Advent 4

What is the best news you’ve ever received in your life?

Do you remember how you received it? We all know about some of the ‘classic’ where-were-you-then stories that deal with bad news (the attack on Pearl Harbour, or the fall of Hong Kong for us Canadians, 9.11…) but what about the good news?

For those who’ve had the experience, how did you feel the first time you found you were pregnant? How about guys, the first time you were told you were going to be a father?

Today is a ‘good news’ kind of day for our lectionary lessons…we hear of a promise that God makes to David, some helpful words of promise from Paul’s letter to the Romans, but our psalmody and gospel lesson centre on the good news that was delivered to a young girl named Mary, and how she received it.

Mary is a bit of a…well, really a…controversial person for Protestant Christians. And Mary is at the centre of other controversies, as well: even though we confess in both the Nicene and Apostles’ creeds that Jesus was born of the virgin Mary, in my experience that one line is usually the one that people choke on.

Seriously, she was a virgin? What’s so important about that?

It is truly hard for many people to understand why there is an emphasis placed on that, or even why we mention Mary at all. Especially in the 19th - and 20th centuries the distinction came to be that Roman Catholics “worship” Mary, while Protestant Christians, especially Lutherans, claimed that we focussed solely on Jesus Christ. Still, in the 21st century, I find people – protestants across all spectrums and even some atheists – who vilify the Roman Catholic tradition for their veneration of Mary.

In our current context it’s a bit easier, I suppose, to reject what has become the ‘traditional’ understanding of Mary: the one who was dutiful, obedient, and passive, when all these things happened. And I can’t really blame those who do; for years, women who got ‘uppity’ were told to follow the example of Mary, to sit passively, have babies, and be quiet the rest of the time. And I get that: I sometimes wonder what would have happened if Mary had drawn herself up to her full height and barked right back at Gabriel: “blech. No way!”

Yet looking at the story that we have, you realize that Mary - who would have been around 14 or so – dealt with the visitation from Gabriel, the Holy Spirit, her family’s reaction to her pregnancy, her future husband’s reaction, all of the people of her village, and, as well, her local religious authority. In fact, Mary is quite possibly the least dutiful example of a woman in a religion: she didn’t obey her father, nor her husband, nor the expectations of her religious system.

She did what God called her to do. “The Lord is with you!” the angel announced to her. That’s not a command, beloved – that’s a promise.

A teenager, pregnant, with nothing but a fantastic story to tell that nobody is going to believe. Have you ever felt that kind of panic? That kind of despair, the knowledge that a whole host of relationships are going to be broken because of something you felt you had to do? If you have, then maybe you’re beginning to understand why Mary is so important to us.

If the word advent means ‘coming’, then maybe this season should be about us coming to greater awareness of what God With Us really means – that without Mary, without a mother, God would not be with us. Mary was not just a vehicle; an anonymous third-party that God used and then discarded.

It is Mary’s humanity, even Mary’s virginity, that means God could take on frail human flesh, could be carried and borne and nursed, and cuddled, and loved. Mary is venerated, not just because she was the one chosen by God, but because she was the one who could say to God “this is my body, given for you.”

The ancient church gave Mary the title of theotokos, a Greek word that means literally “God-bearer” – a reminder that God took upon frail human flesh for us.

Advent means seeing a new day – life in the midst of death, hope in despair, wholeness in brokenness: seeing the promise of God not in the health or wealth that surrounds us, but in the waters that are poured over our heads at baptism and in the bread and wine that are signs of God’s kingdom, given for you.

That God was born of frail humanity, that God was born of Mary doesn’t mean that you need to emulate any culturally-contrived images of duty or obedience, but that you can recognize in the children that surround you, the children that maybe you carried, and nurture, and support, that in caring for them in a real way you care for God; for they are made in God’s image. We carry the weight and burden of years, they reflect back the best in all of us.

We read of the baby – of the Annunciation – so that we and all people can understand that God truly is with us. The ancient world is full of stories of gods who became men, or who had sexual relations with women who then went on to birth demigods. But unless the women are some evil foil in the story, they are helpless, hapless, women who are long forgotten by history. But we read of Mary, who was perplexed by these things that happened (those things of which she was at the centre) – and who in the midst of that confusion sang a song of love to the God who grew inside of her.

