The Dove We Don't See

 

January 9, 2022 – Epiphany 1C: The Baptism of Our Lord

Isaiah 43:1-7; Acts 8:14-17; Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

© 2022 Evan D. Garner

Audio of this sermon can be heard here. Video of the entire service can be seen here with the sermon beginning around 18:00.

One thousand seven hundred eighty-six years ago tomorrow, on January 10, 236AD, the heavens opened and a different dove came down and sat on the head of a man named Fabian. You may know the legend of Pope Fabian’s election as the Bishop of Rome. The fourth-century church historian Eusebius of Caesarea tells us that Fabian was among many “eminent and illustrious” church leaders who travelled to Rome to choose the next successor of Peter. After thirteen days of conversation, prayer, and debate, the synod was deadlocked. No one knew who the next pope would be. And then a dove flew down from on high.

Eusebius wrote that, before that incident, Fabian was a little-known preacher from the countryside, who was not in anyone’s mind to be the next pope, but it seems God had other plans. A dove flew down and sat on Fabian’s head, and those who had gathered immediately recognized, as Eusebius wrote, that this was “a scene like that of the holy Spirit once descending upon our Saviour in the form of a dove.” Without further discussion, “the whole body exclaimed, with all eagerness and with one voice, as if moved by the one spirit of God, that he was worthy; and without delay they took and placed him upon the episcopal throne.” 

Whether it is the legend that produces results or the results that beget a legend, we should not be surprised to learn that Fabian turned out to be an excellent leader of the church. He was chosen at a time when Christians faced significant persecution, yet under his tenure things began to improve remarkably. He was a gifted administrator and skilled diplomat, who helped give the early, decentralized church an institutional structure that would help it withstand the persecutions that arose later on. In every way, Fabian fulfilled the identity that God revealed in him when that dove descended and landed on his head. I suppose that sometimes we need a dove to fly down in order to see what God is trying to tell us.

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Baptism of Jesus, but Luke’s retelling of that episode lets us know that the water part of what happened that day was only a small piece of the story. Matthew and Mark, the other synoptic gospel writers, both recall the moment when Jesus was plunged beneath the water by John the Baptist, but Luke seems to skip over it, preferring instead to focus on what happened next: “Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased’” By using three parallel, action-packed infinitive phrases—the heaven was opened, the Spirit descended, and a voice came—Luke helps us focus on what God made clear to the world that day—that Jesus was God’s Son, the Beloved, and that his life was God’s own delight—a manifestation of the divine will in the world.

This wasn’t an ordinary baptism. By that point, John had baptized hundreds—maybe even thousands of people—and there’s no record of any doves landing on anyone else’s head. The people had come to him from all over, seeking spiritual renewal and rejuvenation, and he had given it to them. He had invited the crowds to repent of their sins and undergo the kind of spiritual washing that represented a new start, the beginning of a new chapter in their lives. John’s message was popular, but he wasn’t able to give those people new life. He baptized them with water, but the one who was to come after him would baptize them with the Holy Spirit and fire. That successor would be the one to bring the fulness of God’s reign to the earth and give God’s people the Spirit-filled rebirth that was necessary to enter that reign. 

On the day when Jesus was baptized by John, when the heaven opened and the Spirit descended and the voice came, God made sure that we recognized that Jesus was the one whom God had chosen to bring God’s reign to the earth—that John’s baptism was giving way to Jesus’—that the time for spiritual preparation had passed and the time for spiritual fulfillment had come. When we celebrate the sacrament of Baptism, we do so as participants in that time of fulfillment. And because, in the waters of Baptism, God unites us with Christ, all those things that were true of Jesus on that day are now true for us as well.

Just as God poured out the Holy Spirit onto Jesus, so too is that same Spirit poured out onto those who are baptized. Just as the fire of divine love and power burned within God’s Son, so too it burns within those who are united to Christ through the waters of Baptism. We may not see any birds fly through the door today, but, because these baptisms forge an unbreakable bond between Christ and the baptized, we recognize the same thing taking place in them right before our eyes.

We don’t need a dove to come and land on anyone’s head in order to see that God is choosing these children of God and naming them as God’s beloveds. When we look into that font and see that water, we also see within it the death and burial of Jesus and his resurrection from the grave. And, because of our union with Christ, we also see in this water our own death and burial and our own resurrection from the grave. This, therefore, is the place where we are reborn in order that we might enter God’s reign. When we hear the minister say, “I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” we also hear God’s voice proclaiming to us, “You are my child, my Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” This is where we become full children of God.

