The 3rd Sunday after the Epiphany - The Light House by Barb Baker Scira

Barb was our guest preacher on 1-26-14.

Isaiah 9:1-4; Ps. 27:1, 5-13; 1 Cor. 1:10-18; Matthew 4:12-23

     Epiphany could be called "The Light Bulb Moment’’ season. It’s a season when we can join shepherds, wise men and even angels for that moment of understanding that comes in a flash; "a moment of revelation and insight." Jesus has been revealed to us and we’ve caught the hem of his garment. Epiphany is the season for all of us who have "walked in darkness and seen a great light." Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals, talks in its preface about the annual rhythm of seasons in our church. Shane Claiborne says "Advent [is] to prepare for Christ’s coming, Christmas to celebrate the Prince of Peace, Epiphany to remember the Light (a light outsiders often recognize before we do) and Lent to confess to our resistance to the Light…"

     Resistance to the Light? Do we really do that? Of course, the answer is yes. Sometimes we get used to walking around in the dark. Maybe it’s because there are things in our hearts we don’t want dragged into the light, our pettiness, our lack of forgiveness, our fears. Maybe it’s because sometimes things can get so bad we believe the darkness is all there is…until we see the Light.

     John the Baptizer joined a long line of prophets who told people "Change your life, God’s Kingdom is NEAR!" Unlike other prophets who believed the Messiah would come along in some distant time, John had the advantage of knowing Jesus was ‘’on the ground" NOW. John’s preaching was so powerful; people began to ask if he was the Messiah. The Gospel of John tells it like this:  "There once was a man, his name was John, sent by God to point out the way to the Life-Light. ..John was not himself the Light; he was there to show the way to the Light."

     That’s our job too. To point the way to the Christ.

     In our Gospel today, John has been thrown in jail because his simple message of repentance bothered the powerful, who weren’t thrilled with their flaws being pointed out in public. When he finds out about John’s arrest, Jesus moves from Nazareth to Capernaum.  At first it seems like he may be avoiding the authorities. Yet, instead of lying low, Jesus picks up where John left off, preaching, "Change your life. God’s kingdom is HERE!" One day, while Jesus is walking down the beach, he sees some ordinary fishermen doing their regular work. It wasn’t an easy job. Biblical scholar Sarah Dylan Breuer tells us, "fishing wasn't an escape from work for folks like Simon Peter and Andrew and James and John. It was work. Fishing was a major industry in the Galilee, and fishers like the two pairs of brothers we encounter in this Sunday's gospel were very small cogs in the whole works…fishers of fish, even those who owned their own boats, weren't their own bosses; they were cogs in a machine…"

    "Come with me," calls Jesus. "I’ll teach you to be fishers of people."

     The Rev. Dr. Janet H. Hunt, pastor of First Lutheran in DeKalb, Illinois says, "I imagine that those disciples who Jesus called had grown accustomed to walking around in the dark.  Now it could be that their lives were pretty good ones…probably they had families to go home to and a community where they were held in high regard.  Even so, we also know that they lived in a country that was occupied by the army of another. That they paid taxes to a ruler who was not their own…more than that, we can also be certain, because they are human, that they had felt the inevitable pain of living with what may have been unspeakable losses. Indeed, there must have lived in them some longing for light, else they would not have abandoned all that had been so quickly to follow this one who promised them something more.  Maybe they thought they had grown accustomed to the darkness.  Perhaps they had finally given up hope for any kind of meaningful change.  And maybe in Jesus' voice they saw the promise of light in their darkness.  And so when Jesus walks by and calls their names and the light shines on them, they go. They just drop their nets and go."

     The Light of the World walks up and calls them to join him and they do! On the spur of the moment! They are the ancestors of our faith, the ones who left the ordinary in hopes of finding something extraordinary.

