Christmas 2024-C: Real love

Lectionary: Isaiah 9:2-7; Psalm 96; Titus 2:11-14; Luke 2:1-14(15-20) 

En el nombre de Dios: creador, redentor, y santificador. Amen.

In the name of God: Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. Amen.

Love is born today and it’s truly something to celebrate. What is it about Christmas that excites our souls with renewed joy and hope? Why do we collectively gather with family, sing carols, and decorate our homes for this holy day?

As a priest in the church, I rarely have time to decorate my house for Christmas. This created dismay among my children almost 20 years ago when I was ordained. One year, they put the decorations up themselves. I felt guilty but was too busy and too tired to do much about it.

This year, even though my kids are grown and have their own homes, I was compelled to challenge the liturgy police and put up my Christmas decorations during Advent (gasp!) I needed the joy. I needed to sit in my sweet, little St. Louis brick home and look at the tree with its twinkling lights covered in all the ornaments my children and I made through the years. I needed to see their preschool pictures in Santa hats, and the red and green sachets they made in kindergarten placed just so on my bookshelves.

I needed to see, touch, and smell joy in my home this year. It needed to be more than in my head and my heart. It needed to be real in my world.

That is exactly what Christmas is - the coming of God into the world. It’s the historical moment when God took on flesh and became a reality for us, and this isn’t just a theological or religious concept. The beauty of this is, that what started as a historical moment, became an eternal reality - our eternal reality: Emmanuel, God with us.

It’s a reality we need because another reality for us is suffering. Suffering is part of our earthly experience and it takes many forms: the parent of a child who is sick or has died; those experiencing the ravages of war; those whose furry family member has been lost or stolen; the soul on the edge of suicide; the parent who lost their job and the child abused as a result.

Amid all of the suffering in the world, Love is born again and it is truly good news of great joy as much today as it was when the angels announced it to the shepherds in the fields on that first Christmas.

The good news is that God, who created us, redeemed us, and sustains us is with us - Emmanuel - in every moment of our lives. God knows our suffering, shares our heartbreaks with us, and heals us continually, every moment of every day for as long as it takes.

That’s the key: for as long as it takes. In our finite thinking, we seek resolution. We want an end to suffering. We want it like we want the resolution of mysteries or crimes in TV shows. We want the story to wind up after 60 minutes or at the end of a series, and we apply that same expectation to God’s reconciliation of the world.

The thing is, that isn’t what God promises us. We created that concept out of our need. What God promises is constant presence and provision, steadfastness to us, and eternal life. God promises to stay with us no matter what, for as long as it takes. 

The prophets in our Scriptures speak of God’s continual faithfulness to us even in the face of our unfaithfulness to God. That is the steadfast, unwavering loyalty of God to us. It is the promise of the unquenchable fire, of God who never gives up on us but is always there to purify us and give us new life.

Today we celebrate the day God’s steadfastness to us opened a new way for us - a way that enabled us to go beyond God as a concept to seeing, hearing, touching, and loving God as an embodied reality in Jesus. In Jesus, we witness how God relates to the world and how we should relate to God and one another, and until we get that right, God will stay with us, showing us the Way of Love, which starts for us as it did for Jesus: in humility.

Jesus began his human life in poverty, the son of an unmarried peasant child. As he grew into his purpose, Jesus became an itinerant preacher (hardly a respected profession). Going out to the people in the margins: the poor, abandoned, outcasts, and the sick, Jesus healed them, opening to them a new life - a life set free from their suffering.

We know that suffering isolates us. It makes us feel unheard, unloved, and alone. Jesus heard them, loved them, and restored them to their communities, their healings being evidence of what divine love does. Then he told us to do to others as he had done (think Maundy Thursday).

By giving up his own life for our sake, Jesus showed us what divine love requires (think Good Friday). Then he exhorted us to love another as he loved us for “there is no greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (Jn 15:13)

Does that mean we have to die like Jesus did? Maybe, but more likely for us, it means laying down our priorities, our plans, our need to control, and giving someone else’s needs our priority, even if that means going against earthly systems that benefit from their continued suffering.