Today, the heaven opens. Today, the Spirit descends. Today, God’s voice proclaims, “You are my child; you are my beloved.” Because those things were revealed of Jesus at his baptism, today they are revealed of us—of all who are united with him. We don’t need to see a dove fly down in order to see in each other what God sees. Because we have recognized it in Christ, we recognize it within the Christ that dwells inside us all.

All That Way

 

The Feast of the Epiphany

Matthew 2:1-12

The magi, wise men from the East, came to Jerusalem and ask, "Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage." That's a long way to travel just to meet a baby, no matter how special that baby is.

We often compress the biblical power of the Feast of the Epiphany--somewhat conveniently and unintentionally--by putting the three wise men at the nativity scene alongside the shepherds. But Epiphany comes at the end of Christmas, not at the beginning. In the church and probably in some of your homes, we start the twelve days of Christmas with the wise men on the other side of the room--in a windowsill toward the back--and they make their way, closer and closer, until they arrive on January 6.

Then again, maybe the wise men don't belong in the nativity at all. Luke is the only gospel writer to mention any shepherds coming to adore Jesus, and Matthew is the only one to mention the magi. It's as if each wanted to tell a different story of Jesus' birth being revealed to the world. Luke depicts angels breaking through into night sky to tell the humble shepherd, while Matthew has an astrology chart and a rising star declaring the king's birth to some far-away Zoroastrians. Maybe they should make two different kinds of nativity scenes--one for Luke's account and one for Matthew's. Or maybe it's up to us to see how both sides of the same event give us an even deeper insight into God's great plan of salvation.

Imagine coming all that way, from the East, to Palestine--to Jerusalem and then to Bethlehem--to greet an infant whom the starts foretold would be the ruler of someone else's nation. Though there's hardly any evidence to support it, the tradition holds that the three wise men came from Arabia, Babylon, and India--three different parts of the Persian Empire. It's even more astounding to imagine how three separate astrologer-priests would make their way to this shepherd-village to see the child king. And yet, whether they travelled together or separately, for God to reach down and show the plan of salvation to these sages from afar, to draw them into a story where they did not belong, helps us know how to make sense of Jesus' birth.

God's great cosmic plan of salvation comes to bear not only in a Jewish village under Roman occupation in the days of King Herod. It shows up in the stars of heaven in a way that speaks beyond country or ethnicity or ancestry or religion. It reaches out across the continents and grabs the attention of those who have no other connection to the people of Israel, the children of Abraham. It does not ask that the magi undergo Jewish conversion before they can properly interpret the star charts, nor does it require their formation as would-be disciples in order to receive and carry with them the news of the savior's birth. Two thousand years later, God wants us to know that in the birth of Jesus God has done more than give a people their long-awaited king. In Christ, God has reached out to bring into the story of salvation those who didn't even realize that they belong. So powerful is this intention of inclusion that even the stars declare it.

How far away are you? How far away have you drifted over the last twenty-one months? How far away have you been your whole life? How far away from the people who seem always to have known that they belong at the table are you? How far away from the One who made you do you feel? 

The wise men crowd into the nativity scene. They come with their exotic gifts and strange costumes and unfamiliar skin tones and unintelligible speech. They squeeze themselves into the story of Jesus' birth in order to be sure that we know that that's where we belong, too. No matter how strange you feel, no matter how far away you are, in the birth of Jesus Christ, you become an integral part of God's salvation story. They came all that way so that you might come, too.

The Christmas We Really Need

 

December 24, 2021 – Christmas I

Isaiah 9:2-7; Titus 2:11-14; Luke 2:1-15-20

© 2021 Evan D. Garner

Audio of this sermon is available here. Video of the whole service can be seen here with the sermon beginning around 54:40.

How many of your packages didn’t arrive in time? In our house, we “watched” one present go from Texas to Missouri to Iowa to Tennessee before finally getting the notification that it wasn’t going to make it before Christmas. We got our hopes up when it left the facility just a few hours away from us but then were confused and ultimately disappointed as it inexplicably moved farther and farther away. You can get a degree in supply-chain management, but that wouldn’t help you get your presents on time.

For reasons other than presents, I have been looking forward to this Christmas for twenty-one months. Last year, we couldn’t gather together inside. The best we could do was encourage folks to watch the service on the livestream and then drive down to the church, line up on East Avenue, and come into this sacred space one household at a time to receive Communion before getting in their cars to go back home. It was a wonderful night, and I was so thankful to see people I hadn’t seen in months, but it wasn’t the same. So much was missing. As I drove home after the midnight mass, I just knew that this year’s celebration would be different.

