December 31: the 7th Day of Christmas

The Church does not really know a celebration of the secular new year, although popular versions of it have arisen, including “Watch Night” services. Today is “just” the seventh day of Christmas. Our new year was Advent 1 and resolutions belong in Lent. Tomorrow is the eighth day of Christmas, the Feast of the Holy Name, the day Jesus would have been circumcised and named.

Yet here’s a bit of a reflection on the new year from John Mason Neale, a 19th century Church of England priest. It’s from a sermon on the well-known Ecclesiastes text, “There is a time to be born and a time to die…” If Neale seems pessimistic about the year that is past, and about the inner life, it should be known that his was a life full of suffering, much of it at the hands of the church:

And now look at the two years: the poor old worn-out year, that had seen so much sorrow and suffering and sickness and sin, and [will be] gathered to its fathers at midnight, and the new year, so full of hope and vigor and expectation, as yet. There [is] a time to die for the one; there is a time to be born for the other.

I cannot tell—which of us can tell?—whether it may please God that this year we [are now entering] shall be one of more rest and quietness to us than the last. It ought not to matter. In whatever situation it pleases God to place us, there we know that we are given the opportunity, if we will, of working out our own salvation. Yet, I trust God may make our enemies to be at peace with us. We have all of us enemies enough in our own hearts, I am quite sure, to take up all our time and all our thoughts, without their being thus distracted. For this I have prayed earnestly, that the Prince of Peace, at whose birth, when he came into the world, peace was sung by the angels, and who when he was going out of the world, bequeathed peace to his apostles, may give peace in our time: peace, not from strife within ourselves, for that, while we live in the flesh, we always must have, but peace from earthly enemies here, and, in the world to come, that perfect peace which can never—no not for one moment—be broken, because Jerusalem is the vision of peace.

It may sound like very bad news that we will always have strife in our own hearts. Yet I believe that is the truth. Wrestling, even struggling, with life is a large part of being human. Yet glimpses of peace and experiences of centeredness are also possible, and we should accept them and rejoice in them when they come. So let us also pray for those times amid the struggle within of the coming year.

December 30: The Word was Home

This morning’s Gospel was John’s magnificent poem that begins his Gospel, including those stunning words, “The Word was made flesh and dwelled among us,” or, as I like to translate, “The Word was made flesh and made a neighborhood with us.” As I said Christmas Eve, “Christmas is the Feast of God’s Homecoming.”

The Word at home today was a Christmas gathering of one half of my extended family—the Johnson’s. I remember these from as early as I can remember. They began as Christmas morning breakfast at my grandmother’s in the sixties. After her death, and really ever since, they have been the weekend after Christmas. For years presiding over the gathering was my great-grandmother Pearl. After ten years of her being gone I still miss her. Now my mother is the great grandmother with both her greats—Scotty and Teagan—there. The absence of my cousin Jeff for the first time since his death was felt deeply. His wife and kids came, which was a wonderful blessing. Besides brand new Teagan there was a cousin with a brand new baby and two more on the way. A new generation of kids were everywhere.

I would be the first to admit that family is not always all that it is cracked up to be, and mine is certainly as dysfunctional as most others I know. Yet there we were for an afternoon in our own little neighborhood and most was right with the world. And I kept thinking about the Word made flesh and coming home among these people, not just these people, obviously, but yes among these people. Flaws and struggles and sadness mingled in the room with love and laughter and caring. That’s probably the most for which any family or other manifestation of “neighborhood” could ask. And it is where came and comes to hang his hat. My, my, it can really take your breath away if you think about it.

The picture is of my sister and I with the oldest of the next generation—Scotty.

Happy Sixth Day of Christmas!

December 29: Thomas Beckett

On this 5th day of Christmas we remember Thomas Becket, that somewhat enigmatic 12th century Archbishop of Canterbury. Becket had been a close friend of King Henry II and his Chancellor, excelling at the political life of England. He had been ordained a deacon, but any continuation in ordained ministry had been interrupted, or even replaced by his political life, although he was officially the Archdeacon of Canterbury.

It appears that Henry saw an opportunity to gain greater control over the church (this was a constant battle in England—it did not begin with the infamous Henry VIII) when the Archbishop of Canterbury died. He saw to the election of his friend Thomas to the post and the Pope confirmed it. Thomas was reluctant, foreseeing damage to his relationship with Henry. Nevertheless the King prevailed and Thomas became Archbishop in 1162. Sparks flew almost from the beginning with Thomas being as zealous in his defense of the Church as he had been as Chancellor. He lived in exile in France for six years. On his return the disagreements continued and Henry was said to have muttered to a group of his barons, “Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?” Some of them took it as a command and they murdered Thomas in Canterbury Cathedral on this day in 1170. He was almost instantly declared a saint, and the King was obliged to do public penance. It was at this point that Canterbury came to be a point of great pilgrimmage to his tomb (a la Chaucer’s the Canterbury Tales). Henry VIII had his tomb dismantled, by the way. Today a single candle burns perpetually where his tomb stood behind the ancient throne of St. Augustine, the primatial seat of the Archbishop.

Today may be a good day to remember in our prayers the politicians among us, many of whom sincerely wrestle with the intersection of their faith and their politics, and try to make an intersection work. We should support that work of integration. The separation of church and state in this country has never meant the separation of religion and politics. Martin Luther King, Jr. famously said, “My religion is my politics.” I heard Bishop Barbara Harris quote this in a television interview prior to her consecration as a bishop. Despite the misuse of religion by some of our leaders, and the desire for some of a kind of theocracy among us, this is a value we can and should support among our political leaders.

Pray for politicians today, and also for the current Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, who needs all the prayers he can get.

Holy Innocent's Day: Love is Disarming

Today we remember the Holy Innocents of Bethlehem, from Matthew’s tale of Jesus’ birth, who were killed by a paranoid King Herod. The most important reflection on this story has always been Dutch Roman Catholic theologian Edward Schillebeeckx’. The set up to these words is his talking about the birth stories as post-resurrection stories (like all of the gospels):

Then nothing was too much. Angels, stars, wise men from the east, “astrologers,” but also simple people and shepherds, everything and everyone was summoned to offer praise to God.

At the same time, people felt that this Jesus must inevitably be a stumbling block for the powerful of the earth, people who seem only to be put off by other people’s goodness and therefore become aggressive. When pure goodness appears, without the sentimentality of mediaeval views of the crib, all the opposing forces of the earth do in fact join together. “They come to search for the child, to destroy him” (Matt. 2:13). Love is disarming. That is, people can be won over by it, or, it makes those who are evil even worse. The theme of the massacre of the innocents in Bethlehem has more human truth than the historian can ever discover. Faced with love which shows itself to be unarmed—and not knowing that it is love—the human reaction is either unconditional surrender or panic fear which will do anything to strengthen its own position of power, even to the point of killing all young children who are two years old and younger (Matt. 2:16). Any threat, possible or imagined, is exterminated.

