What if the Pastor Can’t Do It All? Maybe That’s a Good Thing | The BTS Center.

Dear Friends of Second Church,

I’m told that on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, at 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday morning, a small line of police cars, followed by a long line of street sweepers, announces its presence.

“It is now after midnight. Mardi Gras over. Mardi Gras is over,” says an officer with a megaphone.

I’m not so interested in the person with the megaphone. But the street sweeper intrigues me.

Maybe some people seem to resist the idea that the party’s over…even for a while. Endless festivity seems to define their days.

More likely, though, we find ourselves caught up in a parade of endless activity — places to be, deadlines to meet, reports to get in, meals to get on the table, little people to drop off and pick up, CVS trips to work in. It may not be a delightful trip to Mardi Gras, but, for certain, it’s a whirl, and it doesn’t seem to stop.

Is it any wonder that so many of us long for that grand, sweeping, cleansing, clarifying, simplifying force that blazes a trail through our lives, and starts to put things right again?

When life suddenly seems overwhelming, is it really that somehow, life itself has changed, or is that somehow, something inside us has changed? What is it that will bring us back to ourselves again, able to live within life’s changes and still feel like ourselves?

For the Church, part of the answer is Lent.

Lent is a season when the Church becomes deliberately more serious, more reflective, and even somber. It’s the moment when we send the street sweepers through the neighborhood, seeking to bring back a sense of order, a sense of what is real, and to see underneath the distractions of the moment.

It is a chance to ask ourselves, and God, what matters most, and whom it is that we are called to be, and then what the next steps are. And it’s a chance to find new strength and focus to make that happen.

It is when the party may stop, but quite possibly, the joy finally begins.

I hope we will all find ways to seek that clarity and that joy in the weeks ahead.
See you in church,

This morning, a clergy friend mentioned that next Sunday, he’s thinking of preaching a sermon titled, “Happiness Is Being Non-essential Personnel.”

He’s still working out the theological ramifications. And it’s not exactly clear which hymns go with it.

But with Ash Wednesday, and the season of Lent just a week away, maybe it is a particularly appropriate season to think about what is essential in our lives, and within which contexts we are essential to the flourishing of others—and what (and where) is the non-essential in and of our lives?

I know someone who, early in her career as a hospital chaplain, was a little chagrined at the thought that she wasn’t a part of the hospital’s official “disaster plan” — that if a regional catastrophe occurred, if push came to shove, she wasn’t someone they couldn’t do without. It took the ongoing work of spiritual practice, and the experience of having children of her own, to help her see the true essentials in a new light, and to let go of the expectation of being needed only on her own terms, and within the scope of her own visions.

In its own way, Lent offers us an opportunity to seek that kind of insight—to ask ourselves what truly defines us and why—and depending on what we see, to seek the courage to live into it, or to live for something deeper and more worthy.

It’s a chance to see our own visions for what they are, and even more importantly, to open ourselves to the possibility of what God’s vision for us and for the world might be.

Over the coming weeks, I hope you and I will take that opportunity in some way.

There are many ways to begin considering what’s essential and what isn’t—and to whom—and when.

But as you do, remember that, for reasons perhaps known best to Him, God decided that you and I were essential to His purposes here. Happiness isn’t being “non-essential personnel” at all, but rather finding where we need to be and serving there with all the joy and courage we can muster, knowing that our being there is vital, not only to our neighbors, but in some way, to the Essence of Being itself.

See you in church,

This morning, I am remembering the first few months of 2009, when our daughter Grace was a newborn, and Liz was home on maternity leave, and we were new parents for the first time.

There were so many firsts. If you’ve spent any time with new parents, you know how they will take the smallest and most random thing, and somehow manage to see it as some sort of triumph for the whole human race.

Well, we were like that.

It took us a long time to get over. I remember the day when we actually called my parents to share the exciting news with them that Grace had tried peas for the first time—and liked them!

All I can say is that, at the time, it seemed to make perfect sense. We’re grateful that our parents and so many others were so patient with us.

Your world shrinks in those first few weeks with a newborn—certainly, our world did.

But, like the old song says, “there were trains to catch and bills to pay,” and before long…actually, well before Grace was actually eating peas, I was already back in the thick of it at work, and I was arriving back home at dinner time, wondering things like, well, what was for dinner, and the particulars of diapers and naps and how Grace’s tummy-time had gone that afternoon seemed less consuming than it had before.

In some ways, of course, that meant that my world was kind of getting back to normal…or so it seemed.

Because, of course, the fact was, whether I chose to be attentive or not, my world had permanently changed.

Where before I had been one person going through whatever his day held, and bringing that home for processing with a loving and thoughtful spouse, who then had a turn—well, now there were three days to go over—and the days were very different in character from one another.

I had views about things that I’d read about in the newspaper on the train to work, as I always had.

But to my surprise, Liz wasn’t quite up to speed in her usual way about the matters of the day – frankly, she hadn’t read a newspaper in a month and a half—although she knew anything and everything about that woman who was the “Octomom,” because the Octomom was all over daytime t.v.

And so delightful as those first weeks and months were—and of course they were—they also had their own challenges, and required their own series of adjustments.

