their love.  If this is true, then it would stand to reason that love would describe the state of things in any place where followers of the Way, disciples of this Word, live, work, and worship, right? Right?  

Back in 2011 a fight broke out at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem on the Eve of the Orthodox celebration of Christmas in early January. This huge basilica is shared by three different Christian groups – Western Catholics, Armenian Orthodox, and Greek Orthodox – each with their own “territory.” As the story goes, monks and priests from one of the Orthodox groups – they both blamed each other – swept some debris into the territory of the other, prompting shouting and the eventual swinging of brooms at one another. I’d like you to let that image sink in: monks and priests fought one another with brooms on Christmas Eve in the church where Jesus was born. It was quite a scene, man, and if you want to be both entertained and slightly disturbed at the same time, I recommend you do a YouTube search for the video proof. How sad that is, and yet, such is the world God chose to be born into. Such is the very flesh that the Word became.

Clerics fight each other with brooms at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

 It is not easy to live in and by and for this Word spoken into existence on behalf of us all. We try but it can feel so daunting when we picture images like those clerics in Bethlehem, or the various kinds of in-fighting seen in houses of worship bearing Jesus’ name. And yet, that’s exactly where Jesus is, standing in the midst of that insanity, with hands of grace and mercy open wide. So what does it mean for us that the Word became flesh, one of us, all of us? Do we see him now in all his distressing disguises – rich and poor; ashamed and proud; addicted and in recovery; in prison and on the streets; inside the church and walking away; sweeping the floor and swinging at a cleric? If Christmas teaches us anything, it’s that God shows up when we don’t expect it and in ways we often cannot fully comprehend until the moment is long passed.

Writer Madeline L’Engle sums up her answer to the question – What does it mean that the Word became flesh? – in her poem First Coming. She writes:

"He did not wait until the world was ready,

Till men and nations were at peace.

He came when the Heavens were unsteady,

And prisoners cried out for release. 

He did not wait for the perfect time.

He came when the need was deep and great.

He dined with sinners in all their grime,

Turned water into wine.

He did not wait till hearts were pure.

In joy he came to a tarnished world of sin and doubt.

To a world like ours, of anguished shame

He came to a world which did not mesh,

To heal its tangles, shield its scorn.

In the Mystery of the Word made Flesh

The Maker of the stars was born.

We cannot wait till the world is sane

To raise our songs with joyful voice,

For to share our grief, to touch our pain,

He came with Love: Rejoice! Rejoice!"

We can always count on Christmas to come, but every year it seems to buck our expectations. The same was true when the Word became flesh. Every expectation was shattered. Divinity was born where the world feels most unworthy, into poverty rather than splendor. So maybe ours is not to reason why, nor to have expectations of our own, but to simply meet the Infinite who has folded himself into our finite nature and love him. Love him by extending grace and forgiveness and healing to all, even the undeserving. Love him by daring to go into the darkest corners of ourselves and letting his light shine on the parts that we wish we could hide away. Love him with the love he had for us when the Word became flesh, and the flesh was not ashamed.

The Wisdom of Thistlehair

How many of you know the legend of Thistlehair the Christmas Bear? Spreading the good news everywhere? About Christmas time and what it means to all the children of the world. Every little boy and girl out there loves Thistlehair. I first learned of old Thistlehair from the Southworth family when Kristen and I started dating. Oh I knew of Rudolph, and Frosty, and Santa, but not Thistlehair, who comes around this time of year spreading lots of Christmas cheer; the kids all love his shiny coat and the smell of honey on his nose. I searched far and wide for a video, even a picture of Thistlehair, but alas, all that exists is the song that bears his name, courtesy of the true kings of 80s and 90s country music: Alabama, who wrote about Thistlehair to give kids another magical character to believe in during this magical season. I cherish listening to this song every year, if for no other reason, then it gave us the most brilliant musical lyric of all time: “He tells us all about the star....and everything that it stands far!” Oh Thistlehair, the Christmas Bear! Click the video at the end of this post to listen for yourselves. Alabama will make believers outta all y’all!

Actual vinyl single for Alabama's Thistlehair the Christmas Bear

That line, that one spectacular line! He tells us all about the star and everything that it stands far! My favorite service of the year at my little church growing up was the midnight Christmas Eve service. We started at 11 pm, so that always meant that it was Christmas as we drove home. And I’d look up at the bright sky – the good thing about growing up in Appalachia is that you got plenty of stars to light the way home – and I’d think about that star. Maybe not everything it stands far, but I’d wonder if one of those stars that I was looking at was the same star that shone in the Palestinian night over the place where Jesus lay, the light that led the shepherds from their fields and would lead the Magi to their great Epiphany. As I told our folks on Christmas Eve, it’ll be dark when we leave church, and I wonder still, if one of those stars shining on us, is the same one they saw.