Love in fact becomes the definition of heaven and hell, already on earth in the midst of our history, and therefore for ever. The first generation of Christians understood this well…

From his sermon "God who visits his people," in God Among Us: The Gospel Proclaimed, pp. 11-12.

The Martyrdom Required of Us

Almost as soon as the Feast of Christmas Day settled into the life of the early Church, the irony of these three feast days (St. Stephen, St. John and Holy Innocents) settled in immediately following it. The fist we celebrate today is especially jarring—from the sweet babe in the manger to the Church’s first martyr.

The wisdom of these days, and why they were placed here, is not to allow sentimentality to overpower Christmas. The babe in the manger will grow into the man Jesus and following him will have its consequences. The early church knew this well, knowing three kinds of martyrdom, corresponding to these three feast—the killing of one explicitly for his or her faith in Christ, the martyrdom of exile we remember on St. John’s Day tomorrow (sometimes called “white martyrdom”) and the martyrdom of innocent victims, we remember on Holy Innocents’ Day.

We do not live in an age of martyrs, although there are those who continue to die for their faith, although certainly not commonly in our own cultural context. The martyrdom of Innocents still exist in larger proportions than we might want to admit, including some on our own streets. It is the Feast of the Holy Innocents that perhaps resonates the most with us in our day—or should.

But I want to suggest today that a “new” kind of martyrdom is necessary for we Christians to take up in our day. I don’t know if it gets a color—like “red martyrdom” or “white marytyrdom.” But I do believe it is absolutely essential if the church is to survive and thrive in our day.

The martyrdom of which I speak is conversion and confession, the urgency of knowing and telling others about a God who is with us as healer, forgiver, and reconciler, a God who demands that we give up death and vengeance and suspicion as a way of life.

This is a kind of martyrdom for most of us, because it may very well not be a popular message among many around us and we may very well suffer for delivering it. It will certainly call upon some courage to speak and a risk to our reputations, for it is a real problem among us that we are not so sure all the time that we actually want people to know we are followers of Jesus, at least not ardent ones.

And perhaps most difficult for us in the church, it will mean placing a lower priority on trying to sell the church as a way to growth. We cherish too much our church communities and our witness tends to be about them—if only people knew what a wonderful little family we have here, they would flock to us. The truth is that is not the truth, which is hard for us to bear.

The truth is that people will only begin to come back to us if we are true bearers of the message, if we, in the words of the old saying, “practice what we preach,” which means a commitment to both practice and “preaching,” confessing, telling.

Stephen died for his telling. We probably will not die, but we must be willing to risk it, including the death of our communities, so that the truth may be told—the truth of love, the truth of forgiveness as a way of life, and reconciliation as the highest value we hold.

Christmas Sermon: The Homecoming of God

The Homecoming of God

I want to speak a word to you tonight that will not at first seem like fit material for a Christmas sermon. That word is “exile.” The word comes from the Isaiah readings that began this Service, readings that come out of the experience of the people of God’s exile in Babylon after the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem over 500 years before the birth of Jesus.

Just so you know ahead of time, “exile” is not the last word. “Homecoming” is, and that is how this night enters the story in triumph, for Christmas is the Homecoming of God. So that’s where I’m going, but hang on and listen up because now I’m going to go back to exile and work my up to the glory of homecoming.

Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly…

These words are stunning, particularly if you have been reading the book of Isaiah for the previous 39 chapters. Those chapters speak primarily of judgment and abandonment. Yahweh, the God of Israel and the kingdom of Judah, is done. The people have pushed God beyond the last divine nerve.

Isaiah preaches eloquently, passionately for Israel to wake up and smell the impending doom. They do not listen. Isaiah of Jerusalem is a failed preacher, a magnificent one, but an utter failure. No one listens; he preaches a message that no one wants to hear. So Yahweh is done, and the Babylonians will have their destructive way with Judah.

Many years pass between chapters 39 and 40, about 160 of them. Judah falls into chaos, there is a period of occupation by the Empire, and then destruction and deportation of at least the leading families.

These people are settled in Babylon, and, as Psalm 137 says, they sat by the waters and wept as they remembered Zion. And, as is human, they blame not themselves, but Yahweh. Yahweh had failed them, Yahweh had abandoned them, Yahweh had been defeated by the gods of Babylon; Yahweh is now silent.

For 50 some odd years the silence goes on; a generation passes. Then comes a startling new voice, a new Isaiah, who reaches back into the verbal and imaginary storehouse of his ancestor and brings a renewed word, although this time the word is not of judgment, but of forgiveness and hope.

After 50 years and more of silence, Yahweh speaks,

Comfort, O comfort my people. Speak tenderly…

This new Isaiah is charged with bringing good news, gospel, a word that Isaiah invents long before there are things we Christians call gospels. Announce peace! Bring gospel! Announce salvation! Proclaim that once again Yahweh reigns!

And the people are eventually set free when a new Empire arises to the East—the Persians, led by a man named Cyrus, an unlikely agent of the God of Israel, who defeats the Babylonians and sets the exiles of Judah free. They return home.

They return home, however, with a message: do justice, expand your notion of who is your neighbor, be a light to the nations, not an exclusive domain. Your God wishes to reign over the whole earth, not to be your sole possession.

The people return and they fight this message, just like they fought the old one. For the most part, they choose another option: exclusiveness and social order that ensures there will be privileged and poor.

It is this world into which Jesus is born after several hundred years and the rise and fall of Persia, and then the Greeks, and now the Romans rule Judah. By now the people are used to the Empire—whichever Empire it is—and the word of the day is “accommodation.” Let us try to maintain a shred of our identity while keeping the Empire happy.

Jesus comes into this context fed by the words and the vision of Isaiah. More than any other prophet before him, Isaiah of the Exile shapes Jesus’ imagination and his agenda, so much so that Christians now look back to Isaiah and read what is written there as a prediction of Jesus, the servant Isaiah imagined would save his people, the messiah who would bring gospel.

The birth of Jesus that we celebrate tonight is told in this vein. Jesus is born as a servant, is born not in splendor nor in religious purity. He is visited by lowly shepherds—more “common” folk you could not find. Or as Matthew tells the story—perhaps even more outrageously—he is visited not by the practitioners of his own religion, but astrologers from foreign lands.

This Jesus from his birth is about inclusion and solidarity with the poor, the gospel for which Isaiah had longed and had proclaimed centuries before. And he grows up and not only proclaims this gospel but embodies it, so much so that Christians look back and say he was not only human like us, but divine as well. Christmas is the feast of God’s homecoming.

What does this mean for us in our own day, in our own Empire, in our own city, in our own lives?

As Walter Brueggemann has suggested in too many places to cite, “exile” is an appropriate and powerful metaphor for our own day. Particularly for we people of faith, “exile” helps us understand where we are and what our message needs to be.