And I am telling you about this today because one day, on my way home from the train, walking along the streets of Pelham, I realized that I couldn’t walk in again with news of the latest frustration from the Council of Department Chairs meeting—that I couldn’t walk in hungry and tired and sorry for myself for being so busy, again.

And I realized that I had to go over to the church I was serving and hand over as much of my own typical day stuff as God would be willing to collect on my behalf.

I realized that I owed it to my wife and child, frankly, to be a nicer part of their day.

For a while, I had to do that every day before I went home.

But it was only slowly that I realized the truth of that old saying, that I was no longer the most important person in my own life, anymore.

II.

I’m telling you all this because it is my own way into this morning’s gospel—this story of Jesus being discovered by the crowd at Capernaum.

Mark tells us that the crowd comes to the house of Peter’s mother-in-law, where Jesus and some of the disciples are staying, and the sick and the possessed start banging on the door and beseeching him for help well into the night.

It seems like one of those situations where a cynic might say, “well, you asked for a ministry, Jesus, and hey…looks like you’ve got it.”

And in the press of it all—the hands reaching out for him, the wounds they thrusted at him, the shouting to get his attention—maybe Jesus had a moment when he felt the full weight of what it was not to be the most important person in his own life, anymore.

Maybe it was then that it really sank in about the difference between relying on your own power and seeking the power of God.

Because that is what Jesus does – he seeks the power of God.

Mark reports that early the next morning, while it is still dark, and the coast is clear, Jesus quietly slips out of the house and goes to a remote place, where he prays.

And if that has shades of Easter morning for you, when the women slip out before sunrise to go and prepare his body for burial, well, you’re on the right track.

It is a particularly holy moment—a moment when, perhaps, the world we think we know is poised to realize that it has been permanently changed—a moment when it’s about to become clear that something transformational is happening.

That’s what’s happening in the early morning light of Capernaum.

III.

Do you ever look back on your own transformational moments and get a sense of where the Holy Spirit was present?

Sometimes, we feel that presence very clearly in the moment; other times, it’s only clear later where the holy was dwelling.

Writing about the dawn of the modern world, Virginia Woolf once observed that, “On or about December, 1910, human character changed.”

She was kidding—but only sort of.

It’s probably right that whether it’s human character, in general, or our own lives, sometimes a particular date for when everything changed is very clear—and at other times, the changes are slower and quieter.

Sometimes, God’s presence seems so very clear—and at other times, it’s only later that the ways God was nudging us along the road seem to emerge.

And that seems to go for Jesus, too.

It’s so different than when he was baptized by John in the Jordan River.

This time, Mark does not report any doves descending from Heaven or any voices being heard proclaiming that Jesus is God’s beloved son, in whom He is well pleased.

In this moment, it is as if he truly sees for the first time what ministry will be like for him—what the scope of human need will be—and how people will respond when they find out that he is the hope they have been searching for.

According to Mark, it’s finally Peter who finds Jesus and says, “Everyone has been searching for you,” and I think Mark wants us to hear that not only as a plot detail, but also in spiritual terms—that they are all searching for Jesus this morning because they realize that Jesus is the one they have been searching for all their lives.

And maybe on some level, it isn’t until this moment that Jesus realizes that, too.

Maybe it isn’t until this moment that the full weight of what God will ask of him, and accomplish through him, descends on his shoulders.

And so the moment, for me, in this whole thing, is that moment that happens between the lines of Mark’s account—what happens between when Peter runs up the hill and says: “Jesus, everyone has been searching for you” and when Jesus responds, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do” (v. 38).

It’s the moment, for me, because Jesus finds something—he grasps something—some portion of God’s plan, or some sense of God’s presence becomes clear to him, and he is now ready.

What was in some sense a meandering journey through Galilee now takes on the character of a deliberate campaign that leads to Jerusalem—and to the cross.

Between the lines of the story, in this transformational moment, the Holy Spirit descends, and the future God intends for Jesus, and for us through him, descends also.

IV.

What are the real transformational moments in our lives?

Few would argue that the moments we treasure most are the moments of recognition and accomplishment – our graduations, promotions, big closings, and all that stuff.

It’s more likely that the transformational moments in our lives are the moments when we realize that somebody else has a claim on our life—a claim on our time, our energy, our attention, our “best” (whatever our best may be).

We are transformed most deeply, and most permanently, by recognizing that we are not the most important people in our lives, anymore—the moments when we realize that yet-someone-else needs us in a way that we know in our hearts we must respond to.

We are transformed by the realization that the Holy Spirit hovers over those moments, whenever and wherever they come.

In ways large and small, God hands us some portion of His world in sacred trust, expecting that we will work for its well-being.

And the good news of God may be that, in your hands, or with your help, the hearts of children all around the world are healed.

It may be something else entirely—the patient care of a parent, or the work of justice for many, or the faithful doing of a difficult job that nobody else much seems to want.

Or maybe it is finding the wonder in one small person’s discovery that she likes peas, and celebrating it with anyone who will listen.

To sense the depth and power of the claims that people have on us is daunting.

Today’s Scripture suggests that it was probably even daunting for Jesus.

