4 Advent

Dec. 20, 2020

 

Luke 1.26-38

 

+ As you all know, I am a pretty solid and very proud old-fashioned liberal  Christian.

 

It’s just a part of who I am.

 

And I love being a liberal-minded Christian.

 

I am very unapologetic about it.

 

But in addition to that, I am also an Anglo-Catholic.

 

And I can tell you this: the specifically Anglo-Catholic expression of my liberal Christian faith has been a very sustaining force in my life.

 

It has help me through some particularly hard times.

 

Now, I know for some people here at St. Stephen’s, these beliefs and practices have been…well…at times a bit frustrating.

 

For many others, it has been a relief knowing that Christianity like this can still be lived out.

 

But for the most part, everyone has been supportive.

 

And, as we know, as St. Stephen’s has leaned more and more Anglo-Catholic over these last 12 years, we have been in the unique position of attracting many former Roman Catholics to our parish.

 

And we get to claim the unique claim that we are the only really Anglo-Catholic parish in several hundred miles.

 

We proudly hold that distinction closely.

 

Of course, we were not always that kind of a parish.

 

Former Senior Warden Steve Bolduc once told me a story about how many years ago, long before I came here, there was a regional meeting at St. Stephen’s.

 

One of the priests of the diocese was overheard to say: “aww, St. Stephen’s. A parish so low it should be called MR. Stephen’s.”

 

Well, we ain’t that parish anymore!

 

All you have to do to realize that is either just take a look around here now, or step in the door and take a deep whiff of the lingering incense.

 

You know that I went to a somewhat conservative seminary, Nashotah House.

 

It was kind of a good thing for me.

 

I learned a lot there.

 

I also learned some interesting liturgical practices at that seminary.

 

At Nashotah House something happened three times every single day.

 

Three times every single day the big bell in the bell tower—named Michael—would chime, once in the morning before Morning Prayer, once at noon and once in the evening before Morning Prayer.

 

Whatever one was doing at that moment, they were expected to pause and quietly pray as the bell chimed.

 

The traditionally thing to do was to pray the Angelus as the bell rung.

 

The Angelus consists of three Hail Mary’s—the prayer based, yet again, on our Gospel reading from today—interspersed with vesicles also from our Gospel reading today. It begins with:

 

V. + The angel of the Lord announced unto Mary.

R. And she conceived by the Holy Spirit.

 

Say the Hail Mary

 

V. Behold the handmaid of the Lord.

R. Be it unto me according to  thy Word.

 

Another Hail Mary

 

V. And the Word was made flesh .

R. And dwelt among us.

 

Another Hail Mary

Then we would say:

 

Pray for us, O Holy Mother of God, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

 

Then it ends with a wonderful collect that summarizes the Incarnation of Jesus for us:

 

Pour thy grace into our hearts, O Lord, that as we who have known the incarnation of thy Son Jesus Christ announced an angel to the Virgin Mary, may, by his cross + and passion, be brought to the glory of his resurrection; through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.

 

The Angelus has a long tradition in the church.

 

No doubt you’ve seen the very famous painting called “The Angelus” by Jean-Francois Millet of the farmers pausing in the midst of their field work to bow their heads in prayer as they hear the Angelus bell from the church in the nearby village.

 

Now this practice of praying that Angelus has stuck with me.

 

I don’t pray it three times a day anymore, sadly.

 

But I do pray it every morning when I wake up, and, if I’m not too exhausted, I pray it each night before I go to bed.

 

I deeply love the Angelus, because in a very real, it is a theological microcosm of what we will be celebrating this coming week. 

 

And it is an important week on which we are about to embark.

 

Today, of course, is the last Sunday of Advent.

 

We will put away the Sarum blue for another year after our Wednesday night Mass this week.

 

 The big Day—Christmas—is now almost agonizingly close.

 

On the surface level, we, hopefully, are as prepared as we can be.

 

Presents are hopefully bought.

 

Cards have been sent.

 

Menus have been prepared.

 

I hope you’re planning on being safe and not planning huge gatherings.

 

It’s going to be a very different Christmas that any we have ever celebrated before, with so many of us still separated by the pandemic.