So what does it stand far...or for, if you’re not into the whole brevity thing? Does it stand for the Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace foretold by the prophet Isaiah? Does it stand for a new song that the whole earth is singing to our God, as Psalm 96 declares? Does it stand for the grace of God that has appeared, bringing salvation to all, as in the Letter to Titus? It stands for all these things, yes, but I suspect so, so much more.

It is the light that stands for the Light; that which broke at creation, shining in the darkness, yet the darkness did not overcome it, and does not overcome it still. The Light of the world. A child born in a cattle stall. His mother Miriam, herself named after the sister of Moses the liberator, named him, in her native tongue, Yeshua, the same name as Moses’ successor, who led their people into the Promised Land; a name that means “God saves.” He will be great, an angel had told her when her unplanned pregnancy was announced. Yes, he will, but right now he is merely a child, wrapped in the arms of his mother, held safe and warm. He will stand for many things throughout his life – good news for the poor, justice for the downtrodden, liberation for the prisoner, forgiveness for the sinner, hope for the lost, and an end for tyrants. Above and beyond all this, as his mother holds him, he stands for love.

Love often gets dressed up, like a house at Christmastime. Neat and tidy. But those of us who know love in its deepest, most profound form know that it is rarely either of those things. True love, agape love, divine love, gets messy. The birth of Yeshua, or Jesus in our tongue, certainly was messy, like our own. Sweat and blood permeated the atmosphere. A child born on the margins, born under suspicious circumstances. This the beginning of the Gospel according to scandal, as composer and lyricist Tony Brown writes in his Child In the Dirt, that holiness is born in the places we hide. Such is the love of God that enters the world, not through clean doors but through open wounds. That love that is the Light of all creation.

There is no place in all of existence where the Light cannot get in. There are those who would have us believe otherwise; strong men try to snuff out the Light, like the Caesars and Herods of old, leaving bitterness, sadness, and hate in their wake, but they cannot succeed. They could not then, and they will not now. In the same Palestinian fields where the shepherds lay keeping their sheep, where that star shines still, a group of Anglicans and Lutherans gathered on Christmas Eve to sing carols in Arabic and English, reading once again this story, the greatest story ever told, of the extraordinary events that brought divinity into the messiness of human fragility. They did so with understandable fear and concern, as a new illegal outpost set up by a settler group has been built nearby, threatening deeper disasters in Bethlehem, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank than they have yet known. Their carols rang out the joyful declaration of God’s presence among us, yet they were also an act of defiance and resistance. Theirs are the open wounds in which the love of God once more enters the world as the star shines upon them.

The fields of Palestine where people sang Christmas carols in the midst of an illegal settlement construction.

We do not have to squint to find such places. In his collection Love Poems from God, Daniel  Ladinsky paraphrases and expands upon an original poem by the 16th century mystic San Juan de la Cruz: “If you want, the virgin will come walking down the road, pregnant with the holy, and say, ‘I need shelter for the night, please take me inside your heart, my time is so close.’ Then, under the roof of your soul, you will witness the sublime intimacy, the divine, the Christ, taking birth forever, as she grasps your hand for help; for each of us is the midwife of God, each of us. Yes, there, under the dome of your being does creation come into existence eternally, through your womb, dear pilgrim, the sacred womb of your soul, as God grasps our arms for help. For each of us is a beloved servant, never far. If you want, the virgin will come, walking down the street, pregnant with light, and sing.”

If you want. If we want. If we want to see the star and all it stands far we don’t have to look....far. Amongst the wreckage of hospitals in Gaza, in immigrant detention centers, and under over passes, and the Christ Light is brought into the world again. In the moments when folks as poor as shepherds and as wise as Magi stand up to tyrants determined to plaster their names across the world and say “No more of this!” the virgin gives birth anew to the song that casts down the mighty and lifts up the lowly. This is a messy world of ours, and humanity itself is a messy lot, but it is into such a mess that love was personified, coming in lowliness then, and coming in lowliness still. A more modern mystic, blessed Thomas Merton, wrote that “Though it is a race dedicated to many absurdities and one which makes many terrible mistakes, yet with all that, God glorified Godself in becoming a member of the human race.” Merton knew what the angels sang out to the shepherds, what Mother Mary pondered in her heart, what the star that shone in that cattle stall meant: that everything, every single piece of creation, in all of its messiness, especially our own often flawed and broken human condition, has been redeemed through the grace brought to us in the physical presence of the One who gave breath to it all in the first place. If that ain’t good news, I don’t know what is! A gift, a Christmas gift, if you will, unearned and undeserved; the gift of grace that finds its deepest meaning when it is given away. 