     Jesus doesn’t call them to further his political machine, to tell him he’s terrific, or to tell them that they are. He’s not there to bully people into believing in him or to head "Occupy Jerusalem."  Jesus calls the disciples into a relationship with him, so that through knowing and loving him, they could know and love God, our Father, who created us, loves us and who fills each of us with the light of his presence. And as Shane Claiborne reminds us, we have family across the globe and "we must connect our prayers to the rest of God’s children throughout the world and through all time and space, people who are reading the same Scriptures, singing the same songs, praying the same prayers, and grafting their lines into the same old story" [how I love to tell that Story] "of a God who is forming a people who are set apart to be God’s light and to show the world what a society of love looks like."

     Paul gives us the manual for a society of love in 1 Corinthians: "Love never gives up, cares more for others than for self, doesn’t want what it doesn’t have, doesn’t strut, have a swelled head, force itself on others, isn’t always 'me first,' doesn’t fly off the handle, doesn’t keep score of other people’s sins, doesn’t revel when others grovel, takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, puts up with anything, trust God always, always looks for the best, never looks back but keeps going till the end."

Rob Bell says, "Love is what God is,

Love is why Jesus came,

And love is why he continues to come,

Year after year to person after person."

     Jean Vanier, founder of the L’Arche communities wrote "to love someone is not first of all to do things for them, but reveal to them their beauty and value, to say to them through our attitude: ‘You are beautiful. You are important. I trust you. You can trust yourself. We all know well that we can do things for others and in the process crush them, making them feel that they are incapable of doing things by themselves. To love someone is to reveal to them their capacities for life, [for] the light that is shining in them."

     If we each treated all in that way, how much light would that bring to this world where so many people walk in darkness?

     That would indeed be God’s Kingdom come.

     We are God’s light to the world in this age. For God’s kingdom to come; our lives must bear witness to His Light. That’s our job. Our calling. The same calling Jesus issued to Simon Peter and Andrew, James and John, is ours. That call, according to David Lose, Preaching Chair at Luther Seminary is "to be in genuine and real relationships with the people around us, and to be in those relationships the way Jesus was and is in relationship with his disciples and with us: bearing each other's burdens, caring for each other and especially the vulnerable, holding onto each other through thick and thin, always with the hope and promise of God’s abundant grace."

     Today, may you know how beautiful and important you are in the eyes of God and in the eyes of this parish. May you spread the love and Light Christ has kindled in you, to all you meet. And may your little light, bolstered by the Light of Christ, shine with all the power it has, in all the dark places where you must go.

Amen

The 2nd Sunday after Epiphany - "You are not lacking . . ."

         To be called, to be sanctified or set apart as holy in Christ Jesus, to be enriched and to be strengthened in the gifts we need:  St. Paul offers this pattern of God's work among the people who came together to form what we call "the early church."  As we look at our own journeys in Christ, does this pattern seem to apply to our experiences?  If so--even it isn't an exact match--it may be close enough to warrant a closer look.

Two important aspects of St. Paul's first letter to the Christian community in Corinth: first, although Paul mentions individuals in this letter, he intends to address the community as a whole; second, all this positive, supportive language at the beginning of this letter serves as a quick prelude to some serious, stinging criticism.

          We have a difficult time viewing salvation as belonging to a congregation as a whole.  It is only slightly easier to view serving in Christ's name as a community goal.  We are an individualistic culture, and we have a very personal understanding of salvation.  Yes, conversion--as a instantaneous event or as a slow process--does occur one person at a time.  But for Paul the life of the Christian community bears witness to that conversion.

Verse two begins "To the church of God."  In Greek the word is ekklesia that can be more closely translated as "assembly"--a bunch of folks getting together.  Or in southern speak: "To y'all of God."  How often do we think of this assembly of folks called "St. Nicholas' Episcopal Church" as doing well at worshipping and serving our Savior, Jesus Christ.  Even the sign on the door to this worship space works against that understanding.  It says "Servant's Entrance." That's servant-apostrophe-"s," not servants-with an "s" then an apostrophe.  It's singular when perhaps it should be plural.

Some might argue that each of us must embrace our servanthood, before the church can claim its servanthood.  But I would say this in response: if we claim we are a servant community, then we set the atmosphere against which we can measure how we are doing, individually and collectively, at any moment in our lives together.  As we look through the Annual Reports in the booklet we will receive, as we remember how we worked together in projects to raise money to give back to the community, as we remember how we felt supported by other members of this community in their prayers, as we remember how we love each other even when we get frustrated by what someone says or does: then we realize that St. Paul was speaking truth when he says, "I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus. . ." 

