Sit and Eat

Bright Blooms Dark Night

I preached this sermon at St. Lydia's on Sunday, December 23, as we tipped from the season of Advent into Christmas.  The text is the story of Jesus' birth, found in Luke 2:1-7.  You can read it here.  Before the sermon, we sang the hymn, "Lo, How A Rose E'er Blooming."

 

 

We know the story of Christmas. 

Mary, Joseph. 

A child in a manger. 

An angel, the shepherds. 

 

It has a mysterious hold on us. 

We tell it again and again. 

Through carols we search 

for the mingling of word and melody 

that will unlock its meaning. 

Through pageants we rehearse the story once more:

we stand at the manger 

among halos constructed of tinsel and cardboard, 

amid a herd of wooly, preschooled sheep. 

 

We have told this story a thousand times, 

in a thousand different ways. 

The set is always the same, 

we know the script by heart. 

And yet, 

it continues to pull us back 

to something that is both basic 

and fundamentally true. 

For a moment a door in our hearts slips open 

and we are as still and unguarded as the rose in winter, 

hovering on a cusp, ready to bloom.  

 

*

 

A few years ago, when I was a staff member at a very big, 

progressive Church on the Upper West Side, 

we had the occasion to welcome Archbishop Desmond Tutu, 

who came to preach. 

Archbishop Tutu was the first black South African Bishop 

of Capetown in South Africa. 

He was instrumental in dismantling apartheid 

and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.

The staff and the leaders at Riverside were all in a tizzy over his arrival. 

We scrambled around, making sure that everything would go perfectly

from the moment he arrived to the moment he left. 

We fussed with lighting, 

replaced all the batteries in the microphones.

We ordered food that we were assured would be to his taste. 

I was coordinating the worship services, 

and I think I made about 36 drafts of the bulletin, 

because we kept learning that more VIP’s were coming 

and I’d have to create some kind of appropriately important speaking role for them

and shuffle around all the seating up in the chancel. 

 

And then he arrived. 

All five foot three of him entered the chapel where the clergy were vesting 

and he was immediately subsumed by all the important guests, 

paraded around and introduced to everyone who was there to greet him. 

You could barely see him at the center of the huddle of clergy who had surrounded him.  

I stood on the outside, near the wall, with a few other staff members, 

and took it all in.  

I had never seen someone who exuded such pure, 

unbridled joy.  

It was no wonder that everyone wanted to be close to him. 

 

And then something kind of amazing happened.  

I saw Bishop Tutu’s eyes break free from all the important people,

that inner circle that had had surrounded him, 

and scan the outside of the room. 

And he saw all of us standing there, 

Ralph who was the head of maintenance, 

and Marlon who worked the sound booth,

and me, 

and he very graciously broke through the ring of VIP’s that ensconced him 

and walked over to us,

and shook all of our hands.  

And learned our names. 

And smiled at us in a way that made you think, 

God must love me, because this man does. 

 

*

 

Mary, Joseph. 

A child in the manger. 

An angel.  The shepherds. 

They are the ingredients of a story 

of a God who, 

just like Bishop Tutu, 

is always looking to the edges. 

Surrounded by a throng of the most important people, 

all elbowing their way in for a word or a handshake,

God quietly slips away 

and finds the custodial staff, hanging back in the corner. 

 

If you’re looking for God, 

you can expect to find her around the edges. 

The inn was filled with important people. 

And so God perferred to be born out back, in a feeding trough. 

 

*

 

Perhaps what keeps us returning to this story, 

drawing us back to tell it once more, 

is not tradition or sentiment, 

but that it makes us feel seen. 

 

The strains of carols,

the words and melody we search for but can’t seem to find, 

the truth revealed as we gaze on the child in the manger, 

is that God is for everyone. 

No matter where you stand in the room, 

God sees you, 

seeks you out where you are, 

knows your name. 

 

It is a truth that is so simple as to seem impossible. 

That love has come to live among us, 

tender and fresh;

a rose that blooms in the silent, unseen hours of the half spent night. 

Amid a frozen landscape, 

love springs up

and catches us unaware. 

We thought that no one would see us here,

standing in the corner. 

But love has found us, despite our best intentions. 

 

This is Christmas. 

To stand quietly, as the door to your heart slips open 

and God enters in, 

a bright, unexpected blossom, 

hovering on the cusp, 

and ready to bloom.

 

*

 

We share the semron at St. Lydia's, and so I invite you to spend time in silence reflecting on two questions:

In your expereince, where is the rose, and what is the night? 

