Holy Name

 

January 1, 2023

 Numbers 6.22-27, Psalm 8, Galatians 4.4-7 and Luke 2.15-21

  + Happy New Year, once again.

 I always sort of revel in the New Year.

 I really kind of like this time.

 I love getting up early on New Year’s Day and driving around town.

 It is so quiet and so serene.

 This getting up early on New Year’s Day is a fairly new tradition for me, especially ever since I became a teetotaler several years ago.

 It’s nice waking up on New Year’s Day and not having a hangover, or, as my mother used to call it, the “bottle flu.”

 There is always something so hopeful and wonderful about New Year’s Day.

 But…I am going to share a story of a time when it wasn’t so wonderful and hopeful in my life.

 Twenty-one years ago, as the new year of 2002 began, I faced a bleak new year.

 I had just been laid off from a job I really enjoyed because, surprise of surprises, I had some issues with my superiors.

 If you thought I was rebellious now, you should’ve seen me back in 2001.

 It was an unpleasant situation, and two days after Christmas, they informed me that they were letting me go due to a “financial shortfall.” 

 I knew the real reason., We all did.

 But I limped toward the end of that year beaten down a bit.

 I was still two years away from being ordained a priest, and the past year had been a particularly difficult one for me in ministry.

 I was still transitioning from my pre-ministry life to the stark realities of what real ministry was like.

 And, let’s just say, it was hard.

 And it wasn’t always fun.

 As that New Year dawned, I, for the first time in several years, had very serious doubts about whether I should be ordained or not.

  And I was, to put it bluntly, struggling.

 I was definitely praying for an answer, but no clear answer came.

 In fact, rather than a clear answer telling me I should definitely go forward, the new year brought me a bigger devastation than losing my job.

 In February of 2002, I was diagnosed with cancer.

 And I spent most of the rest of that year dealing with that.

 It’s not the most pleasant story for us to hear on this New Year’s Day.

 But…actually it kind of is.

 The answers I received to the prayers I was praying on that bleak New Year’s Day in 2002 were answered.

 They were just not answered in the ways I expected, or even wanted.

 My zeal for being a priest was renewed.

 I was healed.

 I got well.

 I pushed forward.

 And look! I endured.

 And when anyone asked me then, or even now, what got me through, I say:

 The love of my parents, the support of my friends and the Holy Name of God.

 In the midst of the stress and turmoil of it all, in those moments, when I couldn’t form a tangible prayer in my head, the prayer I prayed most was simply the Name of God.

 Sometimes it was just, “God, help me” or “Please, God” or simply “God.”

 If any of you have ever been anointed by me in the hospital or at any other time, you will have invariably heard me repeat a wonderful passage that we find in the Book of Common Prayer.

 Which brings us to the importance of this day.

 For us Episcopalians, is more than just New Year’s Day.

 Today, we celebrated this beautiful Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus. 

 This feast used to be known at the Circumcision of Our Lord. 

 We have kept the feast, but we’ve changed the name, probably for good reason. 

 On the eighth day following Jesus’ birth, he, like all Jewish males born in his time, was brought to the temple, to be circumcised and named. 

 His name, Jesus or Joshua, Yeshua in Hebrew, was a common name in his day.

 There are two differing translations of the name: one is “God with us.”

 The other is “God saves,” or more specifically “God saves us from our sins.”

 Today is an important feast.

 It’s a VERY important feast.

 Because, that Name is important to us.

 It’s important to those of who have been healed by it.

 It’s important for those of us who have found that it is, at times, the only prayer we can pray.

 Today’s feast also reminds us that we do truly have an intimate relationship with God.

 God is no longer a nameless, distant deity.

 God has a name.

 The God who came to us in Jesus has a name. 

 Names, after all, are important.

 Our names are important to us.

 They define us. 

 We have been trained to respond when we hear our name called.

 We, in effect, are our names.

 Our names and ourselves are bound inexorably together. 

 Our name is truly who we are.

 The same can be said of God.

 In the Old Testament God reveals the Divine Name as Yahweh.

 Yahweh is such a sacred and holy word to Jewish people that it cannot even be repeated.

 In a sense, the name Yahweh becomes so intertwined with Who God is that is becomes, for the Jews, almost like God. 

 And I agree completely.