Thankfully, it is. We are here together. We are singing together. We are celebrating together. But not all of us. The timing of the Omicron variant could not have been worse. Its arrival has forced some of us to stay home, stay away from church, even stay away from family and friends. Some of my colleagues in hard-hit communities have had to cancel in-person worship. We can’t help but wonder whether that will be the case for us before too long. Many of you have cancelled Christmas dinners and trips to see loved ones. A year ago, I imagined something different for us. This Christmas was supposed to be better, and it is, but it still isn’t perfect. 

In those days, Luke tells us, a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. The emperor could do that whenever he wanted—could order people all over the world from one place to another in order to be counted—and there wasn’t anything Mary and Joseph could do about it. It didn’t matter that she was nine months pregnant. It didn’t matter that they would have to travel for days down seventy miles of dangerous roads to get back to Joseph’s ancestral village. It didn’t matter whether anyone living there would have room for the young, expectant couple when they arrived. Imagine what the holy couple felt when they learned of the decree and counted the weeks, knowing how far they would be from home about the time she was likely to give birth. Nine months pregnant is a terrible time for a woman to be travelling. In many ways, it was a terrible time for the Son of God to be born.

And so it was, Luke tells us, that, while they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. Literally, “the days were fulfilled.” They “were accomplished.” What a statement about timing! Mary gave birth to her firstborn son and swaddled him in bands of cloth and laid him in a manger—a feeding trough—because there was no room for them in the inn. Hardly any preparations could be made. Mary and Joseph didn’t even have a room for themselves. Likely bedding down with some distant relatives, there were no usual guest accommodations for them—a concept translated for us somewhat carelessly as “room in the inn”—so they slept on the floor, down with the chickens, goats, and sheep, while the family they hardly knew slept up in a loft. 

What an inadequate way to welcome the birth of a savior—not in the palace or in the temple, not even back home where loved ones might gather to celebrate and help out, but in a one-horse town, barely a speck on the map, where hardly anyone even noticed. It wasn’t supposed to be like that. It was supposed to be different. It was supposed to be better. What kind of divine cosmic timing is that?

But God’s sense of timing has the power to disrupt our lives in wonderful ways that surprise us when we need it most. Because of the intrusion of the emperor’s decree, Mary’s child was born not in Nazareth, but in the city of David. And yet, usually when we hear about “the city of David,” we think not of Bethlehem, where the shepherd boy grew up, but of Jerusalem, where the king’s palace was located. Yet God interrupted human affairs in a way that made sure that the world received its King of Kings who is as much a faithful shepherd as a mighty ruler. 

Think also about the ones to whom the good news of this birth was first shared. Instead of announcing the savior’s arrival to close family and friends, for whom this would be a wonderful local affair, God made sure that the first to hear of it were some anonymous shepherds, strangers in the fields, whose adoration of the Christ child was as rustic and uncouth as their lifestyle. God knew this good news needed more than a small-town celebration, yet, instead of ushering in this messianic age by declaring Jesus’ birth to powers and principalities, God shared this glorious moment with the lowly and meek, who become the first to carry the message of the angels to others. Knowing what we now know about Jesus, the friend of sinners and outcasts, could the good news of Christmas have been shared in any other way?

In many ways, that first Christmas could not have come at a worse moment. It came at a time when earthly powers seemed to be in control of how history unfolded and when that control seemed to run counter to God’s perfect plans. Yet we now recognize the ways in which God made sure that the birth of Jesus could not have been more perfectly timed. This year, our Christmas celebrations have been overshadowed by the terrible timing of supply chain issues and the new Omicron variant. Just when we most needed to hug our family and friends and travel to places where life feels normal again, something largely out of our control has gotten in the way. But isn’t that exactly what the miracle of Christmas means for us? Isn’t that why the birth of our savior came about in the first place?

Christmas comes not when the world is prepared to receive it but when the world needs it most. Jesus is born not when it fits into our plans but when God knows that our sense of timing needs disrupting. And doesn’t our sense of timing need disrupting now? We need God to come and take the messiness and imperfections of our world and redeem them, and that’s exactly what happens at Christmas. In Jesus, God comes and saves those whose lives aren’t perfect, whose plans are falling apart, whose need for love and connection are most profound. In other words, at Christmas, God comes to save each one of us.

On this night, we celebrate a God who refuses to let anything stand in the way of God’s love coming to the earth. Because of Jesus, there is nothing that can prevent salvation coming into your life. No matter how messy things have gotten, no matter how delayed your hopes and dreams may feel, at Christmas God comes to you. And that’s why this Christmas is exactly what we need most.

Faith Deep Within

 

December 19, 2021 – Advent 4C

Micah 5:2-5a; Hebrews 10:5-10; Luke 1:39-55

© 2021 Evan D. Garner

Audio is available here. Video of the entire service can be seen here with the sermon beginning around 23:50.