In this city alone we are in exile. What happens around us is so far from gospel, good news, that indeed we, like our ancestors, sit by the river and weep. A generation of young black men, in particular, either dead or in prison; the hopelessness of an obscenely widening gap between rich and poor; a dependence on security and violence to bring peace to the world when we know those tools will not ultimately work; leaders who even speak of Empire and certainly act it out as if the world somehow belonged to us and should be bent to our will.

People of faith find themselves in the midst of these things in a kind of exile, in need of a homecoming.

First we need new Isaiah’s, poets and prophets and preachers to proclaim comfort and hope, but also action for inclusion and justice, the practices of forgiveness, hospitality and generosity rather than vengeance, security and greed. We need to be inspired as a people to vulnerability and love rather than violence and suspicious hate. We need to desire, urgently, gospel.

We need to dare to speak against even those things that seem to work. Zero tolerance, for example, is in one sense working, but at the cost of money for the good of our neighbors and even more young men in jail. How many can we put in prison? Even zero tolerance is a dead end. It is not the answer. The answer is the revolution of gospel.

But who will bring this revolution? Not our elected leaders, not those who have bought into the concept of Empire or zero tolerance. Only we have the words of revolution, only we can tell of the God of unconditional love and infinite mercy who has come home among us.

Christmas, even as we truly celebrate it as God’s homecoming, ought to well up in us as a sense of radical urgency. If God is at home among us, if God does indeed dwell in the ‘hood, on Avenue D as well as Avenue East, than we have to tell that story. If God is on the side of not only those of the privileged to live in the relative security of the middle class, but also the prostitutes, the drug dealers and the gangbangers, than we are the ones who have to show forth this truth.

All of this is true, and all of it is urgent, if God has truly come home among us.

The message tonight is indeed gospel, good news. Despite our exile, we celebrate the homecoming of God.

Go tell it on the mountain!
Go tell it among the privileged on the east
side!
Go tell it among the struggling on the west
side!
Go tell it in the suburbs and in the villages!
Go tell it along the river where they weep!
Go tell it in the board rooms where they
count their piles of cash!
Go tell it on the streets, among the lesbians
and gays, the single moms, the homeless,
everyone you can find who for one reason or another doesn’t count among the privileged!
Go tell them the revolution of gospel has
begun!
Go tell them that God is home right here,
right now!
Go tell them that despite everything going
on around us, we celebrate the
homecoming of God!

December 24: Adam & Eve

In the Eastern Church and popularly (though not officially) in the West, today is the Feast of Adam & Eve. A Couple things to meditate on:

Christmas Eve is the feast day of our first parents, Adam and Eve. They are commemorated as saints in the calendars of the Easter churches. Under the influence of this Oriental practice, their veneration spread also to the West and became very popular toward the end of the first millennium of the Christian era. The Latin church has never officially introduced their feast, thought it did not prohibit their popular veneration. In many old churches of Europe their statues may still be seen among the images of the saints. Boys and girls who bore the names of Adam and Eve (quite popular in past centuries) celebrated their “Name Day” with great rejoicing. In Germany the custom began in the sixteenth century of putting up a “paradise tree” in the homes to honor the first parents. This was a fir tree laden with apples, and from it developed the modern Christmas tree. Francis X. Weiser, Handbook of Christian Feasts and Customs, 1952.

And an anonymous poem (put to music some of you may have heard before) about what is sometimes called “the happy fault” of Adam and Eve:

Adam Lay Ybounden

Adam lay ybounden
Bounden in a bond
Four thousand winter
Thoght he not too long.
And all was for an appil,
And appil that he tok,
As clerkes finden
Wreten in here book.
Ne hadden the appil take ben,
The appil taken ben,
Ne hadde never our lady
A ben havene queen.

Blessed be the time
That appil take was,
Therefore we moun singen
Deo gracias.

Here are a couple prayers to use today:

The Blessing of the Creche (Nativity Scene)
God of every nation and people, from the very beginning of creation you have made manifest your love: when our need for a Savior was great you sent your Son to be born of the Virgin Mary. To our lives he brings joy and peace, justice, mercy, and love. Lord, bless all who look upon this manger; may it remind us of the humble birth of Jesus, and raise up our thoughts to him, who is God-with-us and Savior of all, and who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.

The Blessing of a Christmas Tree
Lord our God, we praise you for the light of creation: the sun, the moon, the stars of the night, and for our first ancestors, Adam and Eve. We praise you for the light of Israel: the Law, the prophets, and the wisdom of the Scriptures. We praise you for Jesus Christ, your Son: he is Emmanuel, God-with-us, the Prince of Peace, who fills us with the wonder of your love. Lord God, let your blessing come upon us as we illumine this tree. May the light and cheer it gives be a sign of the joy that fills our hearts. May all who delight in this tree come to the knowledge and joy of salvation. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

December 23: O Emmanuel

O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel, that mourns in exile here
Until the Son of God appear. The Hymnal 1982

O Emmanuel, ruler and lawgiver, desire of the nations, Savior of all people:
Come and set us free, Lord our God. Traditional

“O come, O come, Emmanuel” is not the favorite of our Advent/Christmas hymns for our Jewish brothers and sisters. It seems to indicate that they are less than us, using a plethora of negative images: captive, in mourning, in exile. It is interesting that the traditional antiphons don’t have this same sense; it’s really in the hymn that developed, although that was as early as the 9th century. Of course, by then, anti-Jewish sentiment was high in the Church.

We can, of course, look at the verse in several different ways. “Israel” is a name the Church also claims for itself, so the text may be about us with all of its images. Or it may be an “historical” text, looking back to the historical exile and the desire of the Jewish people for a rescuer, a savior.

At any rate, it is the title for Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us, that is the primary focus of this last of the O antiphons. Three quotes to “stir up” you’re spirit:

The first from Roman Catholic theologian Karl Rahner (from Meditations on Hope and Love):
It is both terrible and comforting to dwell in the inconceivable nearness of God, and so to be loved by God that the first and last gift is infinity and inconceivability itself. But we have no choice. God is with us.

The second from poet Gerard Manley Hopkins (from his poem “The Wreck of the Deutschland”):
In a flash, at a trumpet crash,
I am all at once what Christ is, since he was what I am.

And, finally, from St Athanasius in the 3rd century:
The Son of God became the Son of Man so that the children of humankind might become the children of God.

December 22: O Desire of Nations

O come, Desire of Nations, bind in one the hearts of humankind;
Bid thou our sad divisions cease, and be for us our king of peace. The Hyman 1982, mod.