 It is the Name God revealed to Aaron.

 God said, “they shall put my name—Yahweh—on them and I will bless them.”

 The message here to all of us is that to have a truly meaningful relationship with anyone—to truly know them—we need to know them by their name.

 So, too, is this same idea used when we think about our own relationship with God and, in turn, God’s relationship with us.

 God knows us by name and we know God by name.

 This is important.

 God is not simply some distant Being we vaguely comprehend.

 God is close.

 God is here, with us.

 God knows us and we know God. 

 We know each other by name.

 This is why the name of Jesus is important to us.  

 That is why we give the Name of Jesus a certain level of respect.

 Like the Name that was revealed to Aaron, so has the Name of God’s own Son—this Messiah, this anointed One—has been revealed to us. 

 And like the name Yahweh to the Jews, the Name of Jesus is holy and sacred to us Christians. 

 Certainly even for us, the Name is a vital and important part of what we believe as Christians. 

 The collect for today recalls that the name of Jesus is the “sign of our salvation.” 

 Now, I don’t see that as a sweet, overly sentimental notion.

 I see it as a very important part of who we are as Christians.

 As most of you know, I take the Name of Jesus very seriously.

 As a somewhat High Church Episcopalian, you’ll notice during our Mass on Sunday or Wednesday night, I bow my head every time the Name of Jesus is mentioned.  

 Again, I don’t see that as an overly pious action.

 I see it as a sign of respect for Jesus at a time when his Name is widely abused and misused.

 And we’ve all done it.

 We’ve all sworn, using the Name of Jesus in a disrespectful way.

 We have not given the rightful respect to Jesus’ name in our lives, even when we know full well that a name is more than just a name.

 A Name is, in a sense, one’s very essence. 

 Certainly in the case of Jesus case, it is.

 God is revealed to us in a unique and special way by Jesus.

 In Jesus, we are able to have a truly deep and intimate relationship with God.

 In Jesus we find “God with us.”

 In Jesus, we find “God saving us.”

 By this very name we have a special relationship with this God who has come among us

We belong to this God whose name we know.

In Jesus God has come to all of us.

In Jesus, God knows each of us by name.

We are special to our God.

We are, each of us, deeply loved and cared for by our God.

Certainly those of us who are Christian know this in a unique way.

When we were baptized, we, like Jesus eight days after his birth, were named.

At our baptism, we were signed as Christ’s own forever.

We were claimed by God by name.

By Baptism, our own names became holy names.

By Baptism, God came to know us by name and because of that, our names are sanctified.

We bear in us our own holy name before God.

So today—this day we celebrate not only God’s holy name but our own as well—and in the days to come, take to heart the fact that God’s name is holy and sacred. 

Be mindful of the words you use and be mindful of that name of Jesus in your life.

But also be mindful of your own holy name. 

When you hear your own name, remember that it is the name God knows you by and, as a result, it is truly holy.

In a sense our own names can be translated as “God with us.”

When we hear our names, let us hear “God saves us.”

And let us be reminded that God knows us better than anyone else—even our own selves.

Claim the holiness of your name and know that God in Jesus is calling you to your own fullness of life by name.

Amen.

 

 

 

Christmas

 

December 25, 2022

  

+ As you all know, in addition to being a priest, I am also a poet.

 

I don’t often talk about being poet.

 

It’s a very important part of my life.

 

It’s something I’ve been much longer than I’ve been a priest.

 

But it’s something I just don’t bring up very often at church.

 

But it is something, as I said, that is important to me.

 

And my life entire life is seen through the lens of poetry.

 

I see things poetically.

 

I know that sounds strange.

 

But I see things that maybe most people don’t.

 

Or more importantly, more specifically, I see things sing that maybe others don’t.

 

Which is why I love poetry, and why I have a special love for particular poets.

 

One of the particular poets I love is the great British poet Christina Rosetti.

 

We all know Rossetti in some capacity.

 

Many of the hymns we sing are hymns that were actually her poems set to music.

 

And one of the most famous is “In the Bleak Midwinter.”

 

I love that hymn so much.

 

I love the words of it.

 

I love the poetry of it.

 

And it’s a poem and hymn that reaches right down inside me and just grabs me.

 

Rossetti herself was actually a very devout Anglican.