It is Joshua Waitzkin sympathetically offering his opponent a draw in the film Searching for Bobby Fischer because he can see that in twelve moves he will have beaten him. It is Lane Kiffin raising his arms in celebration even before his quarterback has let go of the ball because he knows that a touchdown is coming. It is Tiger Woods taking off his hat and extending his hand to the other golfer before the putt is even halfway to the hole because he knows that he has won the match.

It is the kindergarten teacher smiling as her students plant beans in plastic cups because she can already feel their delight, which will come when what has been planted begins to sprout. It is the artistic genius marveling at a lump of clay or a blank canvass because she can already see what inspiration will produce. It is the visionary who mortgages her home and puts everything at risk to invest in herself because she knows that her idea will change the world.

Some people have the ability to see what the rest of the world cannot. They know deep inside themselves not only what is possible but what is certain. They have faith in what they know to be true even if they are the only ones who know it. And that faith is enough for them to live as if that truth has already come about. Because of Jesus, God invites us to know what God has in store for our future, even and especially if the powers of this world are set against it, and in today’s gospel lesson two women—Elizabeth and Mary—show us how to believe in that future even though we cannot see it yet.

Before she set out to visit her relative Elizabeth, Mary had been visited by the angel Gabriel, who told her things too wonderful to believe. The angel declared that this unwed woman would conceive and bear a son and name him Jesus. The angel explained that this child would grow up to be great and would be called the Son of the Most High. The angel said that he would be given the throne of his ancestor David and rule over God’s people forever. And the sign that the angel gave to reassure this young woman that God would make this impossible thing possible was a parallel pregnancy. Even in her old age, Mary’s relative Elizabeth, who was said to be barren, was expecting her own child, John the Baptist, the promised forerunner of the Lord. And Mary believed what she had been told. She believed what God had promised, so she went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she could greet her kinswoman and share with her this thing that God was doing in their lives.

When Mary came to Elizabeth’s home and called out to greet her elder relative, the older mother-to-be felt something powerful within her belly. The child that had been growing within her for six months leaped in her womb. More than a coincidental kick, this fetal movement signaled a significant encounter between two unborn cousins and the mothers who carried them. Reminiscent of the twins Esau and Jacob, whose wrestling within Rebekah was a sign of two nations, a rivalry that would eventually become a conduit for God’s salvific plan, the leap that Elizabeth felt was a sign that God’s promises were coming to fruition. And Elizabeth believed them. 

Filled with the Holy Spirit, Elizabeth prophesied blessings upon Mary and upon the fruit of her womb. Speaking of a pregnancy only a few weeks old, faithful Elizabeth asked, “Why has this happened to me that the mother of my Lord comes to me?” Elizabeth’s faithfulness called out in celebration to her counterpart’s faithfulness, as she exclaimed, “Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”

Elizabeth and Mary—two women, two mothers, two participants in God’s great work of salvation, two examples of deepest faithfulness. Their faith not only enabled them to become vessels for God’s saving love but also enabled them to see what would come to pass even when it was still growing within their wombs. They knew deep within themselves that this thing that God was doing was even to save God’s people from all that threatened them. Their faith was more than a hope for the future. It was more than an anticipation that someday, when their sons were grown, God would use them to do something great in the world. The faith that these two women held was a sure and certain belief that God’s ancient promises were already coming to bear not only within their bodies but throughout the world.

Mary’s song, the Magnificat, is not a prophetic proclamation of future events. It is a young, pregnant woman’s definitive declaration of what God has already done. The child growing within her is the salvation of the world, and faithful Mary, the mother of God, already knows it. “My soul magnifies the Lord,” she explains, “and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior because God has looked and seen even the lowliness of God’s servant. From now on, all generations will count me as blessed because the Mighty One has done great things for me—the One whose name is holy.”

Mary knows that God’s saving work comes into the world from the bottom up, breaking forth within the lives of those of low estate and bubbling up until it fills the whole world. God’s salvation is the powerful being pulled down and the lowly being lifted up to take their place. God’s salvation is the hungry being filled with good things and the rich being sent away empty. God’s salvation is the haughty being scattered in their own prideful imaginations while God’s own strength gathers together those who had been lost. In every case, God’s salvation is manifest in the world in ways that the powerful cannot see until that salvation is already finished. Yet those who look to God in faith can already see it. They can see not only that which is beginning to grow but also that which has already been fully accomplished even before it has come to pass. Like Mary and Elizabeth, we are called to live our lives within that reality that is sure and certain even though the world cannot see it yet.