Look to your right, to your left and across to the other side of the church, can you say Paul's words to the people you have looked at?  You are not thanking God for their competence or their hard work—although we would have a difficult time without these things—but you are giving thanks for the "grace of God" that you see within them, placed there by God.  It's easy, of course, to see this in those folks you like or who share your points-of-view.  But we must remember that Paul said this to folks he was pretty unhappy with, because they were dividing themselves into factions, because some of them were holding themselves up as more spiritually astute than others, because they were quarreling and acting with jealousy toward each other, and because they were using the idea of freedom to behave immorally.  How in the world could he say these positive things he says in this introductory passage, given he was about to condemn their behavior?

This question brings us to the second aspect of this introductory passage, Paul's words at the beginning of I Corinthians offers a stark contrast to criticism after criticism as he continues this letter.  In this contrast is he using irony as a rhetorical device?  Is he trying to get the Corinthians on his side, so they will listen to his critique? Or is he holding up the truth of human nature, especially our nature, we who have promised to love God and live as Jesus taught us?  Indeed, to quote verse seven, we "are not lacking in any spiritual gift as [we] wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ." The truth for the Christian assembly of Corinth and the truth for us today at St. Nicholas' can be summed up this way: we have all we need to be a "light" to the folks who share our lives—even to be a “light” to the whole world—or as our baptismal promise states, to "seek and serve Christ in all persons loving [our] neighbor as our self."

St. Paul explains this in the 13th chapter of this letter to the Christian assembly in Corinth that begins, "Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude."  We know how difficult this standard of self-giving love is, whether in our personal lives or in the life of this assembly of folks who worship together at St. Nicholas'.  Yet beginning from the Christian community in Corinth and all to today here at St. Nicholas'—no matter what criticisms might be fairly leveled against us and no matter how we difficult we find living faithfully as Christ's servants—Paul's words of affirmation still ring true,". . .you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ.  He will also strengthen you to be so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.  God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord."

In other words, at times we may live righteously or at times we may fail to live as Christ taught us, yet as an ekklesia--an assembly of those who believe God has called them to live faithfully and to love generously—God has our back—it’s God’s “amazing grace.”  And for this there is only one response: "Thanks be to God."

The 2nd Sunday of Christmas: Wisdom and Revelation

        You came this morning expecting to hear about the men who visited the stable where Jesus and his parents were staying? Of course, since this Sunday is closest to the date on which we celebrate their coming.  O.K., help me out here: tell us why we call them "wise men?"  Yes, you got it--they stopped and asked for directions.

          Today I want to consider for a little while the nature of wisdom and how that ties in to receiving a revelation--particularly a revelation from God.

The idea of wisdom as both a gift from God and a goal for humankind appears in the Hebrew scripture. We said this verse verses our psalm today: "No good thing will the Lord withhold from those who walk with integrity."   Wisdom is a good thing in a theological sense, as we learn from the book of Proverbs--written to help young people become wise.  Chapter 3, beginning at verse 6, says: "For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding; he stores up sound wisdom for the upright; he is a shield for those who those who walk blamelessly, guarding the paths of justice and preserving the way of his faithful ones. Then you will understand righteousness and justice and equity every good path; for wisdom will come into your heart and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul; prudence will watch over you and understanding will guard you."

From this passage you can see how being a wise person meant being a just and a righteous person. Yet more than that, God gives us this wisdom that will reside within us and give us pleasure.  We are told that Jesus was already studying scripture as a very young man and could discuss it with much older and more experienced religious scholars--but he "forgot" to check in with his parents to tell them he was staying in the temple with those scholars.  I'm sure his parents did not see this a prudent behavior, no matter how wise Jesus was in understanding scripture!

So from a theological perspective we see that wisdom involves gaining knowledge of God and living in a way that reflects the goodness of God. So who in our readings today shows such wisdom?