Is it any wonder that we call Mary “the God-bearer”?

In her great life, Mary raised her infant son, lost him in the Temple when the family went to Jerusalem, bullied him into his first miracle at Cana of Galilee, then fed his and his hippy friends when they invaded her house to talk of strange things long into the night. She watched with horror as her boy was falsely accused, beaten, tortured, and finally condemned to die as a criminal.

“Greetings favoured one, for the Lord is with you,” were the first words she heard one clear morning. That promise was lived out through her life, as she alone is the only witness from the first stirring of our Saviour’s life in the womb to his final moments on the cross. What began one bright morning ended in darkness on Friday afternoon, when the fruit of her womb and the light of the world claimed ‘it is finished’ and breathed his last.

And it was finished; the reign of sin and its penalty of death in the world was finished, as the new creation of God With Us that began in Mary’s womb called the world again into being early in the morning, while it was still dark, when Mary heard the news that the tomb was empty and her son appeared to those who came to care for his body and told them the same message told to Mary more than three decades before: fear not – for then, the Lord was with them.

The promise of Advent is that promise; the promise that the Lord is with us, has taken upon God’s own self our humanity. We see the fulfillment of that promise in the same way that Mary did: not as an insulated cover that shelters us from the world and numbs our engagement with it, but as a call to be part of something larger than ourselves, part of a body that is out and active in the world, knowing that suffering and dying is part of our world…but not the dominant part.

“The Lord is with you,” means that the word of God is a word of life, and that word is spoken boldly into a sin-darkened world. That word is spoken into our hearts at baptism, so that what begins in life does not end in death.

“The Lord is with you” is the promise that you will see the dark Friday, but that Sunday’s coming.

“The Lord is with you” is the promise that you, too, will make the long journey, in fear and trembling, to Bethlehem, but there you will see the birth of the Saviour…there you will find the new morning that is heralded by the baby’s cries, by a mother’s tears of joy.

“The Lord is with you”…and the day is just beginning.

Let the people of God say amen.

some changes

So, after four or five years, I decided it was time to revamp the ol' blog a little bit, to reflect my own changing life and occupation. When I first carved out my niche in the world wide web, it was a way that I could connect with family and friends from across the world, and feel like I was at least attempting to keep people updated about my family.

However, since my better half does that remarkably better than I over at Our Macintyre Family, I felt that I could better direct this little corner of the world to a particular focus. So, keep looking for sermons, musings, and reflections. Leave a comment, and I'll respond.

blessings!

Midweek Advent reflection 2

It’s funny what we think we can know about someone.

We know each other well: when you have children, you certainly know them well. Even someone who has never borne children knows a child; maybe even knows more about them than they know about themselves: time, place of birth. Weight. Their first giggle.

After a while, that knowledge becomes power. Reminds us that we were there when that little trial was born. A reminder to them of parental power. “I brought you into this world,” my mother used to remind me, “and I can issue a recall.” Tough words, from a tender heart.

Yet we know little of one baby’s birth. A forced migration. Joseph lived in Nazareth, part of a forced resettlement years earlier. A hard time to travel with a pregnant wife. But when someone reminds you of the power they have over you – you, go! – you are sent.

We know nothing of the journey, save by its completion so was Mary’s time complete. No space at the public inn, but the stable close by: warm, perhaps even cleaner than some beds. Whimpering cries. Did Mary have company? A midwife, maybe? Someone to hold her hand, soothe her in distress, to let her know her baby would be delivered, and would be fine? Maybe not. Maybe only the calloused hands of a carpenter saw the King of kings into the world. Maybe even that’s more fitting: that clumsy hands that had not delivered another living thing brought into this world the incarnate Word that created it. It seems that God trusts earnest devotion more than learned teaching.

But later, later its easy to play games about how much we know. Someone once said to me: why December 25? The bible doesn’t say that’s the day. Why do you think it’s then? My response was short: why not December 25? Luke doesn’t care what day the baby was borne; nor does Matthew, nor Mark, nor John, nor any of the other countless authors. I know the official answer: Pope Julius I, in the middle of the second century, poured over Roman tax records until he worked out an approximate date. It also coincided with several other holidays, so perhaps it worked out easier that the Christians could celebrate and worship without the fear that accompanied his birth – fear of soldiers, fear of being found out…fear.

