Fragility

Luke 13: 1-9

The Rev'd Richard Smith, Ph.D.

February 28, 2016

We human beings are actually quite fragile. This fragility, the thought that our lives can come unraveled very quickly, can make us anxious, and so we go into denial, try to shore up the illusion that we are immune from the tragedies that others face.

We do this in various ways. More toys, more money, more honors and distinctions, more frenzied activity can calm our anxiety, give an illusion of security. For a moment.

And we can find ways to distance ourselves from those people who remind us of our own fragility. Keep immigrants who are fleeing the violence and poverty of their countries from crossing our borders. Keep the frail elderly and the handicapped in institutions, out of sight. Lock up black and brown people in prison and immigration detention centers. Keep the homeless out of our neighborhoods.

Because such people remind us of how fragile our lot as human beings really is. We’d rather not see them or listen to them or have to think about them.

We tell ourselves things like, “I’ll never be homeless. I’m not like those folks in the encampments down on Division Street. I work hard to keep my job and my health. Heck, I’ve even got a college degree. I’m not like them. Their fate will never be mine.” This self-talk calms our anxiety. For a moment. 

At least until we realize that the majority of those same homeless people once had homes like like the rest of us, some have Ph.D.’s, some were once physicians and attorneys, professional people whose lives suddenly whirled out of control through no fault of their own. Suddenly it dawns on us: We’re not as different from them as we thought. It might not be as obvious, but all of our lives, like theirs, are fragile.

It’s hard to accept our own fragility, to remember, as we said on the first day of Lent, that we are dust and unto dust we shall return. We’d like to hide from that fact, go into denial.

There's a religious version of this way of thinking, as seen in today's gospel, a way of shielding ourselves from our inherent vulnerability. 

A crowd tells Jesus about an incident of state terror that Pilate, the Roman Governor, had inflicted on a group of Galilean Jews. They had come to the temple to offer sacrifice. These sacrifices involved the killing of animals. Pilate sent in troops and murdered the Galileans, mingling their blood with the blood of the sacrificed animals. 

If the sacrificed animals were part of a ritual for the atonement of sins, the Galileans were murdered as they were repenting. This makes the crowd think that perhaps their sins were so great that it had something to do with their being slaughtered. They must have been the worst of sinners. God would not accept their sacrifice, but through the agency of Pilate sacrificed them instead. In the background of this tragedy lies a God who seeks out and punishes sinners.

It’s a common logic, almost hard-wired into the human mind: Step out of line, and you will be punished. 

This logic is also an attempt of shielding ourselves from tragedy. “This could never happen to me. I’m a good person. God would not punish me like he did them.” This way of thinking distances us from tragedy and our own fragility, from thinking, “That could have been me.”

Jesus resists this talk of a punishing God, this effort to run from our own fragility, but before he does this, he extends it. “What about physical evil, the accidents that happen? You’ve heard about the tower that fell in Jerusalem that killed eighteen people. Was the hand of God in this, the hand of a God who sees sinners and punishes them?”

To this theology of a punishing God, Jesus gives an adamant “No”. He doesn’t elaborate, nor does he try to make a case for why bad things happen to good people. He just seems to say, “Stop that way of thinking right now!”

And then he goes on to say that if they do not repent, they will likewise perish. Suddenly the focus shifts from tragic victims in the external world, to their own fate. And their own fate doesn’t depend on the caprice of Pilate of the poor mortaring of bricklayers. Their fate is in their own hands, in their own hearts. 

They have to repent, change their mind, or they will perish. It’s suddenly no longer a matter of abstract theology, but of personal decision, a choice not to waste “the one wild and precious life” you’ve been blessed with.

Speculating about why bad things happen is a misplaced emphasis, a waste of time. Focus instead, Jesus seems to be saying, on what God is inviting you to do now, how God is calling you to live fully, to do God’s will on earth. Shift your focus. Change your mind. Repent.

But to do this means embracing our own fragility, not fleeing from it. It means no longer shielding ourselves from those “others” who remind us of life’s inherent fragility, the very ones Jesus sought out and loved to hang out with. This is why one theologian refers to Jesus as “the Compassion of God”.

In fact, the whole story of Jesus is about embracing human fragility. The early Christians wrote a song about this, words we’ll hear on Good Friday. Let me slightly paraphrase that ancient song:

His state was divine,
yet he did not cling to his equality with God
but emptied himself
to assume the condition of a slave,
and became [fragile] as we are;
and being as we are,
he was humbler yet,
even to accepting death,
death on a cross.