 

But spiritually, where are we prepared?

 

This time of Advent was a time for us to prepare ourselves spiritually for this glorious event.

 

Has it been worthwhile?

 

Are we prepared spiritually for this big day that is about to dawn?

 

The truly honest answer to that question can only be another question: are we ever truly prepared?

 

Or maybe even more honest would be the question: what exactly are we preparing ourselves for?

 

The answer to the first question finds its answer in the second question.

 

What are we preparing ourselves for?

 

What do we believe about this day that is about to dawn upon us?

 

Do we believe it is just another holiday full of trinkets and caroling?

 

Or do we believe that this Day is an awesome Day—a Day in which, truly God draws near to us.

 

And not just that! That God comes to us, is here with us!

 

And there, I think, is the gist of it all.

 

This day we celebrate this coming week is not some sweet, gentle little holiday, just involving a smiling, bright-faced baby in a barn.

 

Not for us, anyway, who called ourselves Christians.

 

This day is about God coming to us.

 

God, in the form of this baby.

 

That is what we are hearing about in today’s Gospel reading with the Angel Gabriel coming to Mary and that is what we are celebrating this coming week in the birth of Jesus.

 

In the Gospel reading, we are looking back roughly nine months from now.

 

We are looking back to that moment when God came to us, when God moved—and it all happened because Mary said “yes” to the Angel.

 

Incarnation—God with us and among us—is at the heart of what we as Christians believe.

 

For us, Jesus isn’t just some nice teacher like the Buddha.

 

(and to be clear, I greatly respect the Buddha)

 

But Jesus isn’t like the Buddha or any other great teacher.

 

For us, in Jesus we know God has come to us.

 

It is the defining belief among us.

 

 It is what makes us different than our Jewish brothers and sisters.

 

Yes, we believe in the same God.

 

But we believe that the Son and Chosen One of this same God has taken on human flesh and come among us.

 

It is also what makes us different than our Muslim brothers and sisters.

 

Again, we believe in the same God.

 

Yes, they revere Jesus as a great prophet and Mary as a truly holy servant of God, but they cannot quite accept the fact that God would come and dwell in the flesh in a human being, that God would have a child.

 

We, as Christians, do believe this.

 

We profess it every week in our Creed.

 

We celebrate it in our scripture readings.

 

And we partake of this belief in a very tangible way at the altar when we share Holy Eucharist with each other—either in person or spiritually.

 

And certainly it also a major part of our outreach and ministry.

 

Because God has come to us in Jesus, we now see God present in those we serve.

Every person—no matter who or what they are—is holy and special because of this event, this Incarnation.

 

And we can even see God present in own selves.

 

Everything we do as Christians proclaims the fact we believe that, in Jesus, God has come among us.

 

The fact is, most of us probably haven’t given this whole idea of God-with-us a whole lot of thought.

 

Even the early Christians struggled with this belief and defined it in various ways.

 

For us, though, as Episcopalians, we do believe in this remarkable fact.

 

And we celebrate it at every opportunity we can.

 

Certainly every Sunday we celebrate it—here at the altar.

 

Our Eucharist is a remembrance of the fact that, yes, God continues to come to us, in this bread and this wine.  

 

In Jesus, we know that God is present with us.  

 

In Jesus, God has encompassed everything we longed for and hoped in.

 

In Jesus, we know that our God is not just some vague and distant being “out there” somewhere.

 

In Jesus, we know that God is right here, with us.

 

In Jesus, we find God breaking through to us.

 

In Jesus, God has come among us and dwells among us as one of us.

 

And although many of us are still resisting it, those of us who recognize it and see it, realize that God has truly broken through to us.

 

It’s all, of course, a mystery.

 

It is beyond our understanding and our rational thought that God could do this.

 

But at the same time, for those of us who have faith in God, we can just easily ask the question: why not?

 

Why couldn’t God do just this?

 

Why couldn’t God come among us and dwell with us?

 

Why couldn’t God send us this Child, this one in which God’s Light dwells?    

 

Certainly this is the reality we face this coming Thursday night and Friday.