Magi, whom we also call wise men and sometimes kings, appear in Matthew's gospel to be astrologers who read signs in the stars and planets that pointed to the birth of a king of the Jewish people.  These non-Jews from "the east" had a certain type of wisdom already, but they were open to receiving more knowledge and to pursuing the information they gained--living in a way that reflects what they believed they were called to do.  Their call was to pay homage--a type of behavior that shows respect and adoration--good behavior when the ruler is worthy.

Although King Herod gathered those who had knowledge of the scriptures to supply the knowledge the wise men needed, Matthew depicts him as an evil manipulator, unworthy of the title of King of the Jews, and not a wise person!

The magi exemplified people possessing wisdom--even though they were foreigners, not among those who considered themselves a people chosen by God. Which is where the importance of revelation comes in.  Being a person possessing wisdom allows one to be ready to receive a revelation from God about God.  The paradox, of course, is that our scripture describes wisdom as a gift from God as well.  Christian mystics, such as Julian of Norwich, Hildegard of Bingen, Teresa of Avila, and John of the Cross, lived in this paradox, as they sought to understand the revelations they believe came from God and to live righteously as they followed what they believed God's call to them was.

Mary, we know from Luke's account of Jesus birth, treasured what she saw and heard and pondered it in her heart.  These are characteristics of wisdom, which led her to be present for her son at times, even at times when he may not have wanted her.  How else could she have come to understand all that happened to her before and at his birth and to him as he engaged in his ministry?   Revelation of who her son was came slowly, but in the end gave her the strength to endure seeing him crucified.

Both Joseph and the magi received revelation in dreams that spoke to a specific situation they faced.  First, Joseph had a dream that told him to take Mary as his wife, despite her pregnancy.  Then both the magi and Joseph had dreams to help them deal with the duplicitous King Herod.  

Joseph's wisdom came from his desire to behave in a compassionate way toward poor pregnant Mary.  His second revelation came in a dream when he was told to flee with Mary and Jesus to safety in Egypt.  The magi's wisdom came as they drew on all they learned and followed their call to pay homage to a righteous and rightful king.  Their wisdom allowed them to understand and follow the revelation they received in a dream.

Can we, living in the 21st century, receive wisdom from God and behave in a way may be called "blameless" that "guards the paths of justice and preserves the way of [God's] faithful ones?"  It would seem a difficult task, perhaps a nearly impossible goal. The questions of our Baptismal covenant that serve to direct us in such holy living receive this answer: "I will, with God's help."  Despite the examples of Mary, Joseph, the magi and many other holy women and men we often fail to live as wise people open to God's call to us, open to living in the paradox of wisdom as both gift from God and the goal of our Christian journey.  Yet when we fail to live as wise people, we are still beloved by God and must remember and depend on God's grace summed in that simple response, "I will, with God's help."

Christmas Eve/Day 2013 - Love is the Meaning of Christmas

         How difficult the time of Jesus’ birth must have been for Mary!  For Jesus, God-made-man, it could have been no easier.  Madeline L’Engle, writes about the nativity in a poem called “The Risk of Birth:”

That was no time for a child to be born,

In a land in the crushing grip of Rome;

Honor & truth were trampled by scorn –

Yet here did the Savior make his home.

         How can we find the meaning of the birth of our Savior in Bethlehem?  When we hear this familiar gospel story of Jesus’ birth, what do we think?  Kathleen Norris reflected on the familiarity we have with “the Christmas story”—especially this version from Luke: “We have many defenses against hearing the Christmas readings and taking them to heart.  The images are resoundingly familiar . . . and the nativity story is so colored by nostalgia that listening takes considerable effort.  It’s hard for us to remember that, as is always the case with scripture, we are continually invited to hear ‘a new song,’ words full of possibilities we have not yet seen and can’t imagine.  All we need are the ears to hear, but our tired old ears resist us at every turn.”

         Madeline L’Engle sees Jesus’ birth as God incarnate, God taking on human form, as “The Glorious Impossible.”  Here’s what she says about it, “What an amazing, what an impossible message the angel brought to a young girl! But Mary looked at the angel and said, 'Be it unto me according to your word.’