The best part of that song about Thistlehair is that Alabama doesn’t elaborate on what the star actually stands far. It’s almost as if we have to figure that out for ourselves. What about you? The star, the child, his mother, the shepherds; the world as it was, the world as it is, the world as we hope and pray it could be. Will you tell them? Will you go tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born, tell people that grace, love, and mercy have been given to humanity, as tender and vulnerable as a child, and powerful as the great I AM? Will you tell them all about the star, and everything that it stands far?

Thistlehair the Christmas Bear

A Different Kind of Restoration

'Again the LORD spoke to Ahaz, saying, Ask a sign of the LORD your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven. But Ahaz said, I will not ask, and I will not put the LORD to the test. Then Isaiah said: “Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary mortals, that you weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel. He shall eat curds and honey by the time he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good. For before the child knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land before whose two kings you are in dread will be deserted.”'

--Isaiah 7: 10-16

Hear, O Shepherd of Israel, leading Joseph like a flock; * shine forth, you that are enthroned upon the cherubim.

In the presence of Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh, * stir up your strength and come to help us.

Restore us, O God of hosts; * show the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved.

O LORD God of hosts, * how long will you be angered despite the prayers of your people?

You have fed them with the bread of tears; * you have given them bowls of tears to drink.

You have made us the derision of our neighbors, * and our enemies laugh us to scorn.

Restore us, O God of hosts; * show the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved.

Let your hand be upon the man of your right hand, * the son of man you have made so strong for yourself.

And so will we never turn away from you; * give us life, that we may call upon your Name.

Restore us, O LORD God of hosts; * show the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved.

--Psalm 80: 1-7, 16-18

'Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means, “God is with us.” 

When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.'

--Matthew 1: 18-25

I have a bad habit of breaking ceramic communion vessels.  I seriously damaged a favorite paten – that’s the plate for the bread – in a move some time ago, and in the first parish where I served after seminary, I dropped a chalice on the floor of my office, shattering it to pieces. It was made by the parent of one of my youth group kids in the place where I served seminary, so I was really bummed, but one of the staff members said she could patch it up. I didn’t believe her. There was no way to fix this damage. She said she could do it, asked me to trust her, and wouldn’t ya know who won the pony….she did it. But when she gave the chalice back to me, it was changed. What are these lines, I asked? That’s the lacquer holding it together; it’s restored, but the brokenness is still visible. That’s when I learned about the Japanese practice of kintsugi. When a piece of glass or pottery is broken it’s not thrown away, but is instead joined back together with lacquer mixed with gold, silver or platinum. Kintsugi means “golden joinery.” It is an act of restoration, and I would add, an act of trust. 

Kintsugi

Advent is a season rooted in the deep, deep hope for the world to be restored. We anticipate not only Jesus’ birth but also his coming again with glory – his Second Advent – that we name in our Creed; and how many of us pray for that day to come so that Jesus may restore what has been broken? As we look back on the past year – sweet Jesus, what a year! – how can we not pray for the world to be restored, for the evils that have been committed to be wiped out, and for basic human decency to become normal again? I have to believe that God is restoring all things, yes, but I wonder if God’s restoration looks less like a return to the way things were and more like kintsugi; and if that’s the case, how much do I trust God to perform that restoration if it’s not going to look like what I want?

To pray for restoration is a deep, abiding prayer that we make this time of year. Our words echo the Psalmist: “Restore us, O God of hosts; show the light of your countenance and we shall be saved.” This cry is so profound, the pain in the Psalmist’s voice so deep, that the line is repeated three times, just to make sure God hears it – or maybe to make sure we hear it. The Psalmist  recalls a time when God’s people had moved so far away from God that it felt as though their prayers had gone unanswered, that God was giving them bowls of tears to drink. That pain is not forgotten or covered up, but it is named and brought before God along with the cry for restoration. Whatever new thing is going to happen, whatever is restored, will not discard the pain of the past, but will transform it. The Psalmist, it would seem, trusts in God to do this.