O Ruler of the nations, the only joy of every human heart,
O Keystone of the mighty arch of humankind:
Come and save the creature you fashioned from the dust. Traditional

I love the image of the “Keystone of the mighty arch of humankind.” It reminds me of two quotes:

The arc of human history is long, but it bends toward justice. Martin Luther King, Jr., after a Universalist minister of the 19th century (whose name I have forgotten)

The glory of God is the human person fully alive. Irenaeus of Lyons, 2nd century

“Arc” and “arch” are not necessarily the same thing, of course. It’s one of those “all arches are arcs, but not all arcs are arches.” But if all arches are arcs, than, according to King and his predecessor, justice is the arch that upholds humanity, and, for we Christians, Jesus is the keystone of justice. A nice thought to contemplate in these waning days of Advent.

Many find the quote from Irenaeus startling. Could anyone from the early Church really have said such a thing? Yes, indeed. The humanist, progressive strand of Christianity was not invented in our own or any age subsequent to the early Church. It has been there from the beginning.

Christmas is almost always a paradox in this regard. It is for many people a time when we do not feel fully alive. We are often either exhausted from the preparation or sad at our loneliness or a missing loved one when the whole world seems to be talking about family. Yet it is not those things that make us “fully alive.” It is the steadfast and unconditional love of God. It is the baby. Let that be the measure not only of our justice, but of our well-being these days.

December 21: O Dayspring (& Thomas!)

I come, thou Dayspring from on high, and cheer us by thy drawing nigh,
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night, and death’s dark shadow put to flight. The Hymnal 1982

O radiant Dawn, splendor of eternal light, sun of justice:
Come, shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death. Traditional

I hope you are noticing that all the traditional “O” antiphons are about freedom and/or justice. That is a signal that the Church has always believed that Christmas is about precisely these things, rather than simply the sentimentality of a baby born in a manger. This birth is the birth of freedom and justice, a definitive act of God for these things. Emmanuel is born, God with us for the purpose of our freedom and justice, our shalom, as the angels proclaimed, “Peace on earth and goodwill to all, whom God favors.” I like to insert the comma between “all” and “whom,” which changes the text from an exclusive to an inclusive vision. There is no punctuation in the Greek of the New Testament, so a case could be made that I am right in doing this.

Today is also the Feast of St. Thomas the Apostle, an odd event right before Christmas, remembering the “doubter” of the resurrection. But Thomas is “everyman” (excuse the exclusive language). In terms of today’s antiphon, he simple needs to see the Dawn before he will believe it is rising. And when he does, he believes. That’s not such a bad thing.

What we must remember is that we are a part of that rising Dawn, we are co-creators of that “dayspring.” It is as if God needs our help in lifting the sun above the horizon so that those who “dwell in darkness and the shadow of death” may see it and believe.

Psssst! Today is Peter Peters 44th anniversary of ordination to the priesthood! It is also Don Page’s 36th. Many will remember Don as a sometime-supply priest and sometime-visitor to Two Saints.

December 20: O Key of David

O come, thou Key of David, come, and open wide our heavenly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high, and close the path to misery. The Hymnal 1982

O Key of David, O royal power of Israel, controlling at your will the gate of heaven:
Come, break down the prison walls of death for those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death,
And lead your captive people into freedom. Traditional

Good news; but if you ask me what it is, I know not;
It is a track of feet in the snow.
It is a lantern showing a path,
It is a door set open. G. K. Chesterton

The image of the Key of David comes from Isaiah 22:22, which is repeated in Revelation 3:7.

For me, this is the most Easter of the O antiphons, because it reminds me of the powerful Orthodox Easter image of Christ dancing on the broken doors of Hell, lifting Adam and Eve to new life. The truth we Christians proclaim is that David’s descendant has opened the gate. Hell as a place of eternity is no more (although it perhaps can be chosen—see the image of a “second death” in Revelation). This is the ultimate in that of which the antiphon speaks, “lead your captive people into freedom.”

Today is a day to rejoice in our freedom from the threat of eternal death and Hell. The prison walls have been broken, the shadow of death is not eternal, the gate of Hell has been destroyed and the gate of heaven opened.

December 19: Flower of Jesse

It is day 3 of the “O” days: “ Flower of Jesse”

This day is based on Isaiah 11, which foretells that a new ancestor of David will rule over Israel: “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.”

In the paraphrase from the hymnal:
O come, thou branch of Jesse’s tree, free them from Satan’s tyranny

that trust thy might power to save,
And give them victory o’er the grave.

In the more literal translation:
O Flower of Jesse’s stem, you have been raised up as a sign for all people;
Rulers stand silent in your presence; the nations bow down in worship before you.
Come, let nothing keep you from coming to our aid.

Well, we might very well wish that “rulers” would indeed “stand silent” before God, rather than the incessant using of God by the powers that are. And we might reflect on how this incessant attempt to control God actually keeps God from coming to our aid, thwarts the will of God. My apologies for the political overtone, but it’s right there in the text as a big ole softball ready to be slugged out of the park.

It might well do us good also to reflect on the notion of God “saving” us, of “salvation.” “Aid” is a helpful synonym. “Healing” is as well. It isn’t all about sin, although, of course, it is to a certain extent, and needs to be. But it is good to know that the English word “salvation” shares the same root as the word “salve,” something we apply to a wound to soothe and heal. This reminds me of that inscription over the library in ancient Alexandria (I think I’m remembering that right), “A Healing Place for Souls,” that Two Saints has adopted as part of its Vision.

All this puts a different spin on that old American Evangelical question, “Are you saved?” If you feel that in any way God has “come to your aid,” “soothed,” or “healed” you (contributed to your wholeness), than the answer is a confident, “yes.” And, if you’re up for it, a bit of education can be done on the broader, biblical understanding of that word “saved.”

O flower of Jesse, Let nothing keep God from coming to our aid.

December 18: O Lord of Freedom

Today is day two of the “O” days: O Adonai, O Lord of might, O Lord of Israel.

From the hymnal:
O come, O come, thou Lord of might, who to thy tribes on Sinai’s height in ancient times didst give the Law, in cloud, in majesty, and awe.

A more literal translation:
O come, O come, great Lord of Israel, who showed yourself to Moses in the burning bush,
Who gave him the holy Law on Sinai mountain,
Come, stretch out your mighty hand to set us free.

It’s about freedom, always has been and always will be. Even the Law was and is about freedom, i.e., this is how you can be free together.

“Adonai” was and is one of the many names of God for Israel: the Mighty One. Our prayers frequently begin, “Almighty God.” As I’ve said in other contexts, don’t miss the irony. God’s “might” is different than our conceptions of might. It is power over nothing but tyranny, because it is also the empowerment of freedom, and, therefore, on God’s part (wait, wait, here comes the irony) massive vulnerability. “For freedom Christ has set us free,” says St. Paul to the Galatians, “do not therefore submit yourselves again to a yoke of slavery.” Not even to God.

Here’s a wonderful take on what freedom means by W.H. Auden, a favorite poet of mine:

Blessed Woman,
Excellent Man,
Redeem for the dull the
Average Way,
That common ungifted
Natures may
Believe that their normal
Vision can
Walk to perfection.

