Tag Archives: Christmas

On the Perfectly Imperfect…

21 Wednesday Dec 2022

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Photo credit: Hickory Neck Episcopal Church. Reuse with permission only.

This Christmas will be the first Christmas I am able to spend time with my husband’s family in five years.  We used to travel there more regularly, but about the time we would have visited, the pandemic hit, and here we are years later returning to something that feels comfortingly familiar.  I find a deep sense of relief knowing the familiar faces that will greet us, the warmer temperatures and beautiful landscape that will refresh us, the smells and tastes that will delight us, and the love and acceptance that will overwhelm us.

In some ways, I think attending church on Christmas Eve is a lot like that comforting familiar experience.  We know the lessons we will hear, the songs we will sing, the greenery we will find, and the hospitality we will experience.  In what has been a time of disorientation, suffering, grief, and struggle these last years, nothing feels as enticing as the promise of a warm, welcoming womb in which to gather.

What’s fascinating about the Christmas story and experience is that the first Christmas had little other than a womb in common with our modern experience.  Mary and Joseph are likely still recovering from the rocky beginning to their relationship – nothing like an unorthodox pregnancy to bring on marital strain!  Mary and Joseph also join hordes of their kin in being displaced by the government, only to find accommodations entirely unsuited for childbirth.  Strangers of ill repute show up sharing stories quite unfathomable, inserting themselves into the chaos of that night.  And Mary is left overwhelmed, trying to figure out what is happening to her life.  Why, of all the stories we could hear, is this crazy, disorienting story the one we want to hear year after year?

I suppose, in part, we breathe in a comforting deep breath on Christmas Eve because no matter where our journey has taken us over the last year – or years – knowing the imperfection of that perfect night helps us bless and honor our own imperfection.  Perhaps we revel in Christmas at church because we know that every year, no matter how off-track our lives have become, we have a place where we can go, a family with whom we can journey, and a Savior who is just as vulnerable as we are.  This Christmas, I hope you know there is no imperfection in you that is not perfectly welcome at the Table.  You are welcome here.

On Not Feeling so Merry and Bright…

15 Thursday Dec 2022

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Content Warning:  This post addresses mental illness and death by suicide. 

Yesterday, I received the news that Stephen “tWitch” Boss died by suicide.  I first encountered tWitch on the show So You Think You Can Dance.  He was full of life, talent, and entertainment.  He became beloved, and I was thrilled to see him on other seasons of the show.  Several years later, he joined The Ellen Degeneres Show as her DJ and co-host and later as a co-executive producer.  It seemed the perfect television match as I couldn’t imagine two people fuller of joy.

Perhaps talking about someone in showbusiness seems frivolous, but I can’t help thinking about the contraction of someone who exuded and brought forth so much joy also being one who struggled with mental health.  But that is the danger with mental illness:  so often we think mental illness is obvious.  Mental illness is just as hidden to the naked eye as heart disease or cancer.  Mental illness is just as much of an illness as any other:  requiring treatment, medication, and medical help.  And yet, somehow, we often blame mental illness patients for their illness in ways we would never blame a cancer patient. 

I am especially mindful of tWitch’s death because I can imagine the pressure this time of year places on those with mental illness.  We have been through a tremendously hard and isolating two and a half years, and now that the “most wonderful time of the year” is upon us, we all feel pressure to feel, do, and be certain ways.  Equally tragic to tWitch’s death is the impact of his death on his wife and little children.  I suspect Christmas joy will be quite hard to muster this year for all of them.

That is why I am so grateful for services like our church’s “Blue Christmas” service.  The emotional pressure to feel, do, and be certain ways is at its highest at Christmas time.  We are living up to external pressures to be “merry and bright,” all while experiencing loss, pain, sadness, suffering, loneliness, unfulfilled expectations, and grief.  Some of us are better at putting on our happy faces, but most of us bring to Christmas a whole other set of emotions that we do not talk about in polite circles.  Our Blue Christmas service provides a different circle.  Call it “impolite” if you like, but I find it a most sacred circle of trust where people can lay down their burdens and be reminded that they are not alone.  If you need such a sacred circle, I hope you will join us on December 21 at 7:00 pm (the service will be livestreamed and archived should you need it at another time and/or place).  You do not need to say or do anything while you are here.  We will not ask you any questions about why you are here.  You are simply welcome to the space, to gather in with the Holy Spirit, and to feel a sense of love and acceptance, as we remind you how you are a beloved child of God. 