And so the life of Jesus began as it would end with the impossible.  When he was a grown man he would say to his disciples, ‘For human beings it is impossible.  For God nothing is impossible.’

Possible things are easy to believe.  The Glorious Impossibles are what bring joy to our heart, hope to our lives and songs to our lips.”

          Mary and Joseph had traveled quite a distance, Luke tells us, from Nazareth near the Sea of Galilee to Bethlehem a bit south of Jerusalem.  Her labor had begun in the midst of less than ideal accommodations.  The couple had to take what was available, and so a food trough for animals became the baby’s “cradle.”  Yet Mary wrapped him in “bands of cloth,” a lovingly maternal act in the midst of uncertainly—a lovingly maternal act to make the baby feel secure.

How were Mary and Joseph on this night of glorious impossibility?  Tired to the bone from their long journey?  Exhausted from laboring to birth Jesus?  Distracted a bit, wanting comfort, hoping for a bit of peace soon?

         Christina Rossetti described the moment of incarnation this way: “Love came down at Christmas, love all lovely, love divine; / love was born at Christmas: stars and angels gave the sign.”

The first evidence of the presence of God’s love can be seen in Mary’s care for her newborn.  Her heart was moved by love, because she knew the vulnerability of Jesus.  Our love for our children is always a sign of God’s love for humanity.

         But there was more.  Shepherds out in the night, guarding some sheep, had witnessed the glorious power of God in message of an angel:  “I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.  This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.”

The message given to the shepherds spoke to the hope for freedom from the oppression. For the shepherds, who lived at the bottom of the social structure of first century Palestine nothing could surpass receiving news of  “ a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.”  The Messiah found in Hebrew prophecy who will save God’s people—Jesus’ name means “God saves—promises liberation. The sign of that liberation from bondage—a baby, born in difficult circumstances, who is loved.

Madeline L’Engle describes God’s taking a risk to show God’s love for us:

When is the time for love to be born?

The inn is full on planet earth,

And by a comet the sky is torn –

Yet Love still takes the risk of birth.

         The shepherds told Mary and Joseph, and perhaps others nearby, what the angels had told them.  Luke reports that “all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them.”  How could this beloved, vulnerable baby, be a sign of the liberation for which many had hoped for centuries?  Can we believe that God’s love came to us that night in an unexpected way?  Can we trust that our salvation comes through love?

         W. H. Auden, the English poet, wrote these words about that holy night during the dreadful days of Britain’s suffering in 1941 and 1942:  “Remembering the stable where for once in our lives / Everything became a You and nothing was an It.”  For in that moment there was nothing but God’s glory, nothing but God’s love.  That stable was “thin place” where the barrier between God’s love and our humanity—our sinful humanity—was crossed.

         Mary’s response to the shepherd’s words was to treasure and ponder them.  Our response to the Jesus’ birth, God’s love becoming enfleshed in a human being, must be like Mary’s.  We must treasure what we have seen and heard about Jesus.  We must ponder what Christ’s life means for us.  Then we must become God’s heart and hands in the world. Wrap those who share our lives in bands of love.  Offer them the security of love through our words and actions.  Give love as Mary gave it, in whatever circumstances we find ourselves.

         The moment of incarnation, of God becoming one of us through Mary’s love:  truly this was a “glorious impossible!” Impossible to fully understand, this moment—seen through the eyes of faith—has the power to re-make our lives, “bring[ing] joy to our heart[s], hope to our lives and songs to our lips” and giving us the strength we need to love as Mary did.

        

 Madeline L’Engle, “The Risk of Birth – 1973” can be found on the internet by searching for it; “The Glorious Impossible,” Simon & Schuster, 1990. It’s still in print.

W. H. Auden, “For the Time Being:  A Christmas Oratorio” final section (hard back copies available on line)

Kathleen Norris quote:  The Christian Century, (December 13, 2005, p. 19.) Also available online.

The 4th Sunday of Advent - O Come Emmanuel!

Psalm 80 repeats this refrain:  "Restore us, O God of hosts, show the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved."  The psalmist was praying for a renewed relationship with God.

