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. 

The Beginning (of Everything) Is Near

'Jesus said, "There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see 'the Son of Man coming in a cloud' with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near."

Then he told them a parable: "Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

"Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly, like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man."'

--Luke 21: 25-36

There is a meme that shows up around this time of year and makes its rounds on the social medias. It’s a picture person holding a piece of cardboard with the words written on it, “The Beginning is near.” There are many variations of this blog, including the one below with a person wear a Guy Fawkes mask. I couldn’t find the origins of the image, but it seems obviously a reframing of those street preachers with signs proclaiming “The End is near,” and in that way, it’s a perfect encapsulation of Advent.

The beginning…of everything…of a new hope…of the kingdom of God, is near. Yes, preacher, we know. We’re good Episcopalians who understand that today not only marks the start of a new church year but also this season of preparation for the birth of Jesus. All this has happened before, and all of it will happen again, and the beginning of the greatest story ever told is right around the corner. We get it.

If that were the case, though, why does Advent not start on a joyful note? Instead, our Gospel fills us with something more like despair. We start the new church year the exact same way we ended the last one, with Jesus talking about a coming time that sounds anything but joyful. 

We find Jesus teaching on the last week of his life while sitting on the Mount of Olives, opposite the Temple in Jerusalem. It’s a scene that is Luke’s version of one that we heard about from Mark just two weeks ago. Instead of one disciple commenting on the magnificence of the Temple, Luke uses the generic phrasing “Some were speaking about the Temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God.” Jesus gives the familiar prophecy about the Temple being destroyed, along with the destruction of the whole of Jerusalem, which some of Luke’s audience would have experienced roughly 20 years earlier. They ask for signs – how will we know these awful things will take place? – and Jesus borrows imagery from the prophet Daniel and paints this picture of doom and gloom – the sun darkened, the moon not giving light, stars falling, and heaven itself being shaken, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria; in fact, Jesus quotes Daniel verbatim when talking about the Son of Man coming in the clouds. It sounds pretty hopeless. Sure ain’t joyful.

Yet if we remember the purpose of this kind of rhetoric – the kind prophets like Jeremiah and Daniel used and that Jesus himself uses– it’s to reveal something to the people, to reveal hope in the midst of hopelessness. This is, once again, apocalyptic, a tearing away of the veil so that the people can see the truth. 

Advent is an apocalyptic season. It serves a dual purpose. The first is to remind us that, in spite of the very best intentions of the people of God, the Kingdom that Jesus proclaimed to have already come near, hasn’t quite come in its grandest fulfillment, and so the prayer of Advent is that Christ will come again to rule among God’s creation with grace, mercy, and justice. The beginning of such a time, we hope – in the words of our Creed – is near.

The second purpose of Advent is to take us back to the beginning, back to that time of Jesus’ first Advent. And in the midst of our own times of hopelessness, to capture the spirit of hope folks felt back then, a spirit of yearning for that which some might’ve said was too good to be true: a new and unique expression of God’s intention to save this broken world was breaking through.

Capturing that spirit of hope is, I suspect, what Jesus means when he uses a fig tree as a parable for being able to observe the signs of the times. Such observing means paying close attention to all that is happening in our world, regardless of what we are afraid to see. This hope enables us to see our day’s news with the eyes of the heart, and not hide out in the fog of secular numbness or hyper-sensitivity. We often pretend to be remote or untouchable, shrouding ourselves in willful ignorance, but to read the sign of the times is to dare to acknowledge what is hidden in plain sight – what is being revealed to us right now– and to dare to find our part to play, our song to sing, our small task to fulfill in the unfolding drama of God’s Kingdom coming on earth as in heaven. No, we can’t take in all of the heartache and pain we see – our species wasn’t designed for it, our brains literally can’t handle it, which is why the overflow of information that we experience creates in us anxiety, depression, and panic attacks. Yet we can find that small task in our small corner; because we’ve all got our part to play in that promised day’s arrival.

Such a day can’t get here fast enough, we might say when we see all that plagues this world, which may lead us to reading such signs less as an invitation to participation and more as a portent to something we must fear. Still, Jesus says, we need not be afraid, but we must remain on guard, yet without our hearts being weighed down. Be ready for that day, but don’t worry about it. So hurry up….but wait?! What kind of Messiah double-talk is this?