Will we have faith like Mary? Will we have faith like Elizabeth? As Christmas comes again, will we have faith not only that God’s salvation has begun breaking into this world, but, because it has, will we have faith that God is already bringing all things to their perfection? Will we see and know that God’s perfection is a certainty into which we can fully live even now? If we are to see that salvation in a world in which power and greed and exploitation continue to thrive, we will need to see it with the eyes of deep faithfulness. As people of faith, we are called to look out into the future and see what is absolutely certain—what has already been accomplished because of the one whom Elizabeth recognized and whom Mary bore. May we see what those women saw, and may their faithfulness become ours as well.

When Forgiveness Comes And Finds Us

 

December 5, 2021 – Advent 2C

Malachi 3:1-4; Canticle 16; Philippians 1:3-11; Luke 3:1-6

© 2021 Evan D. Garner

Audio of the sermon is available here. Video of the service can be seen here with the sermon starting around 21:30.

Although it has been about ten years since I have seen it, just thinking about a video we used to show at Cursillo weekends still has the power to awaken within me the range of powerful emotions that accompany a story of brokenness and reconciliation. Cursillo is a movement in the Episcopal Church that focuses on spiritual renewal and congregational leadership. It exists throughout the church but seems to have gone dormant in this diocese. 

Anyway, the video I have in mind is one that portrays a terrible argument between a son and his parents—one so severe that the relationship between them disintegrates as the son leaves, promising never to come back. It has been so long since I have seen the video that I don’t remember the whole story, but I do remember that somehow years later word got from the son to his parents that, if he was still welcome in their home, if they were willing to accept him back, they should keep a lamp on in his bedroom window in case he came by and found the courage to knock on the door. I cannot recall exactly how things worked out, but I can remember tears streaming down my face as I watched two parents wrap their arms around their desperate son in moment of tender reunion.

Stories like that always make me cry. There’s something about the idea of being cut off from my family and then being welcomed back home or losing touch with a child and finally seeing them come back that tugs at tenderest part of my heart. But what if leaving a light on isn’t good enough? What if the brokenness is so deep that the one who is estranged never bothers to come back? What if the idea of returning home or welcoming someone back is so painful that we simply cannot do it no matter how much we love someone? We need a story that presents reconciliation not as something that is waiting for us if we find can ever the strength to turn around and come back. We need a savior who comes out and finds us where we are.

In the fifteenth year of Emperor Tiberius, which is about 29 AD, the word of God came to John, the son of Zechariah, in the wilderness. Unlike the other gospel writers, Luke provides the backstory to John the Baptizer and how he made his way out into the wilderness in the first place. The son of a priest, John’s birth had been announced by the angel Gabriel, who explained that this child would grow up to become a mighty prophet and that he would be filled with the Holy Spirit even before his birth. Luke doesn’t tell us about camelhair and leather belts or locusts and wild honey, but he doesn’t have to because everyone knows that a Spirit-filled prophet will have a hard time finding a home amidst city-folk. From the time he was an adult, Luke tells us, John made his home in the wilderness, on the edge of civilization, where he waited for God’s call.

John the Baptizer wasn’t the only religious figure of his day to dwell out beyond the reaches of society. The Essenes were an ascetic religious group who gave up on the Jerusalem temple as a spiritually corrupt institution and established their own Jewish community amidst the caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls were eventually found. Before his prophetic call, it seems likely that John made his home among them. In his work Antiquities of the Jews, first-century historian Josephus gives an extracanonical account of John the Baptist, describing him as one who emphasized personal righteousness and piety and who taught that ritual washing was necessary for physical purity before God. [1] Josephus’ description of John sounds a lot like something the Essenes would have taught, but, when God’s long-expected word came to the Baptizer, he broke away from that community in order to proclaim a different teaching.

Having received God’s call, John the Baptist went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism for the forgiveness of sins. He didn’t go out and invite people to come back to the temple. He didn’t encourage folks to leave their homes and lives and devote themselves to the Essene way of life. He didn’t assure those who were estranged from society that the religious authorities would leave a light on for them if they would only come back. He went out and met them in the wilderness and delivered to them the good news that God’s salvation was coming out to find them. He told those who were unable to find a welcome in their local synagogues or in the Jerusalem temple that reconciliation and forgiveness were not waiting on them to come back but that the opportunity for turning things around had come all the way out into the wilderness to meet them where they were. And in Jesus Christ that’s where it meets us as well.

Sometimes we just don’t know how to take that first step. Sometimes the wounds of rejection run so deep that we can’t even imagine being welcomed back. In those moments of most profound brokenness, it doesn’t matter how eager people will be to see us if we ever darken the door again. We can’t even get to that threshold because we are convinced that we don’t belong there. But the good news of Jesus Christ is God’s promise that salvation and redemption and forgiveness are not conditional upon us finding our way back. They are brought out and handed to us even when we are stuck in the barren places, cut off from others. The path to reconciliation is one of repentance—of turning around—but John the Baptist helps us hear that the forgiveness we seek isn’t waiting for us when we complete the journey but is offered to us even before we take that first step.