But if you and I learn to read between the lines, we learn that the Holy Spirit hovers over those claims.

As we learn to say yes, our meandering journey becomes a road to travel, and a life to live, and a vision of the good to pursue.

We learn, at last, what is to say yes, not only to the outstretched hands of the needy, but to say yes to the outstretched arms of God.

Amen.

I want to begin this morning by sharing a story that Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn tell in their most recent book, A Path Appears, which if you don’t know it, is a book about how to be an engaged global citizen, and make a difference here and abroad.

I recommend it to you very highly.

The story I’d like to share from it today, however, is a story that is, in many respects, not all that remarkable.

Anyway, it’s not remarkable, if by “remarkable,” you think of people trying to cure malaria in all of Africa, or to provide bicycles so every girl in Pakistan can get to school quickly and safely.

But it’s remarkable, nonetheless.

Back in the 1950’s in rural Arkansas, Kristof and WuDunn explain, “Olly Neal was a poor kid with an attitude and no obvious prospects. He was rebellious and resisted help” — so much so that by his senior year, most of his teachers had pretty much written him off.

The only person who still tried to help him, who still believed in his potential, was the school librarian, Mrs. Grady, and for her trouble, he mocked her openly and reduced her to tears in front of other students on a regular basis.

Things were not on a good path.

And then one day….right?

And then one day, Olly was skipping class and ended up in the library, such as it was, for no particular reason, and he saw among the small collection of books there something that piqued his interest.

It was a book “with a risque cover of a scantily dressed woman,” and it was called The Treasure of Pleasant Valley.

(Kind of makes you wonder what the treasure was, right?)

Anyway, Olly was too proud to take the book out officially, which would have felt like…what? Caving in? Buying into the whole idea of school? Doing something right by Mrs. Grady the librarian?

Whatever it was, Olly didn’t take out the book. Instead, he stole it.

To his surprise, he loved it. And when he snuck it back, he was also surprised to see another book right there on the same shelf by the same author that he had not noticed before.

So he stole that one.

Strangely, the same thing happened. Actually, it happened four more times.

In any case, Olly became a reader, then engaged with the news and the issues of the day, and he blossomed. Eventually, he made his way to college and law school, and a prominent career.

And so it was, many years later, at a high school reunion, that he ran into his old librarian, Mrs. Grady, and he told her how much the books in that little school library had meant to him.

She nodded. Then she admitted that she had seen him steal the very first book, and had been about to confront him when she realized that he was embarrassed to be seen as a reader.

And then it came out that, even more importantly, the very next Saturday, she had driven 70 miles to Memphis to see if she could find another book by the same author. There was no budget for that. There was no reimbursement for mileage. There would have been nobody who said the trouble was worth it for a kid like Olly Neal. It was all on her.

She had to go to four different bookstores. And, of course, when he snapped up the second book, she’d gone back to Memphis two more times to track down other titles by that author.

Safe to say, Olly Neal owed Mrs. Grady the librarian even more than he realized.

But she saw something in him that other people could not or could no longer quite see.

And she was right.

II.

This morning, Mark’s Gospel shows us the early ministry of Jesus in the midst of an important new phase.

At the outset, Jesus has been on sort of a “solo mission” — maybe even a kind of “vision quest,” of sorts, leaving the known world and seeking God at the edge of the wilderness.

But now we are hearing of a new phase. In this morning’s Scripture, Jesus is calling the disciples–and specifically, Peter and his brother Andrew, and then James and John, the sons of Zebedee. They were fishermen in the Sea of Galilee.

In fact, when they encounter Jesus, they are actively involved in the work of fishermen–casting their nets, or sitting in their boat with their father and a host of others, mending nets.

There is this quality of “There I was, going about my business, another typical day as a fisherman, when all of a sudden….”

Or as we might put it, “And then one day….” there’s Jesus.

It isn’t clear that they’ve heard him before; it isn’t clear that they’ve met or even that they’ve heard about him….There is no reported “Oh…it’s you….”

It’s just: here he is.

Here he is, and here he is, with his first words, making this outlandish request: “Cast off your nets, and follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”

In a way that reminds me of Mrs. Grady and Olly Neal, Jesus seems to see something in these men that they can’t quite see in themselves.

Mark puts great emphasis on how quickly the whole thing happened.

He reports that “immediately, they left their nets and followed him.” And then, just two lines later, when Jesus sees the sons of Zebedee, Mark says, “Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him.”

Most of us were raised with the idea “act in haste, repent at leisure.”

It seems entirely likely that the disciples would have been raised with that idea, too.

But thankfully, they don’t follow that advice, and there is no indication that later on, they particularly regretted it, even though, clearly, this moment ended up bringing them so much more than they bargained for.

Maybe it’s a little like Olly Neal didn’t come to regret stealing books from that library, because stealing books turned him into a reader, and that ended up bringing him so much more than he bargained for.

The disciples steal away to Jesus, and eventually, at some point along the way, they end up being turned into disciples.

They are transformed.

Did they see it all then, as they saw Jesus?

I don’t think so.

I don’t think they saw it any more clearly than Olly Neal saw himself becoming a state appellate court judge because he decided to read The Treasure of Pleasant Valley.

The point is not that they saw it. The point is that it was there, waiting to be seen.

III.

And that’s where I’d like to focus our attention for a few moments this morning.

Because we in the Church most typically tell this story as a way of talking about the notion of being called by God.

That makes sense because in Jesus, God is literally calling his disciples to come join him.

We also tell the story as a way of highlighting the importance of obedience — that when God calls, you don’t put Him on hold. Ever.

But reading the story again this week, I was struck by how much it is also a story about expectations.

What is out there in God’s world that is waiting to be seen?

Jesus sees more to these men than their situations might suggest, and he invites them to share not simply his journey, but more importantly, to learn his way of seeing.

He is not limited or blinded by the expectations of identity or social circumstances…and his point is that we must not be, either.

Maybe you saw the thoughtful interview in the New York Times yesterday with Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is currently attending a church conference in New York City on income inequality.

And he observed, “We see within the life and ministry of Jesus a challenge to the rich to love the poor as God loves the poor: in the same way, with the same intention, and with the same generosity.”

One of the great spiritual challenges of inequality, he suggests, is how it lures us into believing that all people are not equal before God, that all people are not cherished and important and fascinating to God.

It is a temptation for all of us, rich and poor alike. Men and women. And for people of all backgrounds and races. Believers and unbelievers.

As the Archbishop puts it, “The human being for whom Christ died is of equal value, whoever they are.”

Part of our challenge as faithful people is learning to see each person as the one for whom Jesus gave his life–as someone who is just that important in the eyes of God.

And that’s why Christians have always understood ourselves to be under a particular obligation to seek out the least and the lost.

That’s why we have always felt a call to go out search of anyone and anything out there in God’s world that is waiting to be seen.

Sadly, two thousand years after Jesus’ arrival, we still don’t have to go too far to find people and places that are waiting to be noticed.

Even you and I may be waiting to be noticed–waiting for our hurts and our challenges to get the attention they need and deserve.

And yet, this morning’s Gospel reminds us not to wait until all our affairs are in order before we set out.

The work of serving others, becoming fishers of men, is not something that depends on our perfection–actually, it’s God’s peculiar strategy for making something of us, after all.

IV.

I’m glad that serving others does not depend on our perfection, and particularly mine.

I’m also glad to report to you that at this very moment, fourteen members of our congregation are on their way to Back Bay Mission in Biloxi, Mississippi for a week of service at a United Church of Christ ministry that began as a ministry of racial reconciliation back in the 1950s and has come to include service to veterans, economically vulnerable families, and people displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

Always its vision has expanded, and more people in need–people with so much to offer–have come into its view.

I can’t promise that we will find a young man like Olly Neal and put a book in his hand.

But I can promise that for a few days, a group of us will make time and space and energy for people who are waiting to be seen.

With God’s help, we will do the work of suspending our own expectations and open ourselves up to seeing the people with something a little closer to the eyes of God.

Kristof and WuDunn’s book is titled, A Path Appears.

With the grace of God, may a path appear for all of us.

Amen.

Dear Friends of Second Church,

I’m eyeing the reports of the approaching snow Nor’easter (is that a S’noreaster?), keeping in mind the departure of our group for Back Bay Mission in Biloxi, Mississippi, early on Sunday morning.

I’m due to follow a little later on Sunday afternoon, but remembering the way things at airports can get turned around by weather, I had the sudden, horrible thought:

“Yikes! What if I actually get there before the others do?”

That actually happened to a friend of mine, who was meeting his family somewhere warm for a short vacation. Instead of being picked up at the gate, as expected, he turned on his phone to discover that the others were all still sitting at the gate at O’Hare.

With nothing but time on his hands, he went and had a steak at the airport. Then he had a fancy dessert. He got a massage at one of those micro-spas, and was actually considering getting his first pedicure before he came to himself and decided to make himself useful by going and picking up the rental car—a predictably time-consuming fiasco for which he was suddenly strangely grateful.

Funny what can become a cause for gratitude, isn’t it?

But it’s also a reminder of how strange it is to be alone—how solitude (the good version) and loneliness (the bad one) are often far closer to each other than we might imagine—and how even a short respite from the expected routine can leave us surprised to discover how quickly we feel isolated and adrift.

It’s a brief taste of the feelings that many of the most vulnerable in our world know all too well.  To be sick, or in hard circumstances isn’t painful in just one way–say, physically, or even economically. What’s painful is the loss of friends and neighbors, family and coworkers, and the slow dawn of the realization that you have, somehow, become a pariah.  Or simply invisible.

For me, service trips like ours to Biloxi are so powerful, in part, because we offer so much more than just “cheap labor” wherever it is we go. We offer fellowship and community—the sense of God’s presence that comes when someone breaks through the isolation of another and finds a way to make contact. And of course, so often, we find in the giving that something isolated deep within ourselves is also opened and healed—that God has found a way to speak to us in our own brokenness, too.

I am delighted that we are resuming a form of adult ministry that, over the years, so many of our members have found so transformational. I still pray that God will not ask me to be the one who picks up all the rental cars. But who knows? Maybe this is the very kind of transformation I might need.