If you’re thinking about suicide, are worried about a friend or loved one, or would like emotional support, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and Crisis Textline is available 24/7 across the United States.  They are available for everyone, free, and confidential.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline:

(800) 273-8255

Crisis Textline:

Text ASKUS to 741741

Sermon – Matthew 2.13-23, C2, YC, January 2, 2022

12 Wednesday Jan 2022

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Today is a very weird day for us scripturally and liturgically.  Even though there are two Sundays appointed for Christmastide, we rarely get to enjoy both because the feast of Epiphany, which falls on January 6, usually gets substituted for the Second Sunday of Christmas.  This year because we get to celebrate the second Sunday of Christmas, we go from Christmas celebrations on Christmas Eve and last Sunday, to the flight to Egypt this week – which takes place after the magi arrive.  And next week, we will go backwards to hear about the magi’s arrival which happens before this week’s lesson.  Like I said, today is super weird.

But the timing is not the only weird feature of today.  The structure of the Episcopal lectionary varies from the Revised Common Lection today and cuts out verses 16-18 of the second chapter of Matthew.  Now, normally, cutting out a few verses is not that big of a deal, but today cutting out verses is a huge deal.  We go from learning that Joseph has a dream warning him to flee to Egypt because Herod wants to destroy the baby Jesus (because the magi arrived and told him a baby has been born king of the Jews – and Herod is not interested in anyone taking power from him), to Herod dying and Joseph receiving another dream in Egypt telling him to go back home to Israel with his wife and baby Jesus.  But in those three omitted verses is an atrocity so mind blowing, I can only surmise the lectionary crafters eliminated the verses because they thought we would be too distracted by the atrocity.  In those three verses, Herod realizes he has been tricked by the magi, and so he sends his men to kill every male child under the age of two in Bethlehem to make sure a new king does not arise.  In essence, Herod is so determined to keep his power that he kills about twenty infants and toddlers[i] to secure his leadership.

But the weirdness does not stop there today.  This text is laden with meaning and parallelism.  Joseph is spoken to in dreams which causes him to safely journey to and from Egypt.  Another Joseph – the son of Jacob and great-grandson of Abraham with the coat of many colors – he had dreams too that led to his bondage in Egypt at first, but eventually to his security and power in Egypt when he interprets dreams for the pharaoh.  So, we hear a parallel story of two Josephs.  We also hear a parallel story of Moses and Jesus.  As one scholar explains, “At Jesus’ birth, violent forces seek his life, just as violent forces had sought the life of Moses.”[ii]  If you remember, the reason Moses was raised in the security of Pharaoh’s home was because Pharaoh’s daughter found Moses in a papyrus basket floating down the river – floating away because Pharaoh had ordered every male Hebrew child be killed because the Hebrews were becoming too numerous and he feared losing his power.  In essence, Jesus’ and Moses’ stories track one another – Jesus is the “Son of God and the expected prophet like Moses who will deliver Israel through a new exodus.”[iii]

Here’s the thing about the weirdness today.  We do not really want weirdness right now.  We are still in the twelve days of Christmas, and we want babies, and angels, and mom’s pondering, and dad’s standing righteously, and shepherds praising and marveling, and magi adoring the Christ Child.  In part, we want the sentimental comfort and joy of Christmas because our lives are running short on comfort and joy lately.  In fact, the wave of the Omicron variant is pressing upon us, and in a time when we thought we would be moving toward freedom, we are making a U-turn toward oppressive restrictions.  We have enough turbulence, terror, and violence in today’s world – the last thing we want to do is read about that mess (and more accurately, that repeated mess!) today in church.

But here’s where we find hope.  Matthew may lay out murder and fleeing and the continuation of a violence and oppression.  But as Dean Culpepper reminds us, “Matthew dares to see things as they are and still affirm that God is working, even in the worst that we can do.”[iv]  Today is not about glossing over the mess of this world.  Today is about naming the mess of this world and still being able to see God at work, doing something as radical as sending the Christ Child to us.  That is the real joy of Christmas this year.  “Nothing can defeat God’s promise of Immanuel, God with us.  Even when we cannot celebrate peace on earth…we can celebrate Immanuel, …the love of God and the promise of peace.”[v]  And that promise is better than any glossed over, sentimental wishes of a Merry Christmas.  That promise is weird, but tremendously good news, indeed.  Amen.