In some ways, of course, this message of unconditional forgiveness and reconciliation isn’t intended for those who already come to church on Sunday mornings and already know that they will have a place in one of these pews and already believe that they will be embraced by God at the altar. Most of the people who need to hear the good news of God’s limitless grace and mercy are the ones who aren’t here. They’re the ones who have been pushed away by religious groups and institutions like ours—by the very people who think that leaving a lamp on in the window and waiting for penitent sinners to come back is all we are called to do—those who believe that it’s up to the ones who have gone astray to get their lives back in order before they walk through that door. But that’s not the gospel of grace. It’s just another way of saying, “Saints are welcome, but sinners need not apply.” And that’s not what it means for us to be the body of Christ.

Those of us who have received the good news of unconditional love are called to do more than welcome those who return. We must share that good news with those who doubt that they would ever have a place in a church like this one. We must reach out to them and go to those places—both physical and metaphorical—where broken relationships pile up, where three strikes and you’re out is the rule of life, where hope is hardest to find. Those are wilderness places, where city-folk like you and me are usually scared to go. But they are also the places where, in the tender compassion of our God, a new dawn from on high breaks upon sinners like us. 

If you already know in your heart that that dawn is breaking, you must go out and share that good news with those who have given up hope that there could ever be a new day. And, if you are among those who have been led to believe that God’s love and forgiveness will never be real for you until you become a better person and get your spiritual act together, hear this good news today: God has come out to meet you where you are. Even in the wilderness, a voice of hope cries out that God makes the crooked paths and rough places smooth and straight in order that all flesh shall see the salvation of God. 

1. Josephus. Antiquities of the Jews, XVIII.5.2. http://penelope.uchicago.edu/josephus/ant-18.html, accessed 3 December 2021.

Signs of Trouble, Signs of Hope

 

November 28, 2021 – Advent 1C

Jeremiah 33:14-16; 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13; Luke 21:25-36

© 2021 Evan D. Garner

Who is OJ Simpson? That depends on how old you are. If you are my parents’ age, you probably remember when “the Juice” was setting records at USC and in the NFL. People my age never saw him on the field, but I do remember being told that that mediocre actor I saw in The Naked Gun was once a legendary running back. Those who are my children’s age, of course, only know him as a famous defendant from a murder trial, if they know him at all.

Like most of you, I bet, I remember where I was when Simpson’s white Ford Bronco led an army of police cars on a low-speed chase around Los Angeles. And I remember where I was, sixteen months later, when the verdict in his murder trial was read. Likely a consequence of my age, I remember not really caring all that much about the trial and feeling a little surprised at how big a deal grown-ups were making about it. Except that one of my teachers kept the trial on in her classroom—a welcomed distraction from school work—I was not in any way invested in the outcome, but, if I had been forced to offer an assessment of Simpson’s not guilty verdict, I would have called it a miscarriage of justice—another example of a celebrity using his power, influence, and wealth to buy the outcome he desired.

Of course, I would have reached that conclusion not because I had weighed all the evidence offered at trial. I barely watched any of the proceedings. I could not have told you what the burden of proof was, nor could I have separated in any way the media’s coverage of the trial from the trial itself. Still, I would have told you that Simpson deserved to go to prison not because I actually cared about the outcome but because I belonged to a community that was predisposed to think that he was guilty. There were no black students in the classroom with me when the verdict was read. In fact, I was so insulated from anyone who thought otherwise that it wasn’t until fifteen years later, when the adult animated sitcom Family Guy reminisced about how differently white and black America had reacted to the verdict, that it occurred to me that anyone other than the defendant would have been relieved by the outcome. Sometimes we interpret world events not because of what happened but because of what attachments we hold.

“There will be signs,” Jesus tells us, “in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves.” When those calamitous signs take place, Jesus explains, many “people will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.” But when you see these things taking place, he tells us, “stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

There are two kinds of people in the world, Jesus reminds us, and, when the cosmos is shaken to its foundations, we will discover who is who. Many will run and hide and panic because the sky is falling, but those who belong to Jesus will stand up tall and look toward the heavens in order to see that their redemption is drawing near. Those who belong to the world—whose values and hopes are enmeshed with the powers and institutions of the earth—will have every reason to cower in fear because everything they’ve built their lives upon will come crashing to the ground. But those whose only hope rests in the one who will come and make all things new will celebrate that great and glorious day because then and only then will their salvation be complete.