Advent gospel readings over the past three weeks have told us to keep awake in expectation of Christ's coming, to prepare for Christ by repenting our sins, and to recognize the deeds of Jesus as the inbreaking of God's holy reign.  Now we have the final Sunday of Advent and our readings shift from emphasizing our response to God to highlighting God's initiative in establishing a relationship with us.  The comfort for us this week rests in knowing that God is as interesting in having a relationship with us, as much as—or even more than—we are interested in having a relationship with God.

We may, as the psalmist did, pray for God to show us "the light of God's countenance."  In praying this we express our need for a clearer view of God, so we can be guided in making choices and in understanding what our lives are supposed to mean.

Isaiah expressed his feelings inadequacy when he had been called by God to be a prophet.  When he is finally able to say, “Here am I, send me,” he receives a frightening oracle about the destruction of Jerusalem. Yet he also receives a message of hope from God.

Isaiah relays the message that, despite the prophecy of destruction, King Ahaz must trust God to send a sign of hope.  But Ahaz cannot even manage to ask God to give him a sign.  Despite this lack of trust, a prophecy of hope did come to Ahaz through a child whose name, Emmanuel, means "God is with us."  God reached out to a reluctant Isaiah with a vision of God's power and glory.  God reached out to a stubborn Ahaz with a prophecy of hope.

How often are we facing a great challenge? It may involve our work or in our family or our health. Do we ask for a sign that God has not deserted us?  Truth be told, we often plow ahead, figuring that we'll have to manage the challenge without much help from anyone. Signs of God's presence may be subtle, usually more subtle than an oracle from a prophet.  But God does reach out to us to give us strength, patience, and hope.  How can we discern God's reaching out to us, God's calling us?

St. Paul considered himself "called" by God to be an apostle, sent to bring the story of Jesus Christ to those outside the Jewish faith. His “calling” experience consisted of being knocked to the ground, seeing the bright light of God presence, and hearing God's voice as he was traveling to Damascus to arrest Christians. Yet his understanding of what had happened continued to grow.  His discernment continued through conversations with Ananias of Damascus who baptized Paul.  Then Paul joined Jesus' disciples in Jerusalem for a period of time.  In these conversations Paul came to a deeper understanding of God's action in reaching out to him. As a result, he became a tireless preacher of the Gospel and founded many Christian congregations.  His words we heard today from his letter to Roman Christians explain how he now understands God's call to him and to those who will hear his letter read.

Unlike Paul's call, Joseph's calling came quietly through a dream.  His challenge was what to do about his betrothed Mary finding herself pregnant.  Should he shame her in front of the community?  Strict observance of the law would lead to her being stoned.  He must have loved her deeply, because he decided to handle the situation privately.

Yet God reached out to Joseph in a dream to call him to both trust and compassion beyond simple righteousness and to take Mary for his wife.  Matthew reminded the people who would hear and read his gospel that the promise of God's presence among us would come through this baby as it had in Isaiah's prophecy to King Ahaz.  Joseph's call from God asked for him to do more than even a good man might be expected to do.   Joseph understood and followed God's leading.

Our place on this fourth Sunday of Advent may not be all that different from King Ahaz or St. Paul or Joseph or the psalmist.  In the midst our challenges and troubles, we need God's presence.  We need to be prepared to receive what God wants us to hear and understand.  We need to be aware of how God may come to us--perhaps through some dramatic event or sign, but more likely in a quiet way through a conversation with someone or in our prayers or even in a dream.  God may be calling us beyond what we think is needed or what appears proper given the circumstances.  Above all, God will be asking us to trust that God's presence will continually support us with God's grace and love.  In the light of God's countenance we may rest secure, no matter how dark the night or how turbulent the storm of our lives.  God has promised to be with us, Emmanuel--O Come, O Come Emmanuel!