For us, who sometimes do everything we can to flee our own fragility and that of others, it’s hard to grasp that we are liberated by someone who became powerless, that we are being strengthened by someone who became fragile and weak, that we find new hope in someone who divested himself of all honors and distinctions, that we find a leader in someone who became a slave, that we receive life from someone who experienced the most horrifying form of death, death on a cross. Hard to grasp that following Jesus means entering into human fragility, not fleeing from it.

Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk, stumbled across this realization one day. He writes:

In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness… This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud… I have the immense joy of being human, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate.

Lent is a time that we, as followers of Jesus, come, like Jesus, like Merton, to embrace our own fragility and that of others.

These are days to cherish these fragile and precious lives we’ve been given. Precisely because they are fragile, we can’t take them for granted, must cherish every moment -- the food we eat, the people we love, the beauty of the earth, the work we do. 

And this recognition that we will not always be in this life as we are now, leads us to stop sweating the small stuff, leads us back to what really matters. 

Often, when a person is approaching that most fragile moment in their life, the moment of death, they are blessed with a profound clarity about what is most important. As the common wisdom goes, in that final moment no one regrets that they didn’t spend more time at the office. The recognition of our own fragility leads us back to what matters most, the people, the work, the values we cherish most.

And finally, this recognition deepens our compassion. Rather than shielding ourselves from those whose brokenness and fragility is most apparent, we begin to see them as truly our brothers and sisters, kin, let their stories touch us, maybe even become friends. Their fragility may, for the moment, be more apparent than ours, but we’re not as different from them as we’d like to pretend.

Taking the Side of the Victims

Luke 4:14-21

The Rev'd Richard Smith, Ph.D.

January 24, 2016

Wait! I thought God loved everyone, that Jesus came for everyone! But in today’s gospel, he says he was sent to the poor, the prisoners, the blind and oppressed. Really? What about everybody else -- the rest of us who, relatively speaking, aren’t poor, or in prison, or blind, or oppressed? What about us?

The problem parallels this past year’s arguments over the #BlackLivesMatter movement. Opponents of that movement have insisted that all lives matter, not just black lives. Why the focus on black lives to the exclusion of everyone else?

Of course, that’s not what the movement is saying. Rather, it’s calling out the fact that in our present world and culture, black lives don’t matter, at least not as much as white ones do. When the day comes that black lives really do matter, then we'll be able to truly say that all lives matter.

As one African-American pastor put it: “When you see a house on fire and direct the firefighters to that house, you’re not saying that all the other houses in the neighborhood don’t matter; you’re saying this one especially matters because it’s on fire. Right now,” he says, “our house [the house of African Americans] is on fire.”

Jesus is doing something similar. He has just been baptized by John the Baptist and spent a long retreat in the wilderness. Filled by the power of the Holy Spirit, he’s ready to begin his ministry. He returns to his hometown synagogue for his inaugural address. They hand him the Book of the prophet Isaiah. Out of the tens of thousands of words in that book, he deliberately selects the ones we just heard, focusing his entire new ministry on the poor and the imprisoned, the blind and the oppressed --  the people the world overlooks, doesn’t want, discards.

In other words, Jesus takes the side of the victims. He is like the mother who loves all her children -- of course! -- but runs to defend her younger one when her older one is picking on him. Today, Jesus takes the side of the exploited immigrant worker receiving less than the minimum wage, but also takes the side of his wife if he should return home and abuse her.

Whoever takes advantage of the vulnerable will answer to God for it. To announce the good news of God’s reign today is to say that God comes to offer all of us a new way to live: as brothers and sisters in a new creation. 

As one central American poet put it, “A religion that doesn’t have the courage to speak out for human beings doesn’t have the right to speak out for God.” That is the price of credible ministry today.

And this is the work Jesus today, ministering through the only body he now has, what Paul calls the Body of Christ. And on this day of our annual meeting, Paul reminds us that we are each members of that Body, each with our own unique role. Many years after Paul wrote those words, St. Therese echoed them, and I’ll close with her familiar words:

Christ has no body but yours,

No hands, no feet on earth but yours.

Yours are the eyes with which he looks with compassion on this world.

Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good.

Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.

Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,

Yours are the eyes, you are his body.

The Wedding Feast at Cana

The Rev'd Dr Richard Smith

Second Sunday After Epiphany, Year C

January 17, 2016

Speaking as the parent of a teenager, I am so loving this Gospel story, especially the conversation it includes between a young man and his mother. The young man is, of course, Jesus, and he doesn’t know what time it is, but his mother does. He needs to listen to her. As the parent of a teenager, did I tell you how much I love this story?

First though, let me set the context for this passage. The opening words of John’s gospel are “In the beginning...,” the same words that open the Book of Genesis. John is writing a creation story. And in his creation story, the old world of death and tears and oppression are giving way to life and love and light.