I hope that you will find a way to remain open to whatever it is that’s most in need of transformation in your own life—and that you’ll seek that transformation in service to others.

See you in church,

(This sermon was preached for Day 1 Radio on January 11, 2015.)

Sometimes, I wish it were harder to join the church.

I mean, honestly, sometimes I think it’s harder to get a membership at Costco than it is to become a Christian.

That’s a bad thing.

It’s bad, specifically, because if the church is easy to join, then any notion of the responsibilities of membership can just fly right out the window.

Sometimes, talking about what it means to be part of the whole Christian enterprise can start to sound like that part in a car commercial where the announcer starts talking legalese at a thousand miles an hour.

Baptismisterrificbutpleaseplanontithingattendingandexperiencingregularfrustrationanddiscomfort. BeadvisedthatChristmasEveandEasterSundaycomeonlyonceayearrespectively. 

Who can blame people for just tuning that part out?

And so, I can’t help but wish that joining up—signing on the dotted line—were understood to be a much bigger commitment.

That has me thinking about baptism.

What if….

What if instead of a little chaste sprinkling of water on the forehead, or even a full immersion on the banks of a local river, or something in between…what if the only way to join the church was by skydiving?

The very idea makes my stomach do backflips.

But think about it.

Free fall, then the rip cord, and then a gentle floating down to the ground.

I mean, what’s not theological about that?

Because what are the reality of sin and redemption, the dangerous thrill of falling, the great vista of salvation, and the recognition that our lives are not really in our own hands, if they aren’t like skydiving?

Stay with me a moment here.

Because imagine what it would mean to go through that experience, with its terrors and rushes and its ultimate relief—and then to show up at church on Sunday, to be greeted by a room full of people who had been through all of that, too?

Think how you would see them all, as you walked in and found your pew: the older couple that sits up front and always shares a hymnal; the super-cheery soprano, and the lady who always takes more than her fair share at a potluck; the guy who circles typos in the bulletin every Sunday; and the guy who only seems as if he comes because his deceased wife liked it, and he may or may not miss Jesus, but he knows he misses her.

Think how you would see them all–the heavy, the creaky, the busy, the young and the old, the happy and the sad; the people you will find in every church on any Sunday—think how you would see them all, if being baptized meant that at some point, however many years before, they had each had that day—that day when they had somehow summoned enough courage to leap out into thin air and into the hands of God….

Think about it, because when Mark’s Gospel describes the Baptism of Jesus, it’s that kind of radical act that he seems to have in mind.

Mark writes that as Jesus “was coming out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and a dove descending.”

His word for ‘torn apart’ is schizo, and it means “to cleave, to cleave asunder, to rend.”

It’s a strangely violent word to describe such a happy occasion.

The way we tend to talk about baptism, it would have made more sense if Mark talked about the dove, gently cooing, or perhaps fluttering over the surface of the waters.

But that is not how he talks about it.

Instead, he talks about the heavens, schizo, torn apart.

It’s the word Matthew, Mark and Luke all use to describe that moment on Good Friday when the curtain of the temple is torn in two.

It’s the word John uses when the Roman soldiers at the foot of the cross determine not to tear Jesus’ garment and divide it between them, but to cast lots for it, instead.

It’s a word with resonances in the prophecies of Isaiah, too, particularly when Isaiah says to God, “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down,” (Isaiah 63:19).

Mark understands very clearly that in Jesus, this is exactly what has happened.

And this is why, in his judgment, the baptism of Jesus is so very clearly a radical act.

In Jesus, God has committed the act of breaking and entering the world, and Mark wants the world to know.

And yet…how much of God’s active interest in us are we really prepared to admit?

Because, good heavens: if we took them seriously, our baptisms might just tear our lives apart, too.

I mean, if our final and deepest allegiance is to Jesus, to the life he has called us to lead, and to the manner in which the Gospels show he has called us to lead it, well, then…that is sure to bring not peace, but a sword to plenty of our living.

It will bring not peace, but a sword, to so much of what the world says our days should be about.

It will bring not peace, but a sword, to so many of our relationships, to our allegiances and affiliations, and so much else.

That’s not what many of us are looking for.

But if God has broken through the barrier, and broken into our lives, then what ensues is not something simpler and easier for us, but rather something infinitely more complex and urgent.

Baptism means that God has broken through, and so we, in turn, are called to tear into the challenges and problems of the world with everything we’ve been given.

It’s a summons to be part of that remarkable, redemptive work. To give our lives to something more challenging than any other kind of work—and in the end, surely more beautiful, true, and enduring than any other kind of work.

Jesus came up out of the waters, and perhaps that is what he saw.

A vision of God, and a vision of what it was to be alive that he could give his life to.

Thanks be to God, that’s also what your baptism and mine were pointing to…and it’s what they are still pointing to.

No matter where you are baptized…whether it’s in front of the same font where your grandmother and mother were baptized, or whether it’s by the banks of a river, or whether it’s standing in the sanctuary of a place where even you can hardly believe you’ve found a home…no matter where it is, the water and the promise and prayer take just a few moments.

But truly saying yes to our baptism is the daily work of the rest of our lives.

It is saying yes to the world, and yes to a life torn open by the love of God.

So…I suppose it’s unlikely that we’ll decide anytime soon to replace baptism by water and the spirit with baptism by gravity and parachute.

But the next time you walk into a church, and encounter God’s people there in all our familiar shapes and sizes, remember that what unites us all is something God’s Word tells us is even more electrifying.

In baptism, the heavens themselves were torn apart.

And when we experience that for ourselves, when we know that for ourselves, and feel it on our hearts at last, it is the thrill of a lifetime.

It is when everything finally begins.

Amen.

(This sermon was preached at Second Congregational Church of Greenwich, and also on Day1 Radio)

We’ve come to love the Christmas star so much.

Even in the weeks before Christmas, you start seeing it everywhere.

It’s on bulletin covers and Christmas cards and the stole hanging around the preacher’s neck.

A Christmas crèche may be part of your home or your church decorations, or it may not be…maybe your kids live halfway across the country, so you’re leaving the stockings off the mantle this year, but by Herod’s beard, you almost certainly have a star.

Quite often, it’s at the very top of the tree—the highest point in the living room.

I remember the year when I was a kid, taking part in my Confirmation class, and I noticed for the first time that the starlight pictured on most of our Christmas cards was in the shape of the cross—a quiet reminder of what is to come—the silent night at what seems to be the end of the story.

That was my first encounter with the possibility that, if you think about it, there can be something ominous about the Christmas star.

So it’s interesting to note that Matthew’s gospel seems to agree.

In a passage that some churches will read today and others will read on January 6^th, which is Epiphany proper, Matthew describes the encounter between the wise men and King Herod.

This is what he says:

“In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, ‘Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.’”

Then Matthew continues with these words:

“When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him.”

And I can’t help but wonder if King Herod, who, of course, gets so much so very wrong, actually gets at least part of this news strangely right.

Because at least, he understands that this rising star is big news. And he also recognizes that it is not good news for him.

But Matthew is quick to note that this goes beyond what some have seen as Herod’s chronic “me me me”-ism.

And it’s also somehow beyond Herod’s brutal collusion with the forces of empire, with its reflexive use of violence to promote its particular interests.

Because, as Matthew notes, Herod isn’t the only one who looks at that star and sees something ominous hanging there.

All Jerusalem agrees with him.

That star is bad news.

We forget that for most of human history, most people would have agreed.

The ancient historian Josephus noted that a star stood over the city of Jerusalem just before its fall in 70 AD.

And there were many who thought that the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD had been caused by a comet.

Likewise, the appearance of a star in the sky over England in 1066, just before the Battle of Hastings, was seen as a dark omen of what was to come.

In 1835, some people apparently even blamed a star for the fall of the Alamo.

So when we hear that Herod was frightened, “and all Jerusalem with him,” it makes sense.

Because, hey, when the heavens themselves begin to defy prediction, then there is no telling what might happen.

Who knows what other constellations might collapse—constellations of power, constellations of privilege, constellations of the possible and the impossible, of what we can imagine and what we’ve come to expect?

If all that collapses, where will that leave us? Who among us can say for sure that it will be better?

If everything changes, how will we know what to do?

That goes for Christians, too.

We Christians have always talked a good game about praying and working for the new.

“For behold, I saw a new heaven and a new earth….”

“Behold, I am doing a new thing…. “

“And he that sat upon the throne said ‘Behold, I make all things new.’” (Revelation 21:5)

“Therefore, if anyone be in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come.” (2 Co 5:17)

So much of our God-talk points to the renovating power of God in Christ, through the Holy Spirit.

But is that really what we’re seeking?

Sometimes when we speak of the new, I think what you and I mostly mean is something more along the lines, not of “new,” but more like “improved.”

So often, it seems as if we pray only for a vaguely optimized version of the here and now.

The fact is, much of the time, even faithful people can’t imagine a world that is much different from the one we already have.

And that’s the point: of course we can’t. We can’t. But God can. And God is longing to show us that vision, which is a vision for us, and for those we love, and for all people, and all Creation, and all time.

God is longing to make us part of something that goes far beyond our shallow invocations of our hope in the new.

It seems important to name that as we begin another year, and we are thick in the season of New Year’s resolutions.

There is something so lovely, even holy, about naming our hopes for our lives, even when they are small.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve seen people quit smoking on the strength of a New Year’s resolution; I’ve seen someone go from sitting on their couch to running a half-marathon on the strength of a New Year’s resolution; I’ve seen someone finish a long-abandoned degree on the strength of a New Year’s resolution.

These are all brave and holy acts, in their way.

But fundamentally, what makes them holy is that each one is not an end in itself, but rather, a new beginning.

These steps toward a different future may be small, or incremental, but they are not paltry or shallow, because they are the first steps toward the new—the first steps toward a future that the dreamer can’t quite see, but which the dreamer faithfully pursues, just the same.

Let’s also not forget that they require tremendous trust—trust that the strength to see them through is there to be found, trust that it will get easier, trust that setbacks aren’t the end of all our good intentions if we don’t let them be.

Learning that kind of trust can mean nothing short of learning to see the world in a whole new way—and to see ourselves in a whole new way.

Sometimes, it’s nothing short of learning to live in the light of a new star.

