"Where In the World Am I?"

There’s a rabbinic tale which describes a man who had such trouble finding his clothes when he arose in the morning that he was reluctant to go to bed, so daunting were the difficulties facing him when he arose. One evening he took special pains to carefully note on a piece of paper where he put each article of clothing. The next day he took the list and was delighted to find that his shirt was precisely where the list indicated it should be. He put it on, then, yes, there were his pants...just where they were supposed to be! So it went until he was fully dressed. “That’s all very well and good, but now, where am I myself?”, he asked with great bewilderment. “Where in the world am I?” He searched everywhere, but without success. He couldn’t find himself.

How often do you and I wander through the world, asking “Where in the world am I?” Perhaps that’s why Scripture provides us with so many stories, among them the Christmas and Epiphany stories: to give us a clearer vision of who and where we are.

Israel, and ultimately, we as the Church are congregations formed in response to God’s initiative of grace. Adam and Eve were formed from the dust, the clay and spittle, and eventually disobeyed God. Yet they were also formed into a community which passed on it own life as well as God’s love.

The Hebrew Scriptures, particularly the Book of Exodus, are filled with stories about Israel’s plight in Egypt, its subsequent deliverance from bondage as slaves, and its long journey to Sinai where the transient wayfarers became a community which models hope out of despair, life out of death, as they’re led into the Covenant/Promise of God’s life and love.

The Christian Scriptures continue the storytelling of fishermen, tax collectors, and prostitutes being invited into a community centered on the person of Jesus of Nazareth, who, in the glorious Prologue of today’s Gospel (John 1:1-14), St. John names as God’s “grace and truth”, God’s Word of Love enfleshed.

Faith cannot exist in the abstract. It must issue forth in the way you and I live as a community in the world. According to John, as a community, you and I exist as a response to God’s gracious outpouring of love upon us. Who we are is formed around memory and identity. “...my whole being shall exult in my God,” shouts Isaiah in the first reading (Isaiah 61:10-62:3), “for God has clothed me with the garments of salvation, God has covered me with the robe of righteousness...”  What we’re called to do and are doing is formed around vision and mission. “...to all who received him, who believed in his name, [the Word] gave power to become children of God...From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.”

All that is left is for you and me to go forth and, in the light of that “grace upon grace”, to write our stories of God’s love, to pass them on to others so that they, too, might discover who and where in the world they are. 

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John, the Eagle

"The spiritual bird, fast-flying, God-seeing -- I mean John the theologian -- ascends beyond all visible and invisible creation, passes through all thought and intellect, and, deified, enters into God who deifies him...

...John, the observer of the inmost truth, in the paradise of paradises, in the very cause of all, heard the one Word through which all things are made.

It was permitted to him to speak this Word, and to proclaim it, as far as it may be proclaimed, to human beings. Therefore most confidently he cried out, 'In the beginning was the Word.'...

...Behold heaven opened and the mystery of the highest and holiest Trinity revealed!

'In the beginning was the Word...and the Word was made flesh.'" 

(From a homily of John Scotus Eriugena on the Prologue to John's Gospel)

Template of Self-Giving

The word template popped into my mind this morning as I thought about St. Stephen, "a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit", and the first martyr. Webster defines template, which derives from the French templet/temple = part of a loom, as: 1) a short piece or block placed horizontally in a wall under a beam to distribute its weight or pressure; 2) a gauge, pattern, or mold used as a guide to the form of a piece being made; 3) a molecule that serves as a pattern for the generation of another macromolecule.

What a template of holiness and dedication to Jesus the Christ Stephen is for us! He was one of six men deemed qualified enough to be commissioned to address the needs of Greek-speaking widows in the Christian community. One could rightly assume Stephen's kindness, gentleness, compassion, and diplomacy in dealing with grieving women. In his ministry the Acts of the Apostles describes him as "full of grace and power", a wonderworker, one who could speak with great wisdom of the Holy Spirit, i.e., truthfully, convincingly, and unapologetically, exposing and challenging error where it existed. A group of Cyrenians, Alexandrians, and others from Cilicia and Asia, who'd banded together as "the synagogue of the Freedmen", argued with Stephen, confronted him, got others to misquote him and falsely accuse him of violating the Law, stirred up the people and their leaders, and finally drug him before the Council, a kangaroo court. Isn't it ironic how, continually throughout history, close-minded, insensitive, intransigent ideologues, mostly males, will arrogantly identify themselves as "Freedmen", "Freedom Fighters", "Moral Majority", etc.  

