Matthew 5:1-12

The theme for this year’s Lenten services is The Beatitudes, specifically as they are given to us in the Gospel of Matthew, which you’ve just heard. They are the opening section of the so-called Sermon on the Mount.

Up to this time in Matthew’s Gospel, the only thing we have heard Jesus say is, “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near.” This gives the Sermon on the Mount greater significance because it is the opening salvo and statement of Jesus’s alternative way of living. Keep in mind that when Matthew talks of the Kingdom of Heaven it means the same thing as the other Gospels that say Kingdom of God. This does not refer to life after death or to the end times, but is about life here and now on earth.

So, after announcing that the Kingdom has come near, Jesus makes this series of statements that turn conventional wisdom and custom upside down. As Marcus Borg summarizes it, these statements suggest a “life of compassion, justice, and peace, grounded in God as disclosed by Jesus. It’s what life would be like on earth if God were Lord and the current lords of the earth were not.”

Instead of blessing the heroic generals who have conquered the Mediterranean world, Jesus says, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.”

What are peacemakers? Notice that they are not peacefeelers — nor are they peace talkers or peace thinkers. Peacemakers make peace. Make is an active verb. It suggests that action is required. Have you ever tried to make peace between two friends who are on the outs? Dangerous work, isn’t it? The two you try to reconcile may team up to turn on you. How much more dangerous and tricky must it be to make peace between goups or nations? Why even bother? Probably we go on trying because the alterative to peace is hell.

I assume you all know the current situation in the Middle East, and how many people have tried to be peacemakers there just in our own lifetimes? Consider this quote from Herman Goring after WWII:

Naturally the common people don’t want war . . .; that is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along. . That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country. [God and Empire, JD Crossan.
P.35-36]

That’s much of the problem, isn’t it? And both sides in a conflict do the same thing, demonizing the others in ways that tend to keep the conflict going. And what about the costs?

Consider this. Our 775 billion dollar defense budget is twice as large as it was under Dwight Eisenhower (adjusted for inflation). It is five time greater than China’s, “our nearest competitor for this dubious honor, and constitutes over 40 % of the world’s entire military spending.” [Sojourners, Feb. ’13 p. 16]

And now listen to what Eisenhower had to say back in 1953: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone, it is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.”

John Dominic Crossan, in a book called God and Empire draws a continual contrast between the realities of the Roman Empire and the possibilities of the Kingdom of God. He notes that the Pax Romana, the peace that the Roman Empire established across the Mediterranean world, was won by victory in war. Rome relied on peace through victory, as do all empires, and they maintained it with the might of the their legions.

The problem is that peace gained through victory never lasts, because violence begets violence. Yes, the legions were able to keep everyone in their place for some years, but not forever. When people are defeated, invaded, and ruled from afar, when the flow of goods is from them to the seat of Empire and the flow of force is from there to here, rebellion is sure to follow.

What Jesus teaches about the Kingdom of God is peace through justice. This is a peace that does not use violence. As Pope Paul VI said: ‘If you want peace, work for justice.’” [Howard, P.98]

Working for justice is something everyone can do, because there are so many ways of going at it. Working for justice means working for a community and a world in which everyone has enough, everyone has the same opportunities for education, growth, and social mobility, and everyone has work.

Working for justice in the legal system is a subset of this and means working for a system that is fair and impartial and working for a system that is restorative rather than retributive. A restorative justice system works to restore criminals to an appropriate place in society rather than just punishing them. The prime example of this approach can be examined in the way the government of South Africa handled the former rulers and perpetrators of great atrocities during Apartheid.

They chose “to redress wrongs not with blanket amnesty or Nurenberg type trials, but a third way. . ., and granting amnesty in exchange for full disclosure of crimes committed.” This approach was championed by Bishop Desmond Tutu based on the African concept of Ubuntu, an acknowledgement that when one person is harmed, all suffer.

Violence certainly seems to be escalating in our society. Whether it really is or just seems to be due to the 24 hour news coverage we now endure, I don’t know. Many people are more afraid than they used to be. Those of substance retreat to gated communities. Others build safe rooms or install alarms in their homes.

Can you believe these numbers? In a recent Sojourners Magazine, the editor Jim Wallis pointed out:

• There are more gun dealers in the US than there are McDonalds.
• Last November the FBI fielded 2 million gun purchase requests.
• There are 310 million people in the US and 280 million guns.

People are arming themselves even though it’s well known that having a gun in the house is much more likely to cause death or injury in the family than to save them from intruders. Only fear can explain this.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Several commentators mentioned that seeing ourselves as children of God is the first step to becoming a peacemaker. If we see ourselves as children of God, then it becomes evident that all people are our siblings. How can we hurt them, revile them, shun them, kill them? How can we stand by when our society leaves large numbers of children hungry or homeless. How can we stand by when our economy puts people out of work?

When we see ourselves as children of God it’s easier to be like Jesus, to know that the only real security we have in this life is God’s love for us. That can free us from fear and also from the pointless scrambling for other means of protecting ourselves, which ultimately fail anyway.

Later in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus gives us several specific ways of making peace: be reconciled, turn the other cheek, love your enemies. There’s a group that talks about Just Peacemaking, which is both a theory and a practice, based on these teachings. Their practices give us some clear ways to practice peacemaking in our communities.

You can google Just Peacemaking, which by the way doesn’t mean “only” peacemaking, but rather means non-violent, just as in justice, peacemaking. Here are some of their practices.

Support nonviolent direct action. Based on the practices of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. this might include boycotts, strikes, marches, civil disobedience, etc.

Take independent initiatives to reduce threats. Several friends of mine live in the Marshall area. When large groups of Hispanics moved in there was a lot of tension in town. The city organized multiple groups of women, each one half and half, who met regularly to talk, to share their stories and their difficulties. Out of this came not only friendships, but a clear realization of their commonalities.

Use the proven methods of cooperative conflict resolution. You have to talk to make peace. There are methods for doing this that help you be tough on the problem but not tough on the people involved.

Acknowledge responsibility for conflict and injustice and seek repentance and forgiveness. Whether with a friend or with another nation, this sets the stage for reconciliation.

Foster just and sustainable economic development. How many wars are fought over access to resources? How many terrorists have no hope of being able to raise a family because of economic conditions?

Reduce offensive weapons and the weapons trade.

Everyone can find something in the list that they can do. We don’t have to solve all the peacemaking problems in the world. Each of us can do our part. We can work, we can donate, we can resolve to learn and practice peacemaking in our families and neighborhoods.

We are children of God. We must imagine the world as God imagines it, as a place of compassion, justice, and peace, where God’s people can live without fear, with enough to meet their basic needs, and surrounded by a web of rich relationships. The Kingdom of God is here. With God’s help let’s live it into reality. AMEN

Lent 1, C

Deuteronomy 26:1-11
Romans 10:8b-13
Luke 4:1-13

“Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness.”

So here’s my question. Why? Why was he led into the wilderness? Keep in mind, Jesus has just been baptized. He rises from the waters of the Jordan. The heavens are opened. The Spirit descends bodily in the form of a dove. A voice comes from the heavens proclaiming, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’ For some reason, the Spirit seems to think that a fitting follow up to this dramatic, soul wrenching, goose bump inducing event would be for the Beloved to spend 40 days in harsh, wild territory without eating or drinking, tempted by the devil.

Three of the gospels tell us this story. Matthew and Luke give us the long version, same temptations , same scriptural answers, just in a different order. Mark spends a total of two sentences on the subject. “And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.” None of the gospels tell us why He went-why the Spirit sent him.

He did not go to prove something to others. He didn’t bring human company. He did not go to earn his Father’s approval – God had bestowed his unconditional blessing already. We do not know why the spirit led Jesus into this wilderness, but I have to believe that he needed to explore his relationship with his Father; learn what it meant on a practical, gritty, day to day basis, to be the Beloved, the Son, the Word with a capital W. This is not a discovery that can be made basking in the glow of God’s approval, perhaps, but something which requires a time apart, a time in the stark, harsh, unforgiving wilderness.

For the most part, we don’t head voluntarily into our wildernesses.
Yet, as poet Ruth Burgess wrote,

The desert waits,
ready for those who come,
who follow the Spirit’s leading
or are driven,
because they will not come any other way. (Women Prayers)

If you have not already experienced your wilderness, if you are not now in your wilderness, that time will come. Your wilderness is unlikely to look like the desert around the Jordan. It may come in the form of lost independence, health issues, financial issues. It may look exactly the same as your world now, but suddenly bereft of something or someone that gave it meaning or color. You will know you are in your wilderness when the things that you depend on, the metaphorical food and water of your life is missing, and you feel utterly alone with only your temptations surrounding you. That will be the time to remember with Paul, “the Word (with a capital W) is near you, in your heart and in your lips.”

On Ash Wednesday, Lynn invited us, “in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word.”

Self-examination, repentance, fasting, self-denial. In a society marked by conspicuous consumption, where everything is super-sized, where bigger is better, where winning is everything, self-examination, repentance, fasting and self-denial sound like punishment. Indeed, we often treat Lent, with its emphasis on sin and penitence, as punishment. Self-imposed punishment for the simple crime of being human, being what God created us to be.

17th century philosopher Blais Pascal spoke of a God-shaped hole within each of us. A hole that could be filled by God and God alone. In order to fill that hole, we must stay in relationship with God. If we do not, we continually try to fill this infinite hole with the finites of this life: power, food, alcohol, money, relationships; even just the constant noise of cell phones and television and entire computer generated worlds. The disciplines of Lent invite us to decrease the distractions and face the fear of the hollowness within.

Lent is not a punishment for being human – God made us human and knew what He was getting into when He did it.

Lent is not New Year’s resolution Take 2 – getting slimmer, trimmer, healthier, richer, more loved, whatever is simply not the point. It’s not a bad thing, but it is not the point.

Lent is not a checklist – Let’s see, look over the day – probably shouldn’t have gotten cranky this morning. (Check off self examination.) Won’t do that tomorrow. (Check off repentance). Yeah, um, sorry for the crankiness, God. Thanks for not striking me down. (Check off prayer) Skip that second helping at dinner tonight. (Check off fasting)

Historically, Lent is a time of preparation for new converts before their baptism at Easter. 40 days of learning to live a life in faith. According to the Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor, “[The word] “Lent,”…[is] from an English word meaning “spring”–not just a reference to the crocuses pushing their ways out of the ground in the season before Easter, but also to the greening of the human soul–pruned with repentance, fertilized with fasting, spritzed with self-appraisal, mulched with prayer.” It is a time to cultivate our relationship with God, to fill the spiritual emptiness that is the wilderness within us.

Teresa of Avila penned these words in response to words she heard in prayer:

Soul, you must seek yourself in Me
And in yourself seek Me.
With such skill, soul
Love could portray you in Me.
That a painter well gifted
Could never show
So finely that image.

For love you were fashioned
Deep within me
Painted so beautiful, so fair;
If, my beloved, you are lost,
Soul seek yourself in Me.

When we go voluntarily into our own wilderness in the Lenten season, owning our faults, changing our ways, stifling the extraneous noise, slowly we begin to hear the small, still voice of God. Slowly we learn to know, deep within ourselves, that the Word is near us, on our lips and in our hearts.

The wilderness will come again. The devil merely waits “till a more opportune time”. But we can begin to trust that the spirit who leads us into the wilderness will lead us back out again. And as we live our Lenten journey, may we present the first fruits of our spiritual labours before the Lord our God and serve only Him for all of our days. Amen

ASH WEDNESDAY, 2013

The Gospel reading for today is taken from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s Gospel. It’s the same lesson every Ash Wednesday, so most of you have heard many sermons on it. Tonight I want to look at another part of the Sermon on the Mount.

The theme for the Wednesday night Lenten services this year is the Beatitudes. These are the very first statements in Jesus’s so called sermon, which is really a whole collection of sayings by Jesus rolled together and called the Sermon on the Mount. Each beatitude begins with “Blessed are they . . . .”

Let’s back up first and look at the context in which these statements appear. In Matthew’s Gospel the sequence of events leading up to the Sermon on the Mount are these: a genealogy of Jesus, the birth story, John the Baptist, the baptism of Jesus, the temptation in the wilderness, one statement of Jesus, and the calling of 4 disciples.

The only statement of Jesus that we hear before the Sermon on the Mount begins is this: “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near.” This was essentially the preaching of John the Baptist.

Please remember that when Matthew says “Kingdom of Heaven” he means exactly the same thing as when the other Gospels say Kingdom of God. Matthew is the most Jewish of the Gospel writers, and so he follows the Jewish tradition of not using the name of God. He is NOT talking about someplace where we go when we die, nor is he talking about the end times.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is proclaiming the nature of the Kingdom of God. In Matthew, this sermon sets the parameters for all that follows. And the very opening of the Sermon is the Beatitudes. They are followed by other teachings including a series of statements that say: “You have heard it said that . . . .but I say . . . .”

We are so familiar with the beatitudes that we tend to forget how radical they are. Who are the blessed people, according to Jesus? The blessed are the poor in spirit, those who mourn, those who are meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, those who are merciful, those who are pure of heart, those who are peacemakers, those who are persecuted for righteousness sake.

What? Think for a moment about the culture of Palestine in that day. Who are the blessed? Aren’t those who are wealthy the ones whom God has blessed? Aren’t the pious and the righteous the ones who should be blessed? What about the Pharisees and the Saducees and the Scribes? What about the chief priests?

If we translate a bit to our own culture, aren’t those who are blessed the ones who are competitive, those who are warriors, those who are talented, those who work hard, those in positions of power, those who rise to the top of the heap?

Even though we now live in a democracy, we still live in a culture that accepts and encourages and applauds the hierarchical social order. This puts some folks in charge of or in control of other folks. Our lives may be much better in America today than that of Jesus and his people under the Roman Empire, but the basic standards of our culture are not so different.

Jesus turns these standards upside down. The outcaste, the marginalized, the poor, the friendless and the needy are put first. His statements are meant to be outrageous. They are meant to get our attention. They are meant to make us think.

The Kingdom of God is not like the culture of Rome or Palestine or, for that matter, our American culture. God does not admire the same qualities that human civilization tends to admire. In pointing this out Jesus often offends his audience and certainly the powers that be.

I don’t think his purpose was to literally turn the social/political pyramid upside down and put the underdogs in charge. He just wants to show us that hierarchy is not God’s way of seeing people – that while we all have different gifts, we are all equally important in the Kingdom. He wants to change that pyramid into a circle. He wants us to give up our fear and prejudice towards each other and live in community together.

Jesus also makes clear that who we are, how we behave to one another, is more important than what we have, or what we have accomplished. The first shall be last and the last shall be first is one of God’s ways of turning the pyramid into a circle.

What are the qualities that we admire in people? To whom do we defer or give preferential treatment? Whom do we consider to be beneath us? Above us? Where would we rather live – in “normal” civilization or in the Kingdom of God?

Jesus didn’t create the Kingdom of God, but he announced its presence here on earth and provided a road map to its fulfillment. The rest is up to us.

LAST SUNDAY OF EPIPHANY, C

Exodus 34:29-35

Luke 9:28-36

The transfiguration has always seemed to me to be the oddest of all the Bible stories. Why does it happen? Is Jesus the focus or is it the disciples?

This time, while reading the first lesson I saw a glimpse of something that helped me understand. The conventional wisdom, both in the time of Moses and Jesus, was that if you saw God you would die. Moses goes up Mount Sinai into a dark cloud and there the Lord speaks to him directly. When he returns to the people at the foot of the mountain his face is shining, although he doesn’t know it. After telling them what the Lord said to him, Moses veils his face, because his appearance frightens the crowd.

The text says his face shone because he had been talking to God. So his face is still reflecting the great light, the great glory of God. The light is not coming from Moses, but is the light of God reflected in his face.

In the transfiguration, Jesus also lights up, to such an extent that his disciples can clearly see it. Notice that it happens when he is praying. This tells us that Jesus has also been talking to God, just as surely as Moses did.

Then who should appear but Elijah. Now Elijah was perhaps the most prominent of the Jewish prophets. When I attended a Passover Seder in the home of the Jewish Rabbi in 1952, I discovered the Passover tradition of leaving the door open and having an empty chair at the table for Elijah, just in case he shows up. He is supposed to appear three days before the Messiah, and he guards the sanctity of Jewish homes.

So it makes sense for Elijah to appear with Moses. “They appeared in glory,” meaning they also shone with light, and were seen speaking to Jesus about his upcoming and last trip to Jerusalem.

Dear Peter, so quick in action and slow in understanding, suggests building three dwellings. He’s talking about building booths as was the custom during the Festival of the Booths. The instructions for this festival come from Leviticus (23:42) “42 You shall live in booths for seven days; all that are citizens in Israel shall live in booths,
43 so that your generations may know that I made the people of Israel live in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.”

So there are clear pointers throughout this story back to Moses and Exodus. Clearly Peter gets this, but does not see the implications. We can, because we know what happens when Jesus goes to Jerusalem.

These pointers to the escape of the Jews from slavery suggest that Jesus is leading a new Exodus out of Galilee to Jerusalem and the cross. Like Moses, he is leading the people out of slavery to the old and into the freedom of understanding God in new ways. Or you could say leading people into the freedom of life in the Kingdom of God, the alternative way of living that Jesus has been teaching.

I agree with John Dominc Crossan that the central point of Jesus’ story is not about salvation in the next life, but rather about salvation in this life. Salvation comes by embracing the Kingdom of God, by embracing the way of life Jesus teaches; a life of loving God and neighbor, a life without violence or fear, a life in which equality and justice rule.

Today is the last Sunday of Epiphany and the last Sunday of Epiphany is always a lesson about the transfiguration. Why?

• It echoes the baptism with which Epiphany starts.
• It sets the stage for the journey from Galilee to Jerusalem by linking it to the Exodus, the primal story of the Jewish people; it does the same for our journey through Lent to Easter.
• It describes an epiphany experience. Can you imagine being the disciples here? Peter, James, and John see weird things happen, then are enveloped in a dark cloud and are spoken to by God!
• The last reason comes from a minor epiphany I had Monday morning after watching the Super Bowl and while pondering this odd story. Eureka! This event is like the coach giving his team a pep talk before they go out on the field!

Jesus and his disciples are about to leave Galilee to make the long walk to Jerusalem. Moses and Elijah show up to encourage Jesus. God’s glory is made visible to the team leaders and God tell them to listen to Jesus. Whether they understand it or not they are being prepared for the challenges that lie ahead.

Remember, God is with you! Listen to Jesus, not to others. He knows what he’s doing. Follow him. Moses and Elijah are with him too.

Even though Peter, James and John didn’t tell the other disciples, I imagine they remembered what happened. I have to believe that it helped to hold the group together in the face of later events.

Can you imagine what that last week in Jerusalem was like for the disciples? Oh the entrance into the city was glorious, but it was all down hill after that. Why was Jesus going out of his way to upset the authorities? Why wasn’t he doing other things instead? Don’t you think that Peter, James, and John remembered what God said to them? Can’t you imagine them passing on the advice to the others? Trust Jesus. He know what he’s doing.

And consider what might have happened if they had not heard God’s message. The disciples might have split up; some might have given up when Jesus was arrested; some might have gone home early. I suspect that the experience of the transfiguration helped Peter, James, and John to keep them together long enough to experience the resurrection.

The take-away lesson for us is the same as it was for the disciples. Remember, God is with you. Listen to Jesus, not to other voices. He knows what he’s doing. Follow him! We, too, can find new freedom in the Kingdom of God right here and now. AMEN

EPIPHANY 4, C

Luke 4:21-30

I’m sure some of you have had an experience like the one Jesus had when he returned to his hometown.

Sometime after I moved here in 1977, I went home to be confronted by my cousin with, “ I just don’t understand why you didn’t move home after you got divorced,” said with a certain edge of outrage. I replied, “But why should I move home?” “Well, because your father could have gotten you a good job at John Deere and found you another husband.”

What could I say that would not be rude? This person seemed to have no idea that I might be able to get a good job all by myself and might not want another husband.

When Jesus goes home he also finds that the hometown crowd assumes that they know him and therefore can make him their own. He has to be nearly rude and offensive to convince them otherwise, and then they get downright nasty.

Remember the beginning of this story we heard last week? Jesus attends synagogue in Nazareth, where folks have been hearing good reports about him. He has recently been baptized and spent some time in the wilderness where he was sorely tempted. In other words, he has experienced life-changing events and is not the same Jesus who left Nazareth. When handed the scroll of Isaiah to read, he choses this passage:

“The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Then, he dares to say, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” Still they were not offended, even though he made such a claim. They spoke well of him. Then said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?”

Ah, we know you, and you are one of ours and therefore we can expect certain things of you. Jesus sees what’s coming and deflects them by telling them what they will say next. He proclaims that no prophet is accepted in his hometown.

Then he goes out of his way to offend them, or maybe to test them. He reminds them of two stories from the prophets: One was when Elijah was sent by God to the widow at Zarephath in Sidon. “In Sidon” means she was not a Jew, yet there were many widows among the Jews who were also suffering from severe famine. Elijah did not help them.

The second story was when Elisha cured a leper called Naaman the Syrian, also not a Jew. Yet at that time there were many lepers in Israel. This was what filled the synagogue with rage. Not that the stories were not true, but that Jesus made a point of them, the very obvious point that he was not sent to his home town to do anything for them, but was going to the marginalized, to the outsiders, to carry out his mission.

He did come home to announce this mission, but the congregation was so outraged by what he implied about them that they wanted to throw him off a nearby cliff. Instead of thinking, oh yes, we’re righteous enough already, so he doesn’t need to work with us, they got angry when he deflected their hopes of what? Using him, co-opting him, basking in his reflected glory?

Jesus, like God, does not work at our pleasure or for our purposes. Rather he sees his way clearly and must go that way no matter who is outraged. Jesus calmly walks through the murderous crowd and goes on his way. We don’t really know how, but somehow I can see him looking each of them in the eye, probably with love rather than anger, and no one dared to touch him.

This reminds me of several times when I’ve heard really prophetic sermons preached and then also seen some of the aftermath. One was just a few years ago in Chicago. The associate priest preached a brilliant sermon . . . . . . . . and was accosted at the back of the church and harangued for nearly half an hour. The person was an older man, a large donor to the church, and he had not liked that sermon one bit. He also complained to the vestry and to the Rector.

The other happened in the late sixties also in Chicago, but a much smaller congregation. We had a new associate, fresh out of seminary who actually dared to quoted Martin Luther King in a sermon. I heard part of the outrage at the church door that time, and saw how listening to your enemy in love can work wonders. This priest listened to the elderly couple, acknowledged their outrage, did not take back what he’d said, but promised that he was more than willing to talk about it some more, whenever they had time. He got an invitation to dinner and went. I’m sure they never changed each other’s minds, but they did become better acquainted and able to accept that they saw things differently.

Lilly Piekarski used to confront me quite often about sermons she did not agree with and we had wonderful discussions. We didn’t agree, never could, but we could talk about it with respect for one another. I do miss her!

It was in remembering this that I realized why the Corinthians passage about love was paired with this Gospel. Like the Corinthians, the people of the Nazareth synagogue had need of understanding the power of this kind of love.

Although this passage is often used at weddings, it is not talking about married love. It is talking about agape, what we think of as Christian love, the sort of love you can have even for people you don’t like. It’s full of respect and fairness. It’s the sort of love that can happen even when everyone involved is not perfect. It’s the love that binds a family, a community, or a monastery together.

This love, described in Corinthians, is not about controlling others, as I suspect the congregation hoped to control or influence Jesus. It is not about forcing others to agree with you or casting them out when they don’t. It’s not about who’s on top.

The Corinthians had been arguing about which gifts of the spirit are greater and Paul reminds them that all are the same, as all are inspired by the same Spirit. Not only that, but it does not matter how great you are, or what magnificent gifts you have, if you don’t have love, you are nothing. If you have love, you won’t act as they have been acting.

It’s easy for us to see the folly of the congregation in Nazareth or Corinth, but we must ask ourselves if we are any different. Oh, we may be much too Minnesota nice to threaten a preacher with bodily harm, but what would we say about her? Would we seriously consider the message or just dismiss it? Would we engage in dialogue with the one who offends us or just talk among ourselves???

Luke makes it clear that Jesus came among us to serve those on the outside and those at the bottom of the social order. This Jesus, while clearly Jewish is able to see past the strictures and the structures of his own culture, and to do so in love. I trust we are learning to do that too. AMEN

EPIPHANY 3, C

LUKE 4:14-21

Last week we took a detour to the Gospel of John to look at the wedding at Cana. This week we are back in Luke, and just to be clear, let me review what has happened in Luke up to this point, because the context of this in Luke is very important to understanding today’s reading.

We’ve heard the birth narrative that begins the Lukan Gospel and includes the episode of the 12 year old Jesus staying behind in Jerusalem to study in the temple. Then comes John the Baptist and the baptism of Jesus, which includes a genealogy of Jesus traced back to Adam.

After the baptism comes the 40 days in the wilderness, being tempted by the devil. What we heard this morning comes immediately after Jesus returns from the wilderness, “filled with the power of the Spirit.” He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone. He has not yet gathered any disciples.

Now he shows up in his home town (and next week we’ll hear what happens to him there), but this week we only hear the first part. Jesus reads from the prophet Isaiah:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Then Jesus rolls up the scroll, sits down, and after a pregnant pause, says to the congregation, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” WOW! What a claim that is.

Jesus essentially says that he is here to fulfill what Isaiah said. This is a declaration of his mission and purpose in life. He has come to do the very things Isaiah listed and he claims that the spirit of the Lord is upon him and has anointed him to do these things.

First, there is the literal meaning of Isaiah’s statements. This would mean that Jesus is literally going to preach good news to the poor. OK. I guess that would be that God values them just as much as God values the wealthy and the mighty.

Also he will proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind. Well we know he not only proclaimed it but also was able to actually heal blind people and restore their sight. I’m not sure though about release to the captives. Jesus does not actually free any slaves, does he?

How about letting the oppressed go free? Of course, there was the hope that the Messiah would get rid of the Romans who were oppressing the Jews, but Jesus certainly doesn’t do that. He does, however, caste out demons, certainly a freeing of a person sorely oppressed.

Think for a moment about how often we hear the words, “Fear not,” or “Don’t be afraid” in the Bible. I believe Jesus came to free us from the oppression of fear and worry too. If we can really trust God to be always with us, we can let go of our fears and worries.

People who have escaped addiction to alcohol or drugs through 12-step programs, have done so largely by turning their lives over to their higher power, after admitting that they are not in control of their lives. And to be freed from addiction is certainly a release from captivity and from terrible oppression. So too we can be freed from fear.

To proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor is to proclaim a Jubilee year, which was a time when slaves were freed and when land reverted to the owners who lost it since the last Jubilee. Jesus may have proclaimed a year of Jubilee, but it was not, unfortunately, observed. Think what that would have meant to the three families who then owned most of the farmland in Palestine. They would have had to return the land to the tenants.

We can also understand the statements of Isaiah in metaphorical terms. Jesus certainly tries to heal the blindness of everyone, not just those who are physically blind. And we are all captives to one extent or another, maybe especially captives to our own sin. By showing us new ways to live, Jesus sets us free.

Do notice what is not in this mission statement. There is no mention of dying for all humanity. There is no mention of death or resurrection or the cross or atonement. In Luke’s gospel, the story is all about social justice and about Jesus coming to gentiles as well as Jews. Thus the genealogy back to Adam instead of back to David as it was in Matthew.

What is implicit in this Mission statement, as Luke presents it, is that Jesus is coming to serve, and especially coming to serve the people who are on the outside, who are marginalized, who are the least among the society. This must have been quite a shock to his audience, once they thought about it. No matter how you slice it, it turns the known culture and its values upside down.

Why didn’t Jesus come to serve the righteous? Why didn’t Jesus come to serve the temple priests? Or the wealthy merchants? These were the ones with greatest honor in their society. It does remind me somewhat of our own culture, where even those at the bottom of the heap respect the wealthy and still believe they can become that. It’s somehow insulting to them to suggest otherwise.

We will see next week how Jesus further insults his audience, but let’s just consider his mission statement.

The main point is that it is all about service, and it’s directed towards the bottom of society. I don’t read this as an effort to put those who are wealthy at the bottom of the heap, but rather as corrective action, to create a more just and equitable society. Jesus shows us over and over that the poor and the downtrodden are just as important as the upper layers of society in the eyes of God.

This is not an easy message to accept, even in our time and in our culture. The messages of this culture are about competing and winning, about getting ahead and doing whatever is necessary to make that happen, about keeping up with the neighbors or with the movies stars, about looking good instead of being good.

In a culture that promotes hierarchy, in a church that is based on hierarchy, in school systems that promote the meritocracy, it’s so easy to forget that we are all equally valuable in God’s kingdom; that in God’s eyes each of us is worth exactly the same. It’s similar to the shock children sometimes encounter when they realize that their parents love all their children, even the ones who are “bad.” We can just hear the whining, “That’s not fair!”

The easiest way to come to understanding and hopefully acceptance of such a mission statement as Luke gives us is to remember that all people are children of God, and we’re all in this together. Jesus may preach to the margins of society, but his lessons are good for all of us, maybe especially for those who are not on the margins. And the good news for the poor is good news for all of us! AMEN

EPIPHANY 2 C

JOHN 2:1-11

How many of you have had the pleasure of planning a wedding? How many of you are eager to do it again? From the bride’s point of view, the dress and flowers may be most important, but from the parents’ point of view, the detail of the reception may be most important. Why? They are the hosts, and running out of room, or food, or beverages reflects badly on the family.

In the time of Jesus, the bride and groom did not go on a honeymoon. Instead they attended a weeklong party at the groom’s home (see, some things do change!). It was the groom’s parents who hosted the wedding party. And it was just such a party that is the setting of today’s lesson.

Jesus, his disciples, and his mother were all invited guests to a wedding in Cana, a very small town in Galilee. It’s Mary who first becomes aware that the host family is running out of wine. This would be a huge source of shame to the host, so she urges Jesus to do something. He puts her off, sounding a bit like a teenager who doesn’t want his mother telling him what to do.

Instead of nagging at him, she just turns to the servants and tells them to do whatever he says. For some reason, this encourages or allows Jesus to take action. He has them fill six large stone jars with water, draw some off and take it to the wine steward, who is amazed that the host, so he thinks, has saved the best wine for last.

Notice that the jars were used for Jewish purification rituals, but now are filled with wine for a party. The suggestion is that the strict rules of the past are being replaced by an abundantly good time. This might summon up reminders of all the feast and banquet images from the prophets.

As the party swirls around them, the only people who know what Jesus has done are Mary, the servants, and the disciples. John concludes the story thus: “Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.”

In John’s Gospel there are seven “signs,” each a miracle of transformation: water into wine, disability into health, paralysis into activity, hunger into fullness, blindness into sight, death into life.

Do you remember the definition of a sacrament from our catechism? A sacrament is the outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. . . This is the same sense in which John uses the term “sign.”

I believe that for John the main point of each sign was to reveal the glory of Jesus, by which I mean the presence of God in him. And the purpose of the sign was that people might believe in him, as the disciples did at Cana.

For me, the suggestiveness of this story says so much more. When I think of a family gathering for something like a wedding, I think about how everyone has such a good time. O, yes, Uncle Eddie makes the usual fool of himself on the dance floor, and great aunt Annie has too much to drink, but even these imperfections are things that are normal, that we expect in our family gatherings, that we laugh about later.

The dancing, the laughter, the eating of good food and drinking good wine represent the good things in life, the abundance of life, the joyful aspects of life in community with others.

In changing water into wine, Jesus points to the importance of celebration, of gathering together in this way. This must be what God wants for us – I don’t mean a life of partying, but a life of joy and an abundance of the good things in life.

If Jesus can transform water into wine, if God wants a life of joy and abundance for us, could that point to the possibility of transforming our own lives? If our lives are not exactly one long party ( – and whose is?) how can we transform them?

One key is to look at people who have already done that. Jesus himself is a primary example. What kind of life did he have? He lived on the generosity of others and probably didn’t have many feasts in his life, but he carried a bubble of joy and welcome wherever he went.

You’ve heard it said by people who have spent time in third world countries that the hospitality they received and the joy they found in people living in abject poverty moved them to tears. While the sign for abundance is an excess of food and wine, the reality of abundance is found in good friends and strong communities.

And it’s also about attitude. If what we want is the external stuff of life, we will be perpetually left wanting, because the more we have the more we will want. People who have nothing and no hope of changing that, have to look for other values to cling to.

For people like us, who have actual abundance, it takes more conscious work to cultivate a truly abundant life. We have to remind ourselves to pay attention to the details of life, to look for signs of the spiritual in the everyday. We have to remind ourselves to be thankful for each of our blessings, and to give thanks where thanks are due, not just to our parents or families, but to God, from whom all things come.

We have to make an effort to practice gratitude, to practice forgiveness, compassion, and peace. For these form the basis of an abundant life. And we also have to make an effort to face our fears, whatever they are, and to say “NO, I’ll not be driven by this, nor will I let others frighten me.”

I hope you all remember the play or movie called “Auntie Mame.” The heroine of the piece is unconventional, but has this great ‘joi de vivre’ – an old French expression meaning JOY OF LIFE.

Remember her mantra and make it your own.

“Life is a banquet and most poor fools are starving to death.”

Life is a banquet! AMEN

Epiphany 1/Baptism of the Lord, C

Isaiah 43:1-7, Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

When I contemplated the lectionary for this week, I was excited to realize that I had the opportunity to preach for the celebration of the Baptism of Christ. I researched the history and theology of baptism, wandered through the catechism and the commentaries. I visualized this marvelous, inspirational, educational treatise on the sacrament of baptism. I’m a sacramentalist, right? Baptism is one of the two great sacraments of the church. It is one of the oldest sacraments of the church, steeped in rich history, theology and spiritual depth. What a phenomenal opportunity!

Yes, well, as with many things in the course of our lives, the sermon did not go as planned. Whether by intervention of the Holy Spirit, or merely a confluence of life events, you will not hear that envisioned inspirational, educational treatise.

This week, for the first time, I had the honor of participating in the funeral of a colleague as well as the privilege of helping to deliver a new life into this world, both within a 24 hour period. This combination of events (in conjunction with my plans for the aforementioned educational treatise) paralleled my musings on baptism. Baptism is the death of the old ways, the birth of new life in Christ. It is the sacrament that most closely mirrors life’s greatest transitions.

In spite of that powerful symbolism, my thoughts kept returning to identity. The deceased person is described and identified as we mourn his loss. “He was a great doctor, wonderful husband, loyal friend, brilliant man and so on.” Even beyond the eulogy, I never fully realized before how many times a person’s name is used during the service itself.

At a delivery that precious bundle of new life is already being assigned identity. The name is a hot topic of discussion, of course, and almost immediately that baby earns identifiers based on weight, appearance, behavior during labor and pregnancy, not to mention that uncanny resemblance to Great Aunt Matilda. We define each other and ourselves, at the beginning and at the end, by our role and by our relationships.

In our Gospel lesson today, Jesus has reached a transition. Up to this time, we have heard about his birth and the immediate aftermath – the wise men, the flight to Egypt and so forth. One or two critical events of his young life are recorded and suddenly we have leapt forward in time well into Jesus’s adulthood. This is, as it turns out, the end of John the Baptist’s ministry, and the birth of Jesus’s.

In Luke’s account of the baptism, there is no drama, no fanfare. A crowd of seekers, sin-sick and soul weary, have gathered at the banks of the river Jordan with John the Baptist. Their lives as they see them are not complete – their identities not fulfilled in their current roles and relationships. They search John’s message for a glimpse of the glory of God, the hope of new beginnings. In the the Gospel of Luke, there is no special, separate baptism for Jesus, no direct interaction between Jesus and John. Jesus waits unnamed, unmarked among the hopeful. He is washed with the same water. He stands in community with the lost and the broken, identifying himself with the ordinary sinner. And then, he prays. He turns to that relationship that is most important to him. He opens himself to the Holy Spirit. He prays.

And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Such an affirmation as we all long to hear, or more realistically to feel deep within. This is the promise of baptism. This is not at all the Father’s congratulations on his Son’s good works. Jesus’s ministry hasn’t even begun yet. This is a simple statement of an identity-forming relationship, a relationship of love, a connection of creation. “You are my own, and I love you.” It is a relationship God offers us as well. Our baptism is the sign and seal of our own already established identity as God’s children.

We are baptized only once. If you were baptized in the Episcopal church, or in most liturgical churches, you probably don’t remember that baptism. Most likely it was accomplished before you had developed sufficient cognitive ability to swallow your own spit, much less the ability to form a commitment to a lifelong convenant with God. Although the actual baptism happens only once, our lives are an on-going opportunity to relive and renew that relationship. As Gregory of Nazianzus said, “Christ is bathed in light; let us also be bathed in light. Christ is baptized; let us also go down with him, and rise with him.”

In a few minutes, we will renew our baptismal vows. This begins with a statement of faith, the Apostle’s creed, and then asks a series of questions: Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers? Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord? Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ? Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself? Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being? These promises are not simple; they cover all aspects of our lives, thoughts and behaviors, both public and private. There is an excellent reason the suggested response to these is not “I will.”, but rather, “I will, with God’s help.”

As my colleague did, as that new baby already was, as Jesus did, we take our identities from our roles and our relationships as well as our characteristics. I am mother, wife, priest, doctor, daughter, citizen. God offers us a relationship. “I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.” He does not hold back the waters, the fires still burn, but God walks with us. God walks with us in our ordinary lives lending them shape and meaning , if we choose to walk with him.

May we hear the Voice above the waters whispering ‘Beloved’. May we be Baptized into your unseen hope. May we heed the call to go with Christ into sacred spheres of ordinariness. Amen (adapted from the Rev. Suzanne Guthrie, Come to the Garden, January 7.)

Epiphany of the Lord

Isaiah 60:1-6, Ephesians 3:1-12, Matthew 2:1-12

“Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you.” The star of the Christ has risen, and the glory of God Emmanuel will be revealed this day by math-loving, star-gazing, camel-riding, travel-weary followers of Zarathustra. Somehow, I missed that detail of prophecy in my Old Testament classes.

Those wise men, those magi, so at home, so comfortable, in our Christmas stories and Christmas pageants. We’re so used to them, we’ve given them a number, names – Melchior, Caspar and Balthazar and appearances – they are traditionally portrayed one with European, one with Asian and one with African features. The gospel provides none of those details. We forget they were pagans, taking their religious cues from the stars, not from the Jewish prophets. They were scientists, studying the ways of the world, particularly the ways of astrology, a respected science of their day. These scientific followers of an exotic religion were the first to recognize the Christ child. God met them on their own terms. God used their own faith, their own knowledge, and nature itself to draw them to Himself. As Miguel de Cervantes Saavadra reminds us, “Many are the roads by which God carries his own to heaven.” With the magis’ journey the reality of God among us becomes the story of all God’s people, not just the chosen ones of the Hebrew scripture. Their story is one of the limitless and sometimes unexpected reach of God.

The author of third Isaiah, from which today’s Old Testament reading is taken, writing 6 centuries earlier, knew nothing of the baby to be born in Bethlehem. Isaiah wrote to another another time, another people, but nonetheless drafted a message of inclusion. Isaiah lived in a world divided. This part of the book of Isaiah was written in the 6th century BCE. The jewish exiles were coming back from Babylon. Jerusalem was in ruins, conditions were extremely harsh and conflict was rife between the people who had stayed in Jerusalem rather than going into exile, and people who now returned from exile. Isaiah wrote in stirring beauty of the glory of God and the gifts of God, not for those who stayed, not for those who returned, but for all God’s people, all the nations.

Paul lived in world divided. On the one hand there were the jews, and on the other hand there were the-people-in-the-world-who-aren’t-jewish, otherwise known as “Gentiles”. Paul, as Saul, travelled the first part of his life’s road firmly in the camp of the jews, persecuting any threat to that culture and that way of life, most especially anyone following the nascent Jesus movement. With his own epiphany, his own revelation on the road to Damascus, Paul came to understand the mystery of Christ, the “boundless riches of Christ”, and to proclaim them to jew and to gentile, in other words, to anyone who would listen, “to make everyone see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things”.

We live in a world divided. Republican and democrat, conservative and liberal, haves and have nots, religious and irreligious, radicals and moderates, criminals and law-abiding citizens, us and them, me and everybody else. We live in a real world with real threats and ugliness and danger. The wise men travelled hundreds of miles through desert following a rising star and the call of their hearts expecting to meet a king. They knelt in the must and the muck of a dirty stable and paid homage to the Christ child. Paul left a very secure job as a torturer of infidels to spend his life in poverty and in jail in order to proclaim the good news of Christ to all. Herod protected his own. His own wealth, his own power, his own life. Herod’s life revolved around protecting Herod and the status quo.

Do we imitate Herod, sharing his fear and pouring ourselves into self-protection? Or do we dare risk a few steps along the path of the magi, finding God in the unexpected places? Do we declare with the prisoner Paul the promise of Christ to all? Would we welcome all the world, and I do mean all, in the name of the Christ child? I quote Shel Silverstein, children’s author and Playboy artist (I did mention that God speaks in limitless and unexpected ways, did I not?) Will we proclaim with Mr. Silverstein, “If you are a dreamer, come in. If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, a Hope-er, a Pray-er, a Magic Bean buyer; if you’re a pretender, come sit by my fire…Come in! Come in.”?

That welcome means risking a journey, spiritually. It means risking change. Change is a fearful thing, is it not? People may look at us funny, wonder why, turn away if we suddenly shift from being one of “us” to welcoming “them”. Dickens told a basic truth in the person of the transfigured Scrooge, a character who had certainly followed a journey.