“Of his fullness,” John writes of Jesus, “we have all received, grace upon grace.” This story is about that new creation, that grace, breaking loose.

It is the third day of a wedding feast, and the wine has run out. A Jewish wedding lasted seven days. The wine has run out before the wedding has. This isn’t just an embarrassment, it’s a disaster.

Wine isn’t just a social device to make a party work, it’s a sign of the harvest, of God’s abundance, of joy and gladness and hospitality. And so when this young couple and their families run short on wine they run short on blessing.

This is a story is a metaphor about a humanity that is falling apart and in peril. They have no wine. Humans have lost their connection with the source of life and their communion with each other. Without this connection, life cannot continue. This is a story about a looming catastrophe.

And in this catastrophe, Mary turns to her son. She knows he is the one to bring divine abundance into a world where human life is failing -- where people are lacking, falling sick, weeping, going blind, hungry, dying. She knows that Jesus is sent to prevent this world from perishing. John writes: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish, but may have eternal life. God did not send the son into the world to condemn the world, but so that the world might be saved through him.”

So Mary knows who to come to when the wine runs out, and so she says to her son, “They have no wine.” She expects him to do something about it.

“Woman,” Jesus says to her, and it sounds like an oddly formal way to address his mother, but the word he’s using is the one used for Eve in the earlier creation story in Genesis. Mary, in John’s new creation story, is the new Eve, the mother of the living who cares for her children and who's responsible for their well-being.

“Woman,” he says, “what concern is that to you or me? My hour has not yet come.”

He’s concerned about the timing. He suggests it’s not time for him to provide the wine.

Turns out, he doesn’t know what time it is. But his mother does.

A word about timing. All throughout John’s gospel, timing is everything. And there are two kinds of time that animate his imagination.

One is the kind of time with which we count and track the everyday events of our lives. It is measured in minutes and seconds, hours and days. It is the time we spend standing in lines, or clocking in at work, or waiting at the stoplight. It is mundane, ordinary time and it beats on relentlessly. This kind of time can be, as one writer puts it, “One damn thing after another.”

But there is another kind of time where all that is predictable fades and what emerges in its place is sheer possibility. This is God’s time, and sometimes it pokes through the ordinary canvas and clock of our lives to reveal a glimpse of the divine. This kind of time, God’s time, is meant to shape what we do with our ordinary time.

Tomorrow we remember someone who knew about this second kind of time. He called it “being on the mountaintop” where the glory of God had become clear.

In a speech he gave in Memphis not long before he was assassinated, Dr. King recalled how he had nearly died in 1958 when a deranged woman stabbed him in a Harlem bookstore. He told how how on his flight from Atlanta to Memphis that morning a bomb scare caused the pilot to announce to the passengers that, because Dr. King’s life had been threatened, a special guard had to be brought on board. King continued:

And then I got into Memphis, and some began to say the threats—or talk about the threats—that were out, what would happen to me from some of our white sick brothers. Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now, because I have been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody I would like to live—a long life—longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now; I just want to do God's will....So I'm happy tonight! I'm not worried about anything! I'm not fearing any man! Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!

A second kind of time. Mountain top time when the glory of the Lord is revealed. God’s time that makes sense of the ordinary time we mark on the calendar. It’s what gave Dr. King a profound clarity and purpose about what he had to do, and fired him with courage in the remaining seconds and minutes and days of his life. It revealed what his remaining calendar time was about, what it meant, why it mattered.

At the wedding feast, Jesus says that his hour, his mountain top moment, has not yet come. He isn’t speaking of a time and date on his calendar; he’s talking about the time when God will reveal his glory through his cross, resurrection, and ascension, the time when the veil of the temple will be torn in two and God will be accessible to all, once and for all.

Mary knows better. She knows that this wedding feast is no ordinary moment. Because whenever there is need and Jesus is on the scene, resurrection and abundance are right around the corner, grace upon grace. She knows what time it is better than her son.

And after his comeback to her request, she doesn’t say anything to him, but I see her casting one of those maternal glances -- the kind my mom still gives to me now and then, and like I sometimes give to my own son...

Rather than argue with him, she turns to the servants and tells them simply and clearly, “Do whatever he tells you.” She knows her son will come around. He might protest, but eventually he’ll listen to his mother.

Well, you know the rest of the story. Jesus instructs the servants to fill six large stone basins with water, to draw some of that water, now turned to fine wine, and take it to the steward. The steward assumes that the host has saved the best wine for last.