One person who very much did not trust in God was King Ahaz, with whom the Prophet Isaiah got into a bit of a tiff. Ahaz is regarded as one of the bad kings of Israel, a person who was more interested in maintaining his own power and position. He was paranoid, fearful of enemies amassing on his border, despite Isaiah telling him not to fear and to trust God, who even has Isaiah tell Ahaz to ask for a sign – a way for God, for God’s part, to show a kind of trust in Ahaz by offering to do something that God doesn’t generally like to do. But Ahaz says no thanks; God gets annoyed and tells him that he’s getting a sign anyway, a sign for the restoration of Israel that Ahaz is hoping for. See that pregnant woman over there? She’s going to give birth, not to a mighty warrior God who is vengeful in a world obsessed with getting even, but a child so vulnerable, so at one with the goodness and mercy of God that the child’s title will be God-With-Us.

Bad King Ahaz offering a child at a pagan altar.

Yes, the restoration Ahaz seeks is a promise that God makes, but it doesn’t look like things being restored with Ahaz standing tall as king. It looks much more vulnerable – more tender and mild, if you will – and Bad King Ahaz ain’t gonna be too happy about that. 

But Isaiah trusts in this restoration. People will continue to trust in it when they are taken into exile for 70 years. And again, when a foreign king permits them to return home, they will trust in this same promise of restoration, assured now that the child Isaiah spoke of will come through the line of David, the great king and Psalmist. That trust lingers in people’s minds for centuries until it is stirred up once again in Joseph, a carpenter from Nazareth descended from the house of David—and, just so you know if you read the 17 verses that precede our selection this morning, also descended from folks of questionable repute, including a bunch of really bad kings.  Joseph is told by an angel that not only will the child his fiancé Mary is carrying be holy, but he will be the agent through which God will restore the world.  He will be the promised Emmanuel, “God with us.” Joseph has a choice, to trust God or to trust what seems much more logical, that Mary’s child is not from the Holy Spirit, and that he should dismiss her quietly. Jospeh chooses to trust, as Isaiah did, as the Psalmist did. He sees the pregnancy through with Mary, and they name their son Jeshua, or Joshua, which means “God saves;” from the Hebrew Jesuha, to the Latin Jesu, and finally to our lips in English as Jesus. 

St. Jospeh and Jesus

Jesus does, indeed, save and restore the world, but it seems his restoration looks a lot like kitsugi, wouldn’t you say? The brokenness of the world was not erased by Jesus’ presence; it’s still there, only now Jesus becomes the lacquer that holds it all together. The chalice that was broken and restored can’t be used on a regular basis anymore – the more often it gets washed, the more likely it is to break again. Its purpose has changed; it’s a tool for teaching more than a vessel for the Sacrament. Might the same be true for us, who carry some broken pieces ourselves? We hold them gingerly in our hands as we come to the Table and reach out with that refrain: “Restore us, O God.”  Take these broken pieces of our lives and help us find new meaning, new purpose. And as Jesus takes those pieces from our hands he gives us his very self in a morsel of bread, a sip of wine, medicine of immortality; the lacquer that restores our broken selves, not for the purpose of ignoring or forgetting our pain, but so that they may become teachable moments of grace, and for our tender and sometimes daunting days. 

When we allow God to reorganize our lives so that the Christ child becomes our central reality, everything changes; from the way we see the world to the way we read our own story. We might resist the change; in fact, we are likely to resist it. But deep down we know, that the promises of our God who makes all things new are sure and trustworthy. So the question that this final week of Advent offers us is the same question Isaiah posed to Ahaz, that the angel posed to Jospeh. That question is this:  Will you trust this child to put the pieces back together, to restore your brokenness and that of the world, even if it means you’ll never be the same?

Heed the Message

'A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The spirit of the LORD shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding,  the spirit of counsel and might,  the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD. His delight shall be in the fear of the LORD. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his loins. The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder's den. They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea. On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious.'

--Isaiah 11: 1-10

'In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said,

“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’”

Now John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance. Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

“I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”'

--Matthew 3: 1-12

The second Sunday of Advent is one of those days that makes me chuckle a bit. Because despite the fact that when I read the text from Matthew I said,  “The Gospel of the Lord,” the Lord Jesus doesn’t actually make an appearance. It’s more like the Gospel of John the Baptist. Did you know that there is a small religious group that believe John the Baptist was the Messiah and the last of the prophets? They’re called the Mandaeans, and their number ranges from about 60,000-200,000 followers worldwide, most of whom are in Iran, Syria, and Jordan. This is a Mandaean Gospel if ever there was one, but that doesn’t make it any less of a Christian message, just because it’s John’s time to shine. The Baptist is both the inheritor of the prophetic witness of folks like Isaiah and the forerunner of Jesus; and they all are, effectively, calling folks to heed a particular message. 

