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So much emotion, in these texts. So much is at stake. Where’s the focus, it is all bewildering. I’m not only speaking of our scriptures this evening, but also the events in Ferguson Missouri, or rather what the killing of the unarmed Mike Brown by a police officer Darren Wilson and the decision of a grand Jury not to indict the police officer, has awakened. If you've followed the events since the death of Mike Brown at the hands of the police, you know a movement has grown up around this because Mike Brown’s death is larger than his own death and larger than whether or not Mike Brown’s civil rights were violated in away the Federal Government could act upon, or even whether or not on these same criteria City and it’s police are consistently engaged in violation of the civil rights of its African American citizenry, as important as that reality is. Rather, the movement has emerged because the killing of Mike Brown by a police officer, Darren Wilson isn't an isolated incident, as a number of similar incidents where police have shot African American men (and most recently a boy of 12) occurred at the same time and have continued to occur, since. What we are awakened to is that the U.S. Justice system and policing is unjust and racist.Many are awakening to these injustices. Most likely those of us here this evening weren't completely unaware, but if you are like me you have been further roused and more attuned, to the enduring racism that floats mostly unseen, hidden behind laws, and state sponsored violence. In the midst of all this Jesus tells us to stay awake, to be watchful.The anger, frustration and grief expressed on our streets in protest and rioting, isn’t far from Isaiah’s wrenching call, “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence”, such deep longing and pain behind such a statement. A longing and desire for justice and for God to act. For God to act like God did in the past, when God delivered the Israelites at the Red Sea by the complete and total destruction of the structures of the Egyptian law and order that oppressed the IsraelitesIf we pay careful attention to Isaiah, we hear a more complex story: the people of God have moved from victims to being complicit in sinful systems. There are two movements in this lament and prophesy, a deep longing for God to act and a confession that responsibility for the situation from which there is the need of deliverance is the people of God themselves. For white Christians in this country that is certainly also true when it comes to systemic racism first as slavery followed by policies of segregation and oppression and Jim Crow, continued now in mass incarceration and policing.Isaiah cries out in longing and deep pain for God to act and for justice , echoing the cries from our streets since August and Isaiah expresses the complicity with these systems of injustice, reflecting for us the place of White Christians in relations to racism in the United States.Isaiah though almost seems to throw up his hands, God isn't acting, and this lack of action seems to make matters worse. In the end we are clay in the potter’s hand, and even what Isaiah sees on the horizon and even being experienced by God’s people is on some level God’s doing. Our Isaiah text leaves us with deep longing and anguish and helpless in our own sin and failure.But our psalm points us toward the hope of being clay in God’s hands: the hope of restoration, or of a remolding. The Psalmist holds out for us the the hope of God transforming us , renewing us and the whole world.And Paul expresses this hope as grounded in the person and work of Jesus ChristWhere might all this lead?What conclusions if we take Ferguson also as our text, as revelatory of God at work in our midst?I want to draw attention to the language of shaking, and of tearing, the disruption of the fabric of what seems unalterable and just the way things are. But also that this shaking is the shaking of governments, nations, powers. In these images and if we reflect on the deliverance of the people of Israel from their oppression in Egypt, their liberation and justice doesn't come from the systems and the state, Egypt isn't the source of their liberation, nor even that which cooperates with that liberation. And if we hear Isaiah well, not even the people, can be the source of justice, transformation, and liberation. The people of God also fail at justice and righteousness. The state and the powers can and will be forced to deal justly, but they aren't the source nor the guarantor of justice nor are we the people the source or guarantor of justice.Justice comes from beyond, our hope is in that we don’t create justice rather we submit to it. But what we submit to is a caring and loving reality. Justice isn’t abstract and cold and unmoving. Rather the source of justice is a shepherd, an artist, and a lover.Lastly Jesus says that when you see systems and the powerful sun and moon and stars shaken and upended, darkened blood red showing their violence, these are simply signs of something else. That is if we are waiting for the United States to become a place devoid of all injustice and racism we are looking for the wrong thing. We have misinterpreting the signs. Human government and systems of justice are just that human, mortal, limited and passing away, and fallible. Our human systems will fail us.Our hope is in a more lasting and radical transformation of the world in which the world once again shows forth completely the love and justice of God who is the very source the very life blood of our existence.And Tonight I proclaim to you that God did tear open the heavens and come down, and is now forever bound to the physical created universe. The systems of the world were shaken to their knees, and then went on their merry way because it was just a Jewish Galilean peasant wonder-worker easily dispatched through human justice and state sponsored violence. But in that the governments and powers exposed themselves for what they were and are systems of violence set against the very source of life. The good news is we can turn to this one and find God at work transforming us into citizens of a more just and loving world. Since God became incarnate in the Virgin Mary, God has been at work in matter and the physical world, in our very bodies transforming the world into what it should be. Are you ready for that world? Are you awake to that world? Wake up stay awake. Be a citizen of the world that is coming in which racism and all forms of oppression and injustice are shaken from the earth.Stay awake and watch for that world is coming, the signs of its coming are in the protests even the riots in Ferguson, but also right here in our midst. Right here as we take in each week the justice of God in human flesh, who awakens you to this transformed and transfigured world, slowly making you, in your very body, into a person of love and justice, a citizen of the present and coming reign of God.