 

She was, in fact, a very devout Anglo-Catholic.

 

She never married, never seemed to have shown a romantic interest in another person in her life, and lived a very secluded life in her family’s home.

 

She was sort of like a British, Anglo-Catholic version of Emily Dickinson.

 

She was also my mother’s favorite poet, which is also why I think I love her so dearly.

 

My mother loved the poetry of Christina Rossetti.

 

And when my mother died 5 years ago next month, I found myself unable to write for the first time in almost 30 years.

 

Many of you know about this struggle in my life.

 

It was awful.

 

My 13^th book of poetry was published 2 day before my mother died.

 

At the time, I jokingly said, “ this is my lucky 13^th book.”

 

It was most definitely not.

 

And I have not been able to write in quite the same way as I did before my mother died.

 

There have been no books in 5 years, very little published, though I have finally been able to produce some work.

 

But when my mother died, when I couldn’t write poetry, I found myself reading Rossetti, and listening to music set to her poems.

 

In fact, in the weeks after my mother’s death, I listen to Tame Impala’s version of “In the Bleak Midwinter” over and over again.

 

And at this time of the year, as I struggle with Christmas and the holidays, I find myself clinging to another Rossetti poem,

 

Love Came Down at Christmas.

 

We know this best as a beloved Christmas hymn:

 

 

Love came down at Christmas,

Love all lovely, Love Divine,

Love was born at Christmas,

Star and Angels gave the sign.

Worship we the Godhead,

Love Incarnate, Love Divine,

Worship we our Jesus,

But wherewith for sacred sign?

Love shall be our token,

Love be yours and love be mine,

Love to God and all men,

Love for plea and gift and sign.

 

 

Rossetti published this poem in 1885.

 

And it was an instant success.

 

In so many ways, it captures the beauty of Christ, as well as embodying a very simple, very Anglo-Catholic theology of the Incarnation.

 

For me, this poem captures perfectly this strange feeling I have experiencing this morning.

 

Yes, as much of a scrooge I am about Christmas, as much as I’m depressed at Christmas, I still somehow LOVE  Christmas Day mass

 

This morning— Christmas is here.

 

This morning, we celebrate the Love Rossetti sings about.

 

And we celebrate this Love that has come to us from our God.

 

We celebrate this Love that has come to us in our collective and personal darkness.

 

We celebrate the Love that has come to us in our despair and our fear and our nagging, exhausted grief, in our sadness and in our frustration.

 

And we celebrate this Love that been shown to us.  

 

When we think long and hard about this day, when we ponder it and let it take hold in our lives, what we realized happened on that day when Jesus was born was not just some mythical story.  

 

It was not just the birth of a child under dire circumstances, in some distant, exotic land.  

 

What happened on that day was a joining together—a joining of us and God.

 

God met us half-way.

 

God came to us in our darkness, in our blindness, in our fear—and cast a light that destroyed that darkness, that blindness, that fear.

 

God didn’t have to do what God did.  

 

God didn’t have to reach out to us and send down this love upon us.

 

But God did.

 

But by doing so, God showed us a remarkable intimacy.

 

After, God is a God of love.

 

We are loved by God, even when it doesn’t feel like it.

 

We are accepted by God, even when don’t feel accepted by anyone.

 

We are—each of us—important to God.

 

We are, each of us, broken and imperfect as we may be some times, very important to God.

 

Each of us.

 

And because we are, we must love others.

 

We must embody and give birth to this Divine Love from God so others can know this amazing love as well.

 

Knowing this amazing love of God changes everything.

 

When we realize that God knows us as individuals.

 

That God loves us and accepts each of us for who we are, we are joyful.

 

We are hopeful of our future with that God.

 

And we want to share this love and this God with others.

 

That is what we are celebrating this morning.

 

Our hope and joy is in a God who comes and accepts us and loves us for who we are and what we are—a God who understands what it means to live this sometimes frightening uncertain life we live.

 

This is the real reason why we are joyful and hopeful on this beautiful morning.

 

This is why we are feeling within us a strange sense of longing.

 

Let the hope we feel today as God our Savior draws close to us stay with us now and always.

 

Let the joy we feel today as God our Friend comes to us in love be the motivating force in how we live our lives throughout this coming year.

 

God is here.

 

God is in our midst today.

