“For the present form of this world is passing away.”

We are now into the eleventh month of COVID-19 lockdown, and while there are some early signs of better days in a distant future, we know that this present way of being, this distanced Eucharist, this not sitting together and worshiping together in the same space, this separation from the ones we love and long to hold and embrace, these shuttered stores and postponed events, all this will continue on for the foreseeable future. In Fauci I trust, and he has told us that until such time as three quarters or more of the citizens of the Republic are vaccinated, accept being vaccinated, we cannot expect an end to this way of being. By the time I am next in this pulpit, after today, we can fully expect that more than a half million of our fellow citizens will have died as a result of this pandemic.

“Speak, Lord, your servant is listening. May I speak in the name of One God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Imagine staring down at a city on a clear day from atop a mountain, the highest point within 60 miles. You can see far into the horizon but only hear the sounds nearby, perhaps a chirping bird or a gust of wind. In the deep sea, the rules are reversed. Standing on a ridge several thousand feet underwater, peering out to the ocean’s abyssal plain, you would see almost nothing. But if you listened through a hydrophone, you could detect sounds from hundreds of miles away: echolocating whales, chattering fish, even the occasional energy pulse from seismic surveys for oil and gas.

I read an article back in November in the Times called, “Could listening to the deep sea help save it?” (The subtitle was what really hooked me: “in the abyss everyone can hear you scream.”)”

“It was a strange and disorienting week. One full of grief, and bewilderment, and anger, and fear….legitimate fear. The capital was stormed; lives were lost; there was mayhem and sedition, and the leader of our country was worse than silent. We thought we were leaving the craziness behind in 2020, but the first days of 2021 haven’t been very sane.

One of the beauties of gathering each week, in God’s company, is that our weeks are always brought into another context. Today, with our gospel reading, we are brought to the sandy banks of the Jordan River. Mark makes it a point to say that there were a lot of people there: “And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him.” It’s Mark’s way of saying, everyone was there. Everyone you know, your whole neighborhood, your whole street….they are there. We are there, too.”

“Startle us, O God, with your truth and open our hearts and our minds to your wondrous love. Speak your word to us; silence in us any voice but your own and be with us now as we turn our attention, our minds and our hearts, to you, in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Today is the Feast of the Holy Name. And thinking back on my childhood, one thing I never doubted was that the Lord’s name was holy. Worse than saying “crud,” or “crap”, or calling my sister a “jerk,” worse than all these was saying the name of Jesus in a fit of emotion. Because I knew it was off limits, I’d say it, and then when I’d get in trouble, I’d become my own defense attorney and argue that I said “Geezes,” or “Geez it.” In my childhood, we observed the feast of the Holy Name every day.”

“Did you ever try to describe what God is like? Or to describe what the life of Jesus meant? How do you do that? Do you state some facts? Do you state history? Do you make an argument? Or do what John did, and simply sing? That is how the Gospel of John opens, with an ancient hymn. I once heard the great Presbyterian preacher Robert Cleveland Holland, at whose church I was a singer, compare this sort of scripture to Robert Frost’s poem that describes the fog coming in on little cat feet. That description says nothing about fog coming from dew points and relative humidity, but everything about what the experience of fog is like. The poetry of this gospel’s hymn is emotional more than definitional, but it conveys that humanity and eternity have encountered something immense. That feeling is like stopping to look at a star. it is a “Will you look at that!” moment in scripture.”

Startle us, O God, with your truth, that we may behold, adore, and be drawn into mystery of the Word Made Flesh.

You may have noticed that the Christmas story in Matthew and Luke feels a lot different than the Christmas story in John. Earlier this afternoon we enjoyed the annual and much beloved Christmas pageant – 20 or so of our children took their role as magi and shepherds, angels and the holy family, enacting the story as told by Matthew and Luke. This passage from Johns gospel, on the other hand, is almost impossible visualize, much less for our little ones to act out for us. Could you imagine a Christmas pageant with John 1 as the script? Where are we in this story?

As I have been reflecting on this day I can’t help but think back to Christmas morning when I was a little guy.

“Among you stands one you do not know.

Those were John the Baptist’s words as recorded in John 1:26. Of course, at that time it was literally true that a quiet carpenter’s son from the backwaters of the Roman Empire was rubbing shoulders with lots of people—including the crowds that jostled together at the banks of the Jordan River—but no one had a clue that this unimpressive-looking man was The One, The Word of God, The Logos by whom all things were created, and now made flesh. Sometimes I think that Jesus had a big halo, or a big spotlight on him, or a green arrow pointing down saying “Here is the Messiah.” There wasn’t.”

“The sermon for this morning emerged while I was sitting in a waiting room. And the inspiration for the idea came from the thought: waiting rooms are kind of awkward, and there isn’t a whole to do. There are, I counted, 7 things you can do.

You can consider picking up one of those old celebrity magazines on the coffee table. You can decide to count how many flowers are in the arrangement on the receptionist’s desk…”

““But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come.”

Startle us, O God, with your truth, and open our hearts and minds to your word. As we begin again this Advent journey of waiting and expecting and hoping, be with us. Speak your word of hope to us. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

This passage as the first gospel reading of the Advent season burns me. My family took no vacations this summer. We did not go home to Maryland for crabs and much-needed time with far-away family. We won’t be going home for Christmas. I have consoled crestfallen relatives. I have had to look into the eyes of my boys and disappoint them after repeating over and over during the summer that “we aren’t going home now in the hopes we might be able to go home when it matters most.” I have had to pull myself together in my own lonely, homesick moments.”

“Startle us, O God, with your truth and open our hearts and our minds to your wondrous love. Speak your word to us; silence in us any voice but your own and be with us now as we turn our attention, our minds, and our hearts, to you, in Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN.

Julian of Norwich lay dying in bed in her early 30s when she was graced with a set of divine showings – mystical encounters with God. If there is one word to describe Julian’s visions it’s that she discovered the eternal God to be kind. Remember Brother Curtis’ reflections from a few weeks ago on this word kind. Its related to our word kin, or kindred. God has chosen in Jesus to become our kin, and in the kinship of incarnation, God is supremely kind. Julian lived at the height of Medieval Christianity that was very concerned with the last judgment: that moment depicted in today’s Gospel when the scroll of history is rolled up, and we stand before the Judgment Seat.”

“If you’re having a bad day, reading the poetry of Emily Dickinson may not be the best idea. The Belle of Amherst lived a lot of her life in isolation and was believed to suffer from severe anxiety. Her poetry is not an ode to joy but more like an ode to truth, to the way life really is sometimes. At one point, she wrote, “I lived on dread.” At another time, she said, “Because I could not stop for Death – He kindly stopped for me.” For Dickinson, life isn’t really about upholding morality, but it is about mortality, death and life, life and death. This is so much a part of her psyche that she says something I would have never imagined. She says, “I felt a funeral, in my brain.” Wasn’t I right that this is not early morning reading? She’s so mortal and understands our human limitations; that’s why I’m attracted to her work.”

“We continue to make our lectionary march through the parables as recounted in the Gospel of Matthew, these strange stories that Jesus uses to explain the political economy of this Kingdom of Heaven of which He speaks.

The Kingdom of Heaven – the term He uses for the radical changes in human society and human behavior he exhorts his followers to join. A Kingdom, he promises, that is very near to all of them. A kingdom, He often tells those of His followers who have done something which He finds particularly exemplary, to which they are very close.

The rules and norms of this Kingdom as demonstrated by these parables must have sounded profoundly revolutionary to a poor people subjected to the heavy hand of Roman occupation and its collaborators.”

“There’s a story that during the 1948 Texas US Senate race, a group of campaign workers for Lyndon Baines Johnson found support from some new voters – who were already dead. Johnson and his aides were out one night, illegally registering voters in a cemetery, when they came upon a worn tombstone, moss had grown up around the grave; the name was barely readable. The worker at the stone took a quick look and then moved on to the next. The leader of the expedition called out: “No, no, no, go back and register that person. He has as much right to vote as anyone else in this cemetery!”

Christians believe in the communion of the Saints, a belief that says the dead who are now with God have a right to vote. Or rather they cast their vote with the way they lived. They have cast their lot with God, and in the lives of the saints we know the love of God more clearly.”