Showing posts with label Longing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Longing. Show all posts
Monday, December 1
Longing and Anticipating a Just World
Sunday, January 3
Sermon Epiphany Sunday
Isaiah 60:1-6
Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14
Ephesians 3:1-12
Matthew 2:1-12
All our Longings
As we enter a new year, what are your longings? What do you long for. One expression of our longings is New Years resolutions. In general they tell us about our longing for better selves and thus I think a better world. In particular if you mad New Years resolutions, how do they express your longings, do they somehow touch upon your deepest longing? On this Sunday of the Epiphany I wonder what sort of longing was there in these magi of our gospel that they'd leave on a journey of some cost and time, with the dangers of travel of the day, or wayside robbers, or border crossings, carrying considerable wealth with them, not for trade and further wealth creation but simply to offer them to a child whose birth was announced by a star. Are we like the Magi, have we gone in search of Christ out of a deep longing seeking Christ out at great cost? Who are these Magi and why do we remember them on a feast called epiphany, the manifestation?
The Magi are fascinating and mysterious characters who only appear in the Gospel of Matthew. We know relatively little about exactly who they were, Matthew simply says, Magi, wise men, from the east came to Jerusalem, having seen the star at its rising. We aren't even told how many there were, they are among the nameless faceless Characters of Scripture. They make an appearance and mysteriously slip away to avoid King Herod. They appear and melt away, and they witness to the appearing of god in Human flesh, and worship the Christ Child in Bethlehem and that is their story. Over time their story has been filled out, Melchior, Balthazar and Gaspar, sometimes to show that they are representatives of the nations they are seen as being of different nationalities or races.
Much has been written about these Magi, wise men, the story even captivates atheists and agnostics. The author and humanist atheist Isaac Assimov spends considerable time on this passage in his own commentary on Scripture. He examines the various explanations of who these Magi were and what phenomenon the star might have been. He even gives his preferred explanation before finally saying that it really doesn't matter, its all quite academic because the Magi and the star where all inventions of Matthew to show the fulfillment of this prophesy in Isaiah 60. And yet something in Asimov can't quite ignore these Magi, and these 12 simple verses of Scripture, he is captivated by them; Asimov had his longings, for a better humanity, the cessation of war, for the growth of goodness. There is something about the search of humanity and its longings in the story of the Magi coming to worship the Christ child.
Asimov is not entirely wrong, there is a purpose that fits with Matthews telling of the story of Christ and it is important to Matthew that Gentiles appear here. It is true that Gold Frankincense and Myrrh are all symbolic, and that what sort of astronomical phenomena this Star that appeared in the east, what these Magi from the east followed is of little importance; Or at least of little importance compared with the importance that these Magi are Gentile witnesses to the birth of Christ. The magi come, they are Gentiles, they represent the nations, and probably are seen in Matthew and certainly in the Tradition as the fulfillment of the prophesy in Isaiah 60 we have read. Gentiles come inquiring about the birth of the Messiah, and the religious leaders in Jerusalem scour their scrolls and give the answer but don't seem to think that these Gentiles really know anything.
