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I have to confess to being stumped this week when I began to consider today’s sermon. I looked at all the scripture texts in the lectionary for this Sunday, and none of them seemed like they would “preach.” Particularly this Psalm: “The voice of the LORD is over the waters; the God of glory thunders . . .The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars . . .The voice of the LORD flashes forth flames of fire. The voice of the LORD shakes the wilderness . . .” Upon first reading, I thought, “well, that’s a lovely image, but it just doesn’t resonate with our human experience.”
I have a feeling you might agree. Most of us would probably say that we don’t hear the voice of the Lord “thundering,” and “breaking the cedars,” and “flashing like fire.” Most of our days pretty much consist of routine pleasures, persistent worries, and regularly scheduled crises, and are pretty devoid of thundering and fire-flashing and cedar-breaking, let alone hearing the voice of the Lord.
So, I thought, how in the world do I make a sermon out of a text like this? Then I chucked a little at myself, “What was I thinking? Of course the voice of the Lord thunders.”
Sometimes the voice of the Lord rocks our lives so powerfully that it seems fire is flashing through our lives, and cedars are toppling around us. Remember the words? “. . . one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.” And if the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. – words that inspired a nation and roused a generation to rise up and live the dream of freedom and justice – were not the voice of the Lord speaking to our age, I don’t know what they were. Those words crashed like thunder across our land, and shook the forests of apathy until the timbers cracked. Oh, the voice of the Lord thunders!
That voice is so powerful it can take a mere idea, and with a flash of fire, mold it into a mighty social force we call the Church, spanning the globe and breaking the barriers of language, class, and culture. After all, what is it that calls us into being, calls us together, and holds us in communion but the word of the Lord? That word is a voice, and it shakes the foundations of our lives. You hear that word in sermons, but it’s not my words that matter. It’s the word in which our words are grounded — the word of ancient and timeless scripture that is amplified until it thunders in our ears. And more than that, it’s the mysterious word of the Spirit that flashes through our worship like fire.
I never know how that Spirit will be manifest here. I’m often amazed at how befuddling this task of preaching is. I might spend twenty hours preparing a sermon that I believe is one of the best things I’ve done. I’m proud and eager to bring this gem to you that I’ve polished, and it leaves everyone cold. On the other hand, I have prepared sermons that I simply never quite got a handle on, and had to walk into the pulpit embarrassed that I was bringing such a dog before these good people, only to have folks leave the sanctuary with tears in their eyes, proclaiming that it was the best sermon yet. And often times, the very point of the message is lost on the listeners, who nonetheless pick up on some minor element, or a word in passing that resonates with a deep crisis or need in their lives, and they go away fulfilled — by nothing I ever intended, or even noticed that I said. And it happens in the music from our wonderful Michelle and Pat. People can be absolutely swept up by the Spirit of the Lord through the music here. It can happen in the stillness of silent prayer; sometimes, if we bring our heart’s concerns earnestly to that moment, the quietness can roar like thunder. When we come together, centered on the word, that thunderous voice speaks to us.
You see, it’s not a matter of how good a sermon writer, or preacher any of us is, it’s not even how beautiful the msic is (although it is), it’s not how dramatically or eloquently someone reads the scripture lesson, it’s the truth of the Lord’s voice thundering through our worship, in spite of the meager words offered that can lift us up to the throne of grace.
And the voice of the Lord “shakes the wilderness” of our daily routines in ways that we seldom even notice. As I said last week, we hear the word ‘epiphany’ used quite a bit these days. This past Monday was the day in the church year we call Epiphany. As I said, it refers to Christ’s manifestation to the world, symbolized by the visit of the magi, being the first gentiles to see him. But now, the word is used to refer to just about any new insight or awareness that someone has. Maybe that’s appropriate, because a sudden disclosure of essential meaning or an intuitive grasp of reality through some simple, striking event, can most assuredly be the voice that “causes the oaks to whirl, and strips the forest bare.”
Although I didn’t see the movie, I’m told the film Jerry Maguire had just such a moment. As the lead character, played by Tom Cruise, sits at his computer late at night, the computer screen begins to glow with a mysterious aura. McGuire has an epiphany, and he pounds out on his keyboard a whole new “mission statement” for his sports management company. With this new mission, the company will be less focused on maximizing profits, and more on developing strong relationships with clients. Everyone loves the statement, except, of course, his boss, who fires him.
But we all know, it is from such ideas that great things can come. Each of us has had moments when truth has broken into our world without invitation or warning, and started turning everything upside down. Don’t kid yourself; the voice of the Lord thunders.
Today’s Psalm offers two very important lessons about that voice. First of all, it’s not a vague, general voice, spoken equivocally to an indeterminate audience. It’s a voice with rifle precision. It doesn’t just make trees break and bend. No, it breaks the cedars — and not just the cedars, but the cedars of Lebanon. It’s a voice with aim. It doesn’t just rattle trees; it shakes the wilderness of Kadesh. So, don’t come to church looking for broad references that will fall down on everyone’s ears like the rain, and leave them to go home dripping with platitudes. If you’re going to come sit in these pews, you’d better strap yourself in, because somewhere in the scripture, or the sermon, or the anthem, or a prayer, the voice of the Lord is going to engage you about something very near and dear to your heart, something very specific in your own life or world. And it can hit you with a power that makes the oak trees whirl!
The other thing we can glean from this Psalm about this voice is that, when the word comes to us, we can recognize it by the content. The clue is in the last verse of the Psalm: “May the LORD give strength to his people! May the LORD bless his people with peace!” That’s a fitting conclusion, because when the voice of the Lord rattles your cedars, you can figure it’s going to be about one of two subjects: strength or peace.
The divine word will either find a way to strengthen you (even if it means refining your gold in the fire of adversity), or that word will endeavor to give you peace. And if you’re really paying attention, there’s usually a share of both adversity and peace to be found in its message. I truly believe that it is the purpose of worship to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable. But more than that, I believe it’s the way life works; it’s the yin and yang of creation. The world is filled with powerful messages that will salve your wounds when you are broken, and knock you off your pins when you are full of yourself. Those messages are echoing around you all the time with a voice that cracks the trees. All that’s required is for you to stop and pay attention.
So if someone wonders why nobody hears God’s voice anymore like they did in the Bible, you say to them, “Are you kidding? The voice of the Lord thunders!”
How many times in recent memory have you heard someone say, “I had an epiphany the other day!”? The word in our culture has become synonymous with a bright idea, or a new thought. Etymologically, it’s actually come almost full circle from its origins. The original word was Greek, epiphaneia, meaning a disclosure or revelation. In the New Testament epiphaneia was used frequently to refer to a spectacular appearance of or intervention by God. As the doctrines and rites of the early church crystalized into orthodox traditions, the word was used almost exclusively to refer to the first manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles – those magi from the East (or “three kings” of the famous carol), and hence, the annual celebration of that story. In time, we returned to using the word epiphany more broadly to refer to any manifestation of God, and finally, we are now back to something close to the original Greek meaning: it’s just something that’s revealed or appears to us.
I think this little etymological excursion is very “revealing” (if you will). It’s a wonderful illustration of the interplay between the sacred and the secular. The early church picks up a common Greek word and makes it into holy language, then the culture re-embraces the word and re-secularizes it. That’s a lot of what the story of Epiphany that we celebrate today is all about.
In this season, the retelling of the story of the wise men warms our hearts and reminds us of Christmases long ago, of moments in the spotlight wearing a raggedy bathrobe and a crape paper crown, or standing outside someone’s door with scarves thrown around our necks against a chilly wind singing “We Three Kings.” The fact that the origins of the story are obscure, and that, nonetheless, the visitors mentioned in the account were certainly not kings, and there weren’t necessarily three of them doesn’t diminish the joy of its telling. It’s a wondrous tale, and it was, I believe, meant to be just that.
It was, among other things, a declaration of the majesty of this singular moment in history, a moment of such profound meaning and transcendent power that even the stars were moved in their courses to mark it. But it was more than that. These wise men bring something besides precious gifts; they offer to Jesus and to us a radical vision of the world as it could be – a vision so daring and so sweeping that its implications are still not fully grasped by us.
“. . .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.’” If we take a moment to figure out just who these guys were, and what part they played in this story, we just might catch a glimpse of the Divine vision, and discover the astounding message buried within the message of the manger.
“Wise men” as we read it in our Bibles is an English translation of the Greek word μἀγοι, or magi. The magi were originally a priestly class of Medes, but the term came to be used of astrologers in general. The center of astrology, since the third century, B.C. had been in Mesopotamia. So, when Matthew refers to Magi from the East, he is no doubt speaking of Babylonian Astrologers. Now, it’s important to note that such astrologers were regarded in New Testament times by many devout Jews and Christians as evil. They were foreign practitioners of a strange brand of semi-religious sooth-saying that stood in total contradiction of their conception of God – the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob – the God of John and of Jesus.