Then Jesus demonstrated just how unstoppable, how unquenchable God’s love for us is. After we (humanity) responded so unfaithfully and killed Jesus for threatening the status quo of earthly and religious power, Jesus rose from the dead, showing us that not even death can stop God’s steadfast love. In Jesus, death is simply a doorway to new life (think Easter).

But wait - there’s more! After his resurrection from the dead, Jesus promised to be with us always, to the end of the ages (Mt 28: 20) and he breathed his own Spirit into us (think Pentecost), to dwell in us. Jesus is literally with us, in us, right now - for real. How amazing is that?

So you see, Jesus who came to earth on that first Christmas Day is with us still, just as he promised. In fact, all of God’s promises: constant presence, provision, steadfastness, and eternal life are found in Jesus, then, now, and always. This isn’t a concept or a theological idea. It’s as real in our world as the Christmas decorations are in our homes.

Merry Christmas, everyone. Joy to the world! Amen.

4 Advent, 2024-C: Our turn as Godbearers

Lectionary:“Miracle”  by Eric Lane Barns (see the service bulletin, p 5), Canticle 15 (the Magnificat), and Luke 1:39-45 

En el nombre del Dios: único, santo, y vivo. Amen. 

In the name of the one, holy, and living God. Amen.

Our readings today tell one of the most powerful, intimate, and feminine in all of Scripture. It’s the story of two women chosen by God to be partners with God as God ushers in Their plan of salvation.

Elizabeth and Mary are kin of some sort, maybe blood, maybe just dear friends. Elizabeth is an old woman. Mary is a young teenager. Both are miraculously pregnant.

Upon learning she is pregnant, Mary goes “with haste” to visit Elizabeth. It makes sense that Mary, as young as she is, would need the help and guidance of an older woman in this moment. She also may have needed to get away from those in her village who wanted to stone her for her infidelity.

When Mary comes near, the baby within Elizabeth moves and Elizabeth experiences it as a joyful moment. Only a woman who has shared her body with a baby can know how this feels, but there’s more to this than sharing pregnancy experiences because the baby within Mary is God Incarnate - and that changes everything.

God, who is Love, is preparing to be present on earth in a way that has never happened before, taking on flesh and fulfilling God’s plan of salvation as Emmanuel (God with us), and that changes everything.

It changes Elizabeth’s shame into joy. It changes Mary’s seeming infidelity into the ultimate example of faith for all time, but it also changes Mary from a child into a radical, powerful prophet and priest (yes, priest). Mary was the first sacramental priest of the Christian universe because as the God-bearer, Mary literally gave the body of Christ to the world.

Medieval priest and mystic Meister Eckhart once said that we are all called to be God-bearers. We are all called to grow Christ within us - in our bodies, our souls, and our lives – and give him to the world. This is the ministry of all the baptized, not just the ordained. We are, after all the priesthood of all believers.

Mary’s Magnificat issued forth from her when she finally spoke about what was happening. It was her prophetic proclamation of her theology, grounded in her tradition. Let’s make a couple of connections: 

• that God is merciful, strong, and protective (Ps 103) 
• that God brings down the mighty from their places of power and lifts up the lowly (Isa 40)
• that God feeds those who hunger (Ps 23) and sends the self-satisfied away empty (Deut 8:14)
• that God helps God’s people (Ps 121, Isa 41)
• that God keeps God’s promises which are handed down through the prophets (Isa 23, Jer 49)

Think about it, this is the woman who raised Jesus, and this is the theology he learned from her and from his Jewish tradition. If we are God-bearers in our time, then isn’t this our manifesto too?

I give thanks for this prayer as we confront the discomfort of our current cultural narrative. As uncomfortable as it may be, I’m thankful that racism, sexism, violence, selfish hoarding and exploitation of resources, and a blatant lack of compassion for the suffering are being raised up into our awareness in undeniable ways right now. It’s uncomfortable because it causes us to confront our self-satisfied opinions about who we are as a nation and a people of God, and sends us away feeling empty.

But it is in that emptiness that our faith assures us that by God’s great power, bountiful grace, and promised mercy, everyone and everything that is out of step with God’s will, is already being reconciled; that justice and peace are already being restored in our hearts, in our relationships, and in our world.