 

For those of us who have been preparing ourselves spiritually for this day, this is what we are forced to examine and face.

 

Our faith might not be quite at that point that we believe all of it.

 

But what our faith does tell us is that, whatever happens on that day, it is God breaking through to us in some wonderful and mysterious way.

 

And all we have to do is not be stubborn or close-minded and cold-hearted.

 

Rather, all we have to do is be open to that breaking through to us.

 

The Word was made flesh.

 

And dwelt among us.

 

Our response to that Word should be the words of Mary when this incredible mystery descended upon her.

 

Let it be with me according to your word.

 

God has broken through to us.

 

Let us meet God at that point of breakthrough rejoicing.

 

And let us come away from that breaking through to us with God’s Word being proclaimed in our own voice.

 

Let us pray.

 

+ The Angel of the Lord did announce to Mary. And she did conceive by the power the Holy Spirit. Let us behold the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be to us, O Lord, according to you Word. For the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.

Pour your grace in our hearts, O Lord, that we who have known the incarnation of your Son Jesus, which was announced by the Angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary, whom you have blessed for all generations, may by his Cross +  and Passion, be brought to the glory of his resurrection, through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.

 

3 Advent

 Gaudete Sunday

December 13, 2020

 

Isaiah 61.1-4, 8-11;1 Thes. 5.16-24; John 1.6-8, 19-28

 

+ Today is, of course, Gaudete Sunday.

 

Or Rose Sunday.

 

It is always a special Sunday here at St. Stephen’s and for the Church as a whole.

 

Traditionally, on Gaudete Sunday, we light the pink candle on the Advent wreath.

 

Lighting the pink candle is a sign to us that the shift has happened.

 

Now there are more candles lit than are unlit on the wreath.

 

The light has won out and the darkness, we are realizing, is not an eternal darkness.

 

But most importantly, Gaudete means “rejoice.”

 

And that is exactly what we should be doing on this Sunday.

 

We should rejoice in the light that is winning out over the darkness.

 

We should rejoice in the fact that darkness has no lasting power over us.

 

We should rejoice in all that God has done for us and continues to do for us in our lives, in our ministries and here particularly at St. Stephen’s.

 

This Sunday sets a tone different than the one we’ve had so-far in Advent.

 

We find this word—rejoice—ringing out throughout our scriptural readings today.

 

It is the theme of the day.

 

Rejoice!

 

It is the emotion that permeates everything we hear in the Liturgy of the Word on this Sunday.

 

In our reading from the Hebrew Bible, in Isaiah, we hear

 

I will greatly rejoice in the Lord,

my whole being shall exult in my God;

 

In our Epistle, we find even Paul—who seems a bit, shall we say, dour at times— rejoicing.

 

“Rejoice always,” he writes to the church at Thessalonika.

 

And, although the word “rejoice” cannot be found in our Gospel reading for today, the sentiment is there.

 

John the Baptist, we are told, was not the light, but came to testify to the light—that light being, of course, Jesus.

 

Again, that is something about which to rejoice.

 

Now, I know that, with a pandemic, with things looking a bit bleak in the world right now, it’s hard to rejoice.

 

I know.

 

The vaccine will be on its way beginning tomorrow

 

There is a light at the end of this very long tunnel.

 

But, for now, we are still in the midst of it all.

 

But that’s what Advent reminds us to do even in dark times.

 

Even when it seems like the Light is still far off, even then we rejoice.

 

This emotion of joy is something we oftentimes take for granted.

 

Let’s face it, joy doesn’t happen often enough in our lives.

 

It certainly doesn’t happen enough in my life.

 

I wish it did.

 

It is a rare occurrence for the most part.

 

And maybe it should be.

 

It is certainly not something we want to take for granted.

 

When joy comes to us, we want to let it flow through us.

 

We want it to overwhelm us.

 

But we often don’t think about how essential joy is to us.

 

Joy is essential to all of us as Christians.

 

It is one of those marks that make us who we are as Christians.

 

Or it should anyway.

 

We should be joyful.

 

We have a God who loves us, who knows us, who wants the very best for us.

 

We have a God who reaches out to us in the Light of Jesus that we celebrate at this time of the year.