Calmly, with great passion, and at great length Stephen witnesses to the ancient heritage and faith of the Jewish people, at the same time reminding the Council members and the crowds of their own stiff-necked resistance to God's Spirit, despite Scripture's prophecies, in rejecting the Righteous One, Jesus, by killing him. "You are the ones that received the law as ordained by angels, and yet you have not kept it." It was far more than they could stomach, as their enragement with this man, to the point of grinding their teeth, stopping up their ears, and loud shouting displayed. Mob psychology kicks in, and Stephen is dragged off to be stoned to death. 

Even in the midst of their frantic frenzy to shut Stephen up, the holy deacon, gazing into the heavens, shares the gift of a divine vision on the spot: "Look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!" As they begin to pelt him with stones and rocks, Stephen offers his whole self in one last prayer: "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit", culminating in a plea that his killers' actions not be held against them. 

Thus, Stephen died, with Luke, the author of Acts, continuing: "And Saul [at whose feet the crowd had laid their coats] approved of their killing him." Yet, as history would attest, Stephen became a true template of self-giving, proving that, indeed, the blood of martyrs is the seed of Christians. We know that Saul became Paul, a man who himself, once God got his attention, became an indefatigable witness of the Righteous One in whose defense Stephen had given his life. So much so, that the whole Jesus movement continued to grow and flourish, not only in the Middle East, but over the whole earth. Throughout that expansion of the Good News to all parts of the world, many others would, like Stephen, become "templates of self-giving" down to the present, some even with their lives.

Today, in the shadow of the crib of the newly born Jesus, we pray "that we may imitate what we worship, and so learn to love even our enemies, for we celebrate the heavenly birthday of a man who knew how to pray even for his persecutors, through our Lord, Jesus Christ..."            

Light & Doing

“Light is so plain yet so elusive in its source. We have to be content to love it in its captured forms. This is the season of that capturing: in candles, in the warm glow of fireplaces, in electrical glows, and in Jesus’ coming...” (Author unknown) 

The most obvious source of light for us in the sun. Most of us have experienced the sun’s miracles. Shivering, we seek its warmth. Because of its rays houseplants turn green and healthy; pale linens grow whiter. We dry and preserve fruits in the sun; we heat homes, buildings, and whole communities with solar energy. No wonder that for centuries the sun has intrigued humans, and often even become an object of their worship. The sun’s light and warmth are natural symbols of God’s enlightening and comforting presence.

Scripture mentions light in many places. The people of the Bible generally used oil lamps as their primary source of light. These lamps were shallow bowls with one edge pinched together to form a trough which held a wick. Even the poorest home kept a lamp burning, day and night. It signified that there was life within the house; the absence of light indicated possible trouble.

In later centuries the candle became a traditional source of light. Most frequently today candles remind us of birthdays. Perhaps some of our most vivid and treasured memories center around times when a birthday cake, covered with candles, is carried into the midst of those gathered. A hush falls over those surrounding the birthday person, and little children, mesmerized by the light, are often eager to blow out the candles as if they feel it’s his or her own birthday.

In Christian tradition, whenever the community comes together to celebrate the Lord’s presence in word and sacrament, lighted candles are used to symbolize that presence and the new possibilities which Jesus holds out to us. The dancing flames remind us, too, of God’s Holy Spirit, continually igniting fresh hope within us. Through the four weeks of Advent prior to Christmas, both in our churches and in many of our homes, we’ve burned the four candles of the Advent wreath to symbolize the longing and expectation of humankind, from the first man and woman created right down to the newest-born infant among us. On this holy feast of Christmas the candles are another visible reminder that, indeed, Jesus the Christ has come among us and will come again.

Each year’s celebration of Christ’s becoming human, and each reading of the prologue to John’s Gospel (Chapter 1:1-14) holds out to us a new awareness of what Jesus can mean for us, and new insight as to how you and I might live for others in the New Year in the light of his example of love.

On this Christmas day you and I might look at our own life, with today’s Gospel reading as a backdrop, as a candle. A candle’s flame, in the drafts and air currents, will often reach out to the shadows, even overreach itself sometimes, and extinguish itself completely. That’s so very much like you and me: when we overreach our abilities, when we try to be the all-encompassing light ourselves, through pride, through a know-it-all attitude, through our attempts to solve every one else’s problems, through accomplishments and wealth, through workaholism, through our inability to be bothered with others’ needs, especially those “different” from us. St. John reminds us today: “He [John the Forerunner] was not the light, but came to bear witness to the light.”