[i] R. Alan Culpepper, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 1 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 167.

[ii] Culpepper, 169.

[iii] Culpepper, 169.

[iv] Culpepper, 169.

[v] Culpepper, 169.

Sermon – Luke 2.1-20, CE, YC, December 24, 2021

12 Wednesday Jan 2022

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Church on Christmas Eve is always a funny thing.  For years, I scoured the stores for matching dresses for our girls.  I served in churches where people would sport tuxedos and fur coats for the night’s services.  Family pictures were regularly taken by the Christmas tree – either at home or at church.  Quite frankly, I was a little relieved when I became a priest and never had to worry about a new outfit because no one would see the outfit under my vestments anyway.  And then the pandemic hit.  Last year, we had to watch Christmas from home – maybe in matching pajamas, but more likely just in a pair of jeans or sweats.  A year later, we are all out of the habit of dressing for public, and, if you are here at Hickory Neck, you know jeans are just as acceptable as that fancy dress or jacket in the back of your closet or that some of you are fabulously sporting tonight. 

I am not really sure where the notion of dressing up for Christmas came from, except maybe an older tradition of always dressing up for church.  But nothing about our Christmas story screams high fashion.  Mary and Joseph are traveling to Bethlehem under order of the oppressive government and are likely in traveling clothes, dirty and weary from the road.  Mary also gives birth this night, so her body is likely sweaty and soiled.  Meanwhile, her child is not in a matching layette, but in bands of cloth.  Both are likely an exhausted mess.  And the shepherds who later come visit are likely not to fresh-smelling themselves, probably in their most utilitarian clothing for tending to sheep in the dark cold of night.

And yet, in these most basic settings, the privilege of the miraculous happens.  Mary births not just an ordinary baby, but the Christ Child – the Messiah – as Isaiah says, the “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”  Meanwhile, not only does an angel appear in the blinding glory of God, but also a whole multitude of the heavenly host shows up.  All to ordinary people, dressed in ordinary garb, going about doing ordinary things.  But as scholar Sarah Henrich says, “Heaven and earth meet in obscure places, not in the halls of power.”[i] 

This week I read about such a meeting of the heavenly and earthly in the Washington Post.  In November 2020, Kim Morton was sitting at home with her daughter watching a movie in Baltimore County, Maryland, when her neighbor sent her text telling her to look outside.  Her neighbor, Matt Riggs, had hung a string of Christmas lights all the way across the street from his house to hers, as he explained, to brighten Kim’s world and to show her that they were always connected, despite the isolation the pandemic had created.  Kim had been struggling with anxiety and depression, had lost a loved one, had a lot of work stress, and had started experiencing panic attacks.  Matt knew her pain himself, and so decided they both needed a reminder that they are not alone in their pain. 

But here’s the funny thing about Matt and Kim’s story.  The neighbors saw what Matt did, and they wanted in too.  Neighbors across the street from one another started talking and said, “Let’s do it too!”  Slowly, but surely, neighbors started reaching out to one another with expressions of connection, love, and quite literally, light.  By the time Christmas arrived, 75% of the neighbors had joined in with strings of light crossing the entire drive.  And this year, in November 2021, the whole neighborhood held a house-to-house light hanging party.  Kim, the initial recipient of the lights said, “It made me look up, literally and figuratively, above all the things that were dragging me down.  It was light, pushing back the darkness.”[ii]

Matt and Kim’s story did not happen in Jerusalem, Bethlehem, or even New York City.  Their story happened in a little neighborhood, outside of Baltimore, that no one had heard of until the Washington Post came along.  And although Matt and Kim never mention Jesus, the truth is that heaven and earth met in an obscure place, shining connection, love, and light.  This Christmas, the ordinary, earthy setting of Bethlehem and the shepherd fields are reminders – reminders that we can have all the fancy bow ties and heels we want, but more often, we will see and experience the sacred in the ordinary moments where Jesus shows up and offers us love.  The birth of the Christ Child tonight is a reminder that we, like ordinary shepherds can be used to be sharers of the Good News in tiny, ordinary ways – ways that show Christ’s love and light, and in ways that help us experience sacred connection with our neighbors.  Amen.