One thing we long for in our culture is inclusion, and this story of the wise men and the understanding that this is seen as the beginning of the inclusion of the Gentiles and thus the precursor to Paul's gentile mission and proclamation that the people of God includes Jew and Gentile. We in our longings are tempted to make a principle of radical inclusion out of Paul's mission to the Gentiles and the story of the coming of the Magi. If the primary issue for the story of the coming of the Magi and Paul's mission is about inclusion, then the mystery Paul proclaims, the Gospel, is reduced to our own longing for acceptance and inclusion. We then become identified with the correct interpretation of the Gospel and the Gospel becomes a reflection of ourselves and our longings. And then we can ironically exclude those who we believe are not about radical inclusion. We in the end don't actually escape the distinction between whose in and whose out, even when we focus on inclusion. But the Gospel isn't about principles, it is about a story, it is about God and our response to what God has done. It is true that God includes all, the invitation is to all, but the lesson here is not that we need to be radically inclusive. Rather the message here is that we need to accept the invitation our selves. In the end the radical inclusion is that all are invited to come to Jesus Christ, the one who will turn no one away, but there is also the reality that one can refuse to come. Much of our culture longs for inclusion, longs for equality and no boundaries. Yet we don't stop and examine the source of our longing, the source of the boundary lines drawn, and of the ways we simply are limited and thus exclude others. We hide ourselves from the ways in which even our attempts at radical inclusion exclude those who do not agree with our sense of inclusion and exclusion. When we make the Gospel about this we make the Gospel about ourselves. And in all the grandeur and Mystery about these wise men, the story isn't about them at all, or the Scribes and Priests in Jerusalem or Herod. Rather this is the story of the appearing of God in a small helpless human being!
This we find reflected in the acts of these Magi from the east our own path to Christ. They see a sign in the sky most likely because they are astrologers, their culture and their faith tells them that the stars can tell them about things happening in the world and in the spiritual plain. A star appears and they interpret it to mean that a very special person has been born a king, who deserves their tribute though they are not from his nation, or people. He is but an infant, he has no real authority, no claim on them, they are not Jews, and yet they recognize something. I'd like to think something in their longings recognizes that what will satisfy is other than what they long for, is other than the particular things they long for. And so they go. They travel they follow this star, or rather they follow its meaning to Jerusalem and submit to the other. They have seen the star but they don't claim to know all there is to know, they consult those among whom God has already worked. These Wise men, these men of great wealth wisdom and supposedly power, they can demand audience with the leaders and the powerful; they have an audience with Herod. They simply offer what they know and ask for more wisdom from those who should know, who are already the chosen ones. And when these answer they go and they come to the Christ child and offer great wealth, gold frankincense and myrrh. Surely such a great travel and a great offering shows a deep longing and yet an admitting that their longing pointed here to this one, Jesus Christ. We are not told why, only that the magi came. We are to be the magi. We are not those who should seek to include but those who should seek to be included. Our longings should point us here. What is your star that have you followed it to Christ, and what is your gold Frankincense and myrrh that you are to lay at Jesus' feet. Have you accepted that you are fully included in God's people, that only in so being joined to Christ is their any satisfaction of your longings.
We are not asked by this story and Paul's Mission to the Gentiles to have unbounded expansive hearts, rather we are asked to have a heart that longs to come and worship the Christ, Jesus the Lord. Allowing that longing to expand our hearts and announce to all the invitation and that God has come in our midst and we are to worship. No one will be turned away but not every one will come. This is not about whose out or whose in, nor if we are including enough people, or have too close boundaries, or if we have a firm center but open boundaries. All those things are about us, we human beings, or our communities. Rather Epiphany is about the manifestation of God in human flesh to all. The Magi left their community to come into the community of the Christ Child, and it lead them home by another way. Our longings may be the beginning but they are not where we end up. We will come home but it is by another way.. We will find ourselves taken way from the path of our longings, away from ourselves to our true home in God. We are transformed but not by tearing down boundaries, but allowing the expansive love and invitation of God to so permeate our selves that we invite all to come and see and worship with the Magi.
The manifestation of Christ is the fulfillment of all our longings. This is why the Magi come bearing the most expensive of gifts. They lay themselves, and all human longings and fears at the feat of the Christ Child, God the word made flesh. Today, and everyday, we are invited to do the same as the Magi. We are, to lay our very selves at the feet of Christ, to give ourselves over to this manifestation of God that reveals both God and our true humanity. In this our lives our world is illuminated, all else is darkness, a great darkness. Come lay yourselves your longings before Christ as gifts. This is what we do , with bread and wine we offer all we have all that humanity has, all its longings and potentiality all the gifts of the world and they are transformed taken by God and given back to us as the life giving flesh and blood, of Jesus Christ. Let yourself long deeply, let your deepest longing and sorrow come to the surface before Christ and receive back the only thing that will satisfy and fulfill all your longings, Christ and God's own self. Amen.