Astrology was a very ancient practice. These Babylonian mystics conceived of the ecliptic (the apparent orbital circle of the Sun) as being divided into 12 equal parts, or zodiacal signs. As these signs rose successively in the eastern sky, they foretold the fate of those who were born beneath them. These ancient astrologers cataloged a list of omens that were indicators of divine will, and predicted when evil would befall individuals. For many astrologers, there was an element of polytheism in their practice. The sun and moon and planets were regarded as gods.
So, when Matthew casually recites in the opening verse of the second chapter of his gospel that Magi from the East came to Jerusalem, having seen a significant star in the sky, we need to try to hear that phrase with more ancient ears. We need to hear it with the ears of those first century Christians to whom it was addressed. To do that, maybe we should translate it into words that might hit our 21st century ears in the same way. For instance: “In the time of President Biden, after Jesus was born in Philadelphia, Shi‘ite Muslims from Western Afghanistan came to Washington, asking, ‘Where is the child who has been born your king? For we learned about him while participating in a righteous Jihad.’” The parallel is imprecise, but the shock value may be close.
These Magi from Babylon were not part of the club! They not only weren’t believers in the “one true God,” they were foreigners from the land of an ancient rivalry who couldn’t have a clue about what the Lord was doing in bringing a Messiah into the world. But this is how Matthew chooses to begin the story of the birth of Jesus. In Matthew’s telling, except for Joseph, these Babylonian astrologers were the first people on the planet to receive a sign from on High that Jesus, the Messiah, was born in Bethlehem. They were the first! Not the temple priests. Not devout Jews looking for the coming of the Holy One. Not by a dream with a vision of angels and stairs to heaven. Not by a voice speaking from the clouds or a burning bush. No, it was these Babylonian morons who actually believed in astrology – that destiny could be interpreted from the stars and planets. And they received the message by seeing the star of Jesus rise in their zodiacal system! Can you even begin to imagine how that choice for the very beginning of the story of the birth of Jesus blew the minds of those first Christians?
Let’s be honest about it, most of the time we think Jesus is part of our club. Rationally, we know that every culture on the planet has their own depiction of Christ with different pigments and facial characteristics, but deep down, we think all those Chinese and African and Hispanic pictures of Jesus are a little silly, don’t we? Jesus looked like us, right? (Not really). And if Jesus were born today, our big question would be: who would he have supported for President? Well, here’s a concept – what if Jesus weren’t a Democrat or a Republican or an independent, what if he were born in Ethiopia? Now, wouldn’t that mess up your mind?
Here’s the power and breadth of Matthew’s vision: the Lord of this Universe transcends just about everything we hold sacred. That Lord is bigger than any boundaries we establish, breaks down every wall we put up between human beings. If the Lord chooses to communicate something of ultimate importance to those we would brand as heathens, so be it, or chooses to infuse an astrological sign with profound meaning, well, just put that in your pipe and smoke it. If the Lord of All decides to knock us off our pins by going against everything we hold dear, get used to it.
One of my favorite all time movies is Fiddler On the Roof. You may recall that Tevye, the milkman, explains that in turn of the century Anatevka they keep their balance through “Tradition!” Throughout the film, Tevye carries on a conversation with God, whom he regards as in control of everything and always there to hear his every question and complaint. He talks to God even as his world starts to fall apart. The traditions that have held everything together for generations are crumbling around him. One by one, his daughters take up with men and violate the sacred rules and parameters of marriage. First, his daughter, Tzeitel, gives a pledge of marriage to a man without having her marriage arranged by the matchmaker! Then, Hodel falls in love with a man, and together they come to Tevye seeking not his permission to marry, but only his blessing! All this is head-spinning for poor Tevye, who in each case talks to the Lord and to himself, trying to get his mind around these changes to the institution of marriage. “No matchmaker? No permission from the pappa?” But in each case, he finally comes to accept the new way. Then, the third daughter, Chava, goes too far. She falls in love with the enemy. She decides to marry a young Russian soldier. For poor Tevye, this is too much. If he bends that far, he says, he’ll “break.” So he disowns Chava, and tells his wife their daughter is dead to them. Everyone’s heart is broken. But Tevye is caught within the walls of his own traditions, the same traditions that help them all to “keep their balance.” He sees these traditions as sacred; they are the very embodiment of the Lord’s will. But what Tevye seems to learn through the course of the story is that will is a far larger thing than he can begin to imagine. And it seems to keep getting larger and larger. Finally, in the end, there is a hint that Tevye will learn that will is larger even than his definition of “the enemy.” As they all prepare to leave Anatevka for the last time, and Chava and her soldier are going off down the road, he looks up and says, “May God be with you.”
Not only Tevye, but perhaps, Joseph Stein, who wrote the story of Anatevka, might be blown out of their shoes and socks by the redefinition of marriage taking place in America today.
There is a new world coming. There is always a new world coming. And it’s always a bigger, broader, more inclusive world than any of us is prepared for. The Lord of Life has great plans for us. And our circumscriptions and orthodoxies frequently do more to impede those plans than to promote them. That which we consider secular, even profane, can be inspired with sacred meaning, and that which we hold sacred may serve to separate us from our brothers and sisters, and ultimately from that Lord of Grace.
Matthew begins his Gospel with a thunderous overture. And these strange visitors from the East deliver the message with unmistakable clarity: there’s a new kind of king born in Bethlehem, and it’s a new kind of kingdom; and it’s bigger than you think.
I almost chose to not preach from the lectionary this week. None of the scripture readings seemed to grab me. Until I took a second look at this passage from Luke’s gospel. And here’s what I read all over again for the first time: “And when he was twelve years old, they went up as usual for the festival. When the festival was ended and they started to return, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. Assuming that he was in the group of travelers, they went a day’s journey.” – “they went a day’s journey.” Think about that for a minute. Mary and Joseph left this city for home without their twelve-year-old son, and didn’t notice that he wasn’t anywhere around for an entire day of traveling. Now, those are some seriously laid-back parents. Their inattention is written off with this simple explanation: “Assuming that he was in the group of travelers . . . .” They had just been in a major city, about sixty-five miles from the little town where they lived – a three or four day journey by caravan – and when they left, they didn’t bother to make certain their twelve-year-old son was with them – “Assuming that he was in the group of travelers.” Now, there’s a Bible story for you. But it gets better. After traveling for a whole day without him, they finally figure out he’s not there, so they head back to the city to look for him. It’s a big city. They search for three days! I don’t know about you, but in those circumstances I would be just about at my breaking point. When I finally did find that kid sitting in the temple talking with the rabbis I wouldn’t know whether to squeeze him and slobber all over him for joy, or strangle him! Here’s what Mary did: “When his parents saw him they were astonished; and his mother said to him, ‘Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.’ He said to them, ‘Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?’” OK, that’s when I decide to strangle him. “But,” scripture says, “they did not understand what he said to them. Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them. His mother treasured all these things in her heart.” She “treasured all these things in her heart.”
The picture I’m getting is of parents who give their twelve-year-old an unbelievable amount of rope, and who aren’t terribly anxious about what he’ll do with it. As far as his mother is concerned, the whole episode seems to have been a treasured learning experience. I don’t know, maybe it’s because people didn’t live as long back then so life was more compressed, but it seems that these parents were already well into the process of letting go of this boy – of giving him wings and letting him fly on his own – at twelve. But it’s clear that the boy was letting go of the apron strings as well. When his parents found him, he said, “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” A rather precocious twelve-year-old, to say the least. So, it finally sunk in to me that this story is about letting go. And I figured that’s a pretty apt theme for this last Sunday of 2024, a time for letting go of one year as we reach for another.
You and I tend to cling to so much. And, at times, our death-grip on the things of our lives can be strangulating. We cling, of course, to our possessions. I was walking down the driveway to the mailbox the other day when I spotted a squirrel running off through the underbrush toward a tree. I had an instant, silly thought. I said to myself, “The foolish little animal thinks this is his land. It’s not; it’s my land, and he doesn’t even know it.” Then, of course, I chuckled a bit at myself. It’s not my land any more than it’s his. We’re both just using it while we’re alive on this earth. Some other humans like myself have some pieces of paper on file somewhere claiming that I and my wife “own” this property, as if any creature can own the land beneath its feet. Those pieces of paper on file don’t really make it more mine than the squirrel’s. It’s all just part of the planet that we both happen to be inhabiting for the moment. That realization caught me a little off guard. I want this to be our land. There’s something comforting in the thought of holding that possession. It gives me a sense of security. But changing my outlook, and letting go of “our land,” also felt a little liberating to me. I wonder how much any of us might mature as human beings if we were able to let go of our sense of ownership – of that need to cling to possessions as if we ourselves were the center of a constellation of things that make us important. And that sense of ownership can also be extended to our children. letting go of them is especially hard. But Mary and Joseph are good examples. When a child is given wings and plenty of space, it can be a wonder to behold how they can fly. Letting go of the things to which we cling might actually allow us to have greater respect for those around us, our neighbors, our children, and maybe even the squirrels.
Simone Weil offered a vision of this kind of letting go. She wrote: “To empty ourselves of our false divinity, to deny ourselves, to give up being the center of the world in imagination, to discern that all points in the world are equally centers and that the true center is outside the world, this is to consent to the rule of . . . free choice at the center of each soul. Such consent is love. The face of this love, which is turned toward thinking persons, is the love of our neighbor.”