[i] Sarah Henrich, “Commentary on Luke 2:1-14 [15-20],” December 24, 2021, as found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/christmas-eve-nativity-of-our-lord/commentary-on-luke-21-14-15-20-20 on December 22, 2021. 

[ii] Sydney Page, “A man strung Christmas lights from his home to his neighbor’s to support her. The whole community followed,” Washington Post, December 21, 2021.

On Merry, Messy Christmases…

22 Wednesday Dec 2021

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Photo credit: https://myharvestchurch.ca/messy-christmas/

Christmas as a pastor is not really like Christmas for most people.  Just ask any preacher’s kid.  While their peers are taking long road trips, fun vacations, or at least doing fun activities like making gingerbread houses, going to the movies, or baking cookies, the fun in a pastor’s home does not really begin in earnest until all the church services are done – and after a requisite nap for said pastor. 

But that is just surface stuff.  The harder part for clergy is holding in tension the reality of Christmas.  The secular world would have you believe Christmas means perfectly decorated trees stuffed with tons of perfect presents, hearths dressed in elaborate greenery, family traditions that always bring joy, and gatherings around meals with people who are happy to be together. 

But clergy are the ones who hear throughout Advent about those dealing with health crises, those struggling with the pending death of a loved one, those whose marriages are crumbling, those struggling to make ends meet, and those who are in the fog of depression and anxiety.  Clergy are also the ones who celebrate weddings, the births of babies, the good grade on an exam, the new relationships or reconciled family member, and the unbounded joy of a child waiting to open gifts.  The juxtaposition of the messy, horribleness of life and the joyful, abundance of life is never sharper than at Christmas – where societal and personal expectations are high, and where reality never reaches perfection. 

The irony, though, is that the actual Christmas story is just about that – a juxtaposition of messy horribleness and joyful abundance:  where governments are oppressing the poor financially, where pregnancies are scandalous, where birthing rooms are inadequate; all while the poor receive good news, where the lowly birth the mighty, and where community and goodness is shared among strangers.  This year, still slogging through a long season of pandemic and political strife, I pray that you might see the Christmas story clear-eyed – taking off the rose-colored glasses, and seeing with fresh eyes the messy, ugly, beautiful story of Christmas.  Christmas blessings my friends!  I see you, I love you, and more importantly, so does Jesus.

Sermon – Malachi 3.1-4, A2, YC, December 5, 2021

22 Wednesday Dec 2021

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The professional choir at the parish I served as a curate would perform Handel’s Messiah every Advent season in preparation for Christmas.  I remember my first Advent the Rector told me about the performance with excitement and anticipation, and all I could remember thinking was, “Oh goodness!  Do I have to go??”  Do not get me wrong, I love Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus as much as anyone, but that piece is only about three-four minutes long and is only half-way into the three hours of singing that Handel’s Messiah takes. 

Music is a funny thing in Advent.  Most people I know do not really love Advent music.  Unlike familiar, comforting, endearing Christmas carols, Advent hymns are “discordant, unsung, and unpopular in many congregations.”[i]  I have known choir members whose skin crawls from Advent music, and I imagine many of you are here today because the idea of a whole service dedicated to Advent Lessons and Carols which we will hear at 10:00 am sounds like torture. 

The problem might be that Advent music is not as catchy as Christmas music.  But I think there is a deeper truth to our distaste of Advent music – the music of Advent points to the themes of Advent:  of apocalyptic demands to be alert, doing acts of righteousness to be right with God; of judgment so stringent to be compared to a refiner’s fire and fullers’ soap; of needing to bear fruit worthy of repentance so as not to be chopped down and thrown into the fire; and of bringing down the powerful from their thrones and lifting up the lowly.  None of that is quite as catchy as a holly, jolly Christmas.

Perhaps the issue is that Advent music tries to do the same thing scripture does.  In 1741, Handel wrote to a friend of his masterpiece Messiah, “‘I should be sorry if I only entertained them.  I wished to make them better.’  The composer challenges [us] to go beyond feeling good to doing good.”[ii]  The same was true for Malachi.  Malachi brings good news of a messenger coming to prepare the way of the Lord and that we will be purified enough that our offerings will be pleasing to the Lord as they once were before.  But Malachi also reveals the fearful questions of the people.  “But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?”  These are just two of the twenty-two questions in the fifty-five verses of Malachi.[iii]  But they are questions we all ask if we are paying attention during Advent.

