Spirit and Truth

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was John 4:3:26:

Today’s gospel passage isn’t the one normally assigned for today, although it could be, because people coming to worship the Christ child is an important element of the Christmas story, as we will hear about next week when we talk about the arrival of the magi, or the wise men from the east. Worship of Jesus also plays an important part after the resurrection. But, we are talking about the woman at the well, or Jesus encounter with a Samaritan woman, because way back in February, which seems like a decade ago, when the Ark held their Mardi Gras fundraiser, my donation was to allow the winning bidder to pick any piece of scripture for me to preach on. Now, I was supposed to have given this message way back in the summer, but with all the changes this year, that didn’t happen, and as I said, I thought talking about worship after Christmas was appropriate. And so that is why we are looking at this passage for today.

As was said in the introduction, after Jesus encounters Nicodemus, a named man, a prominent official, and a Jew, and that will become important in a moment, we are told that Jesus is then going back to Galilee, which is in the north, but to get there, John says, he “had to go through Samaria.” Now it could be that he had to do this because that was the easiest way to get back to Galilee. But, in John, when something has to be done, it normally implies that it is task that God is requiring. So, it’s possible that Jesus has to go through Samaria in order for this encounter to take place. Now when we hear the word Samaritan today, most of us probably think about the parable of the Good Samaritan. In that story the Samaritan comes off as the moral hero, as Jesus says he is the neighbor to the man who was beaten and left on the side of the road. And so we have then this association with Samaritans as being a good thing. They are positioned high in the moral order. They have virtue. But that was certainly not how they were seen by Jews of the time, and to understand that story, and this story, we have to understand how despised the Samaritans were. To be a Samaritan was to be impure otherness.

Here is my message from Christmas Eve. The text was Luke 2:1-20:

Last Christmas Eve I told the story of having ordered a little people nativity set for our youngest daughter, who was one at the time, and after unpacking the toy realizing that we didn’t have Mary. After I frantic search I was able to find her, but that got me thinking about the characters in the nativity, and the fact that if you were going to lose a character, it probably would be Joseph, because he is sort of anonymous in the crowd. He doesn’t really play a key role, and he is much more like us than probably the others, and yet he makes a difference for Mary and Jesus, and we too are called to be like Joseph and make a difference in people’s lives and in the world, even if we might not ever get the recognition, or even realize we are making a difference. But, tonight we are going to talk about the one character who has to be there, the one who caused me to panic because she was missing, and that is Mary, the mother of Jesus.

Now for as important is Mary is, or has been in the history of the church, especially as a person to whom devotions are made, we really know very little about her. Most of what people think they know about Mary are stories that develop much later in the history of the church. Luke, who we just heard from, mentions her the most.  She is named 12 times in Luke, but all of these are in his infancy narrative.  She appears in two other stories in Luke, but is not named in those.  In Matthew, she is named 5 times.  Four of those times are in his infancy narrative, and then she is talked about two other times, being named once, although it’s a reference to her, not something directly involving her.  In Mark, she is named only once, and like in Matthew it is simple a reference of a crowd saying that Mary is Jesus’ mother, and then there is one story in which she is not named.  In John she is not named at all, but there are two stories make reference to her.  And that is all that we have in the gospels.  Not really a lot to go on. But when we compare Mary against other characters in scripture, especially women, the fact that we know as much about her as we do, and that she is referenced in all four gospels, is quite extraordinary.

Christmas Miracles

Here is my message from our Blue Christmas service. The text was Isaiah 9:2-7 and Luke 2:1-20:

Tonight I’d like to share two stories with you.  The first comes from Jenee Woodard, who runs a website called Textweek.com, which gives resources on the weekly lectionary readings.  Jenee was a lay minister working towards a Ph.D. in biblical studies, when she gave birth to Philip, who is severely autistic, requiring her to put her career plans aside, although her ministry now takes place through her website, which has helped hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions of preachers, and gets more than 2 million hits a month.  Here is her Advent story which was written in 2002:

As many of you know, my son Philip has autism. He is 10 years old and is severely handicapped by his disability. Our family learned to slow down at Christmas a number of years ago when he was unable to tolerate *any* of the celebration. He could not handle the changing scenarios - the twinkling lights, the changes in grocery store displays, the changes in the sanctuary at church, presents appearing under the tree, the tree ITSELF, and the moved furniture. He would fall on the floor and scream, unable to move, afraid to open his eyes, almost constantly from Thanksgiving until well after Christmas when it was all over. We carried him through that time his head covered with his coat so we could get through the grocery store, or sat with him huddled in his room, carefully ordered EXACTLY the same since summer, with no Christmas trappings.