In a very different context, the business writer Rosabeth Moss Kanter has written, “Success and failure are not events. They are trajectories.”

That’s true of resolutions, too.

More deeply, it’s true of God’s engagement with us, and with all Creation.

And that’s what Herod and Jerusalem began to see as they looked out in the night sky and saw a new star blazing just above them.

That star was on a trajectory so broad that it was on none of their maps.

And it showed them, to their horror, that God’s vision for Creation is on a trajectory so broad that what we think we know, what we think we understand about how things work, is just the beginning of what’s out there.

There is so much more in store for us. Thank God there is.

When Herod saw that star, all he could manage to see was bad news.   But the point is that it’s good news.

Truth be told, it’s the greatest news there is.

So, as a new year begins, as we move from a season of taking stock and move into a season of taking action, we are invited to push beyond all the old rules, and all the expectations of what can and can’t, what should and should not be.

We’re invited to acknowledge our fears, and indeed, it’s important that we do—but we’re invited even more urgently to push past them, and to imagine what it might mean to live in the light of that new star.

For the broken-hearted, the broken down, and the plain, old flat broke – for all the ways that brokenness in all its forms can shrink our world until it has no room for anything but pain and worry – the light of that new star reveals a path back to the world.

For the victims of injustice and oppression, the victims of those subtle and the not-so-subtle exclusions that some know all too well and others seem as if they cannot see at all, the light of that new star is a reminder, as the old song says, that change is gonna come.

For those who are afraid to attempt new things – too afraid of who might see, too afraid of who might laugh, too afraid of the smirk, the diminishing comment, or the raised eyebrow, the light of that star reveals a gallery of other faces, eager to cheer, eager to help, and undertake the journey, too.

Whatever our fears may be, Epiphany reminds us that we can live our lives in a new light.

Epiphany reminds us that Jesus, the light of the world, has arrived in all his rule-breaking, table-turning glory, helping us to see all things, and even ourselves, in new ways.

It is the greatest news that ever was, is, or shall be.

“Take heart,” he says, “It is I; have no fear.”

May you and I always seek to live in the light of his promise.

 

Amen.

When I was a kid, Christmas morning always went the same way in my family.

I’d get up around 5:00 a.m.  Maybe 5:30.

Unfortunately, my parents would not.

You see, for all the years when it counted most, we went to “The Nutcracker” at Lincoln Center on Christmas Eve, and so, by the time we got home, it was always well after midnight, which even then was well past their bedtime – and so they were firm in their commitment to a Christmas morning that began no earlier than 6:00 a.m.

Now that I’m a parent, myself, I understand this.

But when I was small, this meant the longest half-hour of the year, while I sat in bed, waiting to hear the sound of my mother brushing her teeth.

That wasn’t easy.

But it was just the beginning.  You see, as I got older, they added certain…conditions…to their 6 a.m. wake-up call.

They were willing to get up at six.  But.

But the coffee had to be ready.

But the tree had to be plugged in.

But the radio had to be on WQXR—“The Radio Stations of the New York Times”—and not on some sort of “Jingle Bell Rock” type station, which is what I liked, and it had to be playing no louder than “4,” which was too soft for me.

But the wood needed to be brought in for the fire in the fireplace.

If you had happened by our home sometime around seven, with everyone in their bathrobes and slippers, opening presents, nursing a mug of cofee with a cheery fire blazing and a little soft music in the background, you would have thought we were something out of the Ozzie and Harriet family Christmas album.

But at ten before six…trust me, I thought it was something out of the opening scenes of “Cinderella.”

There was a year when a faint dusting of snow had fallen overnight, and I remember hoping that nobody would much notice it until we were opening presents, because I was convinced that my father would have me out there, shoveling.

That was a ridiculous thing to think. You could have cleared a path out there with a Dustbuster. More importantly, my father wasn’t like that. But I did think it.

Even so, Cinderella or not, we always had a great Christmas.  Nothing over the top, but I always got what I most wanted and plenty of other things, besides.

But our family was small, just the three of us, and so no matter how slowly we went, or how many times there were refills on coffee, or a break to try on something to see if it fit, it just didn’t take very long to open our presents.

And I remember one Christmas, when I was coming to the end of my pile of gifts, and I actually thought to myself, “I can’t believe it is 365 days until next Christmas.”

I’m sure, somewhere, the ghost of R.H. Macy must have smiled when he heard that.

II.

Christmas never lasts quite long enough, does it?

In my family, the wrapping paper came right off of the present and went straight into the fire, and so it didn’t take long before festivity and mystery and possibility had silently slipped back up the chimney, and three neat little piles of things, one for each of us, had taken their place.

Christmas began at 6:00.  The vacuum cleaner was back in the closet by 10:00.

By New Year’s Day at the latest, our tree was at the curb, and the ornaments were back in the basement for their eleven-month nap.

And so, as early as Christmas day itself, as the dawn’s early light gave way to the fuller light of day, the world as we knew it had already started to return, and if we were a little richer for it, then clearly, we were also a little poorer for it, too.

It was almost like a lunar eclipse—here only for a moment.

So much of the pleasure of Christmas is the pleasure of anticipation.