It's active waiting. Sounds oxymoronic, but that’s Advent, and it’s how we operate in a kingdom that has both already come and not yet come. For those of you who host holiday parties or are expecting loved ones to visit this year, think about how you prepare for those guests. You wait for them, sure, but is it passive? Lord no! I bet you’re looking out for the stray dust bunny to sweep or making sure the beds are prepared for those overnight visitors. It’s the same way for those of us living in the Second Advent, waiting actively for Jesus to be born anew in our lives, neither trying to predict when it’s gonna happen, nor being passive – but surrendering to God’s timing while actively looking for the one who is already here, finding our place in this kingdom that is both already and not yet. 

The days are getting crisper. I’ve felt the wind in the air lately. It chills me with how abrupt it can come on. That’s Advent, coming like the wind to wake us up to the reality that all that we see is not all that there is; that you, and I, and them, are more precious and more important than any of us can ever know;  that the love that came down at Christmas is as real now as it was then, and it’s coming again – as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end.

The winds are blowing. The signs are all around. So, you there, who keep falling asleep in shallow waters, floating on the surface of your life, wake up! Stop staring blankly, numb to the wonder of who you are and whose you are. The God who searches for you in the holy mundane of your life is near. The revealing of your true self, and your role in the unfolding of this kingdom, is near. The beginning of everything is near. 

On Kingship and the Lions of the Coliseum

'Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus answered, “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” Pilate replied, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?” Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”'

--John 18: 33-37

One lasting image of kingship for me is Arthur, King of the Britons, giving his credentials to man named Dennis and an unnamed, poor woman – who, it should be noted, didn’t vote for him. Arthur recounts the story of how the Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in the purest, shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water, signifying by Divine right that he, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur.  “That,” Arthur tells them, “is why I’m your king.”  But Dennis sums the whole thing up best when he retorts, “Strange women lying in ponds, distributing swords, is no basis for a system of government! Arthur is having none of this political commentary, so he represses Dennis, and then rides away.

Arthur, King of the Britons.

That scene in the early moments of Monty Python and the Holy Grail is a classic. Our system isn’t perfect, but at least we don’t rely on strange women distributing swords to declare who our leaders will be – though, maybe we should. We may not think much about what kingship or sovereignty mean because this is ‘Murica, and we literally fought a war not to have a king, but Christ the King Sunday, or, Reign of Christ Sunday, as it’s also called, comes around each year to invite us to do just that.

The Solemnity of Christ the King was established in 1925 by Pope Pius XI to be observed on the last Sunday of the liturgical calendar. The world was just seven years removed from the Great War, but fascism was on the rise, and in less than 15 years there would be a Second World War.  In response to the growing popularity of authoritarianism, the pope wrote in his encyclical Quas Primas, that the faithful should gain strength and courage from the celebration of this new feast, as they were reminded that Christ must reign in their hearts, minds, wills, and bodies, and that the leaders and nations would see that they were bound to allegiance to Christ, not the state. It is Jesus alone who is our sovereign, and the one to whom all of our praise and adoration is directed because he is the only one worthy of any of it. More folks need to remember that right now, I suspect.

Curiously, the Gospel for this last Sunday of what we call Year B doesn’t feature Jesus in a very kingly position. Instead, he is face-to-face with Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, moments before his death. Why this story for this day? Perhaps because it illustrates how wrong we often are about what kingship, sovereignty, or power really look like. The regalia of the Roman governor? Or the rags of an itinerant preacher? The whole script is flipped on its heard. 

So Jesus and Pilate engage in this beautifully Hellenistic battle of wits: Are you the King of the Jews? Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me? So you’re a king? You say that I am. What have you done? No answer. It’s brilliant. Jesus is no stranger to cross-examination, so he’s wise to not refer to himself as a king because that’s a political term, and if he’s a king – of the Jews, or anyone else – that’s treason because Caesar is king of, well, everything. His kingdom, then, isn’t a physical one – at least, not yet – it is in the mind and heart of the believer, where the mighty rich are sent away empty and the mighty are cast down, where the lowly are lifted up and the hungry are filled with good things; a kingdom that has, indeed, come near, but not in a way Pilate or anyone else would recognize. It’s a kingdom for those with eyes to see and ears to hear….the truth.

What is truth? That’s Pilate’s answer to that last line in our Gospel, and shame on the lectionary folks for cutting it out. What is truth has been at the heart of every political debate and every family argument for at least the past eight years, but, honestly, we all know it goes way beyond that. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 reduced regulation, enabling the handful of corporations dominating the airwaves to expand their power further. The result was the end of local news outlets, and a consolidation of media that established the Big Six – six corporations major corporations from which all forms of media became outsourced. This led to a boom in big tech that can be directly connected to THESE little things and the ways that we drink from the firehose of social and mass media daily. Whatever we want to be true can be, through confirmation bias made possible by algorithms that tell us what we want before we even know we want it. You are your own Cassar with your own truths, what could be more American than that? What else could possibly matter?