Come, Adonai, stretch out your mighty had to set us free.

December 17: O Wisdom

Today the eight days before Christmas begin—the “O” days after the “O” antiphons that surround the Song of Mary at Evensong, otherwise known as the verses of "O come, O come Emmanuel" (ever wonder why there are dates beside the verses in the Hymnal 1982?).

One historical note, it appears that these eight days were actually the beginning of what we know as Advent. A Council at Saragossa in 380 decreed that Christians should go to church daily from December 17 until the Epiphany, specially asking them “not to stay at home or run off to the country or the mountains.” This made 21 days, 3x7, both numbers being significant for early Christians. Advent lengthened over time, as long as to the Sunday after St. Martin’s Day (Nov. 11) to make it as long as Lent, but then settled into the four weeks we now know.

The antiphon today in the paraphrase from the Hymnal 1982:

O come, thou Wisdom from on high, who orderest all things mightily,
To us the path of knowledge show, and teach us in her ways to go.

In a more literal translation:

O Wisdom, O holy word of God, you govern all creation with your strong yet tender care:
Come and show your people the way to salvation (or “the way of prudence”).

Lady Wisdom is one of the great figures in late Old Testament writing, a female metaphor for God’s activity in the world, from creation to the Exodus to the governance of Israel. Much of the language about Wisdom gets carried over into the New Testament in language about the Word, particularly in John’s Gospel, but also in Mark.

Like many Old Testament words, wisdom (in Hebrew hokma, in Greek sophia, in Latin sapientia) has a much broader meaning than the English word implies. Wisdom is more than simple knowledge, it is the fullness of relationship with God. To be wise is to be in sync—body, mind and spirit—with the designs of God, including being in balance, possessing equilibrium, and experiencing beauty.

It is also to live in freedom, as God lives in freedom, in a balanced, ordered, relational freedom. That’s a good place for which to strive in these last days before Christmas, when the temptation to anxiety and frenzy is high. Take a deep breath, think and feel wisdom as a gift from God.

O come, thou Wisdom from on high!

The Archbishop's Credibility Gap and the Destruction of Anglicanism

The Archbishop of Canterbury’s recent Advent Letter raises some questions that need to be open for debate, two in particular

• The paragraph regarding “the common acknowledgement that we stand under the authority of Scripture” is deeply problematic, despite its beginning with a quote from the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral. The Archbishop goes deeper than that “definition” (“the rule and ultimate standard of faith,” with which, but the way, few progressives, including this one, would quibble). He says Scripture is
  
  the gift shaped by the Holy Spirit which decisively interprets God to the community of believers and the community of believers to itself
  
  At best, that fragment of a sentence should read
  
  the gift shaped by the Holy Spirit which interprets God in and with the community of believers and continually forms and re-forms that community itself.
  
  The Archbishop completely objectifies, makes passive, “the community of believers,” which, for this Anglican, is about as far from Anglicanism as one can get.
  
  The other problem is his final sentence in that paragraph.
  
  Radical change in the way we read cannot be determined by one group or tradition alone.
  
  That is Roman Catholic Theology pure and simple, and it’s is simply hogwash. At the very least it begs the question, what is “radical change.” I defy the Archbishop to prove that the ordination of Bishop Gene Robinson is a “radical change” in the reading of Scripture by Anglican standards. He ought to have at least asked the question rather than made the pronouncement.
  
• Here’s the other problematic paragraph:I acknowledge that this limitation on invitations will pose problems for some in its outworking. But I would strongly urge those whose strong commitments create such problems to ask what they are prepared to offer for the sake of the Conference that will have some general credibility in and for the Communion overall.
  
  Earth to Archbishop, the credibility of the “instruments of communion” are already shot, literally, to hell. To be fair to him, this did not begin on his watch, but on his predecessors at the previous Lambeth Conference. The very reason Lambeth 1.10 cannot be “ the only point of reference clearly agreed by the overwhelming majority of the Communion” is that 1.10 had and has no credibility because of the process at which it arrived. I would also defy the Archbishop to give actual evidence outside the Primates Meeting that the statement is actually true. It is not true simply because he “repeatedly” says it is true.
  
  This raises the whole question of attendance at the Lambeth Conference itself. I have supported our bishops’ attendance despite Bishop Robinson’s lack of an invitation because I felt it was and is important that we “be at the table.” I still lean in that direction, but I also think it is important that someone play “devil’s advocate” here.
  
  What if the table is in itself so distorted that nothing good can come of it? What if the table is, by design, not credible. And it is clearly not given that despite three previous Conference’s promise to listen to the experience of lesbian and gay persons, there is no evidence whatsoever that the next Conference intends to do so. If nothing else, the one person who could be there as an active participant in such a listening process from the side of gay and lesbian persons is not being allowed to participate. If our bishops’ are to go to the Conference are they willing in no uncertain terms, to protest strongly this state of affairs and state that they will do everything in their power to see that the conversation happens at the Conference?
  
  Second of all, is not the Conference a set up. The Archbishop says in his letter that the primary purpose of the Conference will be to work on the Anglican Covenant, presumably to bring it to a final draft. Presumably the Covenant will then be presented to the Provinces of the Communion for their constitutional assent. Is there any reason at all to trust this process? Is not, rather, the evidence that this Covenant will be seen after the Conference as the norm for the Communion as Lambeth 1.10 has come to be seen? Will not the Covenant be presented to the Provinces as a litmus test, i.e., vote for it or you’re out of Communion? Does not the trajectory of the Archbishop’s own writing not lead in this direction? Do we really want to participate in our own exclusion? Are our bishop’s so certain that they can effect the Covenant language so that it is not innocuous to our constitutional make-up as TEC? Do they not remember how out-voted they were in 1998, despite all their efforts to bring something more palatable to the Conference (the report of the sub-section)?

I believe these are the issues that should be open for debate among us. For myself, every time I am ready to “be at the table” (even though I, as an ordained person who is also an openly gay man living in a partnership, will not “be at the table” even vicariously), I am seriously concerned that we are being invited to participate in our own destruction. And I wonder if membership in the Lutheran Federation is not a better worldwide alternative than what is left of the Anglican Communion. The Communion may survive the next Lambeth Conference, but it appears to me that Anglicanism may very well not.

December 15: Deep Peace

“Hope” has been the predominant word in my reflections, and those of the saints and others from which I have quoted this Advent. Arguably it is the predominant word for Advent. But from whence this hope, and to what end?

The answer is “peace,” peace in the biblical sense, that great Hebrew word shalom. Shalom is all encompassing, meaning not just the absence of conflict, but a sense of rightness, of justice, of equity, of equilibrium. The Celts called (and call) it “deep peace.”