It’s our turn now to be faithful, radical, and prophetic. Consider the question asked in the Anthem, “Miracle” we heard earlier: 

“To a land where profit takes the place of Spirit, To a land where even children carry guns, To a land where there’s no memory of a time before the violence; Tell me: how could such a Miracle come?” 

The answer is: this miracle comes when God comes among us as one of us. God, who is Love, is about to be born again only now, we are the God-bearers, called to grow Christ within us - in our bodies, our souls, and our lives – and give him to the world.

Let us pray… Most merciful and powerful God, we welcome you and the love you are birthing in our world. Deliver us from all our current barriers to your Love. Strengthen us to be like Mary and grow Christ within us, that we might give him to the world in an eternal holy communion. Amen.

3 Advent, 2024-C: Purified and set free

Lectionary: Zephaniah 3:14-20; Canticle 9; Philippians 4:4-7; Luke 3:7-18

En el nombre del Dios único, santo, y vivo. Amen. In the name of the one, holy, and living God. Amen. 

Today is the third Sunday of Advent, known as Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete is Latin for “rejoice,” but it also means 'to welcome.' On this Sunday then, we make an intentional choice to welcome the joy God is waiting to give us – joy that anticipates the redeeming love of God; joy that trusts that nothing is impossible with God.

Our Collect today is an intriguing one. It reminds us that there is power out there that can set right whatever has gone wrong. That power is love. That power is God.

When we talk about God as Almighty, that’s what we mean. We may use metaphors of earthly power, as Zephaniah did, calling God a “warrior who gives victory” but let’s not overlook how God then describes what that victory is. Speaking through the prophet God promises to rejoice and exult over us and renew us. God promises to redeem disaster, deal with our oppressors, save the lame, gather the outcast, and change our shame to praise. That is what divine victory looks like and it’s why we rejoice.

Paul affirms this in his letter to the Philippians saying that when we stay in relationship with God, we are assured that all will be well, as Dame Julian of Norwich famously said, and our assurance feels like peace – peace in our bodies, our minds, and our spirits. Peace that often makes no logical sense.

What, then, do we make of the Gospel reading from Luke? How does this story fit the Gaudete imperative to rejoice? How did John the Baptist’s listeners hear his words as good news? How do we?

John, who was sent to prepare the way for the Messiah, is teaching everyone, those who have power, and privilege, and those who don’t, urging them to change the way they live their lives, to get back on the path of righteousness, that is, right relationship.

John tells the tax collectors, who were notorious for getting rich by exploiting the poor: Be honest. Take no more than is required. To the soldiers, John said, don’t use your power to extort others.

Using apocalyptic language, which was familiar to his listeners, John proclaims that those who have strayed from the path of righteousness, including some from the family of Abraham, will be cut off at their roots and thrown into unquenchable fire.

Good news, right? Actually, it is.

Since fire is Bible-talk for the presence of God, John is describing a kind of spiritual do-over. The fire is unquenchable – just as God’s love for us and desire for our redemption is unrelenting.

The fire of God’s love will consume us, purify us, and make us new. That’s exactly what the River Jordan, where John was baptizing people, represents: a place where new life begins. It is the place where the Israelites left their 40-year exile and crossed into the promised land, and their promised new life.

Because of John’s apocalyptic style, however, the people were afraid of being cut down and sent into eternal suffering. The Church has been guilty of making this same kind of threat for generations – something the Church needs to repent of.

God is love – and doesn’t use threats to accomplish Their plan of salvation. And as former PB Michael Curry used to famously say (say it with me): If it's not about love it's not about God.

When the people asked John how they should repent, what they should do, he answered them: "Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise."This is Good News on so many levels when we hear John’s words like a prayer.

John opens the people up to a world in which they are not the center of attention. Being the center of your own or others’ attention is a way of life that seems attractive, but it is actually a trap that soon becomes an obsession: my reputation, my money, my rights… John’s words enable them to close the ‘us vs. them’ gap by building in them empathy, respect, and a willingness to enter into relationship with people they otherwise wouldn’t have – the coatless and the hungry.

John’s teaching also frees them from their attachment to things. We all have to ask ourselves: how much is enough?

Currently, there are 2,781 billionaires in the world, and most of them have hundreds of billions of dollars. (Source) If a billionaire were to spend $1,000 a day, it would take them 2,740 years to spend just one billion dollars. (Source) And there are nearly 3,000 of them representing hundreds of billions of dollars each.