I remember when I was pregnant with my first child, women poured pregnancy stories over me.  There was a camaraderie the stories built, the state of our friendship altered because we were now going to share something we had not before.  But what I always noticed about those stories is whenever I expressed my nervousness about labor, their eyes darted away, and they made wistful promises about how anything resembling pain would be forgotten.  The more their warm countenances shifted to wary, twitchiness, the more I suspected labor would be a painful reality.

The same is true for the infant we will welcome once again on December 24th.  As much as “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” as much as we sing of “Silent Nights,” and as much as we dream of “Joy to the World,” that celebration comes with a price – the price of preparation, of messengers making the way for joy, of fire burning away all that corrupts us.  Advent is not about entertaining us, but, much like Handel hoped, is to make us just and better, so that we might be right with God when that infant is placed in the arms of the Church.  Advent is for Malachis, for Zechariahs, the father of that coming messenger, and for you and for me.  And although we may feel like we have been refined enough to last a lifetime in this last year and a half, the refining God is doing now in each of us means, as one scholar assures, we will “be re-formed in God’s image, and [that re-forming] will be good.  No matter how we feel about it now.  No matter what we may be afraid of now.  When we are refined and purified as God promises, it will be good.”[iv]  As much as we may dread that awful music or loathe those heavy, foreboding stories of Advent, we do so together, knowing that we are being refined tougher, so that, together as a community, we will welcome the Christ Child with open, ready arms.  Amen.

[i] Deborah A. Block, “Pastoral Perspective, Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 1  (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 30.

[ii] Block, 30.

[iii] Block, 26.

[iv] Seth Moland-Kovash, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 1  (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 31.

Sermon – Luke 2.1-20, CE, YB, December 24, 2020

06 Wednesday Jan 2021

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This year, Christmas is unlike any other we have experienced.  For starters, we are gathered in homes around the globe, perhaps in pjs, on couches, or even bundled up in our beds, instead of being here together, crammed into seats where we may not normally sit, sitting next to friends and strangers, dressed in our Christmas finery.  Instead of gathering with large groups of extended family and friends, or traveling great distances, many of us are home alone, only able to see beloved faces on screens or hear familiar voices on phones.  Meals may be much smaller, gift exchanging more subdued (if happening at all), and singing is happening in isolation, not in the warmth of this space, where the sound fills not just the room but also our hearts.  Operating in the background of all of this is anxiety – fear for the health of ourselves and our loved ones, concern about financial stability, and dread about how much longer this pandemic may press down upon us.  Christmas this year is an experience in displacement, discomfort, and dissatisfaction.

And yet, here we are – gathered virtually, hearing the achingly familiar Christmas story, singing the soothing, familiar songs, and eventually participating in the ritual of the Eucharistic feast – even if we receive the feast spiritually.  Although this is not at all how I hoped to spend this Christmas, both for us as a community, or even personally with my own family, as I hear the Christmas story again this year, something is different.  The displacement of Mary and Joseph, the strain of a long journey, the collective discomfort of being herded against their will, and the anxiety of giving birth with none of the creature comforts of home or health feels strikingly familiar and contemporary.  The shock of angels is more palpable when we imagine shepherds going about the daily tasks needed for survival, the sheer ordinariness of working the night shift, and the miraculous happening among the least.  Even the experience of intimate conversation between strangers forced together by life is familiar, as we recall the recent conversations we have had with neighbors who, perhaps until this year, we have only spoken to superficially.  And Lord knows we have been doing a lot of pondering in our hearts these days.  Somehow the rawness of these days cracks open this overly familiar story in ways I could have never expected.

This Christmas, as I was preparing for tonight, I stumbled on a letter from Dietrich Bonhoeffer to his parents.  Bonhoeffer was a pastor, theologian, and political activist in World War II Germany.  When word of his anti-Nazi activism spread, he was imprisoned for a year and a half.  Sitting in that jail cell as Christmas approached, Bonhoeffer wrote to his parents, “In times like these we learn as never before what it means to possess a past and a spiritual heritage untrammeled by the changes and chances of the present.  A spiritual heritage reaching back for centuries is a wonderful support and comfort in face of all temporary stresses and strains.”  He goes on to say, “I daresay [Christmas] will have more meaning and will be observed with greater sincerity here in this prison than in places where all that survives of the feast is its name.  That misery, suffering, poverty, loneliness, helplessness and guilt look very different to the eyes of God from what they do to man, that God should come down to the very place which men usually abhor, that Christ was born in a stable because there was no room for him in the inn – these are things which a prisoner can understand better than anyone else.  For a prisoner, the Christmas story is glad tidings in a very real sense.”[i]