The 1st Sunday in Advent - Serenity About What Is To Come

On this first Sunday of Advent when I hear about the expected apocalypse in Matthew's gospel an indelible image comes to mind.  The Chapel of the Good Shepherd at General Seminary is very formal, but every once in a while students create "chapel pranks."  Creativity and keeping within a very broad boundary of good taste mark these pranks, which only take place at Evening Prayer.  I walked in one evening to see some clothing draped rather haphazardly across both student and faculty seating.  The faculty, who chose to attend this evening, processed in their cassocks, surplices, and academic hoods from the front of the chapel to their seats.  That's all as it should have been, but in their hands they held (given to them by students) boldly lettered signs saying, "Left Behind."  Muffled laughter arose from the seated students and staff.  Of course, that meant we students who attended that evening were also condemned to being "left behind."  Just a bunch of unprepared sinners, I guess!

Being prepared for God's revealing of God's self for the second time, probably at the end of time or at the beginning of a new age--or being unprepared--this theme colors our scripture readings in Advent.  But this concern may have little place in our thinking today.  We figure it's been over 2,000 years and may be quite a few more.  Most of us have no feelings of urgency about it. 
 
In fact, W. H. Auden, the poet, calls this time in which we live the "Time Being."  He writes, "In the meantime / There are bills to be paid, machines to keep in repair, / Irregular verbs to learn, the Time Being to redeem from insignificance."  Certainly St. Paul would agree, for in his letter to the Roman Christians he tells them to wake-up from sleep.  Only those who are alert can respond to God's call to them and make decisions to live life in such a way that important things take priority—that the Time Being is redeemed from insignificance.
 
Now Paul did believe that the apocalyptic second coming of Christ was quite near.  But whether near or far away in time, Paul's admonition would have been the same: ". . . put on the armor of light . . . live honorably as in the day."  For Paul darkness represented the power of sinful desires that pull us away from God.
 
For Auden our sin makes up part of the picture of our sorry state, but he also views us as actively working against being reflective about two important things:  first, who we are and, then, how our existence consists of more than just our daily tasks.  Not only do we lack urgency about this, we can also allow guilt about our sin repress the joy we might feel as we consider the mystery of God's incarnation as one of us--a human being.  We often feel unworthy of God’s love.
 
David Bartlett, a New Testament scholar, sees two temptations for us in our uncertainty concerning salvation history.  First, Christians may think that understanding all this is just an impossible situation. Then Bartlett says we may "fall into a state of perpetual apathy."  When we find our selves in this state of apathy, we may decide that what we do—or don’t do—matters very little.  On the other hand if we are constantly focused on the apocalypse, Bartlett thinks we will "fall into a state of perpetual anxiety."  We will focus on whether we are among the "saved" or not, often forgetting to address the needs of others with compassion.
 
As with many issues there is a middle ground here.  That middle ground consists of serenity about the future, trusting the words of Jesus that we cannot know when the Son of Man will come.  It also consists of remembering the cautionary story of Noah as an archetype of faithfulness to God's leading.  In this middle ground we also take comfort in the affirming message of Jesus' life, death and resurrection made present each Sunday in the Eucharist.
 
It means gathering with others in a community of hope--neither succumbing to apathy or anxiety.  In that community of hope we can care for each other and together respond to the needs of the world in God's name--while being alert for signs of God's reign of justice and peace, already begun, but not yet fulfilled.  Bartlett calls this "eschatologically sensitive serenity"—serenity about how it all ends.  In this community of hope—in a parish like St. Nicholas’, for example—we can received assurance that, in Bartlett's words, "we are God's people, and that the history in which we live [is] moving from God and [going] to God."
 
The words of Jesus are these: "Therefore, you must be ready. . ."  How can we accomplish this?  Let us make ourselves ready by caring for each other and responding to the needs we see around us.  Let us make ourselves ready through our individual efforts within this community to make it a community of hope, knowing, of course, that only through God's gracious blessing can our efforts be fruitful.  Stemming from God's love for us, may our attitude of serenity allow us to be ever alert for how God is moving in our lives and in the life of this community to help us grow more and more into Christ's likeness.  May we be ever alert for the dawning light of God's justice and peace.

• "For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio" in Collected Poems, 1976, p. 308.
• David Bartlett, "Pastoral Perspective" on Matthew 24: 36-44 in Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol.1, p. 22-24.