A candle can’t re-light itself: it depends on someone outside itself to rekindle the light and the warmth. Only Jesus can rekindle the light of God’s caring presence, compassion and realness in our lives. “In him was life, and the life was the light of humankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” You and I are sent to help rekindle Christ’s light in others’ lives gone dark with sickness, need, oppression or depression, and lack of love. Sometimes we need not look very far away: to someone, perhaps, in our immediate family or among our close acquaintances. In the first reading Isaiah  the prophet (52:7-10) says that we’re to bring “good tidings”, that we’re to proclaim peace and salvation.  That is “Good News” -- Gospel -- not something, but a living, caring person: Jesus the Light. 

My former wife’s grandfather, Kenneth Bolt, who lived into his 90’s, was a remarkable and astute man. While not aligned with any church community, he had his own deep religious convictions. In a Christmas note he once wrote: “So many times in life there are opportunities to do for others -- in the same way you would have them do for you. But there is more than just the doing of the doing that you do; it’s the way you do the doing...” 

His comment reminded me of a story made popular by the late Paul Harvey, a noted radio commentator of many years ago, one which well exemplifies the way in which God “did the doing” for us. The story was about an unbelieving man on Christmas Eve. There’d been a ferocious winter storm in the village where he lived on a small farm. Temperatures had dipped dramatically, to the point where he noticed that the birds ran the risk of freezing to death. The man trudged out to the barn through the snow and turned on the light. After trudging back and watching for awhile, he noticed that none of the birds flew into the lighted barn. He trudged back out, putting down bread crumbs leading into the barn, hoping this might attract them. Still no results. He reflected for a long time on how he could get them to go into the barn. The thought finally came to him that about the only way they’d come in out of the cold was if somehow he could become as one of them and show them the way in...

Just at that moment, he heard in the crisp air the village church bells, ringing in the feast of Christ’s birth.  And he, now experiencing, as it were, the light of a monumental personal spiritual insight, fell to his knees, tears streaming down his face...

“In many and various ways God spoke of old to our forbears by the prophets; but in these last days God has spoken to us by a Son...” And you and I, sons and daughters of a loving God, who celebrate the birth of Jesus today: how will you and I speak and do to those who need us the most in the days and weeks of the New Year  ahead??

“...there is more than just the doing of the doing that you do; it’s the way you do the doing...”

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Silent Night, Holy Night

This holy night is one of the greatest joy, hope and peace, for on this night Jesus our Savior was born to Mary. We have every right to celebrate with outrageous joy, as we contemplate the implications of Jesus deliberately choosing to share our humanity to the fullest. 

Yet, all of history and more recent tragic events remind us that many this Christmas are likely experiencing, not joy or hope or peace, but only grief, brokenness, loss, emptiness. I'm thinking particularly of the families, friends, and community of the 28 people who died last week in Newtown, CT. As St. Teresia Benedicta of the Cross, martyred at Auschwitz in 1942 reminds us in her beautiful treatise, The Mystery of Christmas, the shadow of the Cross looms over the Crib, as we liturgically celebrate the martyrdoms of St. Stephen and the Holy Innocents in the immediate wake of the Nativity of Jesus.

Oliver Treanor, in his book Seven Bells to Bethlehem: the O Antiphons, spells it out: "Nativity is in service of Holy Week and Easter-tide. Christ was born to suffer and to die. His birth is the prelude to his death, just as his crucifixion is the prelude to his glorification. The mystery we are dealing with is not fragmented. It is one. The fact that the secular celebration of Christmas is often devoid of any reference to Good Friday or the resurrection is perhaps why people frequently complain about the over-commercialization of the Christian feast. Are they not (rightly) reacting to the anomaly of a world that contradicts the holy purpose of the festivities by gross indifference to the spiritual values it announces? Once the shadow of the cross is excluded from the illumination of the crib, such indifference is actually inevitable."

 

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Advent 4: "When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting..."

Visitation

I was months into the heaviness

Of child-carrying,

swaybacked and swollen, and my husband

Mute as an old stone—

So that I heard it all the louder when Miriam’s shout

Reached me from the dust-choked road outside.

I raced out to see her standing there,

Glowing with sweat, her body just beginning

To take on a mother’s curves beneath her robes.

And then the child that nestled sweet

Beneath my heart

Leapt—not a simple turning, not a kick,

But jumped as if some new and secret joy

Had set him dancing: and it was then I knew—

Knew who it was she bore within herself.

Later some would call it solemn, grand; but truthfully,

We laughed as we embraced: breast to breast,

Cheek to smiling cheek,

And I know that both our sons

were laughing too,

in that way of old friends meeting

after years,

when all time seems as nothing,

and the space

between lives collapses

into grace.

-Anne Giedinghagen

(From Spiritus Abbey - A Monastery Without Walls)

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