This is where, I believe, it matters that on a day when we designate for the solemnity of Jesus’ reign as sovereign of all, we get this particular encounter. Because truth is not about the loneliness of one’s own existence, but the revelation Jesus presents about the nature of humanity and of our world, namely, that none of us is their own Caesar, the center of their own existence – the very “truths” that media of all sorts and conditions feed us today. The truth Jesus offers sets us free to discover God’s will in a future that is open to possibilities because it is a future rooted in community, rooted in unity, in the counterintuitive motion of downward mobility that openly mocks and shames when the modern Pilates tell us we should move in the opposite direction. 

When we declare that Christ is King, or Christ is sovereign, we lay claim to his own downward mobility and we own being members of him, over any other group, clan, or tribe. Claiming Jesus as sovereign says that his truth – strength through vulnerability, justice through mercy, and power through weakness – is our truth, despite what the algorithms would have us believe. Two kingdoms stand face-to-face: to which one will we choose to belong?

One of my favorite folk singers is a fellow named Pierce Pettis, who has a song called Lions of the Coliseum from his now out-of-print album, Chase the Buffalo, released in 1992. It speaks brilliantly to our modern experience of information overload by those who’ve co-opted this Christianity thing we love. The lions are the ones on the satellite tv preaching from their lap of luxury; with politicians and millionaires, you won’t see Mother Theresa there; the lions rob the poor for pocket change, and whose hypocrisy has made the church a museum where cobwebs hand like a rosary inside a mausoleum, whose surfaces are clean and white, while inside rotted corpses lie; so they like to keep the lid on tight. In the final verse, Pierce sings: “there’s rebel graffiti on the walls inside the coliseum, down below in the catacombs the defiant ones are meeting; hiding in the underground, blood brothers and sisters pass the cup around; and they pay no heed to the roaring sound of the lions of the coliseum.” Jesus’ kingdom is here…head…and here….heart….and here…the people. Yes, it will come in physical form – we affirm that each week – but it’s already here. Hold on to that assurance and pay no heed to the roaring sound of the lions of the coliseum.

Lions of the Coliseum, by Pierce Pettis

This is the scandal, the truth, of the Gospel; that if we are members of Jesus’ kingdom, we’re not members of any other; and if Jesus is king, then nobody else is. Empires fall, all terms of office and reigns of those in power end, but Jesus shall reign wherever the sun doth its successive journeys run, his kingdom stretches from shore to shore till moons shall wax and wane no more

Of Holy Fools and Apocalypses

'As Jesus came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!” Then Jesus asked him, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”

When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?” Then Jesus began to say to them, “Beware that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birthpangs.”'

--Mark 13: 1-18

I wanna talk about the apocalypse. Seems fitting.  I don’t know what pops in your head when you hear it. Maybe the “end of days” stories in things like the fictitious Left Behind series, which has no basis is biblical scholarship? If you’re of a certain age, maybe you think of the X-Men villain named Apocalypse? Anyone? Maybe that's just me. The word itself, apocalypse, is a Greek word being ‘unveiling,’ or ‘revelation.’ It is, in fact, the Greek title of the last book of the Bible.

En Sabah Nur, better known as Apocalypse.

This week's reading from the Hebrew scriptures was from the Book of Daniel, a piece of apocalyptic literature that heavily influenced the writing of the Revelation to John. The same imagery is used in both texts, as Michael the archangel makes an appearance, and both promise a victory for God’s people over the forces of evil. Apocalyptic stories like Daniel or Revelation are not meant to be blueprints for the end of the world, despite what some folks may suggest, but instead they speak to the current climate, to the need for people to have the veil pulled away from their eyes to see what is really going on, and using symbolism and metaphor they try to make sense of current events and experiences by casting them in a larger, cosmic framework, and in this way give comfort to people who are currently suffering or being oppressed.

Our journey this year with the Gospel of Mark comes to an end this week, as Jesus channels his inner Daniel with his own apocalyptic imagery. Right after watching that widow dropped in her two pennies, right after Jesus pointed out what real abundance, real power looks like, one of the disciples points out the impressiveness of the buildings and how mighty the stones are in the Temple walls. You can almost see the “Facepalm Jesus” meme happen in real time here:

Surely Jesus is disappointed, once again, in the slowness of the disciples to learn, well, anything. He counters this acclamation by telling them that this building and all it represents will cease to be. That famine and disasters will occur, and others will claim to come in his name. Yet it will all be the beginnings of the birth pangs. Something is being revealed, Jesus is trying to get them to understand.

