Supreme Blessedness

'Jesus came down with the twelve apostles and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.

Then he looked up at his disciples and said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets."

But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets."'

--Luke 6: 17-26

Have you ever been to the grocery store, or a fast food place, and the person ringing you up finishes the transaction with something like, “Have a blessed day!”? Anyone else experience that. It’s a nice sentiment, isn’t it? Have a blessed day. But sometimes, if I’m really thinking about it in the moment, I feel this urge to ask them: What do you mean by blessed? Do you want me to be poor and hungry? To weep and be hated? I’m sure they don’t mean that. They’re just trying to be nice, after all. But that’s what happens when you wish blessedness on a priest.

Because it’s obvious that the biblical definition of blessedness differs from our contemporary culture, which is predominantly concerned with the safety and security of the self. This is achieved by way of upward mobility, namely the acquisition of possessions – money, housing, food, etc. To be blessed in our culture is to be among the haves, to pull oneself up by one’s own bootstraps, to rise above being poor, hungry, weeping, or hated. We’ve all seen interviews with famous folks who say they’re just so blessed to have so much. I ask you: is this what it means to be blessed, according to the teachings of Jesus? Or is blessedness something else?

Most of you blog readers, I suspect, are familiar with the term ‘beatitude.’ It comes from the Latin word beatus and first shows up in Middle English. It means supreme or divine blessedness.  I also suspect that most of you, when you hear that word, think immediately about Jesus’ famous Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew. That sermon, which spans three chapters, starts out with a series of 10 pronouncements of supreme blessedness, which we have collectively given the title of The Beatitudes: blessed are the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, those who are persecuted, those who are reviled, and those who are met with persecutions for Jesus’ sake.

Icon of Jesus pronouncing the Beatitudes

What if I told you, though, that these are not the only Beatitudes that Jesus pronounced? Whereas in the Gospel of Matthew Jesus gives these pronouncements of blessedness on a mountainside – mirroring Moses giving the Law to the people on Mt. Sinai – the Gospel of Luke, which is written to a Gentile audience, brings Jesus down into the plain, among the people. And rather than 10, Luke reduces the list of beatitudes to four. This Sermon on the Plain is more condensed and harder to spiritualize than the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew’s pronouncements are amorphous, generalized statements – blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are the merciful – as if Jesus were talking about people who exist “out there” somewhere. Luke, meanwhile, makes the pronouncements much more direct: blessed are YOU who are poor, the very people in the crowd, the very people who have been listening to and following Jesus. This message is for them. Blessed are you who are poor; you who are hungry; you who weep; and you who are hated. Blessed are you if you fall into these categories. Really?

How many of us would say to a wheelchair-bound panhandler at the intersection, “You’re so blessed!”? Not many, I’d reckon. But why would we? We measure blessedness by the standards of our culture, which are the standards of privilege. Blessedness means having money, it means a full belly, it means laughing and dancing, and being admired. We would never tell the panhandler that they are blessed because, I suspect, we don’t truly believe it. That’s our cultural standards, not Jesus’ standards.

After the four beatitudes Luke adds something that Matthew doesn’t include: four pronouncements of woe, on the rich, the full, the laughing, and the well regarded. These are the very ones that our culture would call blessed. These are the qualities, I believe, that the kid ringing me up at the grocery store is thinking of when he says he hopes I have a blessed day. Taken to its logical conclusion, this line of thinking is made manifest in the heretical Prosperity Gospel, which says that God, actually, wants the poor to be rich, that your blessedness is measured in your material possessions, your prestige, your position of power. The Prosperity Gospel isn’t just preached among those of means, but also in poor communities, where the message is that upward mobility for the poor is, in fact, a sign of God’s favor. The goal, says the Prosperity Gospel, is for the poor to become rich. That’s supreme blessedness.

It is not the Gospel of Jesus. The goal is not for the poor to become rich but for the rich to become poor. Think of the rich young man whom Jesus tells to sell everything and redistribute the wealth, or the early Christian communities in Acts – also written by the author of Luke’s Gospel – in which the rich freely sold their land and possessions in order that everyone in the community had enough and no one could lord anything over anyone. The movement of the Gospel, of Jesus himself, is downward mobility, the emptying of oneself. The rich are to be sent away empty, as Mary sings in the Magnificat. Then they’ll know true blessedness

For those of us who know the privileges afforded by our station in life, the color of our skin, the money in our bank accounts, or the state of our health, this can feel downright insulting; or at best, we might feel guilty about it. Yet there is wisdom in Jesus’ words because those of us who are poor, hungry, weeping, and hated, know something that those who are rich, full, laughing, and admired do not. They know what it means to long, deeply, from their very soul for God. For the mercy, the peace, the love, and righteousness of God. There is no greater blessing, and most of us don’t know it. Saint Augustine of Hippo said that there is a hole in our very souls that we try to fill with all sorts of things, thinking that they will satisfy us, but that hole is shaped like God, and only God can fill it. When a person doesn’t have what the world would characterize as a blessing – money, food, health – there is nothing else left but God. This is a truth only the suffering know, which is why the privileged in our culture pity the suffering, rather than envy them. The suffering know real blessedness.

Father Gustavo Gutierrez, who died just this past October, coined the term liberation theology, the idea that God has a particular affinity for the poor. He and others like Dr, James Cone, preached that true justice and equality with God and one another does not come by convincing the poor that they are blessed when they have more, but by convincing the privileged that they are blessed when they have less. The aim is solidarity with the suffering by way of emptying oneself. It continues to be the work of organizations like the Poor Peoples Campaign, and truly, it is the call of Christians everywhere who seek to create authentic, equitable, and beloved community. 