 

That alone is a reason to be joyful.

 

But, sadly, as we all know, there aren’t always that many joyful Christians.

 

We have all known those dour-faced Christians, those Christians who are angry or bitter or false.

 

And right now we’re seeing a lot of crazy, insane Christians acting terribly in the name of Christ.

 

To me, people who act in hate and lawlessness (which we are definitely seeing right now) in the Name of Christ is nothing less than sacrilege!

 

 

There are those Christians for whom a smile is a chore.

 

That is not what God intends for us.

 

We all should be joyful Christians.

 

“Should” is the word.

 

Still, as we all know, there are moments.

 

There are moments when we simply cannot muster joy.

 

No matter how much we try to break the hold the hard, difficult things of life have placed on us, it is hard sometimes to feel real joy.

 

Cultivating joy in the midst of overwhelming sorrow or pain or loneliness or depression or a pandemic can seems overwhelming and impossible.

 

That’s why joy really is a discipline.

 

When things like sorrow or pain or loneliness or depression descend upon—and they descend upon us all—we need, in those moments, to realize that joy might not be with us in that moment, but—and here’s the important thing—joy always returns.

 

Joy always returns.

 

We need to search deep within us for that joy that we have as Christians.

 

And when we search for it, we will find it, even when life seems so miserable and so overwhelming.

 

That joy often comes when we put our pains into perspective.

 

That joy comes when we recognize that these dark moments that happen in our lives are not eternal.

 

They will not last forever.

 

Darkness never lasts forever.

 

That, I think, is where we sometimes fail.

 

When we are in the midst of those negative emotions in our lives, we often feel as though they will never end.

 

We often feel as though we will always be lonely, we always be sad, we will always mourn.

 

As Christians, we can’t allow ourselves to be boxed in by despair.

 

As Christians, we are forced, again and again, to look at the larger picture—at God’s larger picture.  

 

We are forced to see that joy is always there, just beyond our grasp, awaiting us.

 

Joy is there when we realize that in the midst of our darkness, there is always light just beyond our reach.

 

And when it comes back into our lives, it truly is wonderful…

 

Because that is what God wants for us.

 

Joy not always something one is able to identify in a person.

 

Joy doesn’t mean walking around smiling all the time.

 

It doesn’t mean that we have force ourselves to be happy at all times in the face of every bad thing.

 

If we do that, joy becomes false and forced.

 

True joy comes bubbling up from within us.

 

It is a true grace.

 

Remember last week when I talked about grace.

 

Last week, I defined grace in very simple terms:

 

Grace is a gift we receive from God we neither ask for nor anticipate.

 

In that way, joy is a gift we are given that we simply don’t ask for.

 

Rather, it comes from a deep place and it permeates our whole being, no matter what else is going on in our lives or in the world around us.

 

It is a joy that comes from deep within our very essence—from that place of our true selves.

 

And, let me tell you from my own experience, joy can still be present in times of mourning, in times of darkness, in times of despair.

 

It might not be joy at its greatest effect, but there are glimmers of joy even in those dark times.

 

Advent is, as I said on the first Sunday of Advent, essentially, a penitential season.

 

It is a time for us to recognize that we are slugging through the muck of our lives—a muck we are at least, in part, responsible for.

 

But Advent is also a time for us to be able to rejoice even in the midst of that muck.

 

It is a time for us realize that we will not be in that muck forever.

 

The muck doesn’t win out.

 

God wins out.

 

Christ’s light in this world is more powerful than any darkness.

 

And Christ’s light always wins out.

 

Our light—the Light of Christ within us—will outlast whatever darkness we are experiencing right now in our own lives or in the world.

 

See, even in the face of darkness, we find hope and we can find joy.

 

The joy we carry deep within is too powerful to die.

 

This powerful joy will win out and outlast any darkness.

 

 

So, this morning, let us remember the joy we feel at seeing this pink candle lit.

 

Let us carry the spirit of this rose-colored Sunday with us.

 

Yes, I will say it: let us look at life with rose-colored glasses (we can legitimately do that today!)

 

We have made it this far.

 

The tide has shifted.

 

The light is winning out.

