February 7, 2010
The Rev. Natasha Brubaker Garrison
Isaiah 6:1-8, Ps 138, 1 Cor. 15:1-11, Luke 5:1-11
5th Sunday after the Epiphany, Year C
I was not someone who learned to swim easily. My mother was terrified of the water and I absorbed some of that fear. Even though my grandmother had a swimming pool and I liked splashing about in the shallows, I would go no further than where my foot could touch bottom. I spent a lot of time around the steps as you can imagine. It was a very small pool for me! But beyond that I couldn't go. It was deep down there and I had nothing to hold onto, nothing to make me secure with what I was comfortable with. If someone had tossed me in the deep end to teach me to swim I probably would have panicked and nearly drowned. It took many years for me to trust the deep water of a pool and that if I knew what to rely on I would not perish or sink.
The stories we hear today are about call. That is indeed clear. We hear of a call of a prophet inside a holy place; we hear of the call of the fisherman in the middle of their daily work. Both are calls to bring God's liberating word to people who are floundering, struggling, in need of freedom and hope, out there in the world. Both are shaped by a first critical step of leaving old patterns and expectations behind. If not, nothing will change. We will stay in the shallows and catch nothing, or we catch stuff that is useless or maybe even harmful. Small fish are in the shallows, not ones to live on. The sea tosses up the garbage and toxins onto the shores.
Quite often we hear sermons that talk about what call looks like and how to catch others. But perhaps we are jumping the gun a bit...maybe we are casting our fishing line with the wrong tie on it. Maybe our nets are a bit tangled. Before we can catch other people for Jesus and for God, and by catch I mean bring them into the joy of being liberated and freed and known as treasured of God, we have to be caught ourselves.
Have we been caught by Jesus? Have we let him guide us into the deep and unknown places of our hearts and lives? Have we trusted that he will be there to give us exactly what we need? Have we, like Peter, made the turn from calling him Boss to calling him Lord, or more precisely God? There is a world of difference between obeying a boss and following and surrendering to the holy.
Before we can bring others to Jesus or at least help point the way, we have to be caught up in him and by him. We are called to take the plunge into the deep of our souls and lives and trust that way down in the depths we will encounter God. We have to. For it is only there that we have stepped out of the shallows, let go of our certainties, and given up thinking we have the answers and solutions all sorted out. It is only there that we stop clinging to our rationales and justifications so that we can really listen, discover and face our truