Sermon for The Fourth Sunday in Advent

The mother of the Prince of Peace is speaking some pretty revolutionary words in our Gospel tonight. That often gets glossed over when we hear Mary spoken of as the woman who says, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” But I’d like to remind us tonight just how radical and rebellious living from out of the peace of God actually is.

I’m really not sure where the idea of Mary being meek and mild came from. I understand its usefulness from a certain point of view. The meek and mild myth is certainly emphasized by patriarchal & misogynistic systems, because it’s dangerous to have a female role model as feisty as Mary actually is.

And she’s not just feisty in the political diatribe we call the Magnificat. She’s just as strong headed in the story about the wedding at Cana. Mary doesn’t even listen to Jesus but just orders the wine steward to talk to Jesus in that motherly way of assuming her child will do what she wants.

Mary is the servant of the Lord. But subservience and submission to God should not be confused with subservience and submission to another human being – no matter what Paul might have said. I mean, I really don’t think Mary saying yes to Gabriel without first consulting her husband fits the common interpretation of Paul’s words in Ephesians. It seems both liberal and conservative interpret Paul’s words this way they just have different relationships to it.

Mary has a strong sense of self. The Magnificat echoes Hannah’s song, so here is Mary identifying herself with a figure from Scripture. This is hardly a meek or mild thing to do. It would seem in the eyes of her culture even more audacious than Jesus claiming he is the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy when He begins His ministry.

It’s also important to note that Mary speaks of what God HAS done, not what God will shortly do. God has chosen the lowest of the low in the furthest reaches of the Global Empire to bring about the incarnation. God has already scattered the proud, brought down the powerful and lifted up the lowly in choosing a Nazorean woman to bear the incarnation. The hungry are filled with God’s very self!

To put Jesus’ human origin in relationship to Rome in a modern context; Just imagine some Chamorro kid from Guam showing up in Washington DC with a horde of poverty-stricken, quasi-legal followers proclaiming himself the messiah, or on an equal level to God. That would be well received, don’t you think?

The analogy would be more accurate to say Jesus showed up in Honolulu, because Jesus never went to Rome, but you get my point I think. Not meek, not mild, rather humble of origin and gentle in His power.

In fact the English word meek, which we do read as one of the blessed qualities in the Beatitudes, doesn’t have the same meaning as the original Greek. The Greek word indicates gentleness in how one uses their strength. The Greek does not imply weakness as the English does.

Meek and mild as subservient to the status quo is a complete misunderstanding of what peace actually is. To live a truly peaceful life is genuinely counter cultural. It flies in the face of a violent culture that solves its problems with violence.

Our culture of violence is the modern version of the sin offerings the author of Hebrews speaks of – though these sacrifices are made so we can go on sinning. Violence is a scapegoat offering on the altars of revenge, racism, sexism, xenophobia, etc. and the scapegoats ARE the people who are being sinned against… or the people who stand up for them.

It is the prince of peace who offered His body in order to abolish this. Living the life of peace God asks of us is not meek, nor mild. And it will not be well received. Gandhi, Martin Luther King, the Mississippi civil rights workers, St. Steven, all the apostles except John, and more were crucified. This is the harsh truth of living out of peace and love.

The harsh truth of how the world receives peace, though, is not what ultimately concerns us. A greater reality, a greater Kingdom is available to us. This is the Kingdom that is both/and; both breaking in and yet to come. It is from this reality that we find the strength of God. We are heirs to that strength, a strength that must be wielded gently, without exploiting power, wealth or status. Power, wealth and Status are not God’s will for us. That’s what one makes sin sacrifices for.

Mary understood this, this is what she is saying, not that Rome will fall, but that God has made Rome irrelevant. Empire is the antithesis of the Kingdom of Heaven. For the one true King of all will soon be born in the most humble of circumstances. And He is the one we follow. “For now he shall be great to the ends of the earth; and he shall be the one of peace.”

Readings:

Micah 5:2-5a

Psalm 80:1-7     

Hebrews 10:5-10        

Luke 1:39-55

Sermon for The First Sunday in Advent

What shall endure? We have our answer in the text. Still, as often as Advent comes around, the beginning of the Liturgical year, the anticipation of marking the beginning of Jesus’ life on earth, we contemplate the end of all things and it never stops being jarring – and downright gloomy.

Of course this is meant to remind us that we aren’t just ritually awaiting the celebration of the Incarnation. We are also awaiting the second coming; the end of all days, the final judgement, and the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God. And so we do indeed have the question before us, what shall endure?

It is the Word that endures. And it is our hope that being the body of the word, we will have our share in the enduring Glory of the Lord. And I think we could all use some hope these days. Especially as we are quite possibly facing, if not the end of all things, the end of humankind – or at least the end of life as we know it.

It truly is the end of all things that’s being described in our Gospel; notice that Jesus is verbally reversing the creation story. Remember in creation the earth was brought forth from the sea and lights were put in the dome of the heavens. And that’s all being reversed.

All of that will pass away…

The image of the seas rolling in does make me think of global warming and melting ice caps. People will surely faint from fear and foreboding when that comes to pass. And that will happen. The earthy powers are clearly invested in NOT preventing that. Honestly, I’ve resigned myself to mankind’s self-destruction. If it’s not global warming than it will be the nuclear waste problem. That’s a trigger we pulled ages ago - it is its own time bomb of destruction. These disasters take time to manifest, though – not as much time as we’d like perhaps, but how long can we put the consequences of our actions off? We don’t know the day or the hour.

Our text tonight does bring up a passage that throws a bit of a wrench in knowing when the end is near, “Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place.” So what happened? Did God change their mind? Did something go wrong? Did the apostles mishear or misunderstand this statement?

In the 4^th chapter of 1 Thessalonians the one that follows what we read tonight, Paul addresses the concerns of the Thessalonians who are grieved by the deaths of their siblings in Christ. Perhaps they had some of these same questions. Paul wants to inform them that those who have fallen asleep will be raised at the coming of the Lord, even before the survivors. He reminds them of their Hope in sharing the Glory of the Lord. 

It’s clear, however, that Paul believes that this coming in Glory will happen while at least some of those he’s addressing will still be alive - So much for immediacy. Most of us have lost any expectation of the end. 2000 years after it was supposed to happen it’s easy to imagine that the end times are very far off indeed. And while concern for impending disasters makes sense, worrying about it won’t hasten nor delay it. Besides, as Jesus reminds us, sufficient unto today are the evils thereof.

But that doesn’t assuage any gloom, frankly. Honestly, where I most struggle with hope is in feeling powerless over the systemic slaughter of black people, in the slow deliberate starving of the poor, in the denial of access to healthcare, in laws that prevent feeding the homeless, in the astonishing heartlessness I see all around me; heartlessness that perpetuates Evil. It’s very gloomy to see so many Christians be that heartless, especially considering Jesus asked us to be radically compassionate, forgiving, peaceful and especially loving. How do you follow Jesus and not listen to his words?

And that is what Jesus tells us will endure, His words; God’s words from God’s Word. The Psalms, Isaiah, Peters letters, the other synoptic Gospels, all speak of the Word of God outlasting the heavens and the earth. And it’s this kind of phrase that can jolt one into remembering that we’re not talking about literal words here. If there are no tongues and books, what words could be left?

We’re speaking of the second person of the Trinity. Word is a metaphor, the non-created non-being spoke via the begotten, not created God; things that are quite beyond our comprehension. How do we find Hope in that which we can’t even really know?

Our little light of hope that shines as we begin the dark season of Advent, as the days get shorter and shorter, is that the word made flesh retained some semblance of His human form. That’s something we can grasp, something we can understand. And it is through the reality that God has incorporated human form into Herself that we can imagine a hope that we will somehow share in the Glory of the Lord.  

And so we Hope in that which we can’t fully understand. Yet, to hope for anything else, to hope in that which we can know, will inevitably lead to disappointment. Our authorities, our systems, or friends and family, and yes even our pets will let us down, will fail. Even the heavens will eventually desert us. Creation is not the creator. Some may think that hope in that which we cannot fully know or fully understand is foolishness. I say that to have hope in what you can know and understand is true foolishness.

Yet we need hope to function, to carry on. Hopelessness leads to despair and self-destruction. That, I am positive is not what God wants from us. Hope is one of the Christian virtues. I believe it’s a virtue because it requires a leap of faith, a trust in what we cannot see over what we can. And so we trust in the witnesses of the Glory of God; witness that has not been just handed down for 2000 years, but witness that still continues. God continues to reveal God’s self to us. Some of us here have had our glimpses of that Glory. Whether we have had a glimpse or not, we have all been promised a share in that Glory. We can even tap into it now, live into this other reality that we have inherited. We can draw not on our own strength, but on Christ’s. Christ who shall endure, who can be trusted. I encourage you to put your hope in the Word. 

Readings:

Jeremiah 33:14-16     

Psalm 25:1-10   

1 Thessalonians 3:9-13       

Luke 21:25-36

You Can't Bring Your Status, Wealth or Power Into the Kingdom of Heaven

Another appropriate epistle today would have been Ephesians, where Paul reminds us that we are members of Christ’s body. He then quotes both Genesis and Jesus "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." Going on to say this mystery is great and applying it to Christ and the church. 

And it is in this sense, applying this to the Church that I’m speaking of tonight. Quite frankly the way we here in the industrial US understand marriage bears little to no resemblance of marriage in the time of Jesus. Frankly I don’t see the point of getting into all that; though I will begin with a broader notion of kinship.

I had a friend who upon looking at her first born child, and seeing both her and her spouse in the child said, “This is what the Bible means when it says the two become one flesh.” Her mind turned to scripture in this holy and sacred moment. It was a genuinely touching and meaningful response to the miracle of new life.

And while I think she meant it quite literally as in the genetic combination of the married couple, in a broader sense she did touch upon the meaning of “Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.” This does not merely refer to sexual union, but rather to forming a new kinship bond. 

The echo of Adam saying "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh,” reverberates throughout the Bible as way to name kindship bonds. Laban says to his nephew Jacob, “Surely you are my bone and my flesh!” (Gen. 29:14). Abimelech says to his mother’s family, “Remember also that I am your bone and your flesh” (Judg. 9:2). The tribes of Israel say to David, “Behold, we are your bone and flesh” (2 Sam. 5:1). David says to the elders of Judah, “You are my brothers; you are my bone and my flesh” (2 Sam. 19:12; cf. 19:13).

And it was not too many weeks ago that we read here the words of Jesus, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.” This from the chapter in John’s Gospel of establishing Eucharistic practice. The Eucharist is many things. It is ritual cannibalism; it is an intimate encounter with Christ himself, a union of flesh. We digest Christ; he becomes literally part of our flesh. It is also communion, a community experience, one that forms us all into the body of Christ. 

In becoming one flesh with Christ we also become one flesh with each other, in the kinship bond sense. We become siblings with and in Christ, as the author of Hebrews tells us: “For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father. For this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.”

The author of Hebrews also refers to us specifically as children, while Christ today tells us that whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it. Now I commonly hear this interpreted as one must enter the Kingdom innocently, or with simple minded acceptance. But I believe those are relatively modern conceptions of children born out of romanticization. A romanticization I think that is part and parcel of a notion that the miracle of new life ceases to be a miracle as that life gets older. I don’t believe Jesus thinks that way.

I rather think Jesus is speaking to children’s lack of wealth, power or status in his times. Children, especially fatherless children, are mentioned throughout scripture as those in need who have no resources – who in fact God especially cares for. It is in this sense, in powerlessness, poverty and lack of status that one enters the Kingdom. The first shall be last and the last shall be first.

I’m reminded here of the woman who put a mere pittance into the Temple treasury. Jesus tells us she gave more than those who gave large amounts because she gave everything she had. You are not your wealth, status or power, clinging to that makes entering the kingdom harder than it is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. You enter into the kingdom free of all that, an equal brother or sister or sibling under one Father alone. 

I do not say this naively. Our order developed in part out of recognition of the great sibling rivalry that disrupts and divides the Body of Christ. Yet, how much of that rivalry comes out of not entering the kingdom as child or sibling? Our society truly lacks a notion that we have intrinsic value, and so value is measured in terms of superiority – if not with wealth, power and status, than with some sense of moral superiority. We speak of good and bad people, right and wrong people all the time. Believing we can enter the kingdom without all that is pretty difficult. Believing that our siblings don’t need any of that either takes work. The one who sanctifies believes that, and so I direct you to him, and the encounter with him we all soon will have.

And so we come to table tonight with this in mind. We are not simply a community who worships together; we are entering into a kinship. Giving our all not just to God but to each other and to living out of the kingdom. We are becoming brothers and sisters and siblings who abide in Christ as Christ abides in us.

Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.

Readings for this sermon:

• Genesis 2:18-24 and Psalm 8  • 
• Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12  • 
• Mark 10:2-16

Notes on Territory to Explore.

A friend asked me what I was up to lately and I went on at length, presented here verbatim:

I've been thinking a lot about bodies lately though, and was recently challenged to think about what I'm supposed to write about. (In reference to the last clear instruction I got from Spirit, which was to write.) 

I just read a thesis about invisible disabilities (a sexual one specifically) that raised a lot of questions about expectations of sex, even in the queer community... And I was recently at a panel about body positivity. (The most personally challenging thing I heard was the suggestion that you look at yourself naked in the mirror and say I'm beautiful.)

re, the thesis though, it made me think about having genitals that do not function "normally" - and what normally means, and the fact that I'm able (at times, not always) to orgasm without my genitals operative at all...

And I've been talking to my girlfriend who had a hysterectomy and who talked at great length about how the medical establishment treats fat women

And way back when someone asked me if I had the soul of a woman, I said, I don't think spirit has gender, but we are en-fleshed spirits, so spirit has a gendered experience in us.

Theologically, I had a revelation this past year that through Jesus God carries our wounds, which were still on the resurrected Jesus. Literally the nail marks in the hands and feet and the hole the spear made in his side... mystically, rather than talking on our sin, I tend to think of the cross as taking on our suffering and pain... wounded, broken humanity. That's what God took on Herself in solidarity with us.

God set up the system. Humanity inevitable suffered or it wouldn't exist in the first place (think childbirth at the very least) and I see the cross in part as God atoning for the suffering brought about by creations itself.

My friend then responded: I was thinking about something similar to this framework the past couple of days! But about love. How love is really pain. Horrible, horrible pain. Pain so bad sometimes you wish for the release of death. But an exquisite pain! A pain we seek. So. Life, and Love. An inevitable suffering.

So you're exploring embodiment.. diversity? (she asked)

I responded: Inevitably, yes, but perhaps also questioning if there's anything to be truly divergent from? Is there a norm?

further notes: How specifically do John and Paul use the term sarx (flesh) differently. Do they use soma (body) differently as well?

Chalcedon will likely be useful in speaking of enfleshed spirit. 

Sermon for the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

Blessed are you, O God, Ruler of the universe, you are the giver of this bread, fruit of the earth and of human labor, let it become for us, the bread of life.

Jesus is still talking to the crowd in Capernaum. This is the crowd who experienced the miracle of the loaves and fishes. The crowd had just invoked manna in the desert, the bread that came down from heaven, the miraculous food given to the Israelites to sustain them in the desert.

Jesus, in return, obliquely invokes the incarnation. The second person of the Trinity, who John identifies with Wisdom, there at the creation of flesh itself, comes down and is made flesh. This flesh is the bread of heaven now. In the incarnation, Jesus sanctifies all of creation, reconciling it with God, restoring it to its original sacred state.

I’m with the theologian Schmemann. The fall was not disobedience, the fall was ceasing to be hungry for God and for God alone, ceasing to see our whole life depending on the whole world as a sacrament of communion with God, ceasing to see that all that exists is God’s gift to us, to make God known to us, to make our life communion with God.

Jesus is telling us this when he says unless we eat his flesh and drink his blood we will not have eternal life. And what is eternal life? Jesus tells us in Chapter 17 of John that eternal life is knowing the only true God, through knowing Jesus Christ. This is the beatific vision. According to Saint Aquinas this is what we were made for, our whole reason for existing. We already abide in God whether we know it or not, but to live, to really be alive is to let God abide in us.

And Jesus tells us the way to do this is to eat him. Let’s admit it, the Eucharist is ritual cannibalism. It’s certainly not only that, but to deny that is to deny the incarnation. God was made flesh. When we eat the body and blood of Christ, we are communing with the second person of the trinity, and we are ritually eating the flesh and blood of Jesus.

When we try to pretty these things up, we engage the fall again. Creation is good. In our fall we decide parts of it are unclean, are dirty or disgusting and not anything God would touch. If we proclaim the incarnation we proclaim that creation has been redeemed. It is all sacred. The bread we eat grows out of the dirt, has been fertilized by dung. Don’t think of this ritual cannibalism as gross, think of it as intimate. I don’t know how you can get any more intimate than this. Christ is in your mouth, you taste Him, swallow him, and digest him in your stomach.

In sacrificial worship it was common to eat the sanctified meat of the slaughtered animal. Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross was the last sacrifice, no more life needed to be taken to honor God. And so we worship by ritually invoking that sacrifice. The sanctified meat we eat is the bread of life.

  

Now it’s curious to note that in John, Jesus does not institute that ritual in the upper room with just the disciples present. So why does John have the Eucharistic institution here, in a small fishing village surrounded by crowds, rather than in the upper room with the disciples? There are certainly a number of possibilities.

In one commentary I read it was suggested that for John, all meals were Eucharistic meals. If you do see the whole world as sacred that might be true, but not many of us so that. I believe at least some invocation or institution needs to take place or it’s not a ritual enactment. It could easily indicate, however, that for John meals outside of worship time can be sacraments. I’m more likely to think it means that Jesus is offering his sacrifice to everyone. Not just people who are Christians already, not just to the baptized (a sub set of Christians), but everyone who is called by God to partake.

BECAUSE THIS IS HOW WE KNOW GOD! How we abide in Christ, who abides in The Lord, who through Christ abides in us. This opportunity should be available to everyone, whether they know about the True Presence or not. For often it is in doing a thing that we come to know what it is.

I really don’t remember how many of us here tonight actually believe in the True Presence, though I’m sure it’s come up. Obviously I’m not convinced that matters. It is with the assurance of the True Presence that communion is offered tonight. Whether that dogma works for you or not, even if you do think of the Eucharist as mere memorial, I implore you to approach this with a mystically oriented heart. Wisdom said tonight to lay aside immaturity, and live, and walk in the way of insight. Let me suggest that one way to define immaturity is a closed mind. Let Christ convince you, not me. All I ask is that you come to the table desiring union with God. Come to this table in love. Come to this table willing to engage the Divine with all your senses. Come to this table prepared to share this intimate moment with everyone else at the table. Come to this table and let this meal be love. Come to this table and let this meal be life itself.

Readings: 

Proverbs 9:1-6 and Psalm 34:9-14  • 

Ephesians 5:15-20  • 

John 6:51-58

A Note to Readers of a Different Faith: This sermon is meant for a Christian audience, who all worship the Trinitarian God revealed by Jesus of Nazareth (The Second Person of the Trinity.) I still assert that to know the Divine is what we are made for, our whole reason for being. However I would suggest finding the way God is known in your own tradition is ideal, unless you for some reason do feel called to the Eucharist.    

Sermon for the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

Where is God in the Gospel today?   Jesus doesn’t even make an appearance. That question really came to mind though; because I often hear it asked when good people die tragically. John seems to be having influence on Herod, but in the end did it matter? I believe it did matter, but to get to why we have to go beyond the text alone. I’ll explain as we go along.