 

The dawn is about to break upon our long dark night.

 

As we ponder this, as we meditate on this, as we take this with us in our hearts, let us pay special attention to the emotion this causes within us.

 

Let us embrace that welling up of joy from deep within.

 

And let it proclaim with our lips the words we, along the prophet Isaiah, long to say:

 

I will greatly rejoice in the Lord,

my whole being shall exult in my God!

 

Let us pray.

We rejoice greatly in your, Loving God; even in our darkness you send us Light—the Light of our Savior Christ. Even when we feel alone and abandoned, you come close to us and hold us close. We rejoice in you today, and all our days, who comes to us again and again in the person of Jesus our Lord, in whose name we pray. Amen.

2 Advent

 December 6, 2020

 Isaiah 40.1-11; Mark 1.1-8

 + One thing we often hear about if any of us have been Christians for any period of time is the big question:

 What must one do to be saved?

 Because many of us who believe really do have a fear of hell and eternal damnation, especially those of us who came from churches that preached those things on a regular basis.

 Now, in many churches, we heard that all one had to do to gain heaven and glorious eternity was make this simple statement: I accept Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior.  

 The rest of us, who didn’t make this statement, were in deep trouble.

 Now, on some level, that makes some sense.

 It seems simple.  

 If someone doesn’t accept Christ, then Christ should turn his back on those who didn’t accept him.

 After all, we would turn our backs on those who would not accept us, right? .

 And there should be a place where we had to pay for the wrongs we did.

 We simply can’t sin and expect not to pay for it in some way, right?

 But certainly for me, in my own spiritual life, as I grew into my relationship with Christ and as I started to look long and hard at everything I have believed, I realize that there is one thing those people who believe that way have  missed.

 It was one simple little word:

 Grace.

 Now, my very simplistic definition of grace is this:

 Grace is a gift we receive from God that we neither ask for nor necessarily deserve.

 In the Gospel we heard this morning, we hear the echoing words of John the Baptist.

 The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me;

 He is that lone voice calling to us in the wilderness.

 It is a voice of hope.

 It is a voice of substance.

 It is a voice of salvation.

 More importantly, John’s message is a message of Grace.

 This powerful One is coming!

 There’s no avoiding it. 

 God is coming to us.

 This is the ultimate grace in a very real sense.

 Although we have been hoping for God to come to us and save us, it is not something that we have necessarily asked for or deserve.

 God comes to us in God’s own time.

 It is this one fact—grace—that makes all the difference in the world.

 It is what makes the difference between eternal life and eternal damnation.

 Now, there are those who believe that there is an eternal hell.  

 And if you’re not right with God, they say, that’s exactly where you’re going.

 The fault in this message is simple: none of us are right with God.  

 As long as we are on this side of the veil, so to speak, we fall short of what God wants for us.

 We have all sinned and we will all sin again.  

 That’s the fact.

 But that’s where grace comes in.   

 Grace is, excuse my language, the trump card.

 Grace sets us free.

 Grace involves one simple little fact that so many Christians seem to overlook.

 And this is the biggest realization for me as a Christian:

 Just because one doesn’t accept Christ doesn’t mean that Christ doesn’t accept us.

 Christ accepts us.  

 Plain and simple.  

 Even if we turn our backs on Christ.  

 Even if we do everything in our limited powers to separate ourselves from Christ, the fact of the matter is that nothing can separates from Christ.  

 Christ accepts every single person—no matter what we believe, or don’t believe, no matter if Christ is some abstract concept to us or a close, personal friend.

 That’s right, I did say “personal.”  

 Because, yes, it’s wonderful and beautiful to have a personal relationship with Christ.  

 Our personal relationship with Christ is essential to our faith, as you have heard me say many, many times.

 But the fact is, Christ isn’t the personal savior to any one of us in this place.  

 He saves all of us, equally.

 That is grace.

 That is how much Christ loves us.

 Now, you’ve heard me speaking out on Facebook the last day or so about certain people being denied Holy Communion in certain churches.

You know where I stand on that!

 But to me, that is one of the ultimate travesties of Christianity.