Personally my Advent journey this year has been a search for this deep peace, my equilibrium having been completely snarled (I can think of so many adjectives to put there, not all of them worthy of a spiritual reflection!). Of course, as the prophets and Jesus taught, and the great Christian mystics since them, one of the characteristics of this deep peace is that it is available to us when the entire world around us is in conflict, the entire world including our own hearts and minds and souls.

That availability does not always mean easy access, however, and it is certainly a great truth that sometimes our only access to this deep peace is vicariously, through others, through the liturgy, through our experience of compassion and consolation. It’s a corollary to the adage I teach in confirmation classes, that “when I can’t have faith, you have to have it for me.” In fact this compassion and consolation, mutual faith and deep peace is really the only reason for the church to exist—but more than enough reason!

I pray deep peace for us this Advent, including myself, including the ability to live into the paradox that, as the spiritual says, “It is well with my soul,” even when it isn’t.

Shalom.

December 14: John of the Cross

Today we remember John of the Cross (another Advent saint not officially on our calendar, with a similar story as Lucy’s—he was briefly). John was a Carmelite monk in 16th century Spain, and was a student of Teresa of Avila. He continued her mystical work. He is best known for his work Dark Night of the Soul. That work has led many to believe that John was, as we would now say, clinically depressed. Perhaps this is true, but we cannot be certain. For John, the “dark night” was a particular way to God, in which the mind and will were trained to let go of the things of this world (and also memories and the will itself) as possessions, to be replaced by pure love and adoration of the living God. The “dark night” produced by this letting go was not an end in itself—hope was, the hope that can only come from the love of God.

Here’s a quote from John about memories as possessions of which we must let go.

Our aim is union with God in the memory through hope; the object of hope is something unpossessed; the less other objects are possessed, the more capacity and ability there is to hope for what one hopes for, and consequently the more hope; the greater the possessions, the less capacity and ability for hope, and consequently so much less of hope; accordingly, in the measure that individuals dispossess the memory of forms and objects, which are not God, they will fix it on God and preserve it empty, in the hope that God will fill it. As often as distinct ideas, forms, and images occur to them, they should immediately, without resting in them, turn to God with loving affection, in emptiness of everything rememberable. If these things refer to their obligations, they should think not look on them for a time any longer than is sufficient for the understanding and fulfillment of these obligations. And then they should consider these ideas without becoming attached or seeking gratification in them lest the effects of them remain in the soul. Thus spiritual persons are not required to cease recalling and thinking about what they must do and know. Since they are not attached to the possession of these thoughts, they will not be harmed. From the Ascent of Mount Carmel, chapter 15

It seems to me this is all about the word “possession,” and John’s conviction that nothing should possess us except the love of God. I think he would be the first to say how very, very difficult this is, how it is a lifetime’s work for most people, and how doing so can produce a “dark night of the soul,” because we are so used to clinging to our “possessions,” i.e. finding our identity in them when our fundamental identity should come from God alone.

Pithy stuff for this Friday in Advent!

December 13: St. Lucy

Lucy has long been a popular Advent saint, although she doesn’t appear on our official calendar (she did as a three-year trial but then did not get final approval in what must have been a grumpy moment at a General Convention). Her name means “light” and that’s why her day ended up on what was once, before the reform of the calendar, the shortest day of the year. Not surprisingly, she became very popular in northern European countries, especially in Scandinavia, where the shortest day of the year is significantly short! Thomas Merton wrote a somewhat dark, but lovely poem about her which follows. Merton himself is an “Advent saint,” having died on December 10 in a freak accident.

Lucy, whose day is in our darkest season,
(Although your name is full of light),
We walkers in the murk and rain of flesh and sense,
Lost in the midnight of our dead world’s winter solstice
Look for the fogs to open on your friendly star.

We have long since cut down the summer of history;
Our cheerful towns have all gone out like fireflies in October.
The fields are flooded and the vine is bare:
How have our long days dwindled, now the world is frozen!

Locked in the cold jails of our stubborn will,
Oh hear the shovels growling in the gravel.
This is the way they’ll make our beds for ever,
Ours, whose Decembers have put out the sun:
Doors of whose souls are shut against the summertime!

Martyr, whose short day sees our winter and our Calvary,
Show us some light, who seem forsaken by the sky:
We have so dwelt in darkness that our eyes are screened and dim,
And all but blinded by the weakest ray.

Hallow the vespers and December of our life,
O martyred Lucy:Console our solstice with your friendly day.

December 11: Welcome Teagan Marie!

Today I have nothing more for you than my own thanksgiving—which you are welcome to share—for the birth this morning of Teagan Marie Susco, John and my first grand niece born in Corning to our niece Jillian and her boyfriend J.P. It was a long night but Mama and baby are right fine. Advent is a great time for pregnancies to come to fruition!

She got her first blessing from her Uncle Michael (that is, Grand Uncle Michael), and I recited Mary’s Song over her: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior…”

Welcome to the world, little one.

December 10--Saved by Hope

Two quotes today on hope:

You must be men and women of ceaseless hope, because only tomorrow can today’s human and Christian promise be realized; and every tomorrow will have its own tomorrow, world without end. Every human act, every Christian act, is an act of hope. But that means you must be men and women of the present, you must live this moment—really live it, not just endure it—because this very moment, for all its imperfection and frustration, because of its imperfection and frustration, is pregnant with all sorts of possibilities, is pregnant with the future, is pregnant with love, is pregnant with Christ. –Walter J. Burghardt from Sir, We Would Like to See Jesus, 1982

Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; there we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished along; therefore we must be saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint. Therefore we must be saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness. –Reinhold Niebuhr from The Irony of American History, 1952

Second Advent: Unquenchable Fire

What is it with Matthew and “unquenchable fire?” Of course, it was on the lips of John the Baptist this morning, but the image will appear over and over again in Matthew’s Gospel (and his virtually alone). The word “fire” appears in the context of judgment 11 times in Matthew, only 3 in Mark, 4 in Luke and once in John. Overall Matthew speaks more about the coming judgment, probably because his community is living under a great deal of stress and also because it is his way of adding urgency to his message, probably following on his read of the prophet Zechariah.

What are we to do with this image?

For me, there is a sense in which the urgency of Matthew is important to hear. Christians (particularly we progressive types) need to recover a sense of urgency about the message that has been entrusted to us. And we need to be careful not to follow our instincts and throw out entirely the message of judgment. We do not have to judge people and thus undo our message of inclusion. That was not Matthew’s purpose in his judgment language. Beginning with the magi who visit Jesus, there’s all kinds of including going on in Matthew’s Gospel. That’s not the kind of judgment we want.

Matthew’s judgment was primarily about justice and privilege. We heard it this morning. “Don’t come to me presuming that you’re OK with God just because you’re a descendent of Abraham,” John says. Bear fruit worthy of a transformed world (repentance). Don’t be afraid to change your lives for the sake of the kingdom that has come near. In fact, you’d better develop some urgency about change, because, in fact, this kingdom is near, not just a far away dream.