Thanksgiving Eve - Giving Thanks in All Circumstances

As St. Paul ends his first letter to the Christian community in Corinth, he advises the folks who will hear this letter to hold certain attitudes and to act in certain ways.  Paul was concerned not only with how individuals should demonstrate that they follow Christ, but, more especially, how the Christian community can be kept strong.  My personal favorite comes in chapter 5, verses 12 & 13:  "Brothers and sisters, we ask you to respect those who are working with you, leading you, and instructing you. Think of them highly with love because of their work."  How does that work for you?

But for the purposes of this Thanksgiving Eve worship the essential verse is verse 18: "Give thanks in every situation because this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus."  Do we agree with Paul that it is God's will for us to give thanks in every situation where we might find ourselves?   The key word here is "in," found both in the Greek original and in English.

This year on Facebook a number of my "friends" are posting something they are thankful about each day for the month of November--noting, of course, the presence of Thanksgiving Day at the end of the month.  Most of the posts have been unfailingly positive statements: for friends, pets, blessings, a loving family, and so on.  I have not seen one that says something like this: my friend has just discovered she is fatally ill, and I give thanks I am able to accompany her through her last days, so she won't be alone.

Now such a statement might not be posted out of privacy concerns.  But if such concerns didn't exist, would such a statement as this come to mind as way to pray our thanksgiving to God IN a time where we are experiencing loss or lack of what we need?

Let's approach our question by considering the scriptures read tonight.  The 26^th chapter of Deuteronomy contains a description of worship when the first fruits of the harvest are brought to the priest to be set down before God's altar.  The person bringing the gift of first fruits must then recite an brief salvation history.  

Within this history, the worshipper recalls the time when the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt, suffering oppression through hard labor without compensation.  Now having been faithful to God, despite a few lapses, through their escape from Egypt and 40 years in the desert, the Israelites are poised to receive the land they understood as promised by God in God's covenant with their ancestors. 

Yet in this time of joyful anticipation, they are instructed to remember the bad times, for God was with them in those times as well.  Could "crying to the Lord" be considered a way of giving thanks--not FOR the circumstance of enslavement, but withIN those circumstances!  Could this be the sentiment? We thank you for being our God, and now consider our plight.  Help us! Help us!

That same kind of thanks can be seen in between the lines of the passage from the 6th chapter of John.  The crowd had followed him after Jesus had fed a crowd of 5,000 with only five barley loaves and two fish.  The people who chased Jesus to "the other side of the sea" appeared to have been impressed and grateful for the sign they witnessed.  But they wanted this miraculous moment to continue and to include them.  They begged Jesus, "What must we do to perform the works of God?”  Like when God provided manna in the wilderness? Their gratitude and their demand came in the context, I think, of experiencing emptiness, not only for food, but also for a connection to God.

Perhaps our expressions of gratitude often come with a plea for help or for something more.  Tradition tells us that the harvest meal shared by the Pilgrims and the Native Americans in 1621 came after a very difficult winter where many of the settlers died.  Fifty-three Pilgrims attended this traditional English harvest feast—out of 101 who sailed to the New World.  Ninety Native Americans joined them.  The Pilgrims who survived had endured through a winter with inadequate food.  More would have died without the assistance of the Wampanoag tribe members who shared food with them.  In addition, Squanto, a Patuxent Native American who had learned English from the settlers further south, translated for them and taught them to fish for eel and grow corn.  Could the prayers of those colonists during the winter with so much death been prayers of thanksgiving IN the midst of that great tragedy?  What might they have been thankful for?  For the Wampanoag food?  For Squanto?  For the folks who had shared this difficult journey with them, but had passed on?  For their own continued survival?

Prayers that give thanks IN the midst of loss or lack of what we need may be among the toughest prayers of all.  Perhaps they can only be prayed when we are actively hoping for relief, for better times.  Certainly they can only be prayed when we trust that God hears us in grief and pain, in loss and lack.  Ah, yes, in hope and in trust--these two facets of our lives in Christ make it possible to say prayers in difficult times.  Indeed, with hope and trust in our hearts, we can "give thanks in every situation because this is God's will for [us] in Christ Jesus."