 

God is so near, our very bodies and souls are rejoicing.

 

And God loves us.

 

 Love came down at Christmas,

love, all lovely, love divine;

love was born at Christmas:

star and angels gave the sign.

 

That is what we are experiencing this day.

 

Love came down.

 

Love became flesh and blood.

 

Love became human in Jesus.

 

And in the face of that realization, we are rejoicing today.

 

We are rejoicing in that love personified.

 

We are rejoicing in each other.  

 

We are rejoicing in the glorious beauty of this one holy moment in time.

 

 

Christmas Eve

 

December 24, 2022

 + Anyone who knows me well, knows that I am a bit of…well…a curmudgeon regarding Christmas.

 I am kind of a Scrooge about it all.

 I am not a big fan of the commercial aspects of Christmas.

 I certainly understand the tendency we all have of getting caught up in society’s celebration of Christmas.

 It’s easy to find ourselves getting a bit hypnotized by the glitz and glamour we see about us.

 I admit I even kind of enjoy some of those sparkly Christmas displays.

 I understand how easy it is to fall to the temptations of what the world tells us is Christmas.

 But what I think happens to most of us who enjoy those light and airy aspects of Christmas is that we often get so caught up in them, we start finding ourselves led astray into a kind of frivolousness about Christmas.

 We find ourselves led off into a place where Christmas becomes fluffy and saccharine and cartoonish.

 That, I think, is what we experience in the secular understanding of Christmas time.

 The glitz and the glamour of the consumer-driven Christmas can be visually stunning.

 It can capture our imagination with its blinking lights and its bright wrapping,

 But ultimately it promises something that it can’t deliver.

 It promises a joy and a happiness it really doesn’t have.

 It has gloss.

 It has glitter.

 It has a soft, fuzzy glow.

 But it doesn’t have real joy.

 But, as much of a curmudgeon as I am about it, I do find myself joyful during this season.

 I am, after all, a church geek.

 I love church and doing churchy things.

 That’s why I’m a priest, I guess.

 And for me, the Christmas we celebrate here tonight, in this warm church, up here in northeast Fargo, is a Christmas of real joy.

 I feel real joy being with all of you tonight.

 I feel real joy celebrating the mystery of this event, this moment in which God gives us this special event in which we realize that God has reached out to us and shown us true love.

 But it is a joy of great seriousness as well.

 It is a joy that humbles us and quiets us.

 It is a joy filled with a Light that makes all the glittery, splashy images around us pale in comparison.

 The Christmas we celebrate here is not a frivolous one.

 It is not a light, airy Christmas.

 Yes, it has a baby.

 Yes, it has angels and a bright shining star.

 But these are not bubblegum images.

 A birth of a baby in that time and in that place was a scary and uncertain event.

 Angels were not chubby little cherubs rolling about in mad abandon in some cloud-filled other-place.

 They were terrifying creatures—messengers of a God of Might and Wonder.

 And stars were often seen as omens—as something that could either bring great hope or great terror to the world.

 The event we celebrate tonight is THE event in which God breaks through to us.

 And whenever God beaks through, it is not some gentle nudge.

 It is an event that jars us, provokes us and changes us.

 For people sitting in deep darkness, that glaring Light that breaks through into their lives is not the most pleasant thing in the world.

 It is blinding and painful.

 And what it exposes is sobering.

 That is what God does to us.

 That is what we are commemorating tonight.

 We are commemorating a “break through” from God—an experience with God that leaves us different people than we were before that encounter.

 What we experience is a Christmas that promises us something tangible.

 It promises us, and delivers, a real joy.

 The joy we feel today, the joy we feel at this Child’s birth, as the appearance of these angels, of that bright star, of that Light that breaks through into the darkness of our lives, is a joy that promises us something.

 What Jesus came to show us that what happens in him can happen in us too.

 Jesus, the beloved Son of God, shows us that we too are all beloved children of loving God.

 And that, in God’s eyes, each and every of our own birth stories is special to God.

 God also worked in those events.

 God also has a plan from our very beginning.

 Christmas, we need to realize, is a teaser of what awaits us.

 It is a glimpse into the life we will have one day.

 It is a perfect joy that promises a perfect life.

 But just because it is a joyful event, does not mean that it isn’t a serious event.

 What we celebrate is serious.