Suddenly this couple has six huge basins – 180 gallons – of the finest wine, more than enough for the rest of the wedding celebration. No one could now leave this wedding thirsty, because the water of human inadequacy that leaves you empty and unsatisfied has given way to the wine of exhilaration, the old order has given way to a new creation, abundance and blessing and grace have overflowed.

Gerard Manley Hopkins once said that the world is charged with the grandeur of God. In every moment the new creation is lurking, waiting to break forth. Bread and wine can bear Christ’s body and blood. An ordinary hug can convey unbounded love and blessing. The smallest donation of clean socks or rain ponchos can make all the difference for one of the homeless who sleep here on weekday mornings . A smile at just the right time, can shed light into the darkest of places.

There really are no ordinary moments. Maybe it’s 8:45 on a Tuesday morning and all that’s in front of you is a pile of invoices. Or maybe it’s Thursday evening and time to take out the garbage. Or maybe it’s 7:30 Saturday morning and time, finally, to sleep in.

Yet within each of the seconds and minutes and hours of our days, a new creation is waiting to break forth, waiting for us to unleash it. Life and love and laughter -- grace -- is waiting to break loose in our lives and in our world. Can you see it?

These so-called “ordinary” moments of our lives, do we know how pregnant they are? Do we know how to seize them as Mary would have us do, as Martin Luther King did? Do we really know what time it is?

The Baptism of our Lord, and Rhys

The Rev. Jacqueline Cherry

January 10, 2016  Yr C

What a joy it is to welcome those of you who have come to witness the baptism of Rhys Monroe. I realize some of you are here to celebrate the Baptism of Jesus, please know, we are happy to have you here too.

Before Jesus joined the crowd at the river Jordan, John the Baptist was wandering in the desert when he heard the word of God. And he was inspired to travel the region to proclaim a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. From what we can glean from the various gospels, John looked crazed wearing camel’s hair, and with locust legs and honey stuck in his beard.  In my mind he was breathless with a beet-red face from all of the explaining he had to do. Know body knew who this guy was;
the priests and Levites gave him the 3rd degree:

Who are you?  I am not the Messiah.
Are you Elijah? No.
Are you a prophet? No.
Then who, pray tell, are you? And why are you baptizing?

Let’s be honest, God had given John a horrible job - to proclaim the coming of someone more powerful than himself with no details of who, when or where. John was in the dark waiting for the light, a voice crying out in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord.

As the people were filled with expectation, all were questioning in their hearts concerning John whether he might be the Messiah.
It might not be so different today - I imagine all of us, just like the people in Luke’s gospel, are looking expectantly for a messiah. In our national political arena we debate whether Donald or Hillary can best save our country. Or we make ourselves indispensable at work believing that a secure job will keep us safe. Or maybe we long for that special someone who will save us from ever being lonely again. .We look with expectation, and we wonder, is that the one? Is he the person I've been waiting for? Could she be the one to whom I dare open my heart?

As the people were filled with expectation,
all were questioning in their hearts could he be the one to save us?

John stayed with the people baptizing them, and answering their questions wisely, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.”  While he was speaking, Jesus slipped into the crowd.  Jesus became one with the people. And in the midst of the people Jesus was baptized by John with the people. And the nature of God is revealed.

The heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon
Jesus like a dove. And a voice came from heaven saying,
‘you are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased’.

This is the moment the world changed. This is the moment that God moved from the realm of heaven to earth. This is the moment God meets us where we are. Boundaries are crossed at baptism. Borders disappear.
John baptized Jesus, then God broke through the heavens and claimed him. The grace of baptism is that we don’t have to do or say anything, God has already claimed us whether we believe we deserve it or not. And it’s going to happen to Rhys Monroe in just a few minutes.

But first, there’s something I need to confess: Neil and Lou, Grandparents and Godparents, Fr. Jack and Cromey, and all of you here, I need you to know that when we move through this rite of baptism, through the examination, the covenant and the prayers, while there’s a part of me that loves our age-old rituals, there’s another part of me that will cringe. Because I don’t believe it is necessary for anybody to renounce Satan and the forces of wickedness, evil powers and sinful desires on behalf of Rhys Monroe. We use this language because we always have; it’s dramatic and it makes good liturgy.

I encourage you therefore to think of Satan as a convenient symbol for the foul elements of humanity - greed and rage, envy and deceit; and, to imagine Jesus as representing the honorable human qualities of compassion, patience, kindness, and humility. So really, the Examination and Baptismal Covenant can be reduced to one question that everyone of us in this church should solemnly consider:

Will you fill yourselves up with love and kindness,
leaving no room for hatred and anger?

The one answer to this question is: I will, with God’s help!