 

Tell Me Something True

I preached this sermon at St. Lydia's on Sunday, December 16.  The text is Luke 1:57-80, in which we hear the story of the birth of John the Baptist, and Zechariah's propehsy about him.  You can read the text here.  

 

 

I’m not sure that I would trust a new father 

to deliver a prophesy about his son. 

When it comes to the subject of their recently born children, 

new parents, especially first-time parents, 

are perhaps not the people from which to seek an objective opinion.

 

When questioned, I think most of them 

would agree that their infants could certainly be described as 

“the prophet of the Most High.”

If I were to say to a new parent, 

“Do you believe that your child will give knowledge of salvation 

to all the people?”

the majority of them would most certainly answer, “yes.”

 

But Zechariah, it turns out, 

it a little bit different from most parents. 

Everything about John’s birth has been unusual, 

from Zechariah’s vision in the temple, 

to the loss of his voice and his hearing soon after. 

Everyone thought that Elizabeth would never have children, 

but it turned out they were wrong. 

And then this strange sign, this strange name 

that both parents had inexplicably chosen for him: 

John. 

 

By the time this week-old baby arrives in the temple to be circumcised, 

the whole countryside is talking about it.

The whole countryside is anxious and worried,

and yes, the text tells us, fearful. 

“What will this child become?”

they wonder. 

 

And it is Zechariah who gives them their answer. 

A prophesy.

That this child will prepare the way 

for the one who is coming 

who will bring a light to all those who sit in darkness, 

to all those who sit in the shadow of death.

 

*

 

A few weeks ago, 

I had the occasion to hear Gene Robinson, 

the first out, gay bishop to be consecrated in the Episcopal Church, 

speak. 

 

And Gene Robinson spoke about prophets. 

 

He said that we often think of a prophet as being someone who tells the future. 

But that’s not what a prophet is. 

A prophet is someone who tells the truth about the present:

a truth that we can’t see. 

 

When the whole countryside is anxious. 

When the whole countryside is worried. 

When the whole countryside is fearful, 

In times such as these...

It is the prophets among us who find the words with which to speak. 

It is the prophets among us who find the words with which to tell the truth. 

 

*

 

I, for one, am hungry for truth, 

and tired of noise. 

 

I resist the insistent, un-nuanced babble 

of so much of our news coverage, 

which seems intent on piquing only the same kind of furtive curiosity 

we experience when passing a car accident. 

 

I am tired of being shouted at by urgent headlines, 

printed in all caps and screaming for my attention 

from the newsprint on which they’re printed. 

 

I am wearied by the endless parade of tweets and status updates which, 

though often kind and empathetic, or even thoughtful or intelligent, 

seem cheapened by their context and format. 

 

This weekend we were forced to tell a terrible story 

about 26 people who died. 

Everyone seems to have something to say. 

But so much of it seems like noise to me. 

 

I am tired of noise, 

and hungry for truth. 

 

I am tired of the din, 

and hungry for the words of the prophet. 

 

 

*

 

 

I have a strange relationship with words. 

I’ve told you all that, 

for many years, 

one of the many things that kept me from being a pastor 

was the idea that, 

at some point,

I would be called upon to “Say The Right Thing.”

 

This terrified me. 

An imaginary situation in which someone, 

experiencing some kind of terrible grief, 

would look to me for comfort, 

and I would be expected to say something. 

 

I’ve heard horror stories of pastors saying exactly the wrong things -- 

a well intentioned “I understand,” 

to someone who knows that, in fact, no one does -- 

no one can understand. 

Or more egregious phrases 

uttered thoughtlessly

that do a great deal of harm. 

 

For a while I wondered, hopefully, 

if perhaps it’s just better to stay silent.  

To take refuge in the notion that sometimes there are no words 

to express our grief or our fear or our pain. 

I could be the silent pastor 

who was just really good at sitting with you and patting your hand. 

When it was time to pray, I’d just say, 

“Let’s be in silence.”

 

But I know too well what it feels like 

when a truth is spoken. 

The sharp liberation of hearing what so badly needs to be said. 

It can take your breath away. 

 

 

Sometimes, we have to say things out loud. 

Not to add to the din, 

but because each of us, and the whole world, 

is hungry for truth. 

 

I experienced this with all of you, 

this past week, 

as we celebrated my ordination and installation as pastor, 

and blessed and commissioned this ministry of St. Lydia’s. 

 

Between those two services, we all used a lot of words.

Words like “commission,” and “call,” and “endeavor,” and “ordain,” and 

“desire.”

And in using those words, in saying everything we said out loud, 

I think that we created a reality. 