(Following the sermon members of the congregation are invited to bring some token or symbol of their longings and place in a basket sitting with the gifts of bread and wine and will be carried to the altar in preparation for communion. paper is provided if that symbol or token is something drawn or written.)
Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14
Ephesians 3:1-12
Matthew 2:1-12
All our Longings
As we enter a new year, what are your longings? What do you long for. One expression of our longings is New Years resolutions. In general they tell us about our longing for better selves and thus I think a better world. In particular if you mad New Years resolutions, how do they express your longings, do they somehow touch upon your deepest longing? On this Sunday of the Epiphany I wonder what sort of longing was there in these magi of our gospel that they'd leave on a journey of some cost and time, with the dangers of travel of the day, or wayside robbers, or border crossings, carrying considerable wealth with them, not for trade and further wealth creation but simply to offer them to a child whose birth was announced by a star. Are we like the Magi, have we gone in search of Christ out of a deep longing seeking Christ out at great cost? Who are these Magi and why do we remember them on a feast called epiphany, the manifestation?
The Magi are fascinating and mysterious characters who only appear in the Gospel of Matthew. We know relatively little about exactly who they were, Matthew simply says, Magi, wise men, from the east came to Jerusalem, having seen the star at its rising. We aren't even told how many there were, they are among the nameless faceless Characters of Scripture. They make an appearance and mysteriously slip away to avoid King Herod. They appear and melt away, and they witness to the appearing of god in Human flesh, and worship the Christ Child in Bethlehem and that is their story. Over time their story has been filled out, Melchior, Balthazar and Gaspar, sometimes to show that they are representatives of the nations they are seen as being of different nationalities or races.
Much has been written about these Magi, wise men, the story even captivates atheists and agnostics. The author and humanist atheist Isaac Assimov spends considerable time on this passage in his own commentary on Scripture. He examines the various explanations of who these Magi were and what phenomenon the star might have been. He even gives his preferred explanation before finally saying that it really doesn't matter, its all quite academic because the Magi and the star where all inventions of Matthew to show the fulfillment of this prophesy in Isaiah 60. And yet something in Asimov can't quite ignore these Magi, and these 12 simple verses of Scripture, he is captivated by them; Asimov had his longings, for a better humanity, the cessation of war, for the growth of goodness. There is something about the search of humanity and its longings in the story of the Magi coming to worship the Christ child.
Asimov is not entirely wrong, there is a purpose that fits with Matthews telling of the story of Christ and it is important to Matthew that Gentiles appear here. It is true that Gold Frankincense and Myrrh are all symbolic, and that what sort of astronomical phenomena this Star that appeared in the east, what these Magi from the east followed is of little importance; Or at least of little importance compared with the importance that these Magi are Gentile witnesses to the birth of Christ. The magi come, they are Gentiles, they represent the nations, and probably are seen in Matthew and certainly in the Tradition as the fulfillment of the prophesy in Isaiah 60 we have read. Gentiles come inquiring about the birth of the Messiah, and the religious leaders in Jerusalem scour their scrolls and give the answer but don't seem to think that these Gentiles really know anything.