I’ve learned a lot about judgment and my attitude toward it from reading about the culture of slaves in this country, and, especially, reading and singing their songs. They were not afraid of judgment or “the last day.” For them, it was the day when things were going to be made right, when justice would be done, and they had a pretty keen idea that was good news for them. If we (no matter our race, I think, but white folk in this country have some special work to do here) are willing to enter into a lifelong process of purging our own participation (intentional or not) in injustice and the assumption of privilege, then the “fire” will have done us and the world some good.

God does not want to kill us, that is not what all this talk about “unquenchable fire” is. God wants to save us and the world. That may take, in Matthew’s view, a little fire. Perhaps a way to look at this “unquenchable fire” image is to understand that I may very well spend some time in it (I think I actually already have) but its purpose is not (has not been) to consume me, but to purify.I think it was William Sloan Coffin who once said about repentance and judgment something like, “God accepts us just as we are. I believe that with all my heart. But that doesn’t mean that there are not some things that God doesn’t want to change. We’ve all got stuff, serious stuff, to work on.”

December 8--the Conception of Mary

For our sister and brother Roman Catholics, today is the Immaculate Conception, a holy day of obligation. We Anglicans won’t go that far, of course, no “immaculate” and no (at least we like to think) “obligation” either.

So this day is not on our official calendar, but it is “meet and right” to mark the conceiving of Mary, this remarkable woman who is both one of us and, as the ancients called her, “Theotokos,” “bearer of God.”

It is because it so important that she was “one of us” that I chafe at the “immaculate” part. It supposedly means that Mary was “conceived without sin” in order that Jesus could be “conceived without sin.” Personally speaking, I’m not sure that’s a very important part of what we call the Incarnation, particularly if the “sin” here means simply “sex.” Sex is not automatically sinful, despite the church’s often acting as if it is. It can be, of course, as can all things human-related. It can also, as all things human-related, be a glimpse of glory, a participation in glory.

Better to focus today on the truly remarkable reality that we proclaim, that God chose an ordinary woman to do an extraordinary thing. It gives us all, perhaps particularly women, great hope. I’m always reminded on this day of something Sojourner Truth once said,

That man say we can’t have as much rights as a man ‘cause Christ wasn’t a woman. Where did your Christ come from? God and a woman. Man had nothing to do with it.

In the Roman Catholic liturgy today one of the readings is from Revelation 12:

A great portent appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.

It is a vision of the re-birth of the Son of Man, and Christians have always taken this to be Mary “clothed with the sun.” If I’m right and it’s important that Mary was just an ordinary woman, this vision is all the more spectacular and meaningful. It is a vision like the Ascension of Jesus, when we speak of Jesus carrying our humanity to heaven. Mary clothes our humanity with the sun. That’s worth savoring today. We are all ordinary men and women, and we are all, with Mary, bearers of God.

December 7--Ambrose of Milan

The first week of Advent is full of saints to be remembered on our calendar. One thing many have in common is that they were poets/hymn writers. We saw that in John of Damascus and Clement of Alexandria, and now, today, in Ambrose of Milan, so much so that he is often called “the Father of Western Hymnody.”

There is way too much to say about Ambrose. He was a giant figure in the life of the 4th century church as Bishop of Milan, a post he did not seek. As a layman who was a civic official, he attended the rather contentious meeting to elect Milan’s next bishop. As a popular official who happened to also be a catechumen preparing for baptism, he found himself nominated and elected. He had to be baptized and ordained a priest before he could be made a bishop. All these things apparently happened on the same day, December 7, 374.
Because of his experience in civic affairs, he became a great spokesperson for the church, at times advisor and at times critic of even the Emperor. In particular, he frequently gave Emperor Theodosius I a hard time, once goading him into doing public penance for the massacre of some innocent people by his troops.

Within the church’s life he was known as a great preacher (his preaching converted, among others, Augustine of Hippo, whom he baptized) and eloquent defender of the orthodox position against Arianism, a strain of Christianity popular at the time that denied the divinity of Jesus, and, therefore, the Trinity. His hymn writing stemmed from this debate. He used his hymns to teach people the orthodox way and to energize their own commitment to it. In the Hymnal 1982 there are six hymns attributed to him: 5, 14/15, 19/20, 21/22, 54/55, and 234. The fifth stanza of Hymn 55, an Advent hymn, is a favorite:

Your cradle shines with glorious light;
Its splendor pierces all our gloom.
Our faith reflects those radiant beams;
No night shall overcome it now.

Ambrose also had a keen sense of justice, particularly for the poor. A favorite (and enormously challenging) quote from him shows his “no holds barred” eloquence:

The large rooms of which you are so proud are in fact your shame. They are big enough to hold crowds—and also big enough to shut out the voice of the poor…There is your sister or brother, naked, crying! And you stand confused over the choice of an attractive floor covering!

Ambrose, like Christianity, was not anti-wealth, but certainly strongly anti-indifference to the poor, and an encourager of those of us who have what we need to survive, to make sure that others do as well.

Happy Ambrose Day!

December 6--St. Nicholas

Today is the feast of St. Nicholas, probably next to Mary and Francis, the most popular and well-known of all the saints, although, regrettably, in this country he became a figure called Santa Claus.

But even Santa Claus is St. Nicholas. It’s where the name comes from. The Dutch settlers of the Hudson Valley (among whom are actual ancestors of mine) brought with them “SinterKlaus,” St. Nicholas in their language. A couple hundred years later he had become Santa Claus and most folks had forgotten the origin of the name, certainly its Christian roots.

Nicholas was a real person, although we don’t know much about him. He was Bishop of Myra in present-day southern Turkey. He was among those imprisoned during the last great wave of persecution of Christians by the Romans, under the Emperor Diocletian. He was freed by Emperor Constantine in the shift to the approval of Christianity in the Roman world. He was at the Council of Nicaea in 325, that gave us most of the Nicene Creed as we know it. He may have been involved in something of a brawl there. He died around the year 352, probably on this day.

Four basic stories came to be told after his death, which sealed his place in the Christian imagination. He secretly provided money so that a poor neighbor of his could provide the dowries for his three daughters (hence his symbol is often that of three golden balls or sacks of gold—symbols still used by pawnbrokers); he rescued three children whose lives were being threatened by an evil man; he appeared after his death and stilled the sea, thus saving a ship fill of sailors; and he rescued three men imprisoned for minor crimes whom he felt were about to be executed unjustly. Because of these stories he has for centuries been the patron saint of pawnbrokers, sailors, children, and prisoners. A wonderful lot!

It occurs to me that makes him a perfect saint to be specially remembered and celebrated in our parish, as well as at St. Stephen’s. He is a natural saint for the ‘hood. Perhaps we could name our Covenant for Cooperative Ministry for him. I think I shall at least propose to the Vestry that we re-dedicate the side Altar at Church to him.