Our job, as people of faith, is to make sure that we can recognize those signs for what they are and embrace them when they come. In order to do that, though, we must also remember what Jesus doesn’t tell us to do. As eager as we might be for the perfection of all things, Jesus never tells us to make God’s kingdom come, only to look for it. We pray for it. We hope for it. We watch for it. But we do not make God’s reign come. That’s God’s work. Sometimes that work takes place through us, as we offer ourselves each day to live more fully within God’s reign, but the great and final consummation of God’s loving purposes is not up to us. It’s up to God. 

That’s most definitely good news. In part, it’s good news because it’s exhausting when we convince ourselves that we are personally responsible for making sure that goodness will win in the end. Aren’t you tired, too? Aren’t you tired of things not going God’s way no matter how hard you try? Yes, we are called to the tireless work of living within the kingdom of God, but that kingdom will always be bigger than any jury verdict, any piece of legislation, or any political victory we might celebrate. And it’s also good news that God’s reign belongs to God because, even when we think we’ve got the whole “standing on the right side of justice” thing figured out, sometimes we still mess things up—because we’re human. As mere mortals, there is no decision we can make—individually or collectively—that will bring God’s reign to its fulfillment. 

But we can recognize that when the sun and moon and stars begin to fall, when the waves and the sea begin to roar, and when the powers of the heavens begin to shake, that our redemption is drawing near and that it’s time for us to stand up and take notice. Sometimes Christians get confused by what all those things mean. Sometimes overly enthusiastic preachers claim that this particular natural disaster or that particular world event are signs that the end is near. I don’t know about all of that, but I do take comfort in Jesus’ words to his disciples: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near.” Maybe interpreting the signs that God’s fulfillment of all things has come near is really as simple and obvious as seeing buds on a tree and knowing that summer is right around the corner.

Our problem isn’t that we focus on the wrong signs but that we fail to notice that these signs are evidence of the nearness of God’s reign. We miss them because we allow ourselves to be distracted by other priorities. Jesus warns his disciples not to let their hearts become weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life or else the day of Christ’s coming might catch them unexpectedly, like a trap. That’s a warning we must heed as well. In the Bible, drunkenness isn’t just an expression about the over-consumption of alcohol. The prophets use it to represent the state of losing one’s faculties to the allure of the world. Those who are drunk are drunk not only on wine but on all of the temporal, earthly pleasures that distract them from the centrality and importance of God’s heavenly reign. If the complete and chaotic reordering of the world feels threatening to us, maybe it’s because we’ve become so accustomed to the comforts of this life that we’ve forgotten how to recognize what God is doing when things get turned upside down.

Every once in a while, we get a glimpse of God’s great reordering of the world. These are moments when the power of Christ’s victory over sin and death breaks through into this life and reveals the ways in which God is bringing all things to their perfection. For many, those breakthroughs are deeply divisive and threatening, but for others they are signs of hope and promise. We must forsake our attachments to the ways of the world in order to interpret those signs for what they really are. We cannot make God’s kingdom come, but we can recognize it when it does. And, when we see those signs of God’s imminent reign as signs of hope and renewal, we become eager to stand up and lift up our heads and celebrate the day of Christ’s coming, not afraid of what will come but overjoyed at the one who comes to make all things new. To him be all honor and glory, world without end. Amen.

Recognizing Labor Pains

 

November 14, 2021 – The 25th Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 28B

Daniel 12:1-3; Hebrews 10:11-25; Mark 13:1-8

© 2021 Evan D. Garner

Audio of this sermon can be heard here. Video of the service can be seen here with the gospel and sermon beginning around 20:20. 

I was in the fourth or fifth grade when my mother took me to Washington, D.C.. I had never been on a trip like that—just me and one of my parents—and I knew it was special. We saw some amazing things, including the National Cathedral on Easter morning. I had never been in a church that big, that grand, that amazing. The music was concert-worthy, and the liturgy was sublime, but the sheer volume of the space—a seemingly boundless expanse—transported me to another spiritual plane. In that Holy Communion, I experienced, as John Calvin might describe it, a heavenly encounter with the real Christ as my soul was transported above even the lofty heights of the cathedral’s ceilings into the divine presence.

A dozen years later, I went to Rome for the first time and again felt my soul ascend into the heavens as I stepped inside St. Peter’s Basilica. Feeling beneath my feet the place where centuries of innumerable pilgrims had made their way to the center of western Christianity, I looked up and admired the dome that had funneled their prayers to God. But in Rome I also visited the ruins of religious shrines where prayers to Castor, Pollux, Saturn, and various deified emperors long ago fell silent. I saw the relics of a fallen empire and perceived within the fractured columns and broken arches the same architectural features I had seen boast of imperial might in our nation’s capital. What a difference two thousand years makes!