One thing we long for in our culture is inclusion, and this story of the wise men and the understanding that this is seen as the beginning of the inclusion of the Gentiles and thus the precursor to Paul's gentile mission and proclamation that the people of God includes Jew and Gentile. We in our longings are tempted to make a principle of radical inclusion out of Paul's mission to the Gentiles and the story of the coming of the Magi. If the primary issue for the story of the coming of the Magi and Paul's mission is about inclusion, then the mystery Paul proclaims, the Gospel, is reduced to our own longing for acceptance and inclusion. We then become identified with the correct interpretation of the Gospel and the Gospel becomes a reflection of ourselves and our longings. And then we can ironically exclude those who we believe are not about radical inclusion. We in the end don't actually escape the distinction between whose in and whose out, even when we focus on inclusion. But the Gospel isn't about principles, it is about a story, it is about God and our response to what God has done. It is true that God includes all, the invitation is to all, but the lesson here is not that we need to be radically inclusive. Rather the message here is that we need to accept the invitation our selves. In the end the radical inclusion is that all are invited to come to Jesus Christ, the one who will turn no one away, but there is also the reality that one can refuse to come. Much of our culture longs for inclusion, longs for equality and no boundaries. Yet we don't stop and examine the source of our longing, the source of the boundary lines drawn, and of the ways we simply are limited and thus exclude others. We hide ourselves from the ways in which even our attempts at radical inclusion exclude those who do not agree with our sense of inclusion and exclusion. When we make the Gospel about this we make the Gospel about ourselves. And in all the grandeur and Mystery about these wise men, the story isn't about them at all, or the Scribes and Priests in Jerusalem or Herod. Rather this is the story of the appearing of God in a small helpless human being!
This we find reflected in the acts of these Magi from the east our own path to Christ. They see a sign in the sky most likely because they are astrologers, their culture and their faith tells them that the stars can tell them about things happening in the world and in the spiritual plain. A star appears and they interpret it to mean that a very special person has been born a king, who deserves their tribute though they are not from his nation, or people. He is but an infant, he has no real authority, no claim on them, they are not Jews, and yet they recognize something. I'd like to think something in their longings recognizes that what will satisfy is other than what they long for, is other than the particular things they long for. And so they go. They travel they follow this star, or rather they follow its meaning to Jerusalem and submit to the other. They have seen the star but they don't claim to know all there is to know, they consult those among whom God has already worked. These Wise men, these men of great wealth wisdom and supposedly power, they can demand audience with the leaders and the powerful; they have an audience with Herod. They simply offer what they know and ask for more wisdom from those who should know, who are already the chosen ones. And when these answer they go and they come to the Christ child and offer great wealth, gold frankincense and myrrh. Surely such a great travel and a great offering shows a deep longing and yet an admitting that their longing pointed here to this one, Jesus Christ. We are not told why, only that the magi came. We are to be the magi. We are not those who should seek to include but those who should seek to be included. Our longings should point us here. What is your star that have you followed it to Christ, and what is your gold Frankincense and myrrh that you are to lay at Jesus' feet. Have you accepted that you are fully included in God's people, that only in so being joined to Christ is their any satisfaction of your longings.
We are not asked by this story and Paul's Mission to the Gentiles to have unbounded expansive hearts, rather we are asked to have a heart that longs to come and worship the Christ, Jesus the Lord. Allowing that longing to expand our hearts and announce to all the invitation and that God has come in our midst and we are to worship. No one will be turned away but not every one will come. This is not about whose out or whose in, nor if we are including enough people, or have too close boundaries, or if we have a firm center but open boundaries. All those things are about us, we human beings, or our communities. Rather Epiphany is about the manifestation of God in human flesh to all. The Magi left their community to come into the community of the Christ Child, and it lead them home by another way. Our longings may be the beginning but they are not where we end up. We will come home but it is by another way.. We will find ourselves taken way from the path of our longings, away from ourselves to our true home in God. We are transformed but not by tearing down boundaries, but allowing the expansive love and invitation of God to so permeate our selves that we invite all to come and see and worship with the Magi.
The manifestation of Christ is the fulfillment of all our longings. This is why the Magi come bearing the most expensive of gifts. They lay themselves, and all human longings and fears at the feat of the Christ Child, God the word made flesh. Today, and everyday, we are invited to do the same as the Magi. We are, to lay our very selves at the feet of Christ, to give ourselves over to this manifestation of God that reveals both God and our true humanity. In this our lives our world is illuminated, all else is darkness, a great darkness. Come lay yourselves your longings before Christ as gifts. This is what we do , with bread and wine we offer all we have all that humanity has, all its longings and potentiality all the gifts of the world and they are transformed taken by God and given back to us as the life giving flesh and blood, of Jesus Christ. Let yourself long deeply, let your deepest longing and sorrow come to the surface before Christ and receive back the only thing that will satisfy and fulfill all your longings, Christ and God's own self. Amen.
(Following the sermon members of the congregation are invited to bring some token or symbol of their longings and place in a basket sitting with the gifts of bread and wine and will be carried to the altar in preparation for communion. paper is provided if that symbol or token is something drawn or written.)
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