Wanting desperately to know all the details of the Saviour’s birth is a quest for knowledge borne, I think, out of fear. Fear that if we don’t know everything, then maybe none of it is true.

Luke is the compiler; Luke poured over countless sources to find the information he wanted. They were told to travel. They travelled. There was no space for them at the inn, so Mary gave birth to her firstborn son, wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger.

Yet knowledge is power to us. We sit like Augustus, wanting the world to registered so that we can know all things that are due to us. And in sitting like Augustus, watching the high places, we miss what is happening below, as the baby, God with us, comes into our world with only the barest of stories.

Not the way we may want it, but the way that God wants to meet us: in the barest of bare places, stripped of the things that we desire to give us power, so that all we have is the small glimmer of hope: hope that the advent of Christ, in so humble a place, would hold for us the greatest hope of all.

Advent 3

*note before: with thanks to my friend, mentor, and colleague Rev. Kevin Powell, who lives in Japan now, but still resides on the internet here and here. I would call it an homage, what I do below - but let's face it: it was thievery, and I'm proud of it.

John the Baptist confuses me. I’ll admit that right off the bat.

John confuses me, because he doesn’t do things the way they ought to be done. He stands out in the desert, a howling fanatic dressed in rags, drinking only water; last week we heard that he ate locusts, and wild honey. He stands at the shores of the Jordan river (the wrong shore, I must add) and bellows at those who come: “repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand!”

He demands those who come be baptized as a sign of repentance, and elsewhere threatens people outright with terrible divine punishment if they don’t change and, in the words of Isaiah, “bind up the brokenhearted, proclaim liberty to the captives,” and right the wrongs that they have done.

And people flock to hear him. They’re willing to travel miles, on foot, out into the desert, to hear John preach. That’s not the way it’s supposed to be done.

A recent article I found at the Globe and Mail’s online site featured a prominent church in Calgary as the prime example of what a growing church should look like. A giant parking lot, free designer coffee, theatre seating and a professional five-piece rock bank got the credit for bringing the people in. The pastor’s messages, with his sound-byte tagline “if it’s going to be, it’s up to me,” – the writer of the article called them ‘kick-in-the-pants-style sermons’ -- focus on finding personal success through your personal relationship with Jesus Christ. The church’s $4.7 million dollar budget, I guess, is a testimony to the success of the model.

That’s the way you’re supposed to do it, I guess. But, as I commented on the online article: if that’s where the bus is going, I’m getting off. It’s not that there’s nothing good about this model: obviously, it reaches many people. But I do not like when worship looks like me, or a mirror of what I enjoy in life. Then, I’m not sure who I’m worshiping.

Where John preached, there were no distractions. People came to hear a genuine word from God that help hope, peace, joy, and above, love for them. In our world, the most populated churches are the ones that look like the mall; sound like the radio, and focus on you. And it’s everywhere. I was listening to the radio the other day, and I noticed something about almost all of the commercials that I heard: they were all about you. And I don’t mean about “the joy of giving” or anything like that; they’re about how much other people will like you, love you, respect you, when you find something they want.

The Pharisees, the religious elites in Jerusalem at the Temple, want to know if John has something they want. So they send the temple caretakers to ask him a question: “who are you?” They know that he’s a preacher, but they want to know a few things: who does he represent? Is he a known quantity? Is he toeing a line, or drawing his own? These are important questions. They need to know, because if John is a messiah, then he needs to know who they are, and where the power is.

And, as the writer of the gospel tells us, “…he confessed, he confessed and did not deny it, but confessed, ‘I am not the messiah.”

Wow. That’s a major letdown. That’s like me, every day, when my boys look at the presents under the tree and ask if they can open one and I say: “sure….on Christmas day!”

Please, don’t call the authorities.

The Temple authorities are looking for the messiah they know is coming. But they don’t want to get their hands dirty, or mess up their designer duds trudging out to the desert. But they don’t get any answer, at all. Or, they receive an answer that is no answer, at all. “Among you stands one whom you do not know.”

So what does his answer mean?