Creating Christmas: Love

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Matthew 2:1-11 and 1 Corinthians 13:1-13:

One month from today, Joe Biden will be sworn in as president and will deliver his inaugural address as he tries to set direction and a call for the country. There have been some inaugural speeches that very few, if anyone, remembers, and then there are those that have risen into greatness, like Lincoln’s second inaugural address, which includes the phrase “with malice towards none, and with charity towards all.” Or FDR’s first address, in which he said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” What all of the best of these speeches try to do is to pull us out of ourselves, and connect us to something bigger and unite us behind some common understanding of who we are as a people. Think about Kennedy’s “ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” That is a call out on individualism, and selfish intentions, a call to live for something more, to give ourselves for others. Might I even be bold enough to say that it is a call to love, which can bridge divides we put between each other?

Paul is doing something very similar in the passage we heard this morning. Because although we often hear this passage used in weddings, and I’ve done it myself many times, Paul is saying in this passage that really don’t have anything to do with the love we think about revolving around weddings. The first thing he is doing is rebuking the Corinthian community. There are some who think they are better than others because of the spiritual gifts they have received, with those who speak in tongues seeming to think themselves at the top of the spiritual gifts hierarchy, which means not only that they are the best, but that others are below them, which is why he talks about the fact that every part of the body is necessary, that no part is greater or lesser than the other. And then he says that even if you can talk in tongues, and you are extremely generous and you have faith to move mountains and can prophecy, which means you are talking to God, but if you don’t have love, if you are not living in love, then you have nothing, you are nothing and you gain nothing. As important as those things are, without love they are worthless.

Blue Christmas Invite

I have a attended a funeral for a family member on Christmas Eve and also on Good Friday, and let me tell you it’s a lot easier to mourn and to hear about life eternal on Good Friday than it is at Christmas. And after the Christmas Eve service, which had the worst funeral message I have ever heard, I said one of the stupidest things I have ever said, and that was, as I was leaving to drive back to New Mexico for Christmas, saying to my Aunt, “I hope you have a good Christmas.” My only excuse is that we tend to say dumb things around death because we don’t know what to say.

Mourning at Christmas is hard because we are told that we are supposed to be filled with holly, jolly and merry because it’s the most wonderful time of the year after all. Except that for many people it’s none of those things. Christmas simply reopens wounds or reminds us of the things and people that are no longer present for us. And so Christmas ends up being a time of pain and sorrow rather than jingle bells, ho, ho, ho, mistletoe and all that stuff.

This coming Monday, which is the longest night of the year, we will be holding our Blue Christmas service which gives space to name those hurts and pains and losses, and also to hear of God’s hope for the world and for us. As I have said before, while this is often the least attended service we do each year, I think it is one of the most important that we do. It’s also the one I always feel least adequate to lead, but trust in the Spirit to speak even with sighs too deep for words.

So, if you need to be reminded of Christ’s light that shines most especially in the darkness, I would encourage you to “attend” the service online. And please make sure to invite others you know who may need this service wherever they are in the world. It will take place at 6 pm on Facebook and YouTube, and for those who are not regular attendees, the worship guide may be found on our website. We will conclude the service with the singing of Silent Night, so we encourage you to have candles available as well.

And speaking of candles, candles for our singing of Silent Night on Christmas Eve will be distributed this week. We encourage you to keep one bag of candles for yourself and deliver the others to neighbors and ask them to join us in singing Silent Night at 7 pm on Christmas Eve. If you need more candles, we have more available at the church and can deliver them to you as needed.

We will have our Christmas Eve service, which will be a combined traditional and contemporary service, streaming at 4 and 5:45 pm on Christmas Eve on Facebook and YouTube. Both times will have the same service. You may also watch the service at your convenience after the first service ends. Unfortunately, we will not be holding our open house or labyrinth as we had originally planned.

I wish you all a continued blessed Advent, and a transition to a merry Christmas as we celebrate that the light of Christ has come into the world and darkness cannot overcome it.