“Some people laughed to see the alteration in (Scrooge), but he let them laugh, and little heeded them, for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed, and that was quite enough for him.”

On Christmas Eve, Lynn said, “Let this church in this place be the manger where new light enters the world. Let us embrace the child born in our midst. We have, each and every one of us, come from far and wide to be here together to greet him.” Today is the Feast of the Epiphany. Today we celebrate the light of Christ, the road of the Magi to pay homage to him, the radiance of God’s love expressed through Him. As we travel our own roads, live our own transformations, may we carry that very light out into the world, and may the hearts of all the world laugh and sing and dance in the light of Christ.

Advent 4, C

Luke 1:39-55

The story of two women. Mary and Elizabeth. Mary we know well enough. She’s never far from the Christmas story. Elizabeth is less familiar. Like so many biblical women, she has long been barren. As we join her story today, by the grace of God and against all odds, she is at long last pregnant; carrying the future John the Baptist within her womb. Her husband, a priest, has been struck dumb by the angel Gabriel for his disbelief of his really quite unbelievable situation. Elizabeth is the relative young Mary has traveled long, hard and apparently quite urgently to see. In her poem “Visitation”, Anne Giedinghagen writes in the voice of Elizabeth.

I was months into the heaviness
Of child-carrying,
swaybacked and swollen, and my husband
Mute as an old stone—
So that I heard it all the louder when Miriam’s shout
Reached me from the dust-choked road outside.
I raced out to see her standing there,
Glowing with sweat, her body just beginning
To take on a mother’s curves beneath her robes.
And then the child that nestled sweet
Beneath my heart
Leapt—not a simple turning, not a kick,
But jumped as if some new and secret joy
Had set him dancing: and it was then I knew—
Knew who it was she bore within herself.
Later some would call it solemn, grand; but truthfully,
We laughed as we embraced: breast to breast,
Cheek to smiling cheek,
And I know that both our sons
were laughing too,
in that way of old friends meeting
after years,
when all time seems as nothing,
and the space
between lives collapses
into grace.

“The space between lives collapses into grace”. It’s hard to believe, as we look around at the hustle and bustle of it all, but there is still time for the space, still time for the grace. It is not Christmas. Not yet. We are still in the solemn, introspective, preparatory season of Advent. But as we draw ever closer – ever closer to the the time of Emmanuel, of God with us, the joy rises and the song bursts forth.

In a prophesy inspired and punctuated by the dancing awareness of her unborn son for the presence of the divine, Elizabeth recognizes, greets and blesses her young relative.

A shy smile or murmured thanks proving simply inadequate, Mary renders one of the best known, most well loved songs in all of the bible. Putting a full stop to all action, Mary’s song of joy, praise and recognition of a just, loving and palpably present God bursts from her in the passage we now know as the Magnificat, or Mary’s song.

Although Mary and Elizabeth (and arguably the unborn kinsmen John the Baptist and Jesus) were the only people present when Mary’s hymn burst forth unbidden, her words have made their way into our minds and our worship, present in both morning and evening prayer.

Has her song made it into our hearts? Has her song become our song?

Didn’t know you had a song? Jack Kornfield, in “A Path With a Heart” shares the story of a tribe in Eastern Africa. In this tribe, they do not determine a child’s birthdate by the day it enters the world, or even from conception. A child’s life is reckoned from the day the child becomes a thought in the mother’s mind. As soon as she determines to conceive a child, the mother goes off alone to sit under a tree and to listen. She sits and she listens until she hears the child’s song. When she and the child’s father join together to have the child, she teaches the father the song, and they sing it together. She sings the song to the child throughout the pregnancy, and teaches it to the midwives so that they can sing it as she labors and as the child is born. After the baby’s birth, the song is taught to all the village. As the child reaches milestones, or when it falls and needs comfort, or with any needs, the village sings the song. When the grown child marries, the song of the newly joined husband and wife are sung together, joining the songs and the couple together. At the end of the person’s life, the song will be sung at the death bed, for the last time.

What is your song?

I cannot speak for your mother. I feel quite secure in my assertion that mine never, ever sat alone under a tree listening for my song. We are Episcopalian. That is not our way. Still we have songs. They are the lullabies, cheers, and laments sung by our parents, our communities, our friends; the marriage songs sung by our partners; the hymns sung by our church. In addition, in the bustle of our world, we are bombarded by additional songs; the commercial ditties of consumerism, status and wealth, the fight songs of fear and self protection; the pop culture songs of apathy, of entertainment, of self. All these songs mold and change our lives.

God offers us another song. He shares it through Mary. He has given us Mary’s song. “Ah, but I am not Mary,” you say. “The mother of God, Blessed Virgin, Queen of Heaven. I am just, well, ordinary.” Remember the real Mary. Not a queen, not exalted. A teenage peasant girl, uneducated, pregnant out of wedlock. As ordinary as ordinary can be. Traveling on foot through rough country to connect with her kinswoman in a difficult time. Yet, from within her lowliness, her humility, her everyday life she listens. She recognizes the God of love and justice, and embraces the song of her heart that flows forth to God. That is how God comes to us. Through the lowly, the ordinary, the everyday. That is the point. You are Mary. I am Mary.

As christian mystic Meister Eckhart said, “We are all meant to be mothers of God. What good is it to me if this eternal birth of the divine Son takes place unceasingly, but does not take place within myself? And, what good is it to me if Mary is full of grace if I am not also full of grace? What good is it to me for the Creator to give birth to his Son if I do not also give birth to him in my time and my culture? This, then, is the fullness of time: When the Son of Man is begotten in us.” “The Spirit of God still wants to dance on the water of our lives, the wombs of our hearts, to give birth again to the Christ in us.” (Rev. Fred Demaray, private communication, Midrash, 2012)

Let us open the ears of our hearts. The child in our ordinary, human souls will dance as it recognizes the divine in the here and the now, as the Prince of Peace is carried in our hearts, our souls, our lives.

If you would be, you are Mary. If you would listen, her song is your song. To live that song is to mold and change the world.

May our souls ever magnify the Lord, our spirits rejoice in God our Savior. Amen