I tink she’s got it right. We not only hold tight to our possessions, perhaps we hold even tighter to ourselves – or, more accurately, the sense of ourselves – the identity we have created for ourselves over a lifetime of working, relating, and creating. The problem with our desperate hold on this identity is that it’s an attempt to cling to the past, to all that we have known and valued about ourselves and our world. And we are not allowed such a luxury. Life is a dynamic, evolving thing. At times, it seems the only constant is that everything changes. So we are called upon to let go of the past. At regular intervals in the course of our living the parameters of our lives change, the particular challenges to be faced change, even our identities must change.
The pastor and writer, Mike Yaconelli, offered a vivid image of this reality in an article before his death a number of years ago. He wrote: “Once you find where [God’s] trail is, you are faced with a sobering truth in order to go on, you must let go of what brought you here. You cannot go on without turning your back on what brought you to this place. It is like swinging on a trapeze. Once you have gained the courage to swing, you never want to let go . . . and then, without warning (around age 50, for me), you look up and see another trapeze swinging towards you, perfectly timed to meet you, and you realize you are being asked to let go and grab onto the other trapeze. You have to release your grip. You have to reach out. You have to experience the glorious terror of inbetween-ness as you disconnect from one and reach for the other.” I think Yaconelli’s trapeze image is a great one to “hold on to” – so to speak. Every stage of life, it seems, involves a letting go of one bar to reach for another. That can be a very frightening prospect, but it’s absolutely essential.
Ultimately, what all of our years are preparing us for is letting go of life itself. That’s the final challenge. I have spoken to you before about my brother, Bill. In his final days with ALS disease, somehow, he managed to hold on. But in the larger sense he had been letting go – through a remarkable and inspiring process. I believe I’ve related to you before his words to me after his diagnosis. He said that if he could choose a way to die, this agonizingly protracted withering away would be his choice. Because, in his words, “death is the last great adventure in life, and I don’t want to miss a minute of it.” That’s facing into death, and a form of letting go that I have found unbelievably courageous and has inspired me ever since.
Michael Jinkins, the President of Louisville Seminary, writing in the Christian Century some years ago, asked, “. . . ‘What happens when we die?’ I think I would have to say now, ‘We let go.’ . . . Faith is a matter of learning to let go, to entrust ourselves to God. When we die,” he says, “we really do let go. Like a tiny infant unable even to hold onto her mother’s finger, unable to grasp and pull ourselves up, we let go when death is here, and in letting go we are tacitly entrusting all we are to God for whatever may come.”
So, here we are at the doorstep of another year. In truth, January 1st will probably be virtually indistinguishable from December 31st. But all the emotional freight attached to the turning of the calendar makes it a very convenient time for this sort of reflection. The child left behind in the big city and finding his way to the temple and to his future is, in some ways, our story. It summons us to consider what we are letting go of, and what we might be reaching for. The answers to that query may differ among us, but the basic reality is the same for us all. Freedom, growth, and grace in living require that we loosen our grip, so that our hands will be ready to find what the Lord and the future have in store.
I wish for you all open hands, open arms, and open minds; and a very happy New Year.
During these Sundays we have been exploring the Advent themes of Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love reflecting on scriptural passages and poems that I have chosen for each. The last Advent candle on the wreath is the candle of Love. And today I want to look at Love in a way most of us may have never considered. We will approach the manger of Bethlehem and ponder what this Love is that has been born into the world and lies sleeping on the hay. The poem for this morning is a wonderful piece by Robert Frost. It’s titled “Choose Something Like a Star” and you’ll find the words printed on an insert in your bulletin:
O Star (the fairest one in sight),
We grant your loftiness the right
To some obscurity of cloud –
It will not do to say of night,
Since dark is what brings out your light.
Some mystery becomes the proud.
But to be wholly taciturn
In your reserve is not allowed.
Say something to us we can learn
By heart and when alone repeat.
Say something! And it says “I burn.”
But say with what degree of heat.
Talk Fahrenheit, talk Centigrade.
Use language we can comprehend.
Tell us what elements you blend.
It gives us strangely little aid,
But does tell something in the end.
And steadfast as Keats’ Eremite,
Not even stooping from its sphere,
It asks a little of us here.
It asks of us a certain height,
So when at times the mob is swayed
To carry praise or blame too far,
We may choose something like a star
To stay our minds on and be staid.
I hope you will not mind if this morning’s sermon is not as logically structured as some. Instead, I want to take the poet’s prerogative and allow my thoughts to wander a bit through the darkness and the stars. Hang in with me, please. It is my sincere hope that in the end I will come out in some comprehensible place.
According to the legend in the Gospel of Matthew there was a star that arose in the sky, sending magi from the east to search for a child who had been born to be king of the Jews. This was a most unusual star, indeed. Not only did it appear newly in the sky, but it moved and stood so directly over a stable in Bethlehem that the wise men could find the precise spot. You and I know that this is simply a story – that stars are objects more than a million times the size of our planet and are thousands of light years distant. We know that a star that somehow moved through the cosmos and stood in a place above the little town of Bethlehem to mark the spot would have incinerated and vaporized our planet long before it reached its position above the stable. But all this is perhaps asking too much of this sort of star. It is asking it to:
Talk Fahrenheit, talk Centigrade.
Use language we can comprehend.
Tell us what elements you blend.
When, really, all a star has to say is, “I burn.” Indeed, our Christmas legend, like Frost’s poem, is metaphor through and through. And you cannot ask a metaphor to adhere to the laws of physics. Frost complains a bit about this, objecting that the star’s nature is cloaked in some “mystery”, and although allowed “some obscurity of cloud” it is not to be “wholly taciturn” and keep all its secrets from us. And the star simply replies, “I burn.”
That reply reminds me of the answer Yahweh gave to Moses on Mount Sinai when asked to disclose the divine name. The Lord said simply, “I Am Who I Am,” and then said if anyone asks my name tell them it’s “I Am”. That is a significant parallel for this morning’s theme especially considering what the apostle John had to say about “I Am.” In the first letter of John, we find these amazing words: “. . . everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.” That’s another doozy of a metaphor. But God as Love may be a lot more on target than our picture of an old man with a long white beard sitting on a cloud. Clearly, it is the Almighty’s preference to not be pinned down any more than the star wants to be: “I am” is enough, as is “I burn.”
While we’re on the subject of metaphors, at this time of year we celebrate the birth of Jesus, but we also regard that birth as a “Light” coming into the world. In the opening verses of the gospel of John, we hear this Light being spoken of as pre-existent. John says (echoing the first verse of Genesis), “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . . What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.” John goes on to say that this “Word became flesh and lived among us . . . .” John sees in Jesus the very light of Divinity – indeed, the light of Love. And he says this “light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”
We all need some light in the darkness. I’ve made an interesting discovery. For most of my life I found the darkness to be quite unsettling. I suppose it goes back to my childhood and fearing the monsters that might lurk in the dark shadows of the room. But whenever I went out of the house at night, I always took a very large flashlight, actually one of those dry cell lanterns that can light up the countryside – you never know what ferocious beasties might be out there in the woods waiting to devour you. But at some point I was surprised to discover that I actually enjoyed going out in the darkness (sans flashlight); the darker the better. I would go down in the mornings before the sun is up to get the newspaper (back when we still got a newspaper delivered in the early morning hours). We have a very long driveway – over four hundred feet, and it winds its way down and up and around to get down to the road. On moonless mornings, walking down the driveway when it is so black outside that I couldn’t quite make out where the drive is, or where the woods are for that matter, became a singular thrill. I made my way down by memory and by the faintest of all lights, the stars. Flashlights are very helpful, and indeed “when you’re in the dark, get a flashlight” is good advice. But it’s amazing how little light you actually need sometimes. That faint, tantalizing, mysterious light of a distant sun compels us, since we’re talking metaphors, to keep moving through the darkness, searching, discovering, finding not just the mailbox at the end of the driveway, but deeper answers.
It will not do to say of night,
Since dark is what brings out your light.
Some mystery becomes the proud.
But to be wholly taciturn
In your reserve is not allowed.
All the star wants to say is, “I burn”; all that the Lord wants to say to say is, “I am”; all the baby in the manger wants to do is cry; but when push comes to shove there’s more to learn. The light of Love that was born on the hay in Bethlehem is the child who grew to ride into the teeth of destruction on the back of a donkey, who healed, and spoke, and stood for justice, goodness, and human compassion, and defended reason and grace over against blind allegiance to dogma. And this he did even though he knew it would cost him his life. This was the Love he taught, and lived, and revealed. This was the light that he brought into the world.
I loved reading Anthony Doerr’s book, All the Light We Cannot See. The story made clear that one of the major sources of darkness is the cloak of intimidation, information control, and brutal repressiveness that was the standard operating procedure of the Nazi regime during World War II. And the “light” that transcends this darkness is to be found in the integrity, courage, and basic human goodness of individuals who rise above the bleak, temporal power of those like the Third Reich. It’s also clear that Love is a key in finding that light.
Love, as Jesus lived it, is made real not only in kisses and soft words, but in the courage to live for others, to give oneself to the cause of justice, to even sacrifice oneself for that which transcends ugliness and spite and endures beyond the grave. Beneath the baby’s cry from the cow stall, if we continue to probe, we discover a world of profound meaning. And if we continue to push the star for its secrets, we must ask more of it than how it burns, more of it than, as Frost says:
But say with what degree of heat.
Talk Fahrenheit, talk Centigrade.
Use language we can comprehend.
Tell us what elements you blend.
No, we must find the deeper truth it discloses. Standing in the dark, looking up in wonder at its unchanging, steady light, if we are fortunate we might be led by it to a manger in Bethlehem and behold some good news for our lives that might bring to us a great joy. It is what Frost tells us we gain after patiently prodding the star for its secrets. We find:
It gives us strangely little aid,
But does tell something in the end.
And steadfast as Keats’ Eremite,
Not even stooping from its sphere,
It asks a little of us here.
It asks of us a certain height
It asks perhaps just enough height to live for Love and rise above a Nazi machine, just enough height to teach Love and transcend the schemes of the Jerusalem Sanhedrin trying to protect their orthodoxy or the brutality of the Romans dispassionately stifling any resistance, just enough height to calmly proclaim Love and stand above those who panic in the face of terror attacks or call for a modern day crusade against Islam. To maintain such a height requires of us a certain degree of steadfastness – the same quality we see in those dots of light in the night sky. Frost refers to it as being “steadfast as Keats’ Eremite.” The reference is to another poem, one by John Keats that begins:
Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art –
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite . . .
For Keats also there is something grand in the dependable, ceaseless vigilance of a star. He compared it to an Eremite, a Christian hermit. And Keats wished he himself were as steadfast as the star. Although he didn’t want to be a monk, he wanted his steadfastness to be found in the comfort of his “fair love’s ripening breast.” Well, that’s OK too. Love is Love. And being steadfast in love means not turning away from it. It means not turning away from the tenderness and affection. It means not turning away from the challenge of confronting the hateful. It means not turning away from the risk of living for others. It means finding and maintaining a certain height,
So when at times the mob is swayed
To carry praise or blame too far,
We may choose something like a star
To stay our minds on and be staid.
Put another way: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”
Have a blessed Christmas.
It seems almost like trying to gild the lily to offer a sermon after the beautiful sky, the wonderful music, and the lighting of the Advent candle this morning. But I am, after all, a preacher, and you can’t put me in the pulpit without expecting to hear me prattle on about something.
But, seriously, folks, this morning we are continuing the Advent pulpit series in which I am focusing on not only scripture but poems I have selected to deal with the Advent themes of Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love. Today, instead of prattling on, I am sharing some words about something that is at the very beating heart of everything I hold dear and, in some form or another, what I preach about every Sunday: Joy. And in doing so, I’m lifting up a marvelous poem by Carl Sandburg, titled simply, “Joy.” You’ll find it printed on the insert in your bulletin:
Let a joy keep you.
Reach out your hands
And take it when it runs by,
As the Apache dancer
Clutches his woman.
I have seen them
Live long and laugh loud,
Sent on singing, singing,
Smashed to the heart
Under the ribs
With a terrible love.
Joy always,
Joy everywhere –
Let joy kill you!
Keep away from the little deaths.
This poem has been swimming around in my head in one way or another for a long time. It is an elegant statement of something that pervades and animates every sermon I try to deliver. I believe there is something – call it God if you like – that calls to us from the deepest place of our souls and pleads with us to, as Sandburg puts it, “reach out with your hands” and take joy “when it runs by”, to “let a joy keep you.” Being kept by joy is indeed a treasure worth grasping. It becomes a way of life. It is not a fleeting burst of excitement like an eight-year-old running downstairs into the living room on Christmas morning. Those moments are indeed wonderful and not to be diminished. But joy is something much deeper and more profound. To be kept by joy is to discover that wondrous gift of divinity being born within you. That is, I believe why Elizabeth and Mary were so overcome when it was found that Mary was pregnant with Holiness itself. And Mary was wise enough to know that this joy she had found was larger than the moment, larger than herself. It was offered “from generation to generation.” And it had to do with filling “the hungry with good things,” and with the kind of “mercy” that lived in “the promise made to ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.” Joy is larger than the moment. It takes you beyond yourself. It is deeper than any occasion or feeling.
In the immortal poem “An die Freude” or “Ode to Joy” Friedrich Schiller addressed joy, referring to it as a “schöner Götterfunken,” or “beautiful Godspark” I love that turn of phrase. It describes joy as something totally divine and totally beyond comprehension. He says that “Wir betreten feuertrunken, Himmlische, dein Heiligtum!” or “We trespass, drunk with fire, on heaven your sanctuary.” For Schiller (and for me) joy is so holy a thing that we can so easily stumble our way through life recklessly disregarding its wonder and life-giving power. And that power is also the glue that can, if everyone is open to it, bring people together as if in a family. He writes:
Deine Zauber binden wieder
Was die Mode streng geteilt;*
Alle Menschen werden Brüder*
Wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt.
Your mystical power binds togeher
What routines of habit tear apart,
All men become brothers
Where your soft wings sway.
Joy – the kind of joy that blows away our habitual disregard for one another, and wells up from the Divine image that lives in every human breast – the kind of joy that abides in the midst of all trials and traumas, heartaches and losses – that holy joy can be the glue that holds together people of differing backgrounds, races, nations, opinions, and personalities. This morning, as I was wandering around in Face Book, I saw something Judy posted that caught my attention. It was a quote from Teddy Roosevelt: “Comparison is the thief of joy.” That’s it! When we stop sizing up other people and making ourselves feel greater or more gifted, we can be open to the joy that lives in every heart if it is only awakened.
The immortal Howard Thurman, in his book, Deep Is the Hunger, offers a rich description of the kind of joy I’m talking about. “What is the source of your joy?” he asks. “There are some who are dependent upon the mood of others for their happiness. They seem bound in mood one to another like Siamese twins. If the other person is happy, the happiness is immediately contagious. If the other person is sad, there is no insulation against his mood. There are some whose joy is dependent upon circumstances. When things do not go well, a deep gloom settles upon them, and all who touch their lives are caught in the fog of their despair. There are some whose joy is a matter of disposition and temperament. They cannot be sad because their glands will not let them. . . . There are some who must win their joy against high odds, squeeze it out of the arid ground of their living or wrest it from the stubborn sadness of circumstance. . . . There are still others who find their joy deep in the heart of their religious experience. It is not related to, dependent upon, or derived from, any circumstances or conditions in the midst of which they must live. It is a joy,” he says, “independent of all vicissitudes. There is a strange quality of awe in their joy, that is but a reflection of the deep calm water of the spirit out of which it comes. It is primarily a discovery of the soul, when [God’s presence is made known], where there are no words, no outward song, only the Divine Movement.” He concludes, “This is the joy that the world cannot give. This is the joy that keeps watch against all the emissaries of sadness of mind and weariness of soul. This is the joy that comforts and is the companion, as we walk even through the valley of the shadow of death.”
No one could more eloquently get to the heart of things than Thurman. This joy he writes about is the “abundant life” of which Jesus spoke in our reading from John, an abundance in living that he said was why he was doing everything he did; it was what he came to offer. It is found in the unshakeable connection to the Heart of Being that is faith. And it can hold a person securely as might infinite, divine arms through all the high mountains and dark canyons of life. But such joy, treasure that it is, does not come cheaply. It does not make the “valley of the shadow of death” vanish among the hills. It does not vanquish the “emissaries of sadness of mind and weariness of soul.” Indeed, true joy opens itself to such pain, because it need not hide from it. Sandburg offers this truth in the powerful image of an Apache dancer who:
Clutches his woman.
I have seen them
Live long and laugh loud,
Sent on singing, singing,
Smashed to the heart
Under the ribs
With a terrible love.
Sandburg is wise enough to know that grasping joy is akin to seizing love, knowing that your hands finally will be burned. Love that is full and rich and powerful is terrible; it can smash you to the heart; it never comes without some ultimate pain. My life is not a bed of roses, neither is yours; noone’s is. And so joy that holds a person through life never offers shelter from the hurricanes. Carl Sandburg knew that. He left school at age thirteen and worked from that time on: as a milk wagon driver, a porter, a bricklayer, a farm worker, a hotel servant, a coal heaver before he ever took up writing. He knew even as a small child how hard life could be. But clearly he found something in life that convinced him that the cost of joy, like the cost of love, was worth every farthing. Looking into the eyes of one another, we find the truth we are seeking. We know that other lives, like our own, will not be without traumas. But we also know that there is something to be found here when we lift up our hearts together and touch the holiness of Divine Joy that will bind us together and hold all of us securely through all our days.
Carl Sandburg’s final word of advice is ours, and it is seasoned with a caveat. You can try to escape from life’s pain by burying your soul in greed, or work, or frivolous escape, or alcohol, or self-pity. But those are all simply “little deaths.” If you must succumb to something in the end, “Let joy kill you.”
Our headlines are full of destruction, death, and disaster. Turkish backed rebels have captured the cities of Aleppo and Hama in Syria and are now at the gates of Damascus; North Korean troops have joined the Russians in their ongoing assault on Ukraine; Israel continues to pound Gaza in retaliation for it’s invasion last year. How can we come here this morning and celebrate the angels’ song of peace on earth? That is the question staring us in the face today as we continue the pulpit series on “Poetry for Advent”. This Sunday, I have chosen to draw upon the words of Denise Levertov; you’ll find her poem, “Making Peace” on the insert in your bulletin:
A voice from the dark called out,
“The poets must give us
imagination of peace, to oust the intense, familiar
imagination of disaster. Peace, not only
the absence of war.”
But peace, like a poem,
is not there ahead of itself,
can’t be imagined before it is made,
can’t be known except
in the words of its making,
grammar of justice,
syntax of mutual aid.
A feeling towards it,
dimly sensing a rhythm, is all we have
until we begin to utter its metaphors,
learning them as we speak.
A line of peace might appear
if we restructured the sentence our lives are making,
revoked its reaffirmation of profit and power,
questioned our needs, allowed
long pauses. . . .
A cadence of peace might balance its weight
on that different fulcrum; peace, a presence,
an energy field more intense than war,
might pulse then,
stanza by stanza into the world,
each act of living
one of its words, each word
a vibration of light – facets
of the forming crystal.
Her poem speaks volumes about the disturbance in our souls that seeps in over the morning coffee and the bloody headlines. She uses the metaphor of poetry itself to place the realities of our world and its challenge in front of us. “. . . peace, like a poem,” she writes, “is not there ahead of itself.” She could not be more right. The peace we seek not only fails to arrive ahead of itself, it seems to always remain beyond itself – beyond reach. It is very hard to know how we get from this bloody mess that is the world we’ve created to the blessed ideal of peace on earth. Jesus knew that. As he approached Jerusalem two thousand years ago he saw the same bloodstained streets that we encounter today. And Luke tells us that he wept over the city and said, “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace!”
But although this poem of peace that Levertov speaks of “can’t be imagined before it is made” she does give us clues about those “things that make for peace”. Crucially and powerfully she refers to “Peace, not only the absence of war.” There is a world of meaning in that simple phrase. When we bring to mind the hope of peace, you and I so often think merely of how to keep the guns and missiles and bombs at bay. We imagine that if only the people of the earth would stop killing each other we would have peace. And I admit that if everyone would at least stop killing one another that would be a great start. But it is not peace. Peace’s poem
“can’t be known except
in the words of its making,
grammar of justice,
syntax of mutual aid.”
Simply put, peace without justice is no peace. Peace without hearts and hands ready to reach out to others in compassion is no peace.
So, where does this leave us? It leads us back to ourselves and to the wisdom found in this epistle of James: “Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom. But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be boastful and false to the truth. . . . For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind.” Levertov puts this bluntly:
“A line of peace might appear
if we restructured the sentence our lives are making,
revoked its reaffirmation of profit and power,
questioned our needs . . . .”
This is where the dream of peace on earth begins. It begins with the hard work that is done in each of our hearts. It begins with our learning and exercising the capacity to question the primary place that profit and power hold in our culture and our lives.
And make no mistake, profit and power reign supreme in our land. The profits of the gun industry are sufficient to fund broad scare campaigns that convince millions of otherwise rational Americans that sensible, reasoned regulations having to do with firearms sales mean that the government is coming to take your guns away. It’s not that I don’t understand the knee-jerk reaction; when I read the headlines these days something within me wants to reach for a gun too, but I’ve been around long enough to know that more guns just mean more bullets fired into more bodies. As a former police officer, let me tell you that I agree with a New York Times editorial that said, “It is a moral outrage and a national disgrace that people can legally purchase weapons designed specifically to kill [other people] with brutal speed and efficiency.” I grant you, gun control is not a “silver bullet” – if you’ll pardon the analogy – but it is a very significant step in trying to tamp down the rampant gun violence pervading our culture.
However, it is not only the machinations of power and profit on a grand cultural scale that is our concern, it is ultimately our task, as Levertov puts it, to question our own needs; because that’s where this hard work of crafting the poetry of peace begins. Questioning our own needs means considering the possibility that the needs of others are just as significant, and in some cases more significant. That ultimately leads us to the hardest part of this task, to allow “long pauses. . . .”
Most of us, most of the time, do not pause . . . much. We are busy setting our agendas, filling our needs, making our points, structuring our worlds. We may take short pauses to catch a breath, but they are not the stuff of peace. Long pauses . . . are those large gaps intentionally carved out of our lives that make room for the other. To pause long . . . is to lift one’s head and look; it is to open one’s eyes and see; it is to consider that which lies outside of one’s own needs, interests, and points of view. And that is where peace begins. It begins there because it is only in the long pauses . . . that room is made for something other than the hectic self-absorption that leads finally to winning and losing, control, dominance, and violence. Thomas Howard speaks of “The ordinary stuff of our experience” that reflects much larger issues and realities. He writes that “The sarcastic lift of an eyebrow carries the seed of murder since it bespeaks my wish to diminish someone else’s existence.” He acknowledges that this is not a new insight to most of us but, like Levertov, he knows it is the domain of the poet to make it real. He writes, “The prophets and poets have to pluck our sleeves or knock us on the head now and again, not to tell us anything new but simply to hail us with what has been there all along.”1
So this morning I bring you a brand new idea that is older than the ages: First, practice taking long pauses . . . . Be the peace you want to see come to the world, because that is the only way it will ever come. As Denise Levertov puts it,
“. . . peace, a presence,
an energy field more intense than war,
might pulse then,
stanza by stanza into the world,
each act of living
one of its words, each word
a vibration of light – facets
of the forming crystal.
And so, peace be with us and among us. And may we not simply practice peace, but may we learn to pause long enough to be peace.
1 Thomas Howard, The Novels of Charles Williams, Wipf & Stock, 2004, p. 18.
This morning I begin a four-part series for Advent in which I am bouncing off of not only scripture but poetry. I have chosen poems that I feel help us look more deeply into the traditional Advent themes of Hope, Peace, Love, and Joy. For today I have chosen two poems (you’ll find them printed on your bulletin insert). One of them is very familiar to many of you, I’m sure. It is from Emily Dickinson:
“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –
And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm –
I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of Me.
I love this poem. An old dear friend of mine once said that you can tell a poem by whether it “flies” or not. I think this one has sufficient wings. I think what grabs me most about it is the punch line: this hope – this “thing with feathers” – “. . . never, in Extremity, It asked a crumb – of Me.” That brings me to my first observation: hope is not an achievement; it is not earned or acquired with any amount of effort of meditative discipline; it is a divine grace; it is an absolutely free gift. Nonetheless, it seems at times elusive. When the trials and traumas of life mount up, hope can seem to be hiding somewhere – or, according to another poet, bottled up somewhere.
We’ve all heard of Pandora’s box. In our popular culture Pandora’s box is the mishmash of problems mistakenly opened up by some unsuspecting soul. But in the ancient poem from which this notion is taken, Pandora doesn’t actually have a box; it’s a jar. The poem is “Works and Days” by the ancient Greek poet Hesiod. In this epic work Hesiod doesn’t reveal a very high view of women. Pandora is sort of the archetype of all women, and an unflattering one at that. He writes:
The gods’ herald then gave her voice and called this woman
Pandora because all the gods who dwell on Olympos
gave her as a gift – a scourge for toiling men.1
At any rate, Zeus gives a jar full of woes to Epimetheus – which Pandora then opens, apparently on secret orders from Zeus, to release all the evils it contained: hardship, numberless sorrows, and diseases. But for some reason, Pandora was under orders from Zeus to put the lid on before Hope could escape. Hesiod writes:
but the woman with her hands removed the great lid of the jar
and scattered its contents, bringing grief and cares to men.
Only Hope stayed under the rim of the jar
and did not fly away from her secure stronghold,
for in compliance with the wishes of cloud-gathering Zeus
Pandora put the lid on the jar before she could come out.2
Hesiod never explains why Zeus wants Hope to remain trapped in the jar, but the implied assumption is that, with the lid on the jar, men will have only trouble and sorrow with no access to hope. It feels like that sometimes. But I personally like Thomas Bullfinch’s take on the ancient story. He writes, “The whole contents of the jar had escaped, one thing only excepted, which lay at the bottom, and that was hope. So we see at this day, whatever evils are abroad, hope never entirely leaves us; and while we have that, no amount of other ills can make us completely wretched.3
With apologies to Hesiod (and Zeus) Hope is not bottled away from humanity for all time. But it is hard to get a handle on and at times elusive. In truth, I’m preaching an entire sermon about something I don’t entirely understand. I know when Hope – that “thing with feathers” – alights in my soul and makes me mindful of the inexplicable gift it is (that it “never asked a crumb of me”). But I’m not entirely sure from whence it came or wither it goes.
The prophet Jeremiah spoke of a very specific Hope. He writes, “The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land . . . .” And we in the Christian Church hear those words as a prophetic hope that was fulfilled in the person of a baby born in a cow stall. And that specific object of Hope – Jeremiah’s Hope and mine – does indeed offer guidance and a light (however diffuse and flickering) with which to see through this world’s often dark path to the justice and righteousness that the Branch of David would execute. But even that light which we celebrate in this season does not entirely illumine the shadowy corners of our experience or fill our hearts with the constant glow of Hope.
What Jeremiah’s affirmation does suggest, however, is that whatever Hope is, it seems to be allied with that other inexplicable and elusive commodity, Faith. I know I’ve tried at least a dozen times in sermons here to offer words that give some metaphorical shape to this thing called Faith (perhaps also something “with feathers”). One of the finest expressions of Faith is offered in our other poem for this morning from Byron.
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.
“Mingling with the Universe” is for me a most elegant expression of the essence of Faith. Indescribable as the experience of it may be, it is most palpable in those moments “in the pathless woods,” or when “There is a rapture on the lonely shore.” It is a sense of not merely knowing, but feeling down to the heart of one’s soul, a participation in the ageless, timeless, boundless Life of all Being. Byron has an equally hard time describing it. He speaks of what it is to, “feel What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.”
For me, the great goal of life is to take those indescribable moments in the woods or at the shore and make them a constant awareness in the depth of my heart – to feel myself mingling with the Universe in every minute of every day: at home in the living room, out at the grocery store, or driving in the car. That’s the closest I can come to telling you what Faith is to me. And it reveals quite a bit about what Hope is to me. Hope is the free gift that comes with Faith – that unshakeable connection with the Heart of Being that in Byron’s words is “the Universe”. When such Faith takes up residence in our hearts, Hope, like a precious bird, alights in our world as a wondrous gift.
But you and I don’t live from day to day and hour to hour in that place of wonder. Instead, we are often like the victims of Zeus’s pranks, living as though Hope were bottled in a jar somewhere with the lid firmly closed while trouble and sorrow harass us like the flying monkeys in the Land of Oz. Worries about our world and its fate, distress about our families, and embarrassment over our failures swirl in our heads and hearts. And the maddening part of it all is that so many of our fears, worries, and troubles are of our own making. It is as though we are frequently stuck in life-draining patterns from which we don’t even know how to think about escaping. Rick Barger writes that, “The hold of the ‘rat race’ is that it works like an addiction. We know we are on a merry-go-round and do not know how to get off of it. Instead of jumping off, we keep buying more tickets. As Saint Paul writes, ‘I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate’ (Romans 7:15).”4
Barger’s image is perfect: we keep buying tickets on the merry-go-round. But I know there is a way off of it. I can’t give you a simple prescription this morning, because indeed what we seek is as elusive as “a thing with feathers”, and is something we might “feel What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.” But the Apostle Paul in his letter to the church at Rome gives us a hint that perhaps even our struggles and woes comprise a good starting point. He writes, “suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us.” Maybe he’s right. Maybe one has to be on the merry-go-round for a time before one knows enough to get off. I have a feeling that a good jumping off place may be discovered “in the pathless woods” where a certain pleasure might be found, or “on the lonely shore” where one might experience rapture. Or, perhaps it may be as simple as opening one’s heart to make it a kind of perch for “a thing with feathers.” In any case, my prayer and my Hope for you and for me in this season of lights is that we may by the miracle of grace approach the manger of Bethlehem and find ourselves mingling with the Universe, and our souls visited by Hope.
1 “Works and Days” in Hesiod, Second Edition, Translation by Apostolos N. Athanassakis, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004, P.67, lines 81-83.
2 Ibid. Lines 95-100.
3 Thomas Bulfinch, Bulfinch’s Mythology , Dell Publishing, 1966, p. 96.
4 Rick Barger, A New and Right Spirit: Creating an Authentic Church in a Consumer Culture, The Alban Institute, 2005, pp. 21-22.
I’d like everyone to open their red hymnals to number 18, “All People That on Earth Do Dwell.” Keep the hymnal open in front of you as we proceed; you’re going to need it.
This simple, brief Psalm 100 that Jim read this morning may seem like rather lean gruel to feed an entire sermon, but as we all prepare to sit down to a sumptuous feast this Thursday I’d like to remind us that there is as much meaning and power hidden beneath the lines of this psalm as there is hidden in our annual Thanksgiving dinners. In fact, I intend to argue this morning that thanksgiving can change your life, not to mention the world. It ain’t just a big dinner.
Psalm 100 is one of the most familiar of all the 150 of them. Many of us cut our teeth on it in Sunday school. But it has a fuller and richer background than most of us have ever considered. It was a sort of liturgical hymn (or, actually two hymns stuck together) reserved for the occasion of the thank offering. In some respects, it’s a relic of the first Thanksgiving – which did not happen when the pilgrims sat down with the Indians; it happened thousands of years ago. The thank offering in ancient Israel was a special service of gratitude to the Lord that involved a great feast and offerings. When all the worshipers approached the Temple for the service of thanksgiving and thank offerings it was a great, solemn procession. And as they came to the gates of the Temple, a choir at the front of the procession would sing a hymn which consisted of the first three verses of this psalm. We’re going to be that choir this morning. I’d like you to sing the first two verses of the hymn, “All People That on Earth Do Dwell” which is a rephrasing of this Psalm 100.
[The congregation sings verses 1&2]
Then, another choral group waiting at the temple gate would sing another hymn in response (which consists of verses 4 and 5 of the psalm). We’re also going to be that choir this morning and sing together the last two verses of our hymn.
[The congregation sings verses 3&4]
Thank you for being our two choirs. You can put your hymnals away now.
Additionally, this psalm is a kind of creed – a concise statement of the core affirmations of Judaism. The elements of this creed are: The Lord is God (in other words, Yahweh is the ruler of the Universe), God is the creator of all that is, we (the Israelites) are God’s people, God is good, God’s kindness is eternal, and God’s faithfulness endures forever. This is their shared religious faith in a nutshell.
So, get this picture: there is a great feast and celebration, and all the people join in a huge procession to the Temple, the choirs sing these words antiphonally, and every Israelite knows them by heart. They are the essence of their faith, the great affirmations that bind them together as a people. It’s like one enormous family coming together for a Thanksgiving dinner and finding common purpose and spirit in the joy of their shared heritage.
But you and I know that this blissful oneness is extraordinarily rare around our real Thanksgiving dinner tables. Aunt Martha who loves to hear the sound of her own voice drones on about absolutely nothing while everyone is obliged to nod approvingly while glancing at the clock. The in-laws who are on the opposite side of the political spectrum are all there because they have to be invited, but everyone trips over their own tongues trying to avoid any potential land mines of conversation topics. Johnny shows up with a new girlfriend who, to mother’s absolute dismay, is covered in layers of Goth make-up. And just when everyone seems to have their annoyances and frustrations in check, Sarah speaks up and asks about leaving after dinner to go see her friend, which sets dad off on a tirade about how she doesn’t respect the family traditions, Junior jumps in to her rescue, and all the sudden we’re off to the races. Does any of this sound familiar?
Well, the blissful picture of that ancient thank offering celebration is also not entirely on target. In fact, there was in ancient Israel a long standing dispute between the Levitical priests and the prophets. There were even divisions among the priests about correct interpretation of the Torah, and its applications to daily life and worship. We see those divisions still brewing in the time of Jesus, who was himself a bit of a renegade coming from a more liberal region and challenging the Jerusalem rabbinate. You know about aunt Martha, and the in-laws, and Johnny, and Sarah, and Junior at the Thanksgiving table, so you know that those ancient priests and prophets and their followers did not leave their differences at home when they joined the procession to the Temple.
But here’s the thing. They did join the procession; and they did bring their thank offerings, and they did sit down together at the great feast; and they did all hear these magnificent words sung by the choirs as they approached the holy gates. It was a time to be thankful for the Lord’s blessings, and in that gratitude they found a strange kind of unity in the midst of their not insignificant differences.
Thanks-giving cannot make us all agree. Being thankful cannot heal every rift. But thankfulness can bring people together around the table. And that’s not nothing. If people who prayed to the Almighty using different names could nonetheless find common cause in their thankfulness, and if that table of thanksgiving were large enough, maybe we could get a lot of folks around it: Russians and Ukrainians, Palestinians and Israelis, Sunnis and Shias, American Christians and ISIL Islamists. That may sound a little like “pie in the sky” but I tell you it may ultimately be the only way we finally save ourselves from mutual destruction. If humanity is given enough time to grow up, we just may discover that in shared thankfulness there is not only this strange kind of unity, but there is a major shift in perspective, and there is abundant joy to be found. And that joy can conquer tyrants and all their armies.
William Willimon writes about a friend of his who “was active in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. He helped organize churches to protest against, to march against, to defy, and to attempt to overturn the unjust, racist laws. ‘One of our most potent weapons,’ he said, ‘was joy. The oppressors just can’t stand for the oppressed to be joyful. By refusing to be miserable, we were refusing to let our oppressors define us. We took charge of things. We turned things around and demanded to be the final word on the situation. Joy is a powerful protest against the forces of death and injustice.” Willimon says, “So is thanksgiving.”1
But the unity, the joy, and the enlarged perspective that grow out of thankful hearts is not only for the high and mighty, it’s for you and for me. As all the characters in our family dramas gather ’round the turkey and dressing we have an opportunity. It is the chance to test out the power of thanksgiving to change our lives – to find out if, indeed, being truly thankful together helps us to affirm common ties, injects into our lives a bit of joy, and causes us to see our points of view, peccadillos, and personality clashes in a whole different light.
There’s a great Fred Craddock story from the time when he was Professor of Preaching at Candler School of Theology at Emory University. He was asked at the last minute to teach an adult Sunday school class. Fred was a little reluctant because he didn’t have much time to prepare but the one who called him told Dr. Craddock that it was an easy lesson, the familiar parable of the Prodigal Son. So Fred agreed to do it. When the class started, Craddock read the parable from the King James Version of the Bible, right down to the place where the prodigal son came back home and the father came out to greet him. But at that point Fred continued as if he were reading from the Bible, and said, “And the father said to his son, ‘How dare you show up here after all the shame you’ve brought on this family! You’ve made your bed. Now lie in it. Don’t come back here again until you’ve gotten a haircut and a decent job.’” Craddock stopped. There was a long silence. Finally, someone sitting in the back row said, “Well, that’s what he should have said.”2
You and I know how the story actually came out. There were hugs and tears, and a great big, family dinner. It all happened because the father was so filled with thankfulness that his son was home that he could not scold, complain, or even offer a brief sarcastic shot. His world had been changed. He couldn’t get past his joy. The older brother, you may recall, couldn’t get past his bitterness. He was unable to find that thankful heart that could have changed him. So he sat on the stoop and pouted. He missed out on the family dinner. Thanks-giving changes everything.
Your Board of Trustees is initiating our annual stewardship campaign. They’ve mailed out pledge cards for the coming year. But perhaps this time could also be used as an opportunity, as Nowell and Mike did this morning, to share our stories of life in this church family, to discover your hopes and disappointments, and your joys and celebrations. Today, following worship we are all invited to help decorate for the Christmas season. Linda Bevan is providing salad rolls as a special luncheon treat. Maybe we could take the opportunity to give thanks – to give thanks for one another, thanks for our mutual dedication to the work of the kingdom, thanks for the church and its ministry and mission. We might consider our salad rolls to be a kind of shared meal of thanks-giving. I hope you will all come and join in the celebration. And I hope that spirit of joy and thankfulness will carry all the way to Thursday and beyond. After all, it ain’t just a big dinner.
1 William Willimon Pulpit Resource, August16, 2009.
2 This story has been retold and adapted over time. What may be the original version is found in: The collected Sermons of Fred B. Craddock, Westminster John Knox, 2011, p. 175.
Today’s Gospel reading comprises the well known “beatitudes” from Jesus’ sermon on the mount. They’re called beatitudes because they are all regarded as statements of blessing (or “beatification,” if you will). Nine of the verses begin “Blessed are . . .” I’d like to offer a new rendition of the beatitudes – one that’s a little more realistic, and based on life as we know it to be:
When the leader saw the poll numbers and market potential, he went on television; and after he sat down on the set, the cameras started to roll. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:
“Pitiful are the poor in spirit, for they fail to take pride in themselves and in their heritage.
“Pathetic are those who mourn, for their lives aren’t happy like they’re supposed to be.
“Ridiculous are the meek, for they will be crushed beneath the feet of the strong.
“Clueless are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they haven’t figured out that it’s all about wealth and power.
“Gullible are the merciful, for they will be unlikely to receive mercy themselves.
“Delusional are the pure in heart, for no one is pure any more, and we all know it.
“Naive are the peacemakers, for they will fall victim to the guns and bombs of the war makers.
“Hopeless saps are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the fate of all starry-eyed believers.
“Justified in righteous indignation are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely. Strike out and get revenge, for your reward will be a sizable settlement for damages and mental anguish, for in the same way they persecuted others and got away with it, but not any more.
Now, doesn’t that sound a little more like it? I mean, let’s get real – “The meek . . . will inherit the earth?” Just exactly how is that supposed to transpire – if we all just bow our heads, and shuffle our feet, and shrug our shoulders, the terrorists are going to stop bombing us and give us flowers and kisses instead? Give me a break. How un-American can you get?
When was the last time you felt “blessed” because you were “poor in spirit, mourning, meek, or persecuted?” I daresay, most of us have felt cursed when those things befall us. How in the world did Jesus get his values so upside down?
Well, as I’m sure you can guess, I think it’s not Jesus whose values are upside down. Here’s the big question for us: how do we get from where we are in this world, to where Jesus is? If I could answer that question in fifteen minutes, I’d go on TV myself. But I do have some thoughts to share with you that just might help kick-start your own thinking about it.
The first observation has to do with the reward Jesus is offering to the “poor in spirit” and those who are persecuted. He says, “theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” He doesn’t say that they’ll get into the kingdom of heaven, or even that they will have the kingdom of heaven. It’s present tense, possessive case. In other words, these people have the kingdom of heaven. All the other beatitudes have a future tense reward: “they will be comforted . . . they will inherit the earth . . . they will be filled . . . they will receive mercy . . . they will see God . . . they will be called children of God.” But when it comes to the Kingdom of heaven, the poor in spirit and the persecuted have it. What does it mean to have the kingdom of heaven? I can’t say what it means to you, but here’s what it means to me.
Heaven may have something to do with life after death, but it’s the heaven in the here and now that means the most to me. Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is, depending on how you translate his words, “within you” or “upon you”, or “in the midst of you.” That doesn’t mean life is a blissful romp through the daffodils. You and I have been around the block enough times to know that’s not the case. I think it means that existence is perfect – it’s perfectly magnificent. Yes, I know, there are 367 different kinds of suffering, and evil sometimes overwhelms us; reality bites, but, as Woody Allen said, “it’s the only place to get a good steak.”
When I was divorced, many years ago, I was devastated. I had lost my family, I had lost my home, I had left my job. I have never felt so alone in my life. I was fortunate enough at the time to find a very wise therapist who didn’t try to rescue me from that loneliness, but pushed me deeper into it. Groping around in that darkness, I discovered a resource I never knew was there – it was the comfort of simply being – being alone in my own presence. I made an amazing discovery in that time. It is that existence is a magnificent thing, and it doesn’t require of you that you be happy in order to drink of its joy. Pain, and aloneness, and depression, and darkness, and evil, and all the other things we fear most, are not ultimate things. They’re part of the mix – along with pleasure, and beauty, and passion, and meaning. And to be part of it all, to exist, to embrace existence without having to fight it or flee from it, that’s perfection.
I think that’s why the “poor in spirit” and the “persecuted” have the kingdom of heaven. Because those on the other side, the proud and the persecutors, are so engaged in trying to hammer existence into a form that suits their fancy that they entirely miss the heaven that’s “upon” them.
Jesus is, I believe, calling us to a deeper kind of living, a kind of “submarine life’ that rides beneath the froth and foam of distractions, pleasures, and pursuits that fill our hearts. I believe he’s calling us to an entirely different set of values than we are accustomed to. He lifts up those who are “poor in spirit,” the “meek,” the “merciful,” the “peacemakers” as models. He says that these people ‘get it.’ Can you imagine how far a political leader would get today advocating the values of the sermon on the mount? He’d be driven out of office – laughed out of town.
This sermon preached by Jesus on the mountainside is his inaugural address. It’s his “state of the Kingdom” speech, offered at the very beginning of his ministry. And he begins it by giving us a new set of values. They are not the values of sexual propriety, or having a nuclear family with 2.5 children, or striking down indecency on television, or defining in absolute terms the beginning or end of life. No, what Jesus offers us are attitudes – attitudes that transcend our preoccupation with pleasure, and power, and self-protection, attitudes that reflect a deep appreciation of being. They are “be – attitudes” if you will – attitudes of being meek and merciful, poor in spirit, hungering and thirsting for righteousness, and being peacemakers. To develop and hold such attitudes is to move gracefully into the art of being, and to have the kingdom of heaven.
I’m sure you’ve all noticed that I usually offer an appropriate quote from Frederick Buechner in the bulletin. He’s a great resource for inspiring and creative thinking and writing. He died just over two years ago, and today, if you’ll bear with me, I’d like to take the opportunity to share with you some rather lengthy, but worthwhile thoughts from Buechner on the Beatitudes.
He writes: “If we didn’t already know but were asked to guess the kind of people Jesus would pick out for special commendation, we might be tempted to guess one sort or another of spiritual hero—men and women of impeccable credentials morally, spiritually, humanly, and every which way. If so, we would be wrong. Maybe those aren’t the ones he picked out because he felt they didn’t need the shot in the arm his commendation would give them. Maybe they’re not the ones he picked out because he didn’t happen to know any. Be that as it may, it’s worth noting the ones he did pick out.
“Not the spiritual giants, but the “poor in spirit,” as he called them, the ones who, spiritually speaking, have absolutely nothing to give and absolutely everything to receive, like the Prodigal telling his father “I am not worthy to be called thy son,” only to discover for the first time all he had in having a father.