I think we made something that wasn’t really here 

before we said those words.

I was your pastor before my official installation, 

but I feel it differently now, 

because so many of you, 

and the people who care about St. Lydia’s, 

stood up and said it. 

 

I used a lot of words last week.

Words like,

“It meant so much to me,”

and 

“Thank you.”

I used a lot of words, 

and I hoped, in all of it, 

that the people I spoke them to 

understood that they were truth, 

and not just part of the din.

Sometimes it’s difficult to capture 

what feels ineffable. 

Sometimes, 

try as we might, 

our words don’t seem like enough. 

 

*

 

Lately I’ve been trying to find words to describe 

to the kids I teach just what it is that Zechariah is talking about 

in his prophesy. 

Just what it is he’s finding words to express. 

What it means that we are waiting for something

that is hard to see or imagine. 

That’s coming, but at the same time, already here. 

And as so many writers have done before me, 

I’ve looked to metaphor for assistance. 

 

“Think of a place that’s really dark,”

I told them this morning. 

“What sort of light shines in the darkness?”

One little girl gave me a very New York kind of answer. 

“It’s like when you’re standing on the platform waiting for the subway,

and it’s dark in the tunnel,

and you see the light of the train in the darkness.”

 

“So Christ is the headlights of a train,  

in the darkness of the tunnel,” I said. 

 

This morning, it seemed like a far too colloquial an image 

for Christ’s light in a world of darkness,

but the more I think about it, 

the more it seems just right, 

especially in the midst of a week like this one. 

 

There are times when the image of Christ as a star 

in a smooth, dark sky 

is a bit to genteel for our experience,

because the world has revealed its underbelly, 

seething with a dangerous, searing pain. 

When we are reminded of our own collective capacity 

to harm others, 

through neglect or malice,

or to leave them adrift in a sea of isolation 

through the simple desire to look away. 

 

Standing on the edge of that tunnel,

it is easy to imagine that the darkness is absolute. 

And then the platform begins to rumble

and way down the track, the rails begin to shine. 

 

And you child,

will be called the prophet of the most high. 

You will go before the Lord to prepare his ways.

 

“Listen,” 

Zechariah is saying,

“The train is coming.”

 

He’s saying it out loud

so everyone can hear it. 

He’s saying something true 

in the midst of all the noise and the din. 

It won’t be dark forever. 

The train is on the way. 

 

 

*

 

We share the sermon at St. Lydia's, and so I invite you to reflect on the text we've read and the words I've shared, and if a story or experience is sparked, to share it.

 

 

*With thanks and appreciation for Jeremy Sierra's recent piece, "Speaking the Call Out Loud," which contributed to my thinking on this sermon.  

Most Highly Favored Lady

I preached this sermon at St. Lydia's on Sunday, December 2, as part of our exploration of the Gospel of Luke.  The text is Luke 1:26-38.  You can read it here.  

 

Most highly favored lady.

That is what we call Mary. 

That is what the angel calls her, 

what we sing in all the hymns. 

 

She is highly favored, 

because God has chosen her to birth God’s son. 

She is the bearer of light.

The one though whom God will do impossible things. 

 

She is highly favored, 

but as we have learned from so many of the stories 

we tell about who God is, 

being favored by God 

is not at all the same as being lucky. 

This is not a rewards club. 

Abraham and Sarah do not earn extra miles on their gold card

or get bumped up to first class

because they’re chosen by God. 

Instead they wander in the wilderness their whole lives 

and wait for what seems like forever 

for a son Abraham is then commanded to kill. 

 

Moses does not get access to the Skymiles lounge

or even free meal vouchers 

when he’s chosen by God. 

Instead he ends up, just like Abraham, 

in the wilderness. 

Only he has a lot really grumpy, impatient, wayward people on his hands. 

 

Mary’s outlook is similarly bleak. 

Her reward for accepting God’s call on her life 

is a child out of wedlock, 

a flight to Egypt, 

a son who is executed as a criminal. 

 

Most highly favored lady.

What would she tell us, 

at the foot of the cross, 

about what it means to be favored?

 

*

 

I think that every life 

has an annunciation. 

 

I think that each of us is visited, 

at some point in our lives, 

by the angel Gabriel. 

For some of us, 

he appears, complete with wings of drifted snow and eyes of flame,

there in the middle of our apartment

delivering a message that is bold, shocking, and concise.  

 

For others, Gabriel takes a more understated, long-term approach. 

The message come in fragments.  

Perhaps an envelope outside our door each night, 

each containing a piece of a puzzle. 

It might take us our whole lives to put those pieces together. 