We may not have wanted any of this:  the discomfort, the dislocation, the anxiety, the suffering, the total upendedness of these days, especially during a holiday that is supposed to be reserved for joy and jubilation.  But perhaps the good news for us this Christmas is we get to know the Christmas story in a different way – not in the shiny, pretty way we normally tell the story, but in the raw, gritty, real way we tell the story tonight.  We hear, smell, and feel the ordinariness of the room with the holy family:  the “sweat; blood; makeshift blankets and diapers; the raw, immediate joy that comes with new life.”  But we also hear the unfathomable news of angels through shepherds intruding into that space, beautifully weaving the ordinary and extraordinary.[ii]  I know this is not the Christmas any of us wanted.  But perhaps in this terrible, awful, beautiful Christmas, we can more profoundly understand the terrible, awful, beautiful thing that happens in the Christ Child this year.  And whether we sing with jubilation with angels and shepherds, or ponder these things in our hearts with Mary, perhaps we see the Christ Child in his magnificence for the first time.  Amen.

[i] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letter to his parents, December 17, 1943, as found in A Christmas Sourcebook, Mary Ann Simcoe, ed. (Chicago:  Liturgy Training Publications, 1984), 11.

[ii] Cynthia RL. Rigby, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, Vol. 1 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 116, 118.

Sermon – Isaiah 9.2-7, Blue Christmas, December 21, 2020

06 Wednesday Jan 2021

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Blue Christmas is a service we offer every year.  This service is not always mainstream.  For many, Christmas is a season of uncomplicated joy.  But for others, Christmas can be a painful experience:  we mourn the memories of those who are no longer with us, the darkness of shorter days weighs on our mental health, or the unbounded exuberance of others creates a chasm between their happiness and our loneliness, sorrow, or pain.  And that does not account for the grief we may be experiencing otherwise – broken relationships, dissatisfaction with or lost employment, an unexpected medical diagnosis, or a dream unfulfilled.  And because Christmas cheer is all around us, we feel even more isolated in our sadness – as if we are alone in our feelings.  Only in services like these do we feel seen.

That is the experience of a “normal” Christmas.  This year, we have added nine months of a pandemic, a tumultuous political year, and civil unrest.  Suddenly, those of us who struggle with finding joy this Christmas find ourselves in a rising majority, not the minority.  I watched this year as hundreds of people decorated for Christmas in mid-November, in an effort to demand the experience of joy from a year that has been short on joy.  I can see the desperate need of a suffering people to find light somewhere, anywhere, during this holiday season.

Fortunately for us, the church is not silent on this experience.  The text we heard from Isaiah earlier says, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness–on them light has shined. You have multiplied the nation, you have increased its joy; they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as people exult when dividing plunder. For the yoke of their burden, and the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian.”  The prophet says all of this light and joy is possible for one reason:  “For a child has been born for us, a son given to us.”  Scripture tonight honors that there are seasons of darkness.  There are times when we live in deep darkness, devoid of joy.  There are times when burdens feel like weights on our shoulders, where oppressors keep us in positions of suffering.  Sometimes those times of darkness happen around holidays, and sometimes the memory of those dark moments invade our holidays.  To that experience, the prophet says, God brings us light.  God lifts burdens, God helps us recall joy, God strengthens us.  And perhaps, most importantly, God gives us the Christ Child – the only true source of light that can lighten the darkness.

I have always loved that the Christ Child was born in literal darkness.  The delivery of the Christ Child at night reminds us that even in the rustic setting of being outcast, joy comes to Mary and Joseph.  The delivery of the Christ Child at night reminds us that even in the mundane, lonely, and exhausting work of tending sheep through the night, unbounded joy can break forth in the form of angels with heavenly news.  The delivery of the Christ Child at night reminds us that even in the darkness of night, whispered conversations between strangers can bring joy to kindle and ponder in our hearts.