The Baptist.

That message is one of metanoia, a Greek word that means “to turn oneself around,” and is generally translated into English as “repentance.” It can be a loaded word, and to be sure, a lot of preachers have misused it in such a fashion that folks think that it means they have to beat themselves up. To practice metanoia, though, is not to drown in self-imposed punishment, but to re-orient one’s self – heart, mind, and spirit – toward the grace, mercy, and love of God. It’s a paradigm shift, a changing of one’s whole attitude and self.

Jesus himself uses the word metanoia 14 different times, and like John, he will use that word in conjunction with another word that has been somewhat misused and misrepresented in our modern parlance, hamartia, which is an archery term meaning “to miss the mark,” but that gets translated into English as “sin.” John, as the forerunner, sets the stage for Jesus, urging people to heed this message of turning from their sins. To turn, to repent, as John articulates it, is itself a way of coming closer to God. Whatever drove the Pharisees and Sadducees out to see what John was up to was of a curiosity than a genuine desire to turn themselves around, which might be why John calls them a brood of vipers, an insult even Jesus will employ after John’s death. 

John’s message of repentance is one that calls folks to a sense of responsibility, looking deep into their own hearts and being truly honest with themselves, not hiding behind their egos or their place within a given community. The Pharisees and Sadducees were satisfied with being children of Abraham, that seems to have been enough for them. Modern Christians, too, have a version of that. We are satisfied with calling Jesus our Lord and belonging to a specific church. That seems to be enough. But such an attitude runs the risk of viewing sin as a kind of psychological dilemma, purely spiritual in nature, and not tied to the choices that we make on a daily basis. We pray, “God, guard my heart!” but then we get all out of sorts by what some might call “first world problems.” We ask Jesus, “Make me more prayerful, help me carve out time for spiritual practices!”, but then we say to him, “Geez, look at my schedule?! Maybe I’ll try again tomorrow.” We ask for the mental assent to new life, but how often do we get to the actions that lead to the life-changing turn? We become like the car whose blinker keeps indicating that it’s going to turn any minute now….and is still blinking 10, 20, 30 miles later.

John’s invitation, which Jesus will carry forth, is to prove by the very way we live that we have, indeed, begun to turn. And make no mistake, this is not a one-time thing. We don’t suddenly turn around and realize we’ve got it all figured out – “Oh hey, Jesus! Didn’t see ya there!” - and keep walking along, now fully changed or enlightened. It takes doing again and again, that’s why metanoia is a spiritual practice; we gotta work at it all the time. It’s not a destination, it’a journey, one we embark on through prayer, personal confession, and those other practices that turn us away from our egos and toward the transformed life that Jesus has to give us. There’s a lovely story about when Father Thomas Keating, the architect of Centering Prayer, was leading a group of nuns in the practice, and one of the sisters approached him after they had done the exercise of 20 minutes of silence, and she said, “Oh Fr. Keating! I’m so bad at this. During the silence my mind went off in a hundred different directions, and I just feel awful!” Fr. Keating, smiling, said, “Oh wonderful! A hundred opportunities to turn back to God!” 

Father Thomas Keating.

The world is fixing to turn, and we are invited every day this Advent season to heed this message of continually turning toward the grace, mercy, and love of God; for in this message is the hope that God is working something new in our lives, something that bespeaks God again breaking into the world.  The vision from the prophet Isaiah is one of the most beautiful and powerful in all of Scripture, and it is all about metanoia.  A stump shall come up out of the tree of Jesse.  A stump, that which symbolizes death where there once was life.  But even a stump has roots, and lo and behold a shoot will sprout from those roots.  And what’s more, all living creatures will turn themselves around, the prey will lie with the predators, the former having let God quell their fear, and the latter surrendering to God their predatory instincts.  In their midst, a little child, the most vulnerable of all, will lead them. As Christians we read Jesus into this vision—he, a descendant of Jesse, is that promised shoot, that little child for whose birth we prepare —but those who first heard this vision would’ve known how it signals the birth of a new innocence in which trust, gentleness, and friendship are possible in an often-cruel world.  The whole creation is turning and moving in a new way; we need only ask to be shown where the moments are for us to turn, so that we finally click that blinker off. 