 

And still others become very skilled at avoiding him. 

He rings the doorbell and we pretend no one’s home.  

He rings the doorbell again and we pull the covers up over our heads.

He takes to lurking at the cafe on the corner. 

We scurry by him and avoid making eye contact. 

 

No matter how he finds you, 

no matter how he appears, 

the message is always the same. 

He comes to you and says, 

Greetings, favored one.

The Lord is with you.

 

And then he tells you that you, 

you

are highly favored. 

That the Holy Spirit is at work in you. 

That God has a claim on your life. 

That through you, 

like Mary, 

God’s light is coming into the world. 

 

What does Gabriel have to tell you about what you are being called to do?

 

*

 

Four years ago 

on the first Tuesday of Advent, 

I was in an unfamiliar grocery store 

in the financial district 

buying ingredients 

for the very first worship service 

of this church, St. Lydia’s. 

I think there were 12 of us there that night, 

eating some kind of a stew in Daniel Simons’ apartment on the 17th floor. 

And during those four weeks of Advent, we read 

from the first chapter of the Gospel of Luke. 

We read about Mary, 

and this wild, unruly, scandalous claim 

that God placed on her life. 

 

Throughout these four years, 

I’ve thought about Mary a lot. 

I’ve thought about that word the angel used, 

that she would be “overshadowed”

by the power of God. 

She gives up so much in saying yes. 

If her life is a play, 

she goes from being the director 

to being an actor on the stage. 

She hands over all the directing to God 

and agrees to just to take cues. 

 

I’ve felt that same sensation, 

as the seasons have turned 

and I’ve watched all of you become a community of love. 

I’ve felt that, 

in saying yes to God’s call,

to plant and nurture this community, 

my life was not entirely my own any more.

That I had moved from the director’s chair

to taking direction. 

But more than that, 

that God had something wild and unruly and maybe even scandalous 

in mind. 

We give up a lot when we say yes, 

when we let go of directing our own lives

and let God give us our cues. 

But maybe, in the end, all we’ve lost is an illusion. 

Maybe we were never really directing it all in the first place. 

Maybe we only liked to imagine we were. 

 

*

 

There’s a word for all of this. 

A word for when Angel Gabriel shows up in your apartment 

with something to say. 

It’s called “vocation,” and it comes from the Latin, 

vocare, which means, “to call.”

That’s what Gabriel does -- he calls us. 

For a role God’s decided we shall play. 

 

And the good news

(or maybe the not-so-good news, 

if we think back to what happens to folks in the stories 

when they’re called)

is that God has a call for everyone. 

 

Back in the medieval period, 

folks used to believe that some callings were higher than others. 

That being a monk or a nun was a more worthy calling 

than being a blacksmith or a thatcher or a mother. 

As if, in order to be a “real” Christian, you had to be a pro.

But Luther disagreed with all of that. 

Luther said that we do God’s work 

in the ordinariness of our lives. 

That every work of your life is a work for God. 

Even if you’re shoveling manure in a barn 

or changing diapers 

or taking out the trash. 

 

Centuries later,

his namesake, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., 

echoed his sentiments

in a speech to teenagers at a high school in Philadelphia in 1966:

 

“And when you discover what you will be in life, 

set out to do it as if God Almighty called you 

at this particular moment in history to do it.  

If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, 

sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures.  

Sweep streets like Beethoven composed music.  

Sweep streets like Leontyne Price sings before the Metropolitan Opera.  

Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry.  

Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth 

will have to pause and say, 

‘Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well.’”*

 

Luther and Martin Luther were both radicals that way. 

They believed that every person, 

every soul on this earth, 

had an opus to write, 

and that we write that opus in the most ordinary moments 

of our most ordinary lives.

 

A baby, 

born to a girl too young 

and too poor. 

It is the oldest story in history, 

the most ordinary kind of story.  

And God chooses her. 

It is through her that God enters in. 

It is through her, 

so young, and so poor, 

that God is revealed. 

 

Most highly favored lady. 

 

 

*Philadelphia Inquirer, January 8, 2006

 

Fields of Your Heart

I preached this sermon at St. Lydia's on Sunday, November 18, as part of our exploration of the Gospel of Luke.  The text is Luke 1:1-25; read it here. 

 

You only got to offer incense at the temple 

once in your life. 

That was it. 

Just once. 

Just once did a priest have the opportunity 

to pass through the entire assembly, 

climb the stairs of the temple, 

and enter the that most sacred place, 

the Holy of Holies, 

and pour out incense onto the fire. 