“Not the champions of faith who can rejoice even in the midst of suffering, but the ones who mourn over their own suffering because they know that for the most part they’ve brought it down on themselves, and over the suffering of others because that’s just the way it makes them feel to be in the same room with them.
“Not the strong ones, but the meek ones in the sense of the gentle ones, that is, the ones not like Caspar Milquetoast but like Charlie Chaplin, the little tramp who lets the world walk over him and yet, dapper and undaunted to the end, somehow makes the world more human in the process.
“Not the ones who are righteous, but the ones who hope they will be someday and in the meantime are well aware that the distance they still have to go is even greater than the distance they’ve already come.
“Not the winners of great victories over evil in the world, but the ones who, seeing it also in themselves every time they comb their hair in front of the bathroom mirror, are merciful when they find it in others and maybe that way win the greater victory.
“Not the totally pure, but the “pure in heart,” to use Jesus’ phrase, the ones who may be as shopworn and clay-footed as the next one, but have somehow kept some inner freshness and innocence intact.
“Not the ones who have necessarily found peace in its fullness, but the ones who, just for that reason, try to bring it about wherever and however they can—peace with their neighbors and God, peace with themselves.
“Jesus saved for last the ones who side with heaven even when any fool can see it’s the losing side and all you get for your pains is pain. Looking into the faces of his listeners, he speaks to them directly for the first time. “Blessed are you,” he says.
“You can see them looking back at him. They’re not what you’d call a high-class crowd—peasants and fisherfolk for the most part, on the shabby side, not all that bright. It doesn’t look as if there’s a hero among them. They have their jaws set. Their brows are furrowed with concentration.
“They are blessed when they are worked over and cursed out on his account he tells them. It is not his hard times to come but theirs he is concerned with, speaking out of his own meekness and mercy, the purity of his own heart.”1
I think Buechner put his finger on it. And here’s what I believe with all my heart: if I could, and you could, and followers of Christ around the globe could actually adopted these attitudes of being, it
1Originally published in Whistling in the Dark and later in Beyond Words
You’ve probably heard enough sermons on this passage about the “widow’s mite” to choke a big, muddy pig. I’ve preached a ton of them too. They’re always stewardship sermons – sermons about how this poor woman who only had mite, gave it as an offering, and so we too should give sacrificially. Well, I’m not preaching a stewardship sermon this time, and my sermon title is not a typo. If you’ll excuse the play on words, I’d like to share a few thoughts about the might, the amazing power, displayed by this woman of faith – a power that could change your life, and change the world.
I want to begin by sharing my unshakeable conviction that what we are about here – here in this church – is the most important thing going on in the world. That may sound like hyperbole, but it’s not.
What’s the biggest problem we’re facing in our world or in our nation today? Is it a fragile, teetering, global economy in which the disparity between the rich and poor keeps growing and threatening an eventual breakdown of the social order? If so, what’s the solution? Some say it’s more government regulation, some say it’s less. Some say it’s socialism, some say unrestrained capitalism. Here’s the honest truth, as deeply as I can peer into it: no government regulation, no expanded freedom, no economic system, no “ism” can solve this problem, because every system can be beat, every regulation can be skirted, every law can be loopholed, every structure can be manipulated. The only thing that can finally bring economic justice and optimal prosperity to the greatest number of people is if the minds and hearts of human beings are changed on a massive scale, and mutual and community interests, fairness, and generosity, overshadow self-interest and greed.
Is the greatest problem we face today the overuse of resources that threatens our environment with pollution and global warming, and raises the specter of wars being fought over food, water, and land? If so, what’s the solution? Maybe we’ll find some miraculous technological fix that will allow us to continue our global population growth and increasing use of natural resources without dire consequences. But something tells me mother earth has clear limits that will be imposed one way or another. We need, at least, new minds and hearts, recalibrated to learn perhaps from our American Indian brothers and sisters to live more in harmony and partnership with the land and the trees, and the sky. We need to rethink our values, and our definitions of good life and good communities.
Is the greatest threat we face from radical religious fanatics, bent on carrying out holy war? If so what’s the answer? Will more bombs and tanks make us secure? Will squadrons of unmanned drones armed with guns and missiles do the trick? Not according to our best military and diplomatic authorities. The only way to bring security in the long run is to win the battle to change minds and hearts. And if the minds and hearts of our enemies are going to change, I suspect it’s going to involve some changing of our own minds and hearts.
That’s what we’re doing here, folks. We’re not coming up with new economic policies; we’re not inventing new energy technologies; we’re not putting forward new strategies in international relations, we’re one small outpost of a whole huge network of revolutionaries, doing the daily, weekly business of changing minds and hearts, starting with our own. It’s the only thing that’s ever going to make a real difference in this world.
And a prime example of the kind of change we’re about is a poor widow woman who walked into the courtyard one day while Jesus was hanging around by the treasury. Her story isn’t about the money she gave. It needs to be heard in the context it’s set in. Jesus had been talking about the pride and self-interest of the religious leaders of his day – the ones who, as Jesus said, “like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.” Truth is, I wear a long robe on Sunday mornings, and have the best seat in the sanctuary, and some here would say I am at times inclined to long prayers. So I, for one, need to be a little cautious and reflective about my motives and values. Perhaps we all need to.
The problem with the scribes, the ones in the long robes with the long prayers and the big gifts, is not simply that they had a bad attitude, it’s that they missed the point! Their values were in the wrong places. They thought it was all about them! They were putting their trust in prestige, their confidence in a system that set them apart with comfort and privilege, their faith only in themselves, and their money only where their mouths were, not their hearts.
I remember as a boy coming to church with a fist full of pennies on my birthday. It must be that just about every church in those days did the same thing. When it was your birthday, you brought to church the number of pennies that represented how old you were, and put them in the bank one at a time, while everyone sang, “Count Your blessings.”
How many people here did that when you were children? How many of you know the old song, “Count Your Blessings?” Would you join me in singing it? It’s just, “Count your blessings, name them one by one, count your blessings see what God has done.”
It’s good to share something, even if it’s just a song, or a memory. But we share so much more than that, don’t we? For one thing, we share in all the many blessings that are ours in this world, in this nation, in this place we live – blessings, at times, too many to count! From the simple beauty of a sunrise to the penetrating giggle of a baby, from the underappreciated gift of three meals a day to the rarely mentioned extravagance of a place to lay our heads at night. Our inheritance as children of the earth is wondrous!
We also share in the rich fellowship of this church. I doubt that there is person here who cannot testify to the joy and life-giving goodness of all the laughter, quarrels, tears, labors, and hugs that get passed around here. They’re found sometimes on these Sunday mornings in the pews or at the coffee hour. And when we take the time to sit here, look around, and count up all the blessings that are ours, we are doing an exercise in humility, we’re tempering our pride, and allowing gratitude to deepen our souls and give us generous spirits.
And so we also share the privilege of the “poor widow” – the woman Jesus pointed out who dropped her two pennies in the offering. It is the privilege of sharing in something far grander than ourselves, and having something of ultimate worth to give ourselves to. It is the priceless treasure of knowing that the power of the Spirit is loose in the world, and any common one of us can have a stake in that power and that Spirit simply by throwing the “meager weight of our existence” into the fray on the side of good.
It is the power of the widow’s pennies. Her gift was blessed by Jesus not because of the gift itself, but because it represented the fact that this poor woman “got it!” She understood. Because she gave all of what little she had, it was apparent that she had some sense of the greatness of what she was participating in, and a profound humility at the undertaking. It was clear that she was the sort who brought those last two pennies to the treasury with a quiet little smile – a smile that reflected a candle glow within: the light of joy at having found something worth giving her all to, of knowing that there were other poor widows bringing their pennies, and many more who were helping to keep the faith, proclaim the word, give hope to the downtrodden, and speak truth to power. She had discovered the profound joy of shared love, genuine compassion, living generously. And in all that there was a kind of strength the scribes could not comprehend. It was the might of the poor widow, who had found something to be part of that ignited her spirit and rekindled her passion. That, my friends, is a treasure.
The kind of example that Jesus was pointing to in the act of this woman is more than a matter of coins. It is a participation in the divine sedition of the Kingdom; and it is joining in league with all those others throughout the world whose souls have been ignited, and who come to the altar with quiet smiles to give themselves for that which is greater than themselves. Those quiet smiles and acts of simple goodness and humility are a shared experience, a communal act.
I’d like for you to think about that poor widow and her mighty act of selflessness, and I’d like you to smile. Because you are part of a powerful force in this world, a force that is greater than systems, and polices, and laws, and inventions. It is the might of widows and workers and chambermaids and children and families and fund managers and truck drivers and teenagers gaining a new mind and a new heart, learning to share a commitment to giving themselves to the cause of truth and beauty and love – the work of the Spirit of Holiness in the world. And I’d like you to consider that your choice to be here, to share in this community of faith, to sit together and weekly count and recount our blessings, is not a solitary gesture, but that it represents your participation in something grander than yourself. It represents your small piece of the Divine great design for humanity, your mighty act of changing the world, one heart, one mind at a time – beginning with yourself.
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