Father Gustavo Gutierrez, pioneer of liberation theology.

How might we live into this call? It begins when all is stripped away and we know what it means to long for God on the deepest possible level, for there is no more supreme blessedness. 

Here We Are, Lord!

'In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. And one called to another and said:

"Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory."

The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke. And I said: "Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!"

Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: "Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out." Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I; send me!"' 

--Isaiah 6: 1-8

'Once while Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, "Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch." Simon answered, "Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets." When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, "Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!" For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken; and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, "Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people." When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.'

--Luke 5: 1-11

I spent the summer of 2007 working at the Phoebe Needles Center in Callaway, VA.  Despite its name, Phoebe Needles is neither a hospital, nor a drug rehab clinic but the camp and conference center for the Episcopal Diocese of Southwestern Virginia.  As part of my ordination process, I was encouraged to work at the camp as a counselor, and at the end of each week we would gather around a campfire for a closing liturgy, and almost every time we sang the song Here I Am, Lord.  I had never heard the song before, nor did I know at the time that it was paraphrasing Isaiah, but every time I’ve heard or sang it since, it takes me back to those campfires and to the newly kindled sense of call that I was processing that whole summer. Whom shall I send? Here I am Lord. Is it I, Lord? I have heard you calling in the night. I will go, Lord, if you lead me. I will hold your people in my heart. I can’t tell you the number of people, clergy and lay folk alike, who’ve said that song encapsulates their sense of call, why they do what they do.

That sense of call permeates all three of our readings this week, but especially those from Isaiah and the Gospel. Both the prophet and Simon Peter are called into something that is so much bigger than themselves, something awesome. My great-grandfather Preston Epps, who was a Greek scholar at UNC-Chapel Hill, used to say that awesome was the most overused word in the English language. "That movie was awesome!" "That sandwich was awesome!" "Everything is awesome!" He hated that. But in the cases of these readings, each individual encounters the holy in such a way as to leave them truly in awe. And when caught up in such an awesome moment, their own feelings of inadequacy and fear come through.

View from the Phoebe Needles Center in Callaway, VA.

The book of the prophet Isaiah dates his call to the year King Uzziah died, roughly 742 BCE. Uzziah had died from leprosy, brought on because he arrogantly decided to burn incense to God, which was a task assigned only to the priests. Isaiah describes in great, almost terrifying detail what his call experience was like. This terror leads to recognition and confession, both individually and corporately: “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips.” Yet when a winged seraph flies to him in this vision and touches his mouth with the live coal from the incense fire – a callback to the actions that got Uzziah killed – Isaiah hears God’s call and with a quiet dignity says, “Here am I, send me.”

Unworthiness in the face of the holy is a common theme in Scripture. Simon Peter beholds the might and majesty of Jesus in a miraculous moment in which he and the other fishermen haul in so much that their nets start to burst. Unlike the other Gospels and their stories of the calling of Simon Peter, James, and John, in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus is already well known, and Simon Peter has already hosted him for dinner and asked Jesus to heal his mother-in-law. It isn’t until after the catch, having had a relationship and knowledge on which to base this life-changing decision, that Simon Peter gets it – there seems to be a misconception at times that the disciples just picked up and immediately followed Jesus with no knowledge of him. 

An icon of Jesus, Simon Peter, and the boatloads of fish.

And what is his first reaction upon realizing who Jesus is? It’s to fall down and declare himself a sinful man, not unlike Isaiah. Simon Peter never confesses a specific sin, but like the calling of Isaiah, his confession is met with Jesus first telling him not to be afraid and then issuing his call: you will be catching people, or as the older translations render it, “You will be fishers of men.”

Historically, the Church has sort of fumbled that charge. As theologian Ched Myers points out in his Binding of the Strong Man, there may be no expression more traditionally misunderstood that this call to be "fishers of men.” This metaphor, despite the grand old tradition of missionary interpretation, does not refer to the saving of souls, as if Jesus were conferring upon these fisherfolk some sort of instant evangelist status. Rather, the image is carefully chosen from Jeremiah, chapter 16, where it is used as a symbol of God’s censure of the kingdom of Israel. And elsewhere, the hooking of fish is used as a euphemism for judgment upon the rich and powerful, especially in Amos, chapter 4 and Ezekiel, chapter 29. In light of the historic meaning of his chosen imagery within the lineage of the prophets, Jesus is therefore inviting these common folk to join him in his own mission to overturn the existing order of power and privilege, to turn the world rightside-up.

Whom shall he send? If there is one thing we know from the stories of the prophets, Jesus, and the disciples, it’s that God calls people, whether they like it or not, whether they want it or not. Fate rarely calls upon us at a moment of our choosing. Optimus Prime said that. When corruption amongst the rich has reached its zenith and hope amongst the poor has reached its nadir, God calls. God calls in the midst of fear, impending invasions and hostile takeovers, in the dying of kings and regimes, and in moments of unfaithfulness and uncertainty, God calls because God is still there, in the midst of it all. A truly awesome wonder to behold.

Saint Theresa of Avila said that Christ has no hands but ours, no feet but ours, no heart but ours. As God called Isaiah and lit his tongue with the coal to speak truth to power, and as Jesus beckoned a small group of people to undo oppressive systems by creating community that honored the inherent goodness in all people, we too are being called. Right now, in this moment, in this place. To what exactly, that is for each of us to discern. The call may be to bold action, to public witness by those privileged enough to do so, to the seemingly mundane task of calling elected officials, or even to prayerful solitude on the part of those for whom personal safety is a high priority. God is still in the midst of the fear and uncertainty, asking us even now: whom shall I send?