Creating Christmas: Joy

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24 and Luke 1:39-56:

Towards the end of his life, Henri Nouwen, a Roman Catholic priest, was still looking for some meaning or purpose to his life. Even though he was a world famous author and theologian and had taught at Notre Dame and Yale and Harvard, he still felt there was something missing. And so he left the academy behind and moved to a L’Arche community in Toronto to live with people with intellectual disabilities, some of them severe that require nearly 24 hour care. It was there that Nouwen was matched with Adam, to be his companion and care taker, of whom he said “"It is I, not Adam, who gets the main benefit from our friendship.” 

Nouwen would take members of the community with him whenever he traveled to speak around the world, and what he also found in this community was joy. He says that there were people there who radiated joy, not because their lives were easy, because they most certainly weren’t, but because they habitually recognized God’s presence in the midst of all human suffering, their own as well as others. And that is at the heart of joy, which we’ll get into, and so, Nouwen says, “The great challenge of faith is to be surprised by joy.” Let me say that again so you can let it sink in and begin to percolate in your mind, “The great challenge of faith is to be surprised by joy.”

Creating Christmas: Peace

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Philippians 3:4-7 and Mark 1:1-8:

At one of the churches I served in Boston, the clergy association held an interfaith Thanksgiving service that brought together nearly all of the church and synagogues. While there was not a mosque in the town, the next town to the south did have the Islamic center for western Boston, and so as it came up to be our turn to host the event, I said that we would do it, on the condition that we also invite the Islamic community to participate. But, of course it wasn’t just that easy. After September 11, as the community, which had lost several citizens in the planes, sought to put together an interfaith service, someone else had recommended that the Islamic community be invited, and it was said that that would never happen in this town. Much of the opposition, although not all of it, came from one of the two rabbis, who was an Israeli and had lost several family members in terrorist attacks, and I understood his position and was completely sympathetic to his position. Additionally, we had to answer the question of whether it was justified to destroy and break the community we had established in order to widen the circle. Did the ends justify those means?

Eventually, we had one of the other protestant pastors, who had a closer and longer relationship with the rabbis, talk with them and both of them, to their inordinate credit, agreed that not only would they agree to the invitation, but they would still participate as well. When the day of the service finally arrived, we weren’t really sure what was going to happen, but the rabbi walked up to the representatives from the Islamic center and he put out his hand, remember when we could do that, and he said to them “shalom Aleichem” which is Hebrew for peace be with you, and those greeted replied “Aleichem shalom”, which is unto you peace. In his letter to the Romans, Paul says, “If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.” And I think in that moment, we broadened peace and community just a little bit. Shalom Aleichem.

One Toy At A Time

Sometimes it’s hard to believe that it’s the year 2020. And I don’t mean that in the sense of how strange this year has been, and how many people want it to finally be over (including me). But, in the sense of “can you believe this is happening in the year 2020?” For example, I recently received a message from a group, who are going to remain nameless, who said their offices were closed but that you could leave a message or send a fax. A fax? Seriously? This isn’t 1995, this is 2020.

But a more poignant story comes from that of 7-year-old Vivian Lord. Last year, Vivian was playing with the iconic plastic toy soldiers when she realized that all of the army men were literally men. There wasn’t a single female represented in the group. Women have been involved in the US military for a long time, including being able to hold combat positions since 1983 and tactical air positions since 1989. And yet that was not represented in the toys that Vivian was using. It is the year 2020, right?

Now I grew up as one of three brothers, and so one of the things that I found surprising when we had daughters was how gendered toys were, or had become. There were specific boundary lines, often delineated by color and other things to say that this is what boys play with and this is what girls play with. Now there has been some improvement in this area in recent years, with both boys and girls show playing with a play kitchen for example, and I know because we just purchased one. But for Vivian, she was still playing with all male soldiers.

And so Vivian decided to do something about it and wrote a letter to the manufacturer asking them to make female soldiers. Jeff Imel, the CEO of BMC Toys, said he had never gotten a letter like that from a child before, and he moved the creation of female soldiers to the top of the priority list.  And so under many Christmas trees this year, for the first time, there will be 22 different options of female soldiers. And Vivian says “I will play with them every day.”

If you don’t think that pointing out disparities, this is 2020 after all, can make a difference, or that one person can make a difference, just ask Vivian. She has changed the way that children from now on will see themselves, and others, in this role, and in many other roles as well. Perhaps Pixar might even consider putting in female army soldiers into any new Toy Story films they might make. And, I bet that Vivian also understands her ability to change the world, one toy at a time. May we learn the same.