The truth is, what may seem like an archaic ritual is astonishingly progressive. While it’s true that this sacrament of Baptism is a covenant between God, the community, and Rhys Monroe, this is the very thing that gays and lesbians have always had to do – establish our own families of choice by creating kinship not defined by genetics or the law. Baptism is the public proclamation and celebration of our adoption into a family that is united by God; a family bound, above all, by love and the promise to love.
This is the day the heavens opened and all that separated humanity from God was destroyed.
This is the day expectation and questioning is replaced with a joyous Epiphany worthy of awe: The Messiah, the one we’ve been waiting for is with us now.
Today is the day we will gather around this baptismal font with Rhys Monroe Cubba-Penick where he will be claimed, marked and sealed as God’s own. Forever, and ever, amen!

Follow me!

FEAST OF ST. JOHN THE EVANGELIST

January 3, 2016

The Rev. Dr. John H. Eastwood

Today is a special day.  We are still in the Christmas season and still in the midst of our holiday activities - some are gift giving, others are family visiting, a few are marrying, and some are writing letters  - all these are acts of loving and embracing one another.  It is that time when we do some reconnecting - catch up with old friends, meet some new ones, re establish our roots to ground us as we charge on into 2016!

One letter written long ago is very important to our congregation’s history - that is, of course, the gospel of St. John.  Today we celebrate the Feast of St John the Evangelist, our patron.   We honor this writer of the fourth gospel for the unique way in which his gospel brings us the good news of Jesus Christ. It is also, and especially, a time to honor each other - to give thanks for each other  - for our Vicar, Richard, for our leaders,  and all others of us who support in so many ways our daily round of worship and mission. We remind ourselves of the blessings of inspiration, hope, and love that come to us as we gather to break bread, lift the cup.  We also remember each other and how we are all connected to each other through this weekly round of worship and fellowship year by year. Above all, today we give thanks for this our spiritual home!

 It is all about love, loving acceptance of one another in all the ups and downs of our lives. It is about that special character of loving that Jesus means when he says to Peter and all those who came to him - “follow me.”  In these stories of Jesus we find that they are full of abundant grace.  They are significant in a way that sets the whole gospel apart from the other three gospels.  When Jesus says “I am the bread of life”, for example,  the words make you stop and think. “Wait a minute! What does that mean?”   The impact of his words for the community of Jesus who heard them over and over, as is true for us who hear them today, is that they are transformative in nature.  In one story after another, all through the fourth gospel,  we are talking about things both heavenly and earthly, divine and human. That is what John intended.  

Jesus said “Follow me.”  He said it at the beginning of his ministry to some fisherman in the gospel of Matthew.  He says that a lot.  He said it to Peter when Peter began to complain about the beloved disciple in today’s gospel.  Jesus’ words settle him right down.  “No more complaining about your brother!  Follow me!”  He said it to the crowds who wanted something from him but didn’t know about the way of self denial, or selling everything you had and giving to the poor, or the cost of loving in the way he intended.  He said it to those who lived in darkness and were searching for the light.  He said it to those who carried heavy burdens and needed to be refreshed.  He said “Follow me” in other ways.  He said to many,  “abide in me”, “come to me”, “feed on me”. In so many different ways he said these  words of love. “Follow me” could be the two most powerful words in both the Old and New Testaments.

To be accepted and loved is one of the most transforming experiences any human can know.  That is what these words of Jesus mean: loving acceptance for who you are and for whom you can become for others.   That is the message of our patron saint.

The message of loving acceptance has been the heart of the ministry of St John’s over the years.  It has brought this congregation to testify to it many times.  Think of the founding of St Luke’s Hospital in the 1800's and the establishing of three mission churches - Holy Innocents, Good Shepherd, and Epiphany.  Think of what a church does in times when it hears the call to sew the seeds of  love and compassion and it has only 12 people around the altar on a Sunday?  It has to find a way to get out of itself.  It reaches out to its neighborhood with the gifts that God had given it, like space and the Holy Spirit.   And so we have programs like Head Start, art workshops, tutoring, and today, we have  Mission Graduates, Tuesday night Bhuddist meditation,  daily  Gubbio Project, Saturday’s Julian Pantry, and other groups and programs, free meals.  Ovef the years there are services of healing and reconciliation, special gatherings for organizing and worship around issues of discrimination, housing, AIDS.  Love’s acceptance always has meant care for the sick and those struggling with disease who would otherwise be alone.  Sometimes we called it “the spirit of St John’s” other times we called it “More Love”.

Over the years God called the people of St John’s  to know an important truth:   To be accepted and loved is one of the most transforming experiences any human can know.  It is transforming because you are moved out of your own self absorption, and into care for yourself and for others in a healthy way of love.   This is the good news our ministries can bring to others.