Saint Theresa of Avila

Our own imposter syndromes may feel like they get in the way, our imperfections too great, sinful people of unclean lips that we are. But as Dr. Brene Brown says in her book The Gifts of Imperfection, “imperfections are not inadequacies; they are reminders that we are all in this together.”  Broken and fearful, vulnerable, and imperfect, sinful yet forgiven, loved, and called.  Together.  We do not walk the way of love alone.  We do not face the powers and principalities of this world by ourselves.  We go together, and now, perhaps more than ever, we need to be reminded of that. Dorothy Day said not to worry being effective, but rather to concentrate on being faithful to the truth. That Truth, with a capital T, is Jesus Christ, who has called us to love and to serve, to pray and break bread in here, that we may do so out there. Whom shall he send? Here we are, Lord, send us. 

Have Mercy!

'Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.

When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."'

--Luke 4: 14-21

A few days ago I saw a social media post that has gone somewhat viral, which said: “I’m doing this challenge called January, where I try to just get through every day in the month of January.” In a normal year January can feel strangely long, but the final fortnight of the month has felt like an entire month by itself.  

On Tuesday, January 20, the 47th President of the United States – who had also served as the 45th – was sworn into office, and immediately, through a slew of executive orders, set at least half the country on a razor’s edge. Everything from the hilariously dumb, yet brazenly arrogant, move of renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gufl of America, to the outright cruelty of denying the very existence of transpeople – particularly those serving in our armed forces – ratcheted up the anxiety and fear of millions of people. For some, the only answer to this was prayer.

The day after the inauguration, the Cathedral Church of St. Peter & St. Paul, commonly called the National Cathedral, invited the new President and others to an interfaith service of prayer for unity in our country. I should mention here that the National Cathedral, despite its name, receives no funding whatsoever from the federal government. It is the cathedral for the Diocese of Washington, and since the administration of FDR has extended its hand as a house of prayer for all people, a unifying force for good and a symbol of God’s glory and love at critical times in the life of the nation, including events related to the office of the President. It is, in a manner of speaking, their chief outreach. 

Because it was coordinated by the Cathedral – not the President or Vice President – the Cathedral staff put the liturgy together and the Bishop of the Diocese of Washington, The Rt. Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, preached. By now, I suspect, everyone has had a chance to see, hear, or read her sermon on that day. If you haven’t, please watch the video below before you continue reading:

Bishop Budde’s sermon was a plea for unity through the divine act of mercy; a preacher in her own pulpit asking the most powerful person in the world to have compassion on those who are living in a state of panic and fear. Her witness was no different from the prophets of the Hebrew Bible or Jesus himself. Yet the response to her sermon did not just go viral, it went full-on nuclear! Right-wing politicians accused her of using her time to bully the President, and one member of the House of Representatives put forth a resolution for Congress to denounce her entirely, saying that hers was a "distorted message" that did not represent Christianity. The President, who himself is a member of and married in (the third time) an Episcopal congregation, responded to the Bishop’s calm, yet firm plea by calling her a “so-called bishop” and saying she was “not very good at her job.” If I’m being honest, I don’t think I would’ve pegged the Episcopal Church as the denomination to which this administration and its sycophants directed all of their rage and mockery, but in a way it makes sense. Because of its history, the Episcopal Church is the denomination tied closest to the presidency, with more Presidents claiming Episcopalian as their religious affiliation than any other. The Episcopal Church has the power and prestige shared by the country’s elites, yet over the last 50 years has gradually shifted its public image to line more with social justice movements and liberation theology. It wears the same clothes as the elites but speaks a different message. Fitting, if not a bit ironic, that it would be an Episcopal Bishop who heroically lit such a candle under the seat of a would-be tyrant and those who kiss his ring. 

Someone online made a post saying that Bishop Budde, while admirable in her conviction, was no hero. She was merely a Christian, doing what all Christians should do: speaking up for the voiceless, giving hope to those who have little, and speaking truth to power. In the days after, I wondered how clergy of all denominations and traditions would respond in their pulpits to both Bishop Budde’s sermon and the fallout from it. Fortunately, our Revised Common Lectionary gave us a Gospel text that is perfect for such an occasion.

An icon of Jesus reading from the Scriptures in the synagogue at Nazareth.

We find Jesus shortly after his baptism, returning to his hometown of Nazareth. There he goes into the synagogue and interprets a piece of Scripture from the prophet Isaiah. This act of interpretation is not bold in and of itself; in fact, the synagogue had always been the place where Scripture was read and interpreted amongst the rabbis gathered. “How is the prophet speaking to us right now?” was something every rabbi was asked, including Jesus. So, what piece of Scripture was he given to interpret?

It is actually a combination of Isaiah 58: 6 and Isaiah 61: 1-2. Both of these are from the post-exilic period, meaning that the prophet wrote them after the empire of Babylon had been defeated by the Persians and the Jews in exile were permitted to return home. The first bit (Isaiah 58: 6) is the prophet’s charge: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.” The second part (Isaiah 61: 1-2) names exactly what that good news is: release to the captives, sight to the blind, freedom for the oppressed, and the year of the Lord’s favor. The bold thing Jesus did was to declare to the people in that synagogue that this Scripture was being fulfilled in their very presence. Spoiler alert: this does not go over well, and the people of Nazareth, his own friends and neighbors, try to kill him afterwards.