The audience for Mark’s Gospel would’ve understood Jesus’ imagery immediately. There had been the great famine in Palestine in the year 50, the earthquakes and volcanic eruptions that destroyed Laodicea and Pompeii in 61 and 62, and, of course, the destruction of the Temple itself by the Romans in the year 70, just before this Gospel started to be proclaimed. Their world  was changing, quickly, in ways that folks struggled to understand, and within the framework of the Gospel narrative itself, Jesus’ own journey is rapidly coming to its climax. 

He communicates all of this while standing on the Mount of Olives, the very place where the Messiah is meant to first appear – which, by the way, is why folks to this day pay top dollar to be buried on that mountainside, so that they can be the first to behold the Messiah’s coming. Just a few days earlier it was the place where Jesus had entered the city in humility on a donkey at the same time Pontius Pilate was coming in from the opposite end in the grand imperial procession of Rome. The turning point of human history is here – for the participants in this story, for the people who first heard it, and for us who have inherited it. Jesus and his teachings, Jesus and his earthly journey, are approaching convergence, and his way is moving steadily on toward fruition. It is, in a word, apocalyptic.

View from the Mount of Olives facing the Temple Mount. Notice the sarcophagi along the hillside.

What is being revealed in these final days of Mark’s Gospel is the promise of God’s victory over the powers and principalities of this world, though few will have the eyes to truly see it. They will only see a body on a cross, even when a group of women tell them about an empty tomb. The Gospel practically begs the audience to have eyes to see what is going on around them, what is truly real. It isn’t the grandeur of your buildings, the might of your empires, no. It is quiet humility, frailty, even poverty, that which is foolish in the eyes of people, but not God.

How many of you know the stories of the Holy Fools? They were a peculiar bunch of ascetics who acted intentionally foolish – some thought they were genuinely out of their minds – in order to irritate and shock people into paying attention and changing their own, truly foolish ways. They included folks like Basil, who shoplifted in order to feed and clothe those in need, going naked and weighing himself down with chains. There was also Simeon, who drug around a dead dog and threw nuts at people when he walked into church, then he'd crawled around the building on his butt, causing children to point and yell “There goes a crazy abba!” The Holy Fools themselves were apocalyptic, revealing the absurdities of their time, pulling people out of their everyday trances by means of absurdity. We got any Holy Fools in our congregations these days?

St. Simeon, the Holy Fool

Have we, like the disciple staring in awe at the magnificence of the Temple, become complacent and in need of some foolishness to draw the veil away from our eyes? This is, I believe, an apocalyptic moment, as so much new is being revealed and coming to light, in our parish, in our local communities, in our state, and especially in our country, as some people believe literally that the president-elect was chosen by Jesus and has come in his name. The events of the past fortnight have revealed truths that we may never have wanted to know, and yet now that we know them, what will we do with them? And with ourselves?

One of the best pieces of apocalyptic storytelling in the 21st century is the Wachowski siblings masterpiece, The Matrix. Spoiler alert for a movie series a quarter of a century old, but The Matrix paints the picture of a world where humanity is caught in a simulation of reality – known as the Matrix –  boring, mundane, and safe. But the true reality, the “real” world is one in which humans’ minds are being kept in this simulation while their bodies are used as batteries to power an empire of machines. Once you see what is real, it is almost impossible to go back into the safe simulation – though one character tries, taking a bite of virtual reality steak saying, “Ignorance is bliss.” In the end, though, all of humanity is not freed from the Matrix, but they are given the choice to leave of their own accord. They can remain in a virtual world, pretending that they are free, or they can venture out into a world that, though frightening and hard, is truly real. The choice is theirs.

Keanu Reeves in The Matrix Reloaded, the second entry in the original trilogy.

And the choice is ours. As it was for Jesus’ disciples. Now that the veil has been pulled away, now that things have been revealed for what they are, what will we do? There are Holy Fools all around us, calling us to forsake our false sense of security and be reckless witnesses for the very morals and ethics of Jesus himself.  What lies in front of us may not be a reality that we would choose willingly, but it has chosen us. What will we do going forward?  Some may choose to remain in their own version of the Matrix, blissfully unaware of the trials and tribulations around them – to borrow from the French-born American essayist Anais Nin, it was not the truth they wanted, but an illusion they could bear to live with. They have much in common with that disciple staring at the Temple walls. As I asked members of my congregation, I'll ask readers of this blog: is that who you are??  I seriously doubt it. Yes, to choose to see things as they are means to choose the cross, but it also means to choose the hope of an empty tomb. To have such hope may seem foolish, but it is also holy. We are in the midst of the birth pangs.