I cannot help but think, on a day like this with readings like these, of Rory Cooney’s Canticle of the Turning, an Advent song usually sung to the old Irish tune Star of the County Down. Our congregation sang it on Sunday, and below is a video of a virtual choir rendition they offered during the pandemic:  “My heart shall sing of the day you bring, let the fires of your justice burn; wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near; and the world is about to turn.”  Creation itself is turning, repenting. Perhaps if we all can heed the message, practice metanoia from our hamartia in the small, daily ways, then the bigger, systemic ways, will become more manageable, and this world can finally look like the loved, liberated, and life-giving place that God has always envisioned. 

The Church of the Advocate's virtual choir singing The Canticle of the Turning.

Again and Again and Again

'Jesus said to the disciples, “But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”'

--Matthew 24: 36-44

Here we go again. Another season – Advent – and the start of another church year – what we call Year A. I find great beauty and comfort in it, the rhythms and the routines of our liturgical cycle. As our secular calendar prepares to turn over, the Church gets something of a head start, moving into a mindset of preparedness for what is to come. It’s an old dance, but I’m always happy to join it again and again and again.

Still, the readings for the First Sunday of Advent always take me by surprise. I expect the gospel to be the opening lines of Matthew, which give us Jesus’ lineage and genealogy going back to Abraham, or at the very least I figure it’s going to be Matthew’s backstory of Jesus’ birth, which mostly focuses on Joseph. It throws me for a loop that our first Gospel for Advent in Year A features Jesus preaching about that day of many names: the Second Advent, Second Coming, the Eschaton, the Day of Resurrection, the Day of the Lord, the End Times, the End of the Age, take your pick.

When I hear this passage I think of a sermon preached by the Rev. Cleophus James at the Triple Rock Baptist Church in Calumet City, IL. Rev. Cleophus said in that sermon, “don’t be lost when your time comes; for the day of the Lord is coming as a thief in the night!” The congregation followed up with a singing of Old Landmark and dancing up and down the aisle. 

Reverend Cleophus James preaches to the flock at the Triple Rock Baptist Church.

I wish I could say I heard that sermon in-person, but I didn’t because Triple Rock Baptist Church doesn’t exist, and the Rev. Cleophus James was a character played by the late-Godfather of Soul, James Brown, and the sermon and song-and-dance routine are from an early scene in my favorite live-action movie, The Blues Brothers. That film will preach, y'all! There’s good news in Reverend Cleophus’ sermon; good news that Jesus imparts in his own sermon to our ancestors and to us even still; though it might not seem so at first glance.

The thought of Jesus sneaking up on us at some unknown hour doesn’t exactly sound like the good kind of news, am I right? Considering the stress that we are already under – like, all the time – now we have to guard against a surprise visit from Jesus? To borrow a line from Seinfeld: I hate the pop-in (and I bet many of y’all do too)! To constantly be at red alert, under threat of intrusion, even by Jesus, whom we profess to love, sounds utterly exhausting. Can’t he at least send a text first?

Wonder if Debbie is ready...

Realistically, though, does it seem likely to any of us that Jesus actually wants to scare us into readiness? He’s not some cartoonish evil engineer, stepping off the train as it races forward at top speed, leaving us to steer the thing, then threating punishment if it gets off-track. He’s the same Jesus who will say at the end of Matthew’s Gospel, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Maybe this dire warning of his – and the many more we will hear in this Gospel throughout the year – are not merely about a future day that we affirm in our Creed will eventually come; maybe warnings such as this one are about all of our days.

To be on guard against some spectacular, sky-breaking day, whose date is unknown can leave us feeling even more anxious and unprepared. To know that Jesus comes unexpectedly EVERY DAY, though, changes our lives and hour whole perspective. Now each situation, each place, each person is where Jesus is apt to appear. Life becomes less of a threat and more of an adventure. Jesus showing up again – and again and again – maybe even today(!) - becomes the expectation that he will, no doubt show up soon and very soon. We become like the congregation of early Christians in Rome to whom Paul reminded, “Keep awake!” Or, in our more modern parlance: stay woke! 