Is there enough to lift everyone in the world out of poverty? Yes, but only if whoever has two coats and enough food shares with those who don’t.

Imagine also what Good News John’s proclamation is to the weak, the poor, the exploited, and the hopeless. They would receive the coats and food no longer being held from them. Let’s say that again in prayer language: the ‘have-nots’ will receive the protection and basic sustenance that is being withheld from them by the ‘haves.’

These have-nots are also at the river and are hearing John tell the ones who have been exploiting and harassing them, to change their ways. They know that would set them free from their suffering and lack.

Good News, indeed.

In this story, John clarifies to his listeners that he is not the Messiah. He is baptizing with water and calling for repentance. The Messiah, who will come after him, will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire.

Holy Spirit, which is from the Greek word, ‘pneuma’ means ‘wind’ or ‘breath.’ The Messiah will baptize with the breath of heaven – the very breath that gives life to all. The Messiah will also baptize with fire, which, as we know, is the presence of God.

Muslim poet and Sufi mystic, Rumi, once prayed, “I have one drop of knowing in my soul. Let it dissolve in your ocean.” It is our awareness of our connectedness with God and one another, and our choice to live that way, that will transform the world. Then the will of God will be made manifest on earth as it is in heaven.

For that to happen, however, each of us and all of us must look honestly at ourselves and notice where we’re acting like the tax collector and soldier who needed to change their ways. In what ways are we giving ourselves and our comfort priority over others, especially those others who have no protection and lack the basic necessities of life?

What is the chaff in ourselves we need to be set free from in order to be made ready to receive the transforming love that will come again at Christmas? We all have chaff that needs burring off - and God, who loves us so incredibly much, knows we can only deal with so much truth about ourselves at once, so God reveals it to us in small doses, enabling us to repent a little at a time, year after liturgical year.

It’s a kind of controlled spiritual burn of our souls. It looks destructive and we worry that it might get out of control, but our faith assures us that God has it and us in hand, and this process will create in us a more favorable environment for new life, just as it does for crops in the fields.

On this third Sunday in Advent, may we all faithfully enter the unquenchable fire and be grateful it is unquenchable because it means that God never gives up on us. May we trust that this process will purify us, set us free, and make possible new life in us. May we drown in the ocean of God where we find the peace that surpasses all understanding, and may we rejoice that the bountiful grace and mercy of God will deliver us again and again from death into life. Amen.

Ordination of The Rev Mandi Rice, Fst of St Ambrose, 2024

 Lectionary(alternative):Isaiah 30:19-21,23-26; Psalm 147; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Matthew 9:35-10:1,10:5-8 

I begin with a “Celtic Prayer” by David Adam: “The terminus is not where we stay, it is the beginning of a new journey It is where we reach out beyond, where we experience new adventures. It is where we get off to enter new territory, to explore new horizons, to extend our whole being. It is a place touching the future. It opens up new vistas. It is the gateway to eternity.” 

We are gathered together today in a moment of terminus as we make a new priest. We are marking the end of what was for Mandi and for the Church, and opening ourselves to the new thing God is doing in us. We hear a voice, the one Isaish mentioned, saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it.”

This new way opening before us is an act of loving fulfillment not only for Mandi, or the places in which Mandi will live out her priestly ministry, but also for the whole people of God. I don’t say that lightly, and it isn’t an overstatement. We are a people united in the love of God. We are one. What happens to one of us happens to all of us. Therefore, this moment of terminus is not just for Mandi, but for us all.

In her book, “The Great Emergence” Phyllis Tickle,describes 500 year cycles of life, death, and resurrection in the life of the church. These cycles are separated by moments of terminus – moments wherein the established systems and institutional structures of the church move toward their death so that a new thing, a new way can begin. Phyllis suggested that our current cycle is one of spiritual reformation.

Living in the ending, the dying part of our cycles is always hard, but we know that within each moment of terminus, God is present with us; redeeming all things and making available to us people who keep us deeply and intimately connected to God.

One such person was St. Ambrose of Milan, whose feast day we celebrate today and who has been chosen to walk with Mandi as a companion in her priestly ministry on earth. Ambrose was a theologian and bishop from the first 500 year cycle of the Church’s life. He was creative, imperfect, and flexible.