Why would such an interpretation be so threatening to people? I suspect it is because the Scripture is speaking of a key element of the Jewish Levitical law: the Jubilee. According to Leviticus 25: 8-13, every 49 years – “unto seven times seven” – all debts were to be forgiven, all property, including land, given back to the original owner, and all prisoners set free. The people would return to the wilderness where they first met God, and the means and cares of the world were to be let go. The Jubilee was inexplicably tied to the Sabbath, to rest and return. It wasn’t just about observing the fourth Commandment. Sabbath formed the theological core of what it meant to be in relationship with this God. It’s about rest, restoration, and a return to God. 

Was the Jubilee ever actually enacted in the kingdoms of Israel or Judah? We can’t say for sure, though David Graeber in his text The First 5000 Years does mention that ancient Near Eastern societies regularly declared noncommercial debts void, typically at the coronation of a new king. Nevertheless, it seems clear to me that this is what Jesus means by saying that the Scripture from Isaiah was being fulfilled at that moment. Jesus, the physical embodiment of God, was declaring a Jubilee, that debts were to be forgiven, that property was to be returned, and that mercy was to be shown, especially to the so-called “least of these.” Then, as now, not many folks were eager to embrace such a message, especially if they were not among the “least of these.” Bishop Budde’s plea to the 47th President was nothing short of a cry for Jubilee, for release, for forgiveness, for mercy. The people of Nazareth tried to kill Jesus after he made such a proclamation. Should we really be surprised that the religious and political right so strongly besmirched Bishop Budde? This is the cost of discipleship. 

In addition to Bishop Budde’s call for mercy, Pope Francis declared 2025 a Jubilee year of hope for Roman Catholics. It’s not the same as the biblical Jubilee, but the Pope’s declaration – though mostly symbolic – does invite all followers of Jesus to ponder exactly what it is that we are called to do in this moment. Our capitalist system is not going to eagerly embrace returning land, forgiving debts, or releasing all the prisoners, regardless of  how much we wish that it would.  But that doesn’t mean that we don’t keep praying, working, and preaching toward that goal.

What Bishop Budde did was model for each of us what our Christian responsibility really is. I have grown weary to the point of righteous anger at so-called Christians who suggest that Jesus’ words were not commandments for all of us to follow but instead self-righteous statements reminding others that he is the only one who could ever do these things, so we must simply trust him and stop trying. Some of our evangelical brethren would say that we are performing “works” or trying to earn our way into heaven by daring to live into Jesus’ own words, namely his commands to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, forgive our enemies, and declare the ever-present reality of the Kingdom of God. They go so far as to say that asking for mercy is “woke” (a word they cannot even define). To be kind to others, to work toward justice for all people, has gone from being benchmarks of the Christian faith to radical leftist talking points. How horrifyingly sad! 

Bishop Budde named people who are frightened and scared, namely LGBTQ young people and immigrants. These are but a fraction of the people being systematically denied the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, on which our nation is allegedly founded. Make no mistake, every person has skin in this game, even those of us who believe our privilege will save us. We dare not give up on one another. As Benjamin Franklin is said to have quipped: “We shall either hang together or hang separately.”

The prayers of the Church are the very prayers of Jesus’ own Body to God the Father, as Paul reminds us in I Corinthians. It is the solemn duty of the Church to proclaim the very Good News that Jesus proclaimed, to call for mercy, to restore all people to God in Christ, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. If this is to be a Jubilee, then may the Church be the Church, the only institution in this country capable of speaking truth to power and establishing effective, radical change. If not us, who? If not now, when?

Scatter the Darkness

'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 testified to him and cried out, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.'") From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known.'

--John 1: 1-18

We did not have additional events at our church between Christmas Day and this past Sunday , but the Church with a big C had some major feast days to celebrate. Thursday the 26th was the Feast of Stephen—a day you may know from the carol ‘Good King Wenselaus.’  Stephen was an early deacon of the Church who was stoned to death, making him the first official Christian martyr.  Friday was the Feast of St. John, the apostle and evangelist who is credited with writing the Fourth Gospel and four additional letters of the New Testament, including the Apocalypse, or as we call it ‘Revelation.’  He was exiled to the island of Patmos, and the legend has it died there alone.  Yesterday marked the Feast of the Holy Innocents, those little children that King Herod had put to death in his attempt to squash Jesus’ reign as King before it could begin, causing Jesus’ family to live as refugees in Egypt.  And even though Sunday celebrations take precedence over feast days, today, December 29th, marks for us Anglicans, the Feast of Thomas a Beckett, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was killed in his cathedral by order of King Henry II in 1170.  Yep, it was quite a week for so-called “celebrations.”  Merry Christmas, indeed!

Several years ago, when I first started paying attention to the church calendar and noticed these four commemorations of folks who met their end in pretty sad and tragic ways, I wondered why in the world the Church would slot them in right after Christmas Day.  This is, after all, the most wonderful time of the year, a time of hope and joy and peace on earth, and while we’re still celebrating the 12 days, we commemorate a person who was stoned to death for preaching about Jesus, someone who died all alone on an island, innocent children slaughtered by a jealous despot, and a bishop killed by his king in his own cathedral?  How can we dare call these days ‘feasts?”  The answer, I suspect, lies in our Gospel for this week.  

Nativity by Gabriel Toma Chituc

The Gospel text for this week is the Prologue to the Gospel of John. For the folks in my parish, this was the past Sunday was the third time in 10 days that they had heard this text! Some might have been thinking that that’s too much of the Prologue, and they may have been right, especially given that there are other parts of the story of Jesus’ birth that we don’t hear about on Sundays. This might be, though, the most theologically rich pericope in all of Scripture – it’s certainly the most beautiful piece of prose, I believe. Maybe, then, there’s no such thing as too much of the Prologue.