Jesus didn’t need to look that far into the future to behold the destruction of the Jerusalem temple, which fell during the city’s siege in 70AD, but his words about not one stone being left on top of another were aimed as much at institutional powers as the structures that enshrined them. 

On their way out of the temple, one of Jesus’ disciples remarked how large and impressive the stones and structures of the temple mount were. Indeed, they were impressive by any measure. An ancient rabbi wrote that “one who has not seen the temple in its full splendor has never seen a beautiful building.”  Imagine, then, what that marvelous expanse of white marble and gold looked like to a Galilean tradesman—a country boy from a fishing village up north. Imagine how easy it must have been to stand in that place and feel God’s Spirit tugging your heart and mind and soul upward. Yet, in Jesus’ mind, those magnificent stones were already scattered, lying crumbling on the ground. 

It is the prophet’s role to stand in the courts of power and declare their emptiness and inevitable decline. It is the prophet who brings the sharp truth of God’s word that the structures and symbols of earthly power must always give way to divine strength. And it is the job of the faithful to discern within those difficult proclamations a message of transcendent hope.

Today’s gospel lesson is a transitional passage in Mark’s account of the good news. It comes after Jesus’ lengthy teaching about the role of the temple in contemporary Jewish life. He had turned over the moneychangers’ tables and openly questioned the authority of the religious leaders. He had used barely disguised parables and clever scriptural techniques to expose the hypocrisy of the temple’s authorities. As the disciples listened on, Jesus had laid out a host of reasons why the institutional religion of his day had let God and God’s people down. And, now as they left the temple precincts, one of those disciples couldn’t help himself. “What large stones and large buildings!” he remarked, overwhelmed by their splendor. “Do you see these great buildings?” Jesus asked in reply. “Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”

Those words were more than a prophetic rebuke. To announce the impending destruction of the temple was not only to threaten the structure itself but also everything that it represented. This was the home of God. This was the place where God met God’s people here on earth. To declare that one day it would lie in ruin was more than a critique of the religious leaders. To those who felt in that holy place an irreplaceable connection with their Creator, it was like announcing that God would abandon God’s people. Rebels and heretics had been killed for less.

But what happens to God’s people when those generational symbols of strength and comfort are threatened? What happens when the foundations upon which we have built our faith in God are laid waste? That’s what we hear about in the second half of this gospel lesson, which links the destruction of the Jerusalem temple with even greater forces that seem to threaten us. This is where Jesus offers hope to those who have felt the sting of existential threat and corporate loss.

The disciples asked their teacher, “When will this be? What will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?” And Jesus replied with terrifying language about wars and rumors of wars, nations rising against nations, earthquakes, and famines. But all of those things, he told them, are just the beginning of the birth pangs. What an important image Jesus used to describe all that conflict! To him, they are not the last gasps of a dying people whose best days are behind them but the sharp labor pains of a people whose hopes are just being born. This is the future of a people whose broken symbols of earthly might are being torn down so that a new way of knowing God’s power and presence in their lives might take shape.

“Do not be alarmed,” Jesus says to us. “These things must take place, but the end is still to come.” Sometimes, when those symbols of power and strength begin to crack and crumble, it feels like God is abandoning us. Haven’t all of us, in recent months, discovered new fault lines in even the most basic building blocks of our lives? But Jesus teaches us to recognize that they must all fall away if God’s reign is to take hold in our lives. We cannot know the salvation of God until we have been emptied of the pretense of our own security. 

Like the religious leaders of Jesus’ day, we tend to confuse symbols of earthly strength, beauty, and majesty with the One into whose presence they are supposed to draw us. And, when those institutional structures are called into question by contemporary prophets, it feels as if everything we’ve built our lives upon might come crumbling down. Oh, that it would! Jesus tells his followers to look forward to that day. That’s because, if our hope is in anything of our own making, our future destruction is assured. Only when those symbols of earthly might have fallen away can God build in their place a new hope, a new possibility.

We are surrounded by signs that that transformation is taking place. Jesus is the one who teaches us how to move beyond the comforting symbols and structures that are familiar to us in order to know the power of God and God’s love. His death and resurrection have shown us how to recognize in our losses and struggles signs of new life being born within us. As with any birth, that new life comes with pain and great difficulty, but it brings with it hope and promise. In the midst of conflict and strife, we stand at the cusp of something new and glorious. “Do not be alarmed,” Jesus tells us. These things must take place, but the end—the fulfillment of all things—is still to come.