Tonight, by the manager, God sees your darkness, your suffering, your hurt.  The removal of that darkness, suffering, and hurt may not be possible in these next few days.  But in that darkness, God promises you the tiniest sliver of light.  Whether you find that light by seeing you are not alone in the darkness tonight, whether you find that light through the stories of others, or whether you find that light gazing on the miracle of the Christ Child, the light, however faint, is there, waiting for you, warming you ever so slightly, and starting the long, hard work of lifting your heavy burden.  And until you are ready to receive that light, the Church sits with you in the darkness tonight.  Amen.

On Things Ludicrous and Holy…

17 Thursday Dec 2020

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Photo credit: https://loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=18-P13-00051&segmentID=1

My children are preparing for their winter socially distanced holiday recital, and we have been flooded with a flurry of details, items to purchase, things to organize.  One of the flyers that came this week was for a t-shirt they could buy promoting the recital and the cause that will benefit from the proceeds.  The shirt says, “Best Christmas Ever.”

I was glad my children were not around when I saw the flyer because my immediate response was to scoff – out loud, in my house, looking at a piece of paper with indignation.  Best Christmas Ever?!?  Had the dance studio lost their minds?  What about this Christmas could possibly be the “best”?  Families are separated, some of whom have not seen each other in over a year.  The Coronavirus is rapidly spreading, with the death toll in the United States now over 300,000.  And despite a transition in political power, we remain as divided as ever, struggling to find peace among our brothers and sisters. 

After recovering from self-righteous indignation, I began to think about the approaching Christmas season, and what the Church, and I as her priest, have invited people to do.  We are still inviting our parishioners, friends, and neighbors to join the Holy Family on Christmas Eve and sing songs of praise and thanksgiving.  Although we honor grief and suffering at our Blue Christmas service on December 21, we are still making a claim for hope, for light, and for love.  Even with our church buildings closed again, we are still encouraging the church to gather in their cars for a drive-thru, or by their hearths with their devices to join with the shepherds as we go to see this thing that has come to pass.  Perhaps to an outsider, the work of the Church this next week seems as ludicrous as claiming this Christmas is the Best Christmas Ever.

This week, I find myself humbled.  I know the Church is going to ask a lot of you over this next week.  You may not feel like singing carols, or hearing the familiar story, or watching candles flicker as we pray.  And that’s okay.  But, if it is alright with you, we are going to keep doing it anyway.  The Church has always been full of resurrection people.  We cannot help ourselves once we know the Risen Lord.  And so, when the Christ Child comes next week, we will keep holding on to light, to joy, and to love.  We will keep holding on to the promise that Christ is with us always, even to the end of the age.  We will keep shining the light of the Christ Child, reflecting his light to all.  And we will keep believing and trusting for you until you can come to the place where you can believe and trust yourself.  You do not need to rush.  We will keep holding the light until you are ready to take it up yourself.

Sermon – Luke 2.1-20, CD, YA, December 25, 2019

08 Wednesday Jan 2020

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This past year I have been learning a lot about Godly Play, the program we use with our smallest children in Sunday School, and more recently, the program we use with the Kensington School too.  At first blush, the program is pretty simple:  we tell Bible stories, using simple props to engage the children visually, we let the children play with the story, and then we wonder about the story along the way.  But when we are telling the story with the Kensington School, we have about fifteen kids, ages two-and-a-half to five years old.  I do not know how much time you have spent with that age group recently, but what that means is working super hard to hold their attention.  Being the loud extrovert that I am, I assumed holding their attention would mean using a loud, commanding voice.  But I have discovered from our seasoned teachers that the opposite is true.  They lower their voices to a slow-paced, almost whisper, and they manage to keep the children on the edges of their seats – as if something amazing is going to happen if they listen really hard.

Oftentimes, when we think of Christmas, we imagine a similar pattern.  When we gather on Christmas Eve, we look forward to savoring the familiar story, imagining being able to hear a pin drop as the beloved story is told again.  Our favorite song on Christmas Eve is usually Silent Night.  The song lulls us to imagining Mary and Joseph blissfully enjoying a silent night of wonder.  But that holy night, and most Christmas Eve services, are anything but quiet.  Bethlehem is inundated with people coming in for the registration.  The fact that there is no room for Joseph and Mary tells us how crowded Bethlehem is.  But Mary and Joseph not only have to tend with homecoming revelers, they also have to contend with the animals over whose abode they have taken.  Add into the mix a screaming newborn, and the idea of a silent night is almost comical.