This version of the Christmas story—and yes, it should be considered a Christmas story—is not concerned with the historical time or place of Jesus’ birth, nor any of the details surrounding it.  There’s no familiar settings or characters like the manger, the shepherds, or the angels. The Fourth Gospel is concerned with one thing:  that the Word was made flesh.  The Word of God—logos in Greek—has come into the world  And this Word is the light of the world, the very light that burned in creation; in fact, the Gospel of John and Book of Genesis begin the exact same way, with the words en arche, “in the beginning.” That’s no accident.  It has come into the world in physical form.  And the text tells us that the light shines in the darkness.  The cool thing about Greek is that the present tense verbs don’t just mean that they are happening in that moment alone, but that they will keep happening into eternity, for ever and ever.  And so the light shines in the darkness, the Gospel tells us, now and for ever.  

And this is what allows us to call these latter days feasts and celebrations in spite of the death that surrounds them. The world very often equates death with darkness, perhaps because death feels like separation, just as darkness does; no wonder we tend to fear the two so much. The darkness, says the text, did not overcome the light..  Did you notice the shift from present tense to past tense?  There’s a reason for that.  It’s because the darkness that tried to overcome Jesus, could not do it. Darkness, in the biblical sense, is the void that separates the creation from God. There is, in fact, no place that God can’t get to, nowhere that the light of the world, that Jesus, cannot shine. Darkness, therefore, is redeemed by the light of Christ; moreover, all things, even death itself, is redeemed by the light of the world stepping out into darkness and scattering it. 

The world fears death, of all kinds. Not just the physical death that awaits all of us, but the death of personal power, prestige, or possession. The fear of losing what we have – rooted in that existential fear of death – drives so much of what we do and the decisions we make, including putting self-preservation and profits above the greater good. Our whole economic system of capitalism is driven by this fear of loss, of death. Yet even this has been redeemed by Jesus, even this so-called darkness is no match for the light that burned before time began and will keep burning on and in into eternity. The Church learned early on that the stories of the martyrs were not stories of defeat but of victory; an everlasting reminder that death does not have the final say, and that all, even Sister Death, as St. Francis called it, have been redeemed and given hope and meaning through Jesus Christ.  

That is the Christmas story we need right now. And yes, we need these feasts days, too.  We need to be reminded of Stephen, John, the Innocents, and Archbishop Beckett, and their victories over the powers of darkness in the middle of the Christmas season.  We need to be reminded that death did not defeat Jesus, and because of that death did not defeat them and will not defeat us.  As we turn the page to 2025, many of us may be going into the new year with a lot of fear and trepidation. Some might be facing some daunting trials, like major surgery. Some may be afraid of the decisions the upcoming presidential administration and congress will make. And some may be looking at a variety of existential terrors from loss of work and financial security to a terminal illness. It might not feel like it’s still Christmas when that calendar turns later this week.

But this text and season remind us that Christ has come, and he’s already won. His light has shone throughout the world, and there’s so place it can’t touch. May that light burn brightly within you and those you love in the days, weeks, and months ahead. In your darkest hours may you remember that there is always a light, even if that light is just the flicker of a candle. That’s enough to scatter the darkness. 

Magnify

'In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.

When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord."

And Mary said: "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel ,in remembrance of his mercy, the promise he made to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever."'

--Luke 1: 39-55

Picture the scene:  a young woman, no older than 15 or 16, becomes pregnant.  Though engaged, she’s not yet married, and she lives in a society that will at best alienate and at worst criminally condemn her.  Her parents named her Miriam, which means Sea of Sorrow, and now it would seem she’s living into that name. Her fiancée has two options: surrender her to the religious and political authorities to be dealt with appropriately, or quietly leave her and the child what’s coming, meaning they will be without protection and without any means of income and sustainability.  Oh, by the way, that second option is actually considered the righteous and honorable thing to do.  Don’t you think this young woman would be terrified?  Do you think there is any way that her situation would leave room for hope to persist?  

Nevertheless, that is exactly what happens.  God’s hope persists.  She persists.  She seeks solace from another woman who knows what she’s going through, an elderly cousin, herself in the middle of a highly suspicious pregnancy.  Her cousin might very well be the only person who won’t think she’s crazy, so she makes haste to go see her, not singing any songs of praise for her pregnancy, not yet, but holding her fear and trepidation, together with the smallest morsel of hope, which is at last allowed to blossom when she crosses the threshold of her cousin’s home and is greeted not with scorn and ridicule but with blessing.  “Blessed are you,” her cousin says to her.  “Blessed are you.”  Hope persists, and the young woman sings her glorious song, magnifying God.  

The Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary to Elizabeth

It shouldn’t have happened that way.  Hope should not have been able to persist in her life, given the circumstances, yet in her song we hear of a world filled with hope, a world that God is turning, not upside-down, but rightside-up.  Mary, as her name appears in Greek, sings into existence a vision of a world transformed by a very persistent God.  The proud are scattered, the powerful are brought down, the lowly lifted up, the hungry are filled, and the rich are sent away empty.  It makes no sense in a world that offers little to no hope for the poor, the lowly, the hungry, or the not-yet-wed pregnant teenager.  But blessedly, God does not play by the world’s rules, and despite a society that would tell her to stay in her place, Mary sings her song, and the hope for a world set right by a God of truth, justice, and love, a hope that was preached by the prophets of old, a hope that her own son will embody, persists.  