There is an unforgettable experience that Pastor Frederick Buechner tells of walking down the street one day at the foot of Central Park in New York City.  He passed by a middle-aged woman who said to him  “Jesus loves you.”  It was an everyday voice, the kind that you would use to say “good morning.”  Buechner said that he was taken off guard by it and actually startled.  Before he could thank her she was lost in a crowd.  He wanted to run after her to say, “Yes, if I believe anything worth believing in this whole world, I believe what you just said.  I believe God loves me.  He loves you.  He loves the whole pack of us.”  But the experience didn’t end there.  Buechner said, “For the rest of the way I was going, the streets I walked on were paved with gold.  Nothing was different.  Everything was different.  The city was transfigured.  It was a “New” York City.  For a moment, it was not the world that I saw, but the world as it might be.”
Today we give thanks for one another and for St John the Evangelist who gave us a picture of Jesus’ loving acceptance of people that moved them to care for others.
At St. John’s we go about our ministry to our world in the same way - through  a glimpse of what it might be.  AMEN

Christmas, the Shepherds, and Fear

In Alice Walker’s novel, The Color Purple, a wise blues singer named Shug says “I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.” Because then God has to go and make another purple flower to catch your eye and dazzle you.

Christmas is when the agenda changes, when it is no longer about our longing for a God who is missing-in-action, but rather about our recognizing the One who is already here, right here, Emmanuel, God-with-us.

When God was the one missing, we could shake our fists at the sky and ask the ticked-off rhetorical questions that have no answers: “Where the hell are you in this mess? How long, O Lord?”

But when the agenda gets switched up, and we are the ones missing, then God can’t be blamed. Our flickering mind, unable to see and touch the One right here in our midst, that is the problem.

So I guess spiritual guides and gurus are right when they urge us to wake up, be attentive to what’s really going on all around us, pray, meditate, take up a spiritual practice so we won’t fall asleep, so we won’t become numb to what’s happening right in front of us. They’re right.

But what’s also true is that all our efforts to be alert to God’s presence are matched by God’s relentless determination to catch our eye. This is what God does, relentlessly trying to catch our eye, dazzle us, as he did in a more spectacular than usual way on this night with the shepherds.

It happened at the birth of a child. An angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them. The glory of the Lord shone all around them. And they were terrified.

This is what our scriptures call “the fear of the Lord”.

This fear is not like the one that permeates the rest of this Christmas story, the fear arising from the Roman occupation of Israel with its massive registrations to keep a restless Jewish population both under control and taxed. It is not the fear unleashed by an empire that mercilessly slaughters infants and violently and bloodily destroys their temple in Jerusalem, the very center of Jewish universe and all they hold dear.

The fear felt by the shepherds is not that same kind of fear that endures to our very own day -- the kind that results from drone strikes and terrorist attacks and torture. It is not the kind that results from the police killings of Amilcar, Alex Nieto, Mario Woods. Nor from the recent announcement from Homeland Security that they are about to launch another round of raids against immigrant families, deporting 100,000 immigrants back to the violence in Central America from which they fled for their lives -- with so many families destroyed along the way, so many children left without their parents.

The fear that overcomes the shepherds when the angel stands before them is not like the worry you feel as you wonder where you’ll move in these days of gentrification if the landlord doubles your rent.

Rather, their fear, the "fear of the Lord", is a defiant counterpoint to the one unleashed by the Caesars of this world. This fear of the Lord does not cause you to cower, or despair, or weep.

Rather, the fear the shepherds feel is more like a billion glorious sunsets all rolled into one -- all bright purple and orange and salmon colored. Overwhelmingly beautiful. In fact, too much.

The fear the shepherds feel is like when you look up at the sky on a dark, clear night and see our vast Milky Way galaxy, and you realize it is just one of over a billion galaxies in an even more vast universe, and that you are somehow a part of it all.

This is the kind of fear the shepherds feel, this “fear of the Lord”.

They had never felt this before, didn’t know what to make of it, and they felt overwhelmed, terrified.

But the angel tells them, “Do not be afraid.” “Do not be afraid.” There is no phrase repeated in our scriptures as frequently as this one: “Do not be afraid.” This great joy revealed to you is something you can drink in. Go ahead, drink it in! As much as you possibly can!

Unlike the fear of the Caesars of this world, this kind of fear brings them to their feet, swells their hearts to overflowing, gives them goosebumps, tears of joy, more music, more life.

And then the moment fades, the angel goes back to heaven, and the shepherds are left to treasure and ponder that moment, to let it work its great work in them, to transform them, make them more in love with the world and with life.