Have you ever looked at that silhouette of a vase that suddenly seems to disappear and form a background for two people's facing profiles? Artists describe the shapes created by the areas around objects as "negative space." It's not negative in any bad sense. These spaces help define objects but also may take on lives of their own. The not-the-vase space becomes two facing faces.

Today's gospel invites us to explore the surprising richness of what is not. The priests and Levites ask John the baptizer, "Who are you?" They offer him some options, including Messiah, Elijah, and prophet. John repeatedly responds, "I am not." The narrator describes John as "not the light." He describes himself as "not worthy" to untie the sandal of the one who is coming. Being clear about what he is not throws into sharp relief what John the baptizer is: a witness to the light, a voice in the wilderness, someone through whom all might come to believe.

John tells his questioners, "Among you stands one whom you do not know." When it’s paired with "among you," "do not know" becomes a word of promise. Although yet to be revealed, the Messiah is already here. Where? Who? These words invite us on a search for a gift already given: the presence of God in our long Advent nights. We discover the treasures of winter darkness.

The treasure of a Messiah who comes, not bringing pain and rejection and fear, but peace, hope, joy, and love.

Imagine being one of the crowed when John preaches. You think he’s a nutjob, but something catches your attention. Like a car wreck you can’t turn your eyes away from him. You want to know what is about this guy that so many people traveled so far to hear.

It’s not a message of “if it’s going to be, it’s up to me.” It’s a message of, “it is, because God has promised you.” But it’s easier to think that all of this – all of this Christmas, all of this religion, is about you and only you – and especially how well you can lie to yourself. John tells you that there’s more to it than that.

As a colleague of mine preached:

It’s when you push your way through the crowds that you know why so many have beaten you here: this guy knows you. I mean he REALLY knows you. He hasn’t met you before and doesn’t know your name but he has you all figured out.

He knows what hides in the secret chambers of your heart. He knows what you do when nobody’s looking.

He knows your shame and he knows your pain. He knows all that stuff you’d rather keep quiet and hidden. He can see it in your eyes. He can see in the way you keep staring at the ground while he’s preaching. He can see it in the way you walk. With your phony self-assured strut or with your hunched back, stooped from being beaten down by the world. He knows the secrets you harbour.

He knows your failings. He knows your broken places. He knows those moments of weakness that, if ever came to light, your life would end.

He knows about your cancer. Your failed marriage. The feeling that life is passing you by.

He knows about the grief that tearing your heart into rags.

He knows how your dad smacked you around when he was drunk, and now you’re afraid that you’ll do the same to your kids.

He knows how you just can’t let go of a lifetime of resentment.

He knows that some days you feel so lost and purposeless that you wonder if life is worth living at all.

Yes. He knows ALL of this. That’s why he’s so loved and so feared. But when he looks at you and excavates the buried hurts that lie in deepest alcoves of your soul, his eyes soften and he pleads with you, “Prepare the way of the Lord. Make his path straight.”

Instead of scolding you for your moral failings, or telling you to stop blaming others for your troubles, or tells you that it’s up to you to drag yourself up, he leads you to the shore of the Jordan River and reminds you that when the people of God were liberated from their slavery in Egypt, they crossed the Jordan which led to the Promised Land.

Then, looking so deeply into your eyes that you’re afraid you’ll melt, he opens his arms and says, “Enter the water of freedom. God is giving you a fresh start. It’s time for you to start over. It’s time for you to begin again.”

The Baptist was giving out second chances. That’s the gift we are given each and every day when we remember the gift of our own baptism. The gift of starting over. The gift of a new beginning. As we prepare the way of the Lord.

God turns the world around; we don’t. As you come to the table of the Lord today, give thanks that it’s not up to you; that God loves you for who you are, and whose you are.

You belong to a baby. You are owned by a King. You, you and all the baggage that you bring, are God’s joy – because God alone waits and wants to take that burden from you, so that you can know what it means to be called “child of God”.

Let the children of God say amen.

Advent 2

*nb: at St. Matthew's, the Sunday on which we officially receive new members to our family is the second sunday in Advent.*

It’s coming up to Christmas! Did you know that Christmas is a season of introductions? It totally is, especially here. Today is our official “new member Sunday”, so this is the day we introduce ourselves “officially” to some people. Remember to be on our best behaviour. It’s an important time.