Zechariah and all those gathered there praying 

understood the curls of smoke rising up to the heavens

to represent the prayers of all of the people

rising up to God, 

and Zechariah prayed, 

as he did this thing, 

that God would find those prayers pleasing. 

 

When he opened his eyes, 

there was something with him in the Holy of Holies. 

A strange other-worldly presence 

emerging through the haze and shimmer of the smoke-filled room. 

 

Do not be afraid,

the angel told him.

Your prayer has been heard.

 

 

Like Abraham and Sarah, 

their ancestors in the faith, 

Zechariah and Elizabeth had waited, 

for many years, 

for a child. 

Perhaps they had been waiting so long 

that they thought their prayer would go unanswered. 

Perhaps they had been waiting so long 

that they thought God was deaf to their cries. 

Perhaps they had been waiting so long, 

they gave up hope that this particular blessing 

would fall on them. 

 

And now, 

in a moment, 

something had turned. 

 

*

 

Zechariah and Elizabeth 

were not the only ones were were waiting for something. 

At that time,

the entire nation of Israel 

was positioned on the brink of its own future. 

Waiting for a Messiah. 

Waiting for someone:

a king, a powerful ruler, 

who would tip the scales and turn the world toward justice. 

They were waiting for that King 

that the prophesies foretold

who would topple Herod from his throne 

and reign with fairness and equity. 

 

All of Israel was waiting. 

For the salvation of the world.

 

Just like all of you are waiting. 

For something. 

 

For some missing piece that has yet to be fulfilled. 

That thing that you live in expectation of.

That thing that you hope will enter in one day, 

restoring that which has been lost... 

redeeming that which has been defiled...

re-making that which has decayed. 

 

Just like Zechariah, 

you live in hope. 

And just like him, you are waiting. 

 

*

 

If the stories of our holy book, 

teach us anything, 

it’s to expect God to do her thing 

in the most unlikely places possible. 

 

God chooses Zechariah and Elizabeth, 

who are getting on in years, 

and gave up hope of having children long ago, 

to parent John the Baptist. 

And in a cunning, second reversal, 

it is not John, the son of the the righteous and good priest,

born to parents much to old who is the Messiah, 

but some kid from Nazareth,

born to parents much too young. 

Parents who, it seems, were hastily married after his birth. 

Israel’s been waiting for a messiah, 

a King, 

and when they think they’ve found him, 

this John, a prophet, 

it turns out it’s actually that guy's cousin -- 

somebody no one’s ever heard of called Jesus.  

 

So what can we glean from this story?

What can we decipher about what God is up to? 

We might be tempted to presume 

that God answers our prayers when we least suspect it. 

But I think that interpretation sells God short, 

turning God into a kind of fairy godmother in the sky 

who grants wishes just when we’ve given up hope. 

 

God didn’t choose Zechariah and Elizabeth to bear a son

because it was their most fervent hope and prayer, 

the thing they had been waiting for all these years. 

 

God chose them to play a role in a great cosmic drama:

the world was about to turn. 

And they were going to help turn it. 

It’s not wishes God answers, 

it’s not happy endings that God grants, 

but the slow, unfolding fulfillment of the hope that is within us. 

That thing that we live in expectation of.

 

Then why Zechariah and Elizabeth? 

Again, what might we glean from this story 

about what God is up to?

Perhaps it is that God acts in the last place we might expect. 

Even in ways we might find unreasonable or inconvenient.

Or excessive or wasteful or absurd. 

God chooses a barren field in the bleak midwinter, 

hard as iron and crusted with frost, 

and causes it to bloom. 

 

God chooses Elizabeth,

who is barren, 

and causes her to conceive. 

 

God chooses Mary, 

who is young and poor, 

and causes her to give birth to a savior. 

Again and again in this gospel, 

as we work our way through its story, 

we will see God, through Jesus, 

choose those who stand on the outside:

those who have little 

and those who are despised,

to do unexpected things. 

God chooses them, 

on the outside, 

to restore that which has been lost... 

re-make that which has decayed. 

to redeem that which has been defiled...

 

Just like Zechariah, 

you live in hope. 

And just like him, you are waiting. 

 

It is the most unexpected places where God will do her work in you. 

The fields of your heart 

which are dead and bare;

the fields of your heart

which are hard as iron and crusted with snow, 

these are the fields 

in which God plants 

and harvests.

Those are the fields that God chooses 

to do God’s work. 

 

These are the fields from which the world begins to turn. 

 

 

*

 

We share the sermon at St. Lydia’s.  And so I invite you to reflect in silence and then, if you feel moved, to share a story that’s been sparked for you by the text.