Ambrose was a fierce follower of Athanasius who spoke of Jesus being of the same substance as God and, therefore, was God. The opposing position was found in the Arians who believed that Jesus was a creature of God, not of the same substance as God, and, therefore, not God.

The emperor at that time was an Arian, and the empress wanted Ambrose to surrender a church so that the Arian soldiers could have a place to worship. Ambrose refused. When the soldiers came to take the church by force, Ambrose didn’t fight. He wrote a hymn: what we now know as “Praise God from whom all blessings flow.” Ambrose instructed the church members to sing the hymn as the soldiers approached. The soldiers refused to attack the hymn-singing congregation.

How’s that for creative conflict resolution? This creative approach to problem-solving is a gift I’ve witnessed in Mandi and one I know God will continue to grow in her as we, her community, nourish Mandi in her ministry.

Another of Ambrose’s gifts is holy flexibility. Ambrose was known to get along with all kinds of people… well, except Arians and he definitely needed an attitude adjustment regarding Jewish people. Imperfection, however, is the human condition and we all have those places in our lives we need to grow in wisdom, grace, and mercy.

Ambrose, as a bishop, was also quite flexible liturgically viewing liturgy as a tool to serve people in worshipping God and not something to be rigid about. For example, in Rome, it was tradition to fast on Saturday. In Milan, it wasn’t. Ambrose said, ‘When I am in Rome, I fast on Saturday. When I am in Milan, I don’t. This is the source of the famous saying, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”

Anyone who has served as a hospital chaplain knows that flexibility is a must and Mandi demonstrates that on a regular basis. Then, there is her tender-heartedness a quality reflected upon in our gospel lesson where Jesus witnesses people being harassed and helpless,“like sheep without a shepherd.” He sends his disciples to them to shepherd them equipping the disciples to heal them, spiritually and physically. Jesus sends us now in the very same way.

In order to serve faithfully, we must be willing to meet people where they are as Jesus did. Our prayers must speak words their souls can hear. In order to do that we must listen deeply and learn the language of their souls. When someone is listening deeply to you you can see it on their face and feel it in your heart.

Not everyone has the gift of servant-listening, but Mandi does, and like Ambrose, she has the gift of holy flexibility meeting people where they are and encouraging them to hope in the midst of frightening or difficult circumstances. We need lots of followers of Christ who can encourage others to hope because our time, right now, is frightening and difficult for many people. We know that each hardship we face not only builds our spiritual character and endurance, but also gives us the opportunity to experience God tenderly stretching our hearts and souls so that, as followers of Christ, we can keep walking on the way with confidence that each step is taking us where God’s purpose for us will be fulfilled.

So you see, today is about Mandi, but isn’t just about her. It is a moment of terminus for the whole community.

The office of priesthood is but one of four orders in our church none of which operates alone. It’s a bit like a choir. All of our voices singing together make a sound that none of us can make alone. And it isn’t just us singing, is it? We believe that our voices join with the heavenly chorus and together we make a sound that only God can orchestrate.

That’s why we can walk in the new way God is setting before us: because we never go alone. And we can explore new horizons with confidence borne of our faith which assures us that God who created us recreates us every day… that God who redeemed us made us a resurrection people… that God, whose Spirit dwells in us, sustains us every moment of our lives. Now God is sending us out as laborers of the divine harvest equipped with Good News to share for the healing of souls.

Today we confirm that we will go - all of us –overseers, shepherds, servants, and lay ministers each fulfilling the purpose for which God made us.

I close with a favorite prayer of mine: the Prayer of Celtic mystic, St. Brendan. I’ve asked St. Brendan for dispensation to change it from first person singular to plural for our purpose here today and he was OK with that… so let us pray: 

Lord, we will trust You. 

Help us to journey beyond the familiar and into the unknown.

 

Give us the faith to leave old ways 

and break fresh ground with You. 

 Christ of the mysteries, we trust You 

 to be stronger than each storm within us. 

 We will trust in the darkness and know that our times, 

even now, are in Your hand. 

 Tune our spirits to the music of heaven, and somehow, 

make our obedience count for You. Amen. (Source)