Once in awhile all of this happens in the ordinary course of our own lives. For the shepherds, it was triggered by the simple birth of a child -- and if you’ve ever held your own newborn child in your arms you may know something about this. Other moments along the way can can also take us there.

It happened to a friend of mine whose husband died of cancer a few years ago. She writes of her final days with him:

I remember having to walk with Eric once we entered the "night side of life". Those days were the richest fullest moments I have lived with someone. Once the pain comes and their body starts to go, it gets harder but that's when we got to really realize the full meaning of being alive, right there at the scary edge of the unknown -- when it's too late to go on trips or to do farewell parties because his body and mind could barely withstand living-- but that's when we were able to see the sweetness of life and truly say our goodbyes. 

Four hours before he died, when his body was completely in pain and broken, he told me "Lore, I am going to die"; and I asked him if he was afraid still, and he said "No, I am really curious about what comes next". We smiled with each other and fell asleep in a soft embrace. 

Three hours later, his breathing changed into a disturbing rattling sound "the death rattle" and I gathered his brother and mom to just be with him, I played his favorite songs, his breathing got soft and then it stopped. 

The hard part is to be the one that did not die and had to stay behind and keep on living without knowing when it will end. I try to hold on to the urge to live fully and with intensity. Life became more important, extremely urgent and in full HD color after I got to witness the edge of death. I am more curious about life now. And grateful. 

I can’t say for sure if there are times like these in every life, but I hope there are -- a beautiful angel lighting up a forebodingly dark night sky at the birth of a child, an intense feeling of life while standing with a loved one at the edge of death.

If you have not yet had such a moment, I hope you will. And I hope that when God gives it to you, you will be awake and not miss it. And when the angel goes back to heaven and that moment vanishes, I hope you will do as Mary does: Treasure that moment and ponder it in your heart. It is given to you as a gift, and it is given for a reason: to transform you so that you can transform the world.

This week in our parish email I included words from the great African-American theologian, Howard Thurman. Let me close by reading these words once again as we treasure and ponder what is given to us on this night.

When the song of the angels is stilled,
when the star in the sky is gone,
when the kings and princes are home,
when the shepherds are back with their flocks,
the work of Christmas begins:
to find the lost,
to heal the broken,
to feed the hungry,
to release the prisoner,
to rebuild the nations,
to bring peace among the people,
to make music in the heart.

Irish Alzheimer's

Second Sunday of Advent 2015, Year C

The Rev'd Dr Richard Smith

You may have heard me mention that peculiar form of Alzheimer's that afflicts Irish people. (I’m half Irish, so I can attest to this.) It’s called  Irish Alzheimer's, and it’s when you can’t remember who anyone is except your enemies.

Over the years I’ve come to suspect it’s not just we Irish who have this particular affliction. It actually seems to afflict other ethnic groups as well.

And I think it’s what John the Baptist is trying to heal in today’s gospel. He’s trying to get us Irish, and other folks with this affliction, ready for our extreme makeovers.

We get seduced into identifying with sin, all the wrongs inflicted on us -- the humiliations, the hateful glances, and the mocking words. We identify ourselves as the victims of others’ wrongdoing, and this can take its toll on us.

I remember talking to a woman married for thirty years whose husband had hurt her deeply many years before. Over the years, that hurt had festered, turned into a profound resentment and bitterness that you could see in the way the lines had formed on her face. That bitterness had taken its toll, stolen her joy and her zest for life.

We can also end up identifying ourselves with the wrongs we ourselves have done -- the hitting, lying cheating, betraying we have done, the selfish choices we’ve made. “I’m the one who wasted all those years on booze and drugs.” “I’m the one who said those hurtful, angry words to the one I love the most.” “I’m the coward who remained silent when a co-worker made that racist or homophobic remark.” Identifying ourselves with our own sinfulness in this way -- this, too, can steal our joy, our passion and zest for life.

Soon we’re telling our life story in terms of our own worst moments, the blows received and blows given. We take on a victimhood from the wrongs of others; we wallow in guilt over our own mistakes. We identify, in other words, with the sin.

There’s a truth in all of this. We really have been mistreated by others, been victims of their wrongdoing. And we really have sinned against others, making them the victims of our own wrongdoing. These are simple facts. We can’t deny this.

The problem is that we come to identify ourselves and each other by these, our worst moments, defining ourselves by all the wrongs done to us and by us.

When we so closely identify ourselves with all the negative, we’ve unconsciously erected a such an effective barricade that God can’t get near us, can’t touch us. We can’t hear God speak to us the words he wants to speak, the words he spoke to Jesus: "You are my beloved child. In you I am well pleased."