Over time Mary’s song would be called Magnificat—taken from the first word in the Latin version—and be given special status as one of, if not the greatest, hymns of the Church.  Perhaps it is because it embodies the persistent nature of God, the reality that the world is, in fact, being turned, and in that turning there is hope.  Throughout history the poor and oppressed have found hope in Mary’s song—which, it should be noted, is the longest set of words spoken by a woman in the New Testament.  Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was assassinated at his cathedral’s altar by the Junta government in El Salvador, drew comparisons between Mary in her song and the poor and powerless in his own country.  Theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, himself martyred by the Nazis, called the Magnificat, “the most passionate, the wildest, one might even say the most revolutionary hymn ever sung!”  And even in our own Episcopal Church, seminarian Jonathan Daniels heard the Magnificat one night at Episcopal Theological Seminary in Boston, and the next day headed down south to Alabama to aid in the civil rights moment, where he was shot and killed.  They each heard Mary’s song as a cry for hope, not optimism.  Optimism looks behind us to find comfort in what we’ve experienced before, but hope, the kind of world-turning, musical hope of Mary, looks ahead to what our persistent God promises:  a world in which all injustice, all pain, all despair is reconciled to God, and all is made right.  It’s no wonder that the Magnificat was actually banned by many authoritarian regimes because it loudly and proudly proclaims the magnificence of God’s Kingdom, not any of our own making. Perhaps we need to do more casting down of the mighty and lifting up of the lowly in the face of authoritarians in our own time.

But I can tell you, brothers and sisters, that maintaining this hope, allowing it to persist, is not something we can do alone.  It’s too big.  The world is too dark, too violent, too broken for our hope alone to fix it.  I suspect Mary knew this.  This is why she goes to Elizabeth.  Often times when we hear the story of Mary leading up to Christmas we get Gabriel coming to her saying she will bear a son, then she immediately jumps into her song of hope and praise.  But this does not happen.  She needs the comfort and consolation of a person knows knows and trusts.  She needs someone else to tell her it’s ok, to give her a blessing, and to just let her know she’s not alone.  It is then that Mary sings her song, after she is met with that welcome from Elizabeth.  That little seed of hope that she carried with her from Nazareth to Ein Karem in the Judean hill country—which is not a short hike!—bursts forth into song when she is greeted so graciously by her Elizabeth and her unborn son John. 

You may not know it, but you showing up to church each week shows that you believe in the persistent hope of God that Mary’s song proclaims, yet you also understand that such hope is made all the more real when we make haste to seek one another out, to gather together in prayer, in song, and in mealtime.  This is why the Church exists, so that we remember that salvation isn't something we get to alone, but it is in community with one another. The Church is where those who are vulnerable, tired, worn out, and scared, much like Mary, find one another and have their own seeds of hope blessed.  In seeking out one another, blessing one another in our moments of fear, we can sing our hearts out for the persistent hope of our God who is turning the world rightside-up, offering good news to those who so desperately need to hear it.  It is, quite simply, revolutionary, to think that in a world like ours, a world of injustice and division on a scale more massive than any of us have seen, hope could persist.  But Mary’s song is one that we need to hear, year after year after year  We need to hear the hope it proclaims, and we need to seek out and find one another and sing with all of our hearts to the God who is lifting up the lowly, scattering the proud, and filling the hungry. One of my favorite seminary professors once said that if we can’t pray the Daily Office of Morning or Evening Prayer, that we could sing or say the Magnificat, because it’s a Divine Office unto itself, with the whole message of our faith wrapped up in Mary’s song of praise, echoed unto eternity.

Not so meek and mild, huh? No, Mary, trampling the serpent beneath her heel, is strong in her willingness to be vulnerable. No silent member of the nativity scene, or an obedient vessel for God’s arrival on earth. Hers is the voice crying out through the fear, calling us all to persist in God’s hope for a world where powers and principalities are undone by the magnificent Kingdom of God.  Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.  Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us.  

Again I Will Say...Rejoice!

"Sing aloud, O daughter Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem! The LORD has taken away the judgments against you, he has turned away your enemies. The king of Israel, the LORD, is in your midst; you shall fear disaster no more. On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem: Do not fear, O Zion; do not let your hands grow weak. The LORD, your God, is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory; he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love; he will exult over you with loud singing as on a day of festival I will remove disaster from you, so that you will not bear reproach for it. I will deal with all your oppressors at that time.

And I will save the lame and gather the outcast, and I will change their shame into praise and renown in all the earth. At that time I will bring you home, at the time when I gather you; for I will make you renowned and praised among all the peoples of the earth, when I restore your fortunes before your eyes, says the LORD."

--Zephaniah 3: 14-20

"Surely, it is God who saves me; *

I will trust in him and not be afraid.

For the Lord is my stronghold and my sure defense, *

and he will be my Savior.

Therefore you shall draw water with rejoicing *

from the springs of salvation.

And on that day you shall say, *

Give thanks to the Lord and call upon his Name;

Make his deeds known among the peoples; *

see that they remember that his Name is exalted.

Sing the praises of the Lord, for he has done great things, *

and this is known in all the world.

Cry aloud, inhabitants of Zion, ring out your joy, *

for the great one in the midst of you is the Holy One of Israel."

--Isaiah 12: 2-6 (The First Song of Isaiah)

"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

--Philippians 4: 4-7

"John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin 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."

And the crowds asked him, "What then should we do?" In reply he said to them, "Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise." Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, "Teacher, what should we do?" He said to them, "Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you." Soldiers also asked him, "And we, what should we do?" He said to them, "Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages."

As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, "I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire."

So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people."