 It is an event that causes us to rise up in a joyful happiness, while, at the same time, driving us to our knees in adoration.

 It is an event that should cause us not just to return home to our brightly wrapped presents, but it should also send us out into the world to make it, in some small way, a reflection of this life-changing joy that has come into our lives.

 Tonight, is one of those moments in which true joy and gladness have come upon us.

 That’s what makes this a holy time.

 So, let us cling to this holy moment.

 Let us savor it.

 Let us hold it close.

Let us pray that it will not end.

And let this joy you feel tonight be the strength that holds you up when you need to be held.

Tonight, God has reached out to us.

God has touched us.

God has grasped our hands.

Our hands have been laid on God’s heart.

This is what Christmas is all about.

God is here, among us.

This feeling we are feeling right now is the true joy that descends upon us when we realize God has come to us in our collective darkness.

And this joy that we are feeling is because the Light that has come to us will never, ever darken.

 

 

FR. JAMIE'S CHRISTMAS LETTER

 

Christmas, 2022

My Friends at St. Stephen’s,

 

A sign of how hectic this time of the year can be is that your Rector forgot to get his Christmas cards done. I had every good intention of getting them done and mailed early. Sadly, it did not happen. So, an electronic letter without a card will have to suffice for this Christmas season.

 

As we near our yearly commemoration of the birth of Jesus, God’s special gift to us  and prepare to celebrate all that that birth means to us,  we also find ourselves looking forward toward a new year of 2023. 

 

The future is certainly looking bright for us at St. Stephen’s.  We continue to grow and to experience a great swell of new faces, new names and new opportunities. And in 2023, we look forward to some changes to our church building, namely the renovation of our sacristy which is scheduled to begin in early February. Of course, we continue to be a place in which we welcome and include everyone, no matter who they are. We continue to be a place that radically accepts and loves everyone who comes to us and we ourselves seek out. As the organized Church continues to drive people away, as the Church continues to be divided and chose to serve at the golden altar of false prophets, golden idols and teachings of exclusion and hate, St. Stephen’s continues to be a place of refuge and love for those who feel they have no other place to go. To a large extent, this joy and excitement we feel is what Advent is all about. Those of us who waited in holy expectation and worked hard for the kind of growth we are now experiencing are truly rejoicing.

 

Serving as St. Stephen’s continues to be one of the most fulfilling experiences of my priestly life. Our life together of worship, ministry, music and outreach has been a source of great personal joy for me and has helped me to see how gracious God is in showering blessings upon faithful, committed people who truly do seek after God and to live out Jesus’ commandment to love God and love others.

 

As we move forward together into this future full of hope and potential growth, I ask for your continued prayers for St. Stephen’s and your continued presence on Sunday mornings, Wednesday nights and whenever else we gather together to worship and to do ministry.

 

Please know that I pray, as always, for each of you individually by name over the course of each week in my daily observance of the Daily Office (Morning and Evening Prayer). Also know that I  remember all of you at the altar during our celebration of the Mass. Above all, know that I give God thanks every day for the opportunity to serve such a wonderful, caring, radical and loving congregation of people who are committed to growth and radical hospitality.

 

My sincerest blessings to you and to all those you love during this season of joy, hope and love.

 

      PEACE always,

Fr. Jamie+ 

 

                                                         

Christmas, 2022

at St. Stephen’s

 

Saturday December 24  - Christmas Eve

7:00 pm – Holy Eucharist

Fr. Jamie, celebrant/preacher

Deacon John Anderson, assisting

James Mackay, music

 

Sunday December 25 –   Nativity of Our Lord

11:00 am Holy Eucharist

Fr. Jamie, celebrant/preacher

Deacon John Anderson, assisting

James Mackay, music

 

Monday December 26 –St. Stephen

6:00 pm – Holy Eucharist

Fr. Jamie, celebrant/preacher

Deacon John Anderson, assisting

James Mackay, music

 

Monday December 28 –Feast of the Holy Innocents

6:00 pm – Mass of the Dawn of a New Year

Fr. Jamie, celebrant/preacher

Deacon John Anderson, assisting

James Mackay, music

 

Sunday January 1 –Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus

11:00 am – Holy Eucharist

Fr. Jamie Parsley, celebrant/preacher

James Mackay, music