I know it’s important: Gord sent me an email yesterday, it was short. It said: remember to wear pants.

Apparently, the time I came in my bright green flannel pajamas is still a little close to his heart.

*Note to you who are joining our family today: it’s never boring.*

And of course, Christmas Eve is always a busy time. I get so many introductions at Christmas Eve services I think that I should be wearing one of those vests from Wal-Mart. I meet lots of people. There are people who come for the first time, who come seeking a little bit of this “Christmas” that we talk about with hushed and reverent tones. On that night, we introduce them to a baby – and, perhaps, it will be the beginning of a relationship for them.

Then there’s always the surprising introductions: “Hi, welcome, I’m Pastor Mick. Thanks for visiting!”

And the reply: “actually, we’re members here!”

Really? I stood in a garage for an hour once; it didn’t make me a car…

But I’m not trying to be mean. It’s just hard for me to understand that particular kind of faith commitment: it’s always been for me that developing a relationships with a faith community is a high priority.

And we hear introductions all the time, in our Scripture readings, in our devotional readings, and in our singing – we sing, yea, Lord we greet thee, born this happy morning; we read “the Lord God comes with might,” and we light candles to keep watch for the coming Messiah.

There’s an important part that we play, too: we are also heralds of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

So, let me ask you this: ff you were asked, if you could, how would you possibly introduce Jesus? No, I don’t mean, “how would you share your faith with someone.” We can talk about that later. I mean, if you were at a party, at a nice evening soiree, and someone tapped you on the shoulder and said “you’re good with words…and there’s this guy here I’d like you to meet.” How would you do it?

Would you take a page from Mark’s book, and just jump right in? That’s how he does it: no long introductions, just “the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” Or would you learn your lesson from John the Baptizer, and be all prophetic: “I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal…” ?

Or maybe, you’d be tongue-tied. I know that the few times I’ve had the privilege of introducing someone at a banquet or a fund-raiser, I’ve made certain that the introduction is memorable; something with a little ‘bazinga’ as Sheldon would say, from Big Bang Theory. But also, I’ve known people whose introductions have been along the lines of mumblemumblemumble... Not maybe the most moving introduction, but they’ve been petrified – suddenly scared to speak about someone whom they know, or hold in high esteem; or frozen by the faces of so many people looking expectantly at them.

(Boy, do I know that feeling. If I didn’t have a monumental ego, I don’t know what I’d do on Sunday morning.)

Seriously, though, how would you do it? Soberly, gravely, channelling Walter Kronkite from the glory days of black and white television? Now, folks, with me here today is one of history’s great figures exclusively in our studio today. Or maybe with a lot of the language that we sometimes associate with the old King James Bible: brethren, we gather here today, forewith to beseech the gladsome tidings of this, our most beneficent charge, who doth grace us with his heavenly presence…until you tied your tongue in a knot and sought medical attention.

Sometime it’s easy to miss the way that the gospel writers introduce Jesus – especially so with Mark. Matthew does a good job; the entire first chapter of Matthew is a list of Jesus’ genealogy – who his family was. Luke does a good job, as well, because it’s from Luke that we get the back story of angels visiting, and Virgins singing, and shepherds and kings and all those things that we think of at this time of year.

But other times…other times it’s hard to imagine what to say. Harder still to imagine that you might be the person asked. Or, even as I said earlier – you automatically associated ‘introduce Jesus’ with ‘share your faith’. And you’re right – faith is necessary to the task.

So let’s take a minute and hear how someone would introduce Christ. This is comedian Steve Harvey:

[watch video].

He’s good; I’ll give him that. The first time I saw that video was in one of my homiletics classes at Seminary – homiletics is the craft of preaching, rather than the practice of it. The assignment I gave you was my first assignment in that class: introduce Jesus.

There’s a catch to that though, and it took me a little while to realize what it is: we don’t introduce Jesus. It’s not like Jesus needs someone to block for him like the Lions quarterback on Grey Cup Sunday (but with the Blue Bombers’ terrible offence, did Lulay really need a blocker, either?) Yet often, that’s what we see. It’s one thing to do as Steve Harvey did, and emphasis the great stories of Christ; but is that really what Jesus is about?