Giving and receiving are like that.

But you know, as I think about it now, something else occurs to me.

We loved each other too much to ever ask the question aloud, but it wouldn’t have been out of place to wonder if something as brief as Christmas could really make a difference in our lives—or if it could really make a difference in our common life as a family.

There are a lot of ways to answer that question.

It was precious time spent together.  It was a way to show how much we loved one another, and how carefully we studied one another to figure out each person’s “perfect gift.” Its rituals were good for us and made our family stronger.

That’s all true.

But it’s still hard to put your finger on exactly what kind of difference it made.

III.

 In our Scripture this morning, Paul is asking a similar question.

Our reading from his letter to the Galatians is by no means a “classic” Christmas text – there is no mention of the manger, nor of the shepherds, nor of the wise men.

He is speaking theologically—philosophically—rather than telling a story the way the Gospels do.

But he is eager to tell us what Christ’s coming meant—what it means—and so he writes:

“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his son, born of a woman, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children” (Galatians 4:4-5).

Then he goes on to say: “Because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’ So you are no longer a slave, but a child, and if a child, then also an heir, through God.”

Paul wants us to understand that the coming of Jesus represents a new possibility for us – that we will be no longer slaves of the old world, but adopted children, even heirs of God, which is the remarkable promise of the incarnation, and why we faithful people are supposed to be singing “joy to the world, the Lord is come.”

After all, if you trust that promise, what greater joy could there possibly be?

But then it turns.

After reaffirming the promise, Paul asks two pointed questions of the Galatians.

He writes: “Now, however, that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and beggarly elemental spirits? How can you want to be enslaved to them again?” (Gal 4:9-10).

And I want to pause there, because Paul is asking our very same question about Christmas.

Given that Jesus came, he suggests, what difference did it make?

The gift has been sent, and the gift has been opened.  Now what?

Is it just business as usual? Or has something truly changed about us, and the world, and where we go from here?

Will we move forward…go on our way rejoicing, like the shepherds, or home by another way, like the magi….or will we turn back to what he calls “the weak and beggarly elemental spirits”?

The poet W.H. Auden, at the opening of his poem “For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio,” puts it this way:

Well, so that is that.  Now we must dismantle the tree,/Putting the decorations back into their cardboard boxes –/Some have got broken — and carrying them up to the attic./The holly and the mistletoe must be taken down and burnt,/And the children got ready for school….  

Once again/As in previous years we have seen the actual Vision and failed/To do more than entertain it as an agreeable/Possibility, once again we have sent Him away,/Begging though to remain His disobedient servant,/The promising child who cannot keep His word for long.

The poem goes on from there.

But its opening lines recall Paul’s questions: Is that all we are to be? Are we no more than promising children who cannot keep God’s word for long?

Paul knew that, despite all appearances to the contrary, something truly was different.

He saw that something had permanently shifted as the world stood in the light of Christmas.

Something had changed.

IV.

 Friends, in the light of Christmas, we see that God has given us his own self.

Will our lives show that we’ve been changed or not?

That is the real question of Christmas morning.

Sometimes, as we stand there among the gifts, and the breakfast plates, and the wrapping paper all in a pile all over the place, it seems ungracious to wonder what’s next.

But it is not.

Making sure our lives speak is the only way to live in the light of grace.

It is the only way to show thanks for the very greatest gift that was, is, or ever shall be.

Dear Friends of Second Church,

…My devotional book for Advent this year is Rev. Quinn Caldwell’s “All I Really Want: Readings for a Modern Christmas,” and he has a lovely reflection about Advent calendars…which has helped me to do a little reflecting of my own…

Grace and Emily are enjoying their “chocolate a day” Advent calendars, a gift from Grace’s magical godmother, Laurel.

Finding the correct number for the day seems like the hardest part, especially for Emily, because honestly, who cares about the technical difference between the number 1 and the number 11 when you are not even three years old, and there is chocolate on the other side of each little paper door?

But Grace is very dutiful about making sure she is only consuming the assigned chocolate for the day, and she always pauses politely to examine the little chocolate picture first.

“Look, Poppy…it’s a candle.” “Hey, it’s a…is that a ball or an apple?” She always wants to know.

When I was growing up, I found some windows in the Advent calendar more satisfying than others. I liked the ones that let you glimpse into a little room and imagine a whole little Christmas world. The tantalizing, big window that turned out to be nothing more than a picture of a big, steaming cup of hot chocolate or a teddy bear? Ho hum.

I didn’t realize it then, but those calendars were offering an important education about Advent. Because like those calendars, Advent is about discovery, and especially about discovering something holy and precious that might be very small: say, in a cup of hot chocolate, or a candle in the window, or an old bear pressed back into service for the season. Advent is about waiting and expectation, and about working through our own impulses to be disappointed when we don’t get exactly what we think we want–and about doing that working through so that we can discover the beauty of whatever it is we encounter.

Because focusing exclusively what we think we want is an inadequate way of living, and especially so for people who put their faith in a God who offers us more than we can ever ask or imagine.

I hope you will seek a renewed relationship to that God, our God, in these days before Christmas. Seeing the holiness of small things is a great way to start.