I asked our Bible Study group last week: how many Second Comings have y’all survived? Passages like this Gospel text today may evoke thoughts of our more evangelical siblings and their penchant for trying to predict when Jesus is coming again to judge the quick and the dead. I wonder what kinds of fears and anxieties are at work in the hearts, as they feel it so necessary to get that date right. Perhaps there is grief over what is going on in their lives at the present moment – I’m sure we can all understand that – and they try to almost will Jesus to come on back and take them away from all of the pain and suffering they see. It’s that bargaining phase of grief, an effort to make sense of what we is being experienced. If we can fine-tune when he’s going to get here, we can be ready; it’s a form of maintaining control. Yet Jesus himself says that it is not our place, nor is it even his place, to know when such a moment will occur. That privilege belongs only to God. So maybe it isn’t about being anxious or fearful of the future. Maybe it is in the present moment – all of our present moments, from now until that day – that we are called to practice making room in ourselves for his arrival, or noticing him when he already shows up in our neighbor. In our churches we engage in spiritual practices of prayer, study, and mindfulness; we meet him at the Table, and we see him in one another, as we pass the Peace, we welcome the stranger, and we break bread together after worship. Yet if Sunday morning is merely the dress rehearsal for the rest of our lives – as one colleague of mine is prone to say – then what could it mean for us, as we head back out into the world, to have that kind of mindful preparedness, to anticipate Jesus’ arrival wherever and with whomever we go? At the gas station, the grocery store, or the Target: what if we prepared to see Jesus there?

The opportunities for Jesus to surprise us are there every day. From the moment our open our physical eyes up to the moment they close, there is the possibility that they the eyes of our hearts can be open to some sort of heavenly breakthrough. Maybe that’s our prayer this Advent: to have those eyes to see, to have the curiosity so as to be surprised, to prepare with all our heart, all our soul, and all our mind, for Jesus’ arrival.

Noah, Jesus reminds us, prepared for what was to come, even during the sunny days. Though his neighbors scoffed at him, though he could have tried predicting when the rains would start to fall, he prepared each day as if that could be the moment. Advent is the time for us to make such preparation. The more we prepare, the less anxious we become, and the more ready we are for Jesus’ Second Advent, whenever that may be.

German theologian Karl Barth said that we live between Creation and Re-Creation. It’s a liminal space, this life of ours. Ferris Bueller said that life comes at us fast, and if we don’t slow down, we might miss it. We dare not miss those moments, sisters and brothers. We dare not be numb to the world around us so much that we miss the opportunity each moment presents for Jesus to show up again…and again…and again. 

Superhero or Savior?

When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. Then Jesus said, "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing." And they cast lots to divide his clothing. The people stood by, watching Jesus on the cross; but the leaders scoffed at him, saying, "He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!" The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine, and saying, "If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!" There was also an inscription over him, "This is the King of the Jews."

One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, "Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!" But the other rebuked him, saying, "Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong." Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." He replied, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise."

--Luke 23: 33-43

One of my favorite philosophers is Homer…Simpson. He is so wise. One of my favorite of Homer’s teachings occurred during a time when he inexplicably found himself floating down a river in a cherry picker as his daughter Lisa looked on helplessly from the shore. Homer clasped his hands in his hour of need and looked up to heaven and said, “I’m not normally a praying man, but if you’re up there, please save me, Superman!”

Homer praying.

Homer wanted a hero to swoop down and save the day; and who could blame him? Superheroes are the ideal versions of ourselves, the ones who are always there to rescue us from the muck that we get ourselves into. In the early fall my parish held a class called Supergods, where we talked about how characters like Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, are modern-day mythological heroes, divine-like beings who do the kind of saving that, frankly, we might sometimes wish God would do. How often have we, like Homer, clasped our hands and prayed for someone to save us from our time of trial, maybe even swooping down from the sky with a cape flapping in the wind? Is this our image of the Divine?

It should come as no surprise to us even now that folks in Jesus’ own time thought of him as something like this kind of hero, one who would rescue everybody and fix their problems. Plenty of people still do. Jesus, after all, was the promised Messiah, the King of Israel, the one who would overthrow the tyranny of Rome and replace it with a new version of the old Kingdom that his ancestor David had reigned over; and like King David, he would be a conquering hero, super even. That was the hope, anyway.

They wanted a king. Some still do. This past Sunday was the Feast of Christ the King, a day that was created in 1925 to remind faithful followers of Jesus, during the rise of European fascism, that Jesus alone must reign in their hearts and minds, and not the State or its would-be kings and dictators. Pope Pius XI, who established Christ the King Sunday, called it a day of joy, which is why I wore white vestments. So where do we find Jesus our sovereign on this joyful, feast of the Church? At the place called the Skull.

Icon of Jesus being crucified among the criminals.

It's here that the King of Glory reigns. Instead of a throne, there is a cross. Instead of crown of jewels we have one of thorns. Instead of subjects praising and adoring Jesus we have soldiers and religious leaders and passers-by mocking and deriding him. This isn’t an image of kingship, of majesty, and power. It’s a joke, a mockery of the very concept, and the only one who seems in on it, who even begins to understand, is a criminal who is hanging there with Jesus.