Above all, Nicholas is a great symbol of those two great Christian virtues: hospitality and generosity, a fitting thing to remember this time of year as we make or buy Christmas presents, and as we fill out our pledge cards and Capital Campaign pledges (which I had the privilege of doing yesterday).

Happy Nicholas Day! Do something generous for someone else today!

P.S. I love this picture of Nicholas visiting with presents. He’s with his donkey (with whom he is often pictured) and brought it right into the living room. My mother would have a stroke!

December 5--Clement of Alexandria

Christianity—the way of following Christ—developed in both a Jewish and a Greek context. Jesus was, of course, a Jew, and his teaching, and that of the rest of the New Testament is really thoroughly Jewish, with some important, particular emphases. But very quickly Jesus’ followers had to deal with the larger Greek world.

There is a story in the Acts of the Apostles (ch. 17) about St. Paul doing this very thing. In Athens, one of the great centers of the Greek world, he is said to be in conversation with “Epicurean and Stoic philosophers,” and suggests to them that the divine principles they espouse are fulfilled in the God revealed in Jesus.

This conversation went on for centuries, and one of its chief participants was Clement of Alexandria, who lived a hundred years after St. Paul in another one of the great centers of Greek learning. Clement did much to synthesize Greek philosophical and Christian thought, and is thought of by many of the first Christian humanist (meaning that he had a deep respect for human nature and dignity). Although critical of the Roman gods of the time, calling Zeus “an image of an image,” he was able to turn such criticism to good by saying that the authentic “image of the image” of God was the human mind.

Like John of Damascus from yesterday, Clement was also a poet and paraphrases of two of his hymns appear in the Hymnal 1982: “Sunset to sunrise” (163) and “Jesus, our mighty Lord” (478).

It is good in this week when we are contemplating “last things” and “the end of time” and the “second coming of Christ” that we hear that none of these things is meant to violate our God-given intelligence. Our human reason—and dignity—need not be “left behind.”

December 4--John of Damascus

Today is the feast of John of Damascus, a priest of the early 8th century. He was known as “the golden mouthed” for his preaching, which was probably helped by the fact that he was also a poet. Three of his hymns appear in the Hymnal 1982, all of them in Eastertide. John was also one of the major players in the controversy about the use of icons in the Church.

Many in John’s day opposed the use of icons (pictures of Christ, Mary, and the saints) on the basis of the Old Testament prohibitions against idolatry. Representations of God were and are forbidden in Judaism, as they are in Islam. Protestant Christians have long been suspicious of them as well, and sometimes outright hostile, witness the number of churches in England that contain defaced statues, broken stained glass and painted-over murals dating from the brief time the Puritans ruled the country.

John and others argued that icons were not representations in and of themselves but windows to the divine, and that they were allowed because of the belief Christians hold in the Incarnation. God taking human flesh in Jesus meant the sanctification of the things of this world, and so sacraments and icons are not only allowable, they are important. He wrote, “They lead us through matter to the God who is beyond matter.” He also argued for their use on a more emotional or psychological level. He wrote, “I have often seen those with a sense of longing, who, having caught sight of the garment of their beloved, embrace the garment as though it were the beloved person him or herself.”

Let us rejoice today that John’s side won the day, and remember that all of us are living icons of God. And, for good measure, here’s an icon of John himself. I love his doo-rag!

Monday in Advent I: God in the Tunnel

I want to share with you an image from a sermon I heard yesterday by Bishop McKelvey.

Yes, I was in church, at Christ Church (Rochester). It was my first foray back to church and I wanted to try in a community where I could be semi-anonymous, and I was fairly sure they’d sing my favorite First Advent hymns. I didn’t know it was also the Bishop’s Visitation! It went very well although I was confirmed (no pun intended) in my decision not to be back presiding yet. I was very restless and not quite able to be present for even short stretches of time.

Bishop Jack preached the best sermon I’d ever heard from him, the parts that I heard. There was one image that especially struck me.

God is not only the light at the end of the tunnel. He is in the tunnel with us.

That’s what Emmanuel means, “God with us.”

Thanks be to God.

Advent 1: The Problem with Darkness and Light

Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of` darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

This Collect (or Gathering Prayer) for the First Sunday of Advent is familiar and loved. It dates back to the original 1549 Book of Common Prayer, so perhaps it was written by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer himself. He clearly used the epistle appointed for Advent 1 in that Prayer Book as his inspiration, the same epistle for Year A, Advent 1 that we heard this morning: Romans 13:11-14.

The images are contrasting and striking: “darkness and light,” “humility and majesty,” “mortality and immortality.” All good Advent images.

I am particularly leery, however, of the images of “darkness and light,” despite the fact that they are predominant images in the Bible, in both Testaments. I simply can’t sing “in him [God] there is no darkness at all in the popular hymn, “I want to walk as a child of the light.” This problem is about two things for me. The first is race. There is darkness of people and it is good. It is problematic for “darkness” to be an image only for evil. The second is the problem of whether or not there is any “darkness” in God in terms not so much of badness but of a more general “dark side of life. Perhaps that is my newly uncovered bipolar reality talking. I want to say more about this piece, much more, but not know.

There are other biblical images that could work in this Collect and go perfectly well with Advent. Here’s my proposed revision (although I’ll continue to use the authorized version in public liturgy):

Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of` despair, and put on the garment of hope, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to life everlasting; through the One who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Happy Advent One!

Eve of Advent: Nicholas Ferrar & T.S. Eliot

Tomorrow Advent begins and one of the small things I thought I would do would be a daily e-mail as I am able, since I am not able to be with you in person quite yet. It’s my favorite season of the Church Year for many reasons. Among them are the saints that fall within it. I’ve always thought of observing the saints’ days in the way that Gregory the Great said, “Making friends with the friends of God.”

Today on our calendar we remember a man named Nicholas Ferrar and his companions, his household, really, for he lived in an intentional community in post-reformation England. It was located at Little Gidding in Huntingdonsdhire. After his family’s ventures with the Virginia Company, he was ordained a deacon and set up his community which became known simply as “Little Gidding.” They followed the Book of Common Prayer daily services (including reading through the whole psalter every day), looked after the health of their neighbors and taught children. The community died soon after he did, in 1637. Monasticism was to remain in hibernation in Anglicanism then until the 19th century.

T.S. Eliot was one who was inspired by the story of Little Gidding and the last of his Four Quartets is named for it. Here’s the ending stanza (you can read the whole things by googling “Little Gidding”):

If you came this way,
Taking any route, starting from anywhere,
At any time or at any season,
It would always be the same: you would have to put off
Sense and notion. You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
Or carry report. You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more
Than an order of words, the conscious occupation
Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.
And what the dead had no speech for, when living,
They can tell you, being dead: the communication
Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.
Here, the intersection of the timeless moment
Is England and nowhere. Never and always.

May advent “tongue our speech with fire.”