How do you introduce Jesus, who spent time with tax collectors, prostitutes, and gentiles, people who at the time were regarded as the lowest of the low by their culture? You can’t, because Jesus doesn’t need to be introduced. But what Christ will do is introduce you.

He will introduce you as one of those who proclaims his coming. He will introduce you as one of those who is loved by God, for whom God’s only Son was born.

He will introduce you as God’s chosen and redeemed child, and bring you into a community of people who, like you, were called to follow: to follow a star to a stable, to follow a king to a cross, to follow a Messiah to life everlasting.

That is one of the greatest things that I am privileged to see as a pastor: I see you (all of you) introducing Jesus to each other, all the time. Not in specific words, but in your caring conversations, your concern for each other, your willingness to be bound up to each other in relationship to this community. You introduce Christ through your actions and your deeds. You proclaim the coming of Christ, as certainly as if you were clothed in camel’s hair and eating locusts and wild honey.

And as Florence, Brian, Lola, Suzanne, Kurt, Jenna, Nick, Jens, Kathryn, Lillyanne, and Patrick become members of our family today, they also will introduce us to Jesus in their own ways.

Even as a child, I loved new member Sundays, but in particular I like that here the day comes with the reading of the beginning of the gospel of Mark. And beloved, realize this: as these new family members come forward today, we could just as honestly cry out ‘prepare the way of the Lord!’ for them – because they will become part of the body of Christ in this place, waiting for the coming King.

Let the people of God say amen.

Advent Reflection 1

*a note before: at St. Matthew's we celebrate advent with a series of midweek suppers followed by advent vespers. This is the first reflection I wrote this year.

The beginning.

Do you remember the beginning? Of course you don’t. Not your own beginning, at least; certainly not the BIG beginning. But some beginnings you may remember.

The first Christmas you remember may not be the first Christmas you experienced. But it’s the beginning you remember. A tall tree, trimmed with decorations and brimming with all the anticipation of family, and friends, and food. So much bigger to a two- or three-year-old; they don’t make trees like they used to.

You remember other beginnings: the first ‘I love you’ you said; then the first time you said it, and realized you knew what it meant. Carrying your first child, knowing that life was inside of you, and sitting down and feeling the first butterfly flutterings in the core of your being.

Placing your hand on the swelling belly, and feeling the little knee, or elbow. The beginning. You’re going to be a father, or a mother, or grandfather or grandmother. The beginning.

Some beginnings are endings, too. The last spadeful of dirt shovelled into a winter tomb; the headstone tilted askew at the head of the grave, as tilted as crazy as your life has become. The words of a doctor, lawyer, judge: ending one life, and just beginning another. The feeling of being born again, into a world that you don’t understand, can’t fathom, and yet is familiar.

The beginning. We prepare for another beginning. Advent, we call it; the word means ‘coming’. We prepare, with no real idea of what the beginning will look like; no real idea of what will end in order for Christ to begin.

It’s a big beginning. A beginning like none other; for this too is a beginning for God. God, whom we call the Alpha and the Omega; both the beginning and the end – this advent is a beginning for God, as well.

God has not before felt the constriction of the womb, nor felt the pain and cold of labour. Has not before nestled next to a beating heart, not before been knit together, cell by cell, surrounded by warmth and water and love. This is beginning for God, as well.

God, the creator of the world, surrenders to the creative power of the life which God created: the Creator, who in the words of Athanasius is uncreated and unlimited, is found to be created and limited, bound to the heart and the hands of a poor woman. God, who stepped down from the highest lofts of the vaulted heavens now finds a home in a bumpy, jostled, busy, terrified world.

The beginning. Something new, for God and for us; something different, for the world and for all time. The beginning comes in surprising ways.

One beginning, in a womb and a world – the mystery of how the one who is Uncreated and Unlimited would choose to be both created and limited. Limited by flesh and bone; limited by hunger and thirst; limited by love and compassion.

In the midst of the beginning, we too share the beginning: the beginning of the good news; the beginning of new life and new creation, the beginning of all those things that celebrate as right and good in our lives;

For like a new mother, God is beginning to show, in the gently rounded belly; in the open heart and mind; in the blessing of peace and goodwill; those things that begin our world anew, each and every day.