Honestly today’s passage can seem like it’s only moving the story along. Certainly John’s death is an important part of Jesus’ story, and it of course the story prefigures Jesus own death. In fact this particular take on John’s death Herod seems remarkably similar Pilate who didn’t “really” want to kill Jesus, but was forced into it. There’s also the oddly negative twist on a common Hebrew scripture story about women who transgress for their own survival – but usually those stories are about being granted God’s favor.

In looking more closely at the passage, though, there’s a buried aspect that is very intriguing. It’s hidden in verse 20. “for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he protected him. When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed; and yet he liked to listen to him.” Now what’s interesting to me in this passage – a passage that seems on the surface designed to gain Herod a modicum of sympathy – is the implication of what John is doing. John is talking to Herod.

Now you may think, what’s significant about that? John is a prophet, bound to speak truth to power. He knows his fate, so what does he have to lose in talking to Herod? At the very least it would pass the time. But isn’t that all forgetting that John was out in the wilderness, dressing and behaving in socially unconventional ways. And he was not terribly kind to authorities.

I imagine the John before prison as angrily lecturing Herod. If he were still doing that in prison, I doubt Herod would be listening, or if he did listen, I doubt he would be perplexed. No, I rather think they were actually in conversation. That there was, however slight, a breaking down of the roles of prisoner and captive.

That’s how I found myself reading the text, but in meditating on it further I started to wonder a few things. Though Mark doesn’t mention this (Matthew & Luke do) John sent Jesus a message from prison questioning Jesus’ ministry. It wasn’t quite what John had in mind. After all John was a bit more fire and brimstone than Jesus. And Jesus answers, “Blessed is he who does not fall into a trap because of me.”

Scripture does not report how John responded to that message from Jesus – at least not explicitly. That passage none the less crossed my mind when I contemplated John’s attitude towards Herod in today’s Gospel. Admittedly, to speak of John’s response is pure conjecture, but bear with me.

I’m influenced from this point by James Alison, who you may remember from the clip we watched of him during our Lenten discussions. Alison has a long series of arguments that in many ways can be summarized by his take on Matthew 23:9. Call no one on earth father, for you only have one Father in heaven.

Jesus is teaching a siblinghood of mankind. Anyone who takes a position of superiority over anyone else on earth is doing violence to that siblinghood. In fact to give up your power to someone, to ask favor of someone you believe to be superior to you, as if you are not deserving, is participating in that violence. I want to be clear that demanding your rights is not asking favor.

Now I’m certainly not saying that there aren’t people who have power or status or might that can harm you, even kill you. But as Jesus says in Matthew: “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.” If you’re going to fear that is, Jesus then reminds us that the one who could destroy your soul has caringly counted every hair on our heads. The point being there are bigger things at stake than your physical safety. And your physical vulnerability is not inferiority.

Perhaps the trap Jesus is referring to in his message to John has to do with that. The messiah is not going to free John from prison. The messiah is telling John that Herod is not intrinsically superior to John, nor is John morally superior to Herod. John is clearly MORE moral, it’s true, but not morally superior. And it is with this good news that John can converse with Herod as an equal, something that both intrigues and bothers Herod.

More and more I’m seeing superiority as a foundational sin. I admit I fall into moral superiority when it comes to certain subjects. I have empathy for John. No doubt it took John down a peg that the messiah was not what he had originally expected. John had predicted that he must decrease as Jesus increased – but like this? You might imagine that John could take advice from Amos, who did not even claim the title prophet. Speaking truth to power can come from a very humble place.

We may not all be called to speak truth to power. But I believe that we all need to recognize that temporal power is not superiority. Neither are we superior in our righteous indignation, our ideology, or our worship. We may be correct, but not superior. That truth - whether we speak it or not - is part of the revelation of the siblinghood of humankind. That truth is inherent in God’s love for us; God who counts each hair on each one of us. Love for all creation as Paul reminds us - it is God’s good pleasure to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

Readings: 

Amos 7:7-15 and Psalm 85:8-13  • 

Ephesians 1:3-14  • 

Mark 6:14-29