This exchange between Jesus and the other two men being crucified only appears in Luke’s version of the story, and it’s quite telling. The original Greek word used to describe the criminals is kakourgos, literally meaning, ‘workers of evil.’  These were not robbers or thugs, these were seditionists, insurrectionists, militants who had carried out plots against the tyranny of the empire. Not exactly a royal court for Christ the King.   Still, in this moment we see the qualities that mark his kingdom.  He pleads to God, “Father, forgive them!” on behalf of those mocking him and putting him to death.  The first criminal joins in the derision, hearing Jesus’ words of forgiveness and paying them no mind, as he is only interested in what Jesus can do for him now.  The second, however, hears Jesus’ words, and he seeks a place in such a kingdom, where the defining characteristic is pardon, not punishment, where even condemned criminals can be redeemed:  “Jesus,” he begs, “remember me.”  And Jesus’ offers grace in his reply to this man, whom the Church will remember by the name of Dismas, telling him that he will be with Jesus in Paradise. Forgiveness for his executioners and grace for criminal – the qualities of Christ’s kingdom.

Saint Dismas.

This is a complete flipping of every idea that the world has ever had about kingship, sovereignty, and power. But that’s the point. Of the Jesus story and of this feast day. Throughout Luke’s Gospel, which we’ve been reading all year, Jesus has been telling us, in his own words spoken through parables what his kingdom –  what he called the Kingdom of Heaven – looks like: a wasteful, prodigal child returning to a father’s loving arms; a hated outsider, a foreigner, serving as the model of neighborly behavior; a shepherd foolishly going off to find one lost sheep; a rich man’s feast open to the poor and marginalized. A day called Christ the King may seem to invite a Gospel reading like Matthew, chapter 24, with images of Jesus coming with the angels, riding on the clouds and shining like the sun at the trumpet call, but instead we get Jesus being crucified, labeled among the enemies of the state, because the kingship of Jesus is summed up right here at the cross: that if Jesus is king, no one else, not even Caesar, can be.

In his excellent book, The Cross and the Lynching Tree, Dr. James Cone writes that the Gospel of Jesus is not a rational concept to be explained in a theory of salvation, but a story about God’s presence in Jesus’ solidarity with the oppressed, which led to his death on the cross. What is redemptive is the faith that God snatches victory out of defeat, life out of death, and hope out of despair. The Christian Gospel, he goes on to say, is an immanent reality, a powerful liberating presence among the poor right now in their midst. The Gospel is found wherever poor people struggle. This is the lesson of the cross. It’s not a superhero saving the day; it’s a Savior who suffers in solidarity.

Jesus reigns from the cross, from that place of suffering. Jesus reigns in hospice houses, homeless shelters, and prison cells. Lately, Jesus has been reigning in the Home Depot parking lots around the Triangle of North Carolina, and at the detention center in Alamance County that’s been used to house those illegally detained. Border Patrol and ICE agents rolled into North Carolina like thuggish Roman soldiers, hellbent on intimidating people into submission. In the same way that they crucified the Prince of Peace in a public space so that onlookers could see “This is what happens when you defy the emperor!” they arrest innocent men, women, and children in an attempt to bully our immigrant neighbors – namely those who are people of color, let’s be honest – into giving up and going “back where they came from.” Stay here and defy our would-be emperor, and you’ll get the same treatment, they say. 

ICE agents in Durham.

Many were met with good old fashioned North Carolina resistance and have fled like the cowards they are. Others remain in cities all over the country, but what they don’t know is that they have already lot. Because the one we follow, the one so many of our immigrant neighbors follow, the one we love, the one we call our king, our sovereign, our Lord, our Savior, and our friend, is not a superhuman hero that will come fix all of our problems if we say the right prayer to him; he reigns from the cross. He who knows suffering is found in the very places where his people suffer, and in that solidarity he will transform their despair into hope, just as he transformed that ugly Friday afternoon into a gloriously beautiful Sunday morning. 

If we want to see our king reigning in his glory here and now, all we need to do is go to the cross, go to the places where suffering is so real, so present, and just be there, in solidarity with the suffering poor, especially our immigrant neighbors right now, and we will see his kingdom in real time, a kingdom, that we affirm in our Nicene Creed, will have no end. As the Greek scholar Preston Epps once wrote:  the kingdom of humanity says assert yourself, the kingdom of Christ says humble yourself; the kingdom of humanity says retaliate, the kingdom of Christ says forgive; the kingdom of humanity says get and accumulate, the kingdom of Christ says give and share.  So which kingdom will we claim?