Before we can let that love sink in, we have a few barricades to remove. We have to stop with the Irish Alzheimer's, stop identifying ourselves with our worst moments of either victimhood or guilt.

Which is where John the Baptist comes in.

John sees himself as a construction worker. He is building a highway for the arrival of the Lord. Whatever is an obstacle will be eliminated. If the road is winding, it will be straightened. If it is rough, it will be smoothed. If a mountain is in the way, it will be flattened. Whatever is needed to ease the Lord’s arrival will be done. (Shea, John. The Spiritual Wisdom of the Gospels for Christian Preachers and Teachers. Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2004. 6.)

John is doing the preparation work, healing us of our Irish Alzheimer’s to make it possible for us to receive a still greater revelation, an extreme makeover. It is the revelation, the extreme makeover Jesus received the day of his baptism in the Jordan when he found he was unconditionally loved.

When a reporter asked Pope Francis who he was at his deepest core, the Pope leaned back in his chair, thought for a moment, then said, “I am a sinner who is deeply loved and forgiven by God.” The pope gets this right.

True, we’re sinners. Can’t deny it. But we’re not just sinners, we are redeemed sinners, we are children of God, deeply loved and forgiven by a God who is simply crazy about us.

That forgiveness, that redemption trumps everything else you want to say about us. That forgiveness enables us to own the evil inflicted on us and by us, and yet not be defined by it. We are sinners deeply loved and forgiven by God.

There’s a cliche within Christianity: “Jesus saves.” The question, of course, is “From what?” And we answer, “Well, from sin. Jesus saves us from sin.”

Sin is whatever separates us from God, erects a barricade, puts God at a distance from us. And when we say that Jesus saves us from sin, we’re saying that in Jesus, God overcomes that distance, draws close to us, just as we are, with all our wounds and whatever evil we may carry in our own hearts, embraces us just as we are, accompanies us on our journey. This is unconditional love; it’s what we savor in these Advent days, God overcoming the distance.

This unconditional love is transformative. It’s what brings us back to life. It makes for an extreme makeover.

One spiritual writer puts it this way:

I was a neurotic for years. I was anxious and depressed and selfish. Everyone kept telling me to change. I resented them, and I agreed with them, and I wanted to change, but simply couldn’t, no matter how hard I tried. What hurt the most was that, like the others, my best friend kept insisting that I change. So I felt powerless and trapped. Then, one day, he said to me, “Don’t change, I love you just as you are.” These words were music to my ears: Don’t change. Don’t change. Don’t change...I love you as you are.” I relaxed. I came alive. And suddenly I changed.! Now I know that I couldn’t really change until I found someone who would love me whether I changed or not.(De Mello, Anthony. "Don't Change." In The Song of the Bird, 67-68. Garden City, N.Y.: Image Books, 1984.)

This is how God loves us, this God who, by taking on our own human flesh, overcomes the distance, draws near, embraces us just as we are. This is what we celebrate in these days of Advent: God overcoming the distance, “saving us from sin”, leading us into an extreme makeover.

In the last few years, I’ve come to know a few ex-gang members. They had grown up in the gangs. They had been deeply traumatized by violence and abuse from an early age, and they went on to inflict violence and abuse on others through the gangs. I’ve asked them what made them decide to leave the gangs. “It’s a big step, often a dangerous one. What made you decide to leave?” They often tell me, “It all started when Ray Balberan asked me if I wanted to go out for pizza.”

Ray is an amazing Latino elder here in the Mission. Years ago, late on Friday nights, he went out to these young men and invited them out for pizza. Over pizza and conversation, he’d notice how talented they were, how smart and good they were. He’d point that out to them. No one had ever told them that before.

A few nights later, Ray would invite them to a movie. No one had ever paid this kind of attention to them before. Next thing, they’re all going on a camping trip, their first time out of the neighborhood.

Slowly, after all the relentless love they got from Ray, they started to change, to see themselves differently, to envision how their own lives could be different. Eventually they made the heroic decision to leave the gangs and start a whole new life.

This is how grace works. God is like Ray Balberan. God comes close to us -- isn’t put off by our own woundedness and our own sinfulness -- and loves us just as we are. This is transformative. It’s what saves us, brings us back to life.

And in this transformation, we can begin to hear what Jesus heard on the day of his baptism, “You are my beloved child. In you I am well pleased.” Even despite our own wounds and our own worst moments, we are beloved children of God, deeply loved, forgiven, cherished, redeemed.

This love trumps everything else about us. But before we can let it sink into our bones, we need to stop with the Irish Alzheimer's already! Stop identifying with our own worst moments. If we do this in these Advent days, the path is cleared.