But Mary and Joseph get even more noise than that.  You see, nearby shepherds hear a cacophony of praise from the heavenly hosts in the middle of the night.  Their night has been anything but quiet too.  Instead of trying to get the animals and themselves back to sleep, they decide to go into town and see this thing which has come to pass.  And so, they spend the night, talking to Mary and Joseph, maybe taking turns trying to soothe the baby Jesus.  When they leave those rudimentary quarters, they leave town praising and glorifying God.  This is no silent night for the shepherds either.

I think that is why I enjoy our celebration on Christmas Day so much.  Silence is in short supply on Christmas Eve.  We sing carols, we hear the giddy laughter of children awaiting gifts, stockings, and cookies, and we chant the mass, singing our traditionally spoken words.  For those of us with small children, even the wee hours of the morning on Christmas Day are loud – filled with cries of elation, joy, and battery-operated toys.  But on Christmas Day, after a noisy night and morning, we make our way to church and find, perhaps for the first time, the silence for which we have been looking.  We do not sing carols.  We do not have to speak over the hubbub of full pews.  Instead we gather in relative quiet, and tell the old story again – but this time with a softness that cannot be found on Christmas Eve.

What I love about finding true silence on Christmas Day is that our morning is structured a lot like I imagine that first holy morning being structured.  Christmas Eve is full of noise – of animals, shepherds, angels, and crying babies.  But that next morning, the dust has settled.  Gone are the shepherds and angels.  The animals have calmed down after too many midnight guests.  I even imagine baby Jesus has given in to sleep, since most newborns get their nights and days reversed for the first few weeks.  Into this relative quiet is when I imagine Mary treasuring all those words and pondering them in her heart.  The night before is just too loud.  The exhausted, travel-weary, physically and emotionally spent Mary gets a moment in the morning to begin to process what God has done in and through her.  After the break of dawn, as the sun rises and the loud revelers and news deliverers have gone, she can have a quiet moment as she rocks or feeds baby Jesus and ponder in her heart this child at her breast.

I do not think that night is silent.  But I understand why our hymnodists would want to talk about silence.  I think that is why I prefer the hymn, “Let all mortal flesh keep silence.”  Instead of depicting a silent night, that hymn invites us to keep silence as a form of reverence.  The first verse says, “Let all mortal flesh keep silence, and with fear and trembling stand; ponder nothing earthly minded, for with blessing in his hand, Christ our God to earth descendeth, our full homage to demand.”  I like the hymn because that is the kind of pondering I imagine Mary does in her heart this morning.  Unlike most new mothers, I do not think she is worried about the impact of birth on her body or even about her humble surroundings.  I imagine her thoughts that morning are consumed with nothing earthly minded.  Instead, I imagine her heart is pondering the blessing of Christ our God descending on earth through her – and the enormity of the event drives her to pay silent homage as she gazes on Jesus’ precious face.

That is what the church invites us to do today as well.  We structure a morning for worship.  The dust of gift wrap, eggnog, and stocking stuffers is settling.  The noise of carols, singing choirs and priests, and antsy children in pews is fading.  The anxiety of preparing for the big event of this day is easing.  And all that is left is a moment to let our mortal flesh keep silent before the Christ Child.  This morning we take a moment to ponder nothing earthly minded, and instead join Mary as she ponders all that has happened in her heart.  We come to church on this holy morning to ponder the miracle of the Christ Child.  We honor the way in which God is ever trying to honor the covenant God has made with us – willing to go to the extreme of taking on human form to care for and preserve us.  Our God’s love knows no bounds.  Humbled by that knowledge, we come to pay God homage.

The question for us in our pondering is what we will do with that love.  Though we make space this morning for silence, we do not remain here all day.  Like any other Sunday, the clergy will dismiss us to go in peace, and serve the Lord.  Anytime we feast at Christ’s table, that is our charge:  to take whatever sustenance we have gained and to go out into the world to do the work that Christ has given us to do.  Certainly that may involve cooking, travel, or more gift giving.  But the news we ponder in our hearts today is much bigger than today.  Today we are commissioned to consider the impact of the birth of the Christ Child on our lives, what our response will be to the God who is so faithful to God’s covenant with us that God would take on human flesh to redeem us.  As our talented Godly Play teachers might pose, I wonder what new work God is crafting in our hearts.  Perhaps this morning, or for at least the next few minutes, you can let your mortal flesh keep silence and ponder with Mary.  And then go out with the shepherds, glorifying and praising God in your work.  Amen.