 Denying Christ in the Sacrament of the Eucharist is dangerous ground!

 Because it is not our place—not mine, not any priest or bishop or cardinal, or anyone else—to deny Christ to anyone.

 Christ is not some precious little treasure we get to keep all to ourselves and share only with those who believe just like we do.

 Sure, we can say that’s “pastoral.” We can see we’re doing them a favor.

 Please! Spare me!

 We can say, this person we are denying communion to is a sinner because they take a view that conflicts with the Church.

 But you now what? That smacks of hypocrisy!

 After all, we are all sinners, and to deny people Christ just because they are sinners is to defeat the very purpose of Christ’s Eucharist.

 Those priests who do so will have some serious explaining to do when they come before the throne of Christ one day!

 I wouldn’t want to be in their place!

 Now, I have preached this message my entire adult life as a Christian, and certainly as priest.

 And, as you can imagine, there have been, shall we say, a few critics.

 And some of these critics—actually quite a few of these critics—have been quite vocal.

 In fact, I once preached this very same message one evening not long after I was ordained to the priesthood in a very diverse venue of     what I thought were somewhat progressive Lutherans.

 Later, I learned, I was essentially blackballed from that venue for that sermon.

 I also preached it once at another congregation, at which I was a guest.

 After I preached it, the presider at the service actually got up and “corrected” my sermon in front of everybody.

 Critics of this message say that what I am talking about is cheap grace.

 Cheap grace?

 No, I counter.

 And I still counter!

 Again and again.

 No, not cheap grace. 

 It’s actually quite expensive grace.

 It was grace bought at quite a price.

 And no, I’m not being naïve or fluffy here.   

 Trust me, I have known some truly despicable people in my life.  

 I have been hurt by some of these people and I have seen others hurt by these people.

 The world is full of people who are awful and terrible.  

 And sometimes the most awful and terrible person we know is the one staring back at us in our own mirrors.

 But the fact is, that even when we can’t love them or ourselves, when we can’t do anything else but feel anger and hatred toward them, Christ does love them.  

 Christ accepts them, just as Christ accepts each of us.

 Christ doesn’t necessarily accept their actions. Christ doesn’t accept their sins, or their failings, or their blatant embrace of what is wrong.

 But, not even their despicable nature can separate them from Christ’s love.  

 Nothing—not even priests or bishops or Cardinals—can separate us from Christ’s love and from Christ’s promise to eternal life.  

 That is how God works in this world.

 That is why God sent Christ to us.

 I believe in that image we hear from our reading from the prophecies of Isaiah today:

 [God] will feed his flock like a shepherd;

he will gather the lambs in his arms,

and carry them in his bosom,

 We will be gathered up by our God, and we will be carried into our God’s bosom.

 I love that image!

 Because it conveys God’s true and abiding love for us. 

 It’s a hard concept for those us who were taught otherwise.  

 But I do believe it.  

 I believe it because of the personal relationship I have with Christ.  

 The Christ I have come to know and to love and to serve is simply that full of love.

 So, do I believe we’re all going to heaven when we die?

 Well, yes.

 I really do believe that.  

 Why?

 Because, the love of Christ is just that big.  

 It is just that wonderful and just that all-encompassing.

 It is just that powerful.  

 If one person is in some metaphysical, eternal hell for being a despicable person, then, you know what?  the love of Christ has failed.  

 Something has, in fact, come between that person and Christ.

 I do not believe that hell or Satan or sin or the Church or priests who deny communion to others or anything else is big enough to separate us fully and completely from Christ. 

 Not even we, ourselves, can turn our backs on Christ because wherever we turn, Christ is there for us.

 So, listen.  

 In this Advent season of hope,  John’s voice is calling to us from the wilderness.  

 He is saying,

 Christ is near.

 Christ is coming to us.

 Let us go out, in grace, to meet him!

 Come, Lord Jesus!

 Let us pray.

 Come, Lord Jesus. Come soon to us. Come to us with power and glory. And grace. and let us know that no matter how often we may turn our backs on you, you have never once turned your back on us. You have always been with us and remain with us. And that nothing in all the world can separate us from you. For this, we are truly thankful today. Amen.