--Luke 3: 7-18

Years ago while serving as a youth minister I was helping our young curate – assistant priest for the uninitiated – with a lesson on Advent with our kids. At the end a one boy asked him what the deal was with the pink candle, to which this curate, eager to show off his newfound church knowledge, explained that we take the purple of Advent and mix it with the white of Christmas and voila, we get the pink – or rose – candle. To which this little kid said very plainly, “Purple and white don’t make pink?” The curate shrugged and said, “That’s the best I got, kid!”

The pink candle lit for the Third Sunday of Advent

The pink candle stands out because this third week of Advent stands out from the rest of the season. We called this past Sunday "Stir-Em-Up Sunday", drawing from the first word in our Collect, but its more popular name is Gaudete Sunday.  Gaudete is Latin for ‘rejoice’ taken from the traditional opening chant, or introit, prescribed for the day. It’s also reflective of the rejoicing that permeates throughout our Scriptures.  The prophet Zephaniah says, “Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem!” and “the Lord will rejoice over you with gladness and renew you with love.”  In our canticle, the First Song of Isaiah, the prophet sings, “Therefore you shall draw water with rejoicing from the springs of salvation.”  The apostle Paul, writing to the church in Philipi, calls them to “Rejoice in the Lord always—again I say, rejoice!”  And in Luke’s Gospel we hear John the Baptist yelling at the brood of vipers. Oh, there’s rejoicing there, too, we’ll get to that! 

For some of us, it’s easy to rejoice this time of year. Hearts are practically giddy in anticipation of Christmas. but when we peel back the layers of our Scriptures, I suspect we will find that the voices calling us to rejoice are not doing so with the giddiness that we often experience around us this time of year, but rather they are crying out from a place of deep longing, anchored to an acknowledgment of God’s love and presence in human life, which is often anything but joyful.

The prophet Zephaniah puts in a rare appearance this week.  If you know your prophets—and I’m sure you do—you’ll know that some of the gloomiest passages in all of the Hebrew Bible are found in Zephaniah.  It’s true!  In the first chapter, starting with the second verse, we hear God say through the prophet:  “I will utterly sweep away everything from the face of the earth…humans and animals…birds of the air…fish of the sea…I will cut off humanity from the face of the earth.”  Yikes!  But just two chapters later, we hear a different tune being sung, one where the word of God, which began as irredeemable judgment, has been transformed into transcendent gladness, and that which once anticipated the sorrows of the people now celebrates their chorus of joy. 

We hear from another prophet this week, as our canticle, is taken from the 12th chapter of Isaiah. In this First Song of Isaiah we hear the promise that God is the people’s stronghold and defense, that they should rejoice in God and call upon God’s name, especially in anticipation of disasters the prophet had said earlier will come if folks don’t change their ways. Even during the exile, which starts in chapter 40, this instruction to rejoice in God’s deliverance endures.

Speaking of disasters, does anyone know where Paul was when he penned the letter to the Philippians and told them to rejoice in the Lord always?  He’s in prison!  What’s more, the church in Philippi was itself enduring great hardships and persecutions, and many more were to come.  Yet somehow out of that pain Paul is able to construct not only a message of hope but one that dares proclaim that the people should rejoice…always!

Then there’s John the Baptizer.  Where’s the joy in this guy? As he stands by the River Jordan every sort of wayfaring stranger from tax collectors to Roman soldiers are gathered. He calls them a brood of vipers, out there fleeing to him, so as to hide out from their wickedness. We talked a lot about the lack of joy in John’s message in my parish's Tuesday Bible study last week, but we also discovered a kind of joyful invitation that he offers. Notice how much of what he says is rooted in economic justice – Own more than you need? Great! Half of it can go to others, and you can start sharing from your bounty instead of stockpiling more. John’s calling the people to see their own intention and to be more than they have been; you’ve been thinking you already know yourself, well, look again, because your same-as-always life is over. There’s a tinge of fear and lots of hesitation on our part when we hear John (or someone like him) call us to metanoia, to turning ourselves around, but I’d like to think that such an invitation is worth rejoicing over. That, I believe, is why Luke refers to what John's doing as "proclaiming the good news."

Make no mistake, each prophetic voice this morning is speaking amongst communities that have experienced pain, trauma even, with dark, foreboding horizons ahead. How could any of them rejoice? It is the promise of God’s abiding presence, breaking into the world again, to which each of these voices proclaims. Zephaniah says, “The Lord your God is in your midst.”  Isaiah says, “The great one in the midst of you is the Holy One of Israel.”  Paul says, “The Lord is near.”  And joy and excitement can be heard in John’s voice as he declares, “One who is more powerful than I is coming, who will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.’ 

How is such joy possible, especially when we consider that each of these prophets was killed? It is a lesson, I suspect, that is taught to us by suffering. That is not to say that God causes or is glorified by suffering, far from it, but it is to say that when someone understands that God is still in suffering, in the absurdity of it all, they have a perspective that allows one to see beyond the suffering, to rejoice in the same way the prophets rejoiced. The Incarnation is so extraordinary, in part, because it takes place in a time when folks were desperate, when many felt the world had been left empty, and in the midst of Empire, Emmanuel arrives. The arrival of Love incarnate does not replace all suffering with joy – we need only look around, perhaps at our own sufferings– instead it makes joy possible. It allows us to dare to be joyful, to dare to hope, to dare to hang on to the mercy and love of God even when we may feel obligated to do anything but. In some ways it is the most radical and revolutionary thing we can do, to rejoice in the midst of a world filled with pain.

So rejoice, rejoice, believers!  Rejoice not because Christians are called to believe that everything will be ok, or that the pain will stop, but we rejoice in the saving grace of a God who loves us so much as to not only come among us, but to promise never to leave and to never give up on us.  This is the joy being stirred up today. This is joy for all who long to know the peace of God that passes understanding.  For this we rejoice…always…and again I will say, rejoice!  

Unlikely Prophets

'In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,

"The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'"'

--Luke 3: 1-6

I feel an incredible privilege whenever I get to stand among the people of God and say, “The Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ!” and to then proclaim the evangelion, the Good News. But there are times when doing so is, frankly, kinda funny. This week is one of those times because, as the folks in my congregation couldn't help but notice this past Sunday, despite it being the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Jesus himself doesn’t make an appearance. And he won’t next week. Or the week after that. Seems a bit odd to proclaim the “The Gospel of the Lord!” when the Lord is nowhere to be found.

Or is he? Because, while Jesus himself isn’t mentioned, the same spirit with which Jesus preached, the same ethos that he embodied, the same message about God’s workings in the world is here, as we are first introduced to John the Baptizer.

If you know your biblical genealogy you know that John is Jesus’ cousin, the son of Elizabeth, who herself is the cousin of Jesus’ mother Mary. John’s birth, like Jesus’, was a bit of a fluke. Both Elizabeth and her husband Zechariah were well past the usual age for child-bearing. The angel Gabriel had visited them and told them that they would have a son who was to be filled with the Holy Spirit and called to turn many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God, to borrow words from the first chapter of Luke. Zechariah, though, didn’t believe Gabriel, and so he was struck mute until the day of John’s birth, at which point he gave his own prophecy, which we read together this week, the Song of Zechariah, in which he not only praised God but foretold his son’s role as a prophet. 

Zechariah, Elizabeth, and John

To be sure, Elizabeth and Zechariah were unlikely forebears, but isn’t that how God usually works? John himself would seem an unlikely prophet, but in him the folks were reminded and continue to be reminded that the places and situations and people considered to be of great importance in our world might not be the places and situations and people God considers when God’s next big work is about to occur. It seems God has a fondness for tapping on the shoulders of the anonymous, the unknown, and the ill-prepared.

Tiberius Caesar had been reigning for 15 years, Pontius Pilate was an experienced governor, Herod was the tetrarch of Galilee, and Annas and Caiphas were the all-important High Priests, yet to whom does God ‘s Word go when God speaks it? Not to those powerful, big deal folks, no, but to John, son of Elizbeth and Zechariah, found among the unsuspected. 

God sends the message not via the Temple or the palace, not to the important somebodies of the world, but via the desert – or wilderness, as Scripture calls it. From the least habitable of places, the Word comes. To the most deserted and desolate of people, the Word blossoms with meaning and life. 

John speaks it loud and strong for folks to repent, to “Prepare!” Make straight those crooked paths, like Isaiah said long before; smooth out the rough places of despair into plains, make those mountains of troubles low. And all flesh, whether powerful or powerless, will see God’s new thing…together. No longer nobodies and somebodies – a sign of the new realm among us, or as Jesus will call it: the Kingdom of heaven.

My first boss out of college was a fellow named Rick Bentley, who was the Sports Information Director at what is now the University of Pikeville. I was his assistant, along with being assistant baseball coach, and he and I couldn’t have been more different. But we both loved sports, and we both loved Jesus. Rick was a Freewill Baptist, so this Episcopalian often clashed with his thoughts on Scripture, the role religion should play in society, and the nature of sin. Yet one day, as we were making one of our long road trips to cover a basketball game, he said, “You know, partner” – that’s what we called each other – “I figure when I die there’s gonna be a whole lotta folks I’m surprised to see in heaven, and there’s a whole lotta folks who’re gonna be surprised to see me!” In a car on a road in eastern Kentucky was the unlikely wilderness where my friend Rick, I believe, was not too far from the Kingdom of heaven when he made that little anonymous prophecy of his. 

The one and only Rick Bentley, who represented the Free Will Baptists at my ordination in 2012.

What John called the people in the wilderness to was repentance. The Greek word is metanoia, which means to turn oneself around. This call was for everyone, for the somebodies and the nobodies alike. It’s a word, perhaps, modern church-goers aren’t fond of because it evokes notions of wretchedness, or that somehow we are inherently evil and must constantly repent before a priest or some other confessor and be saved. I mourn that a great many preachers over the years have treated the concept of repentance in this way, an abusive tactic used to get folks to over-commit their time and their treasure to the church because, after all, only the church could save them. I am sorry if you are someone who has experienced that kind of message from a clergy person or a congregation of other believers. Still, if we are to accept the somewhat radical notion that my Free Will Baptist brother proclaimed, that heaven is something we will all inherit, then can we not all also accept the invitation to repent, to turn ourselves around, back toward God, back toward forgiveness, back toward mercy, back toward justice, back toward whatever new call God has in store for us during this season in which the world itself is about to turn, 

What in your life is not yet ready for God’s new call? What part of you is in need of repentance, of being turned around? John the Baptizer asked that question a little more boldly than me, but it is a question, nonetheless, that is offered to us all, the powerful and the powerless alike. I know there is much in me that needs to be turned around, not the least of which is my capacity to truly love those with whom I so strongly disagree - my friend Rick helped me with that. Who, I wonder, are those voices for you? Who are the anonymous, unknown prophets imparting wisdom, perhaps even a challenge or two, for you? And do you have ears to hear them? 

Their voices join the voice of the Baptizer, who all Advent long is out there in the deserts, in the wildernesses of our everyday lives, crying out for us to not only repent, to be turned around, but to prepare. To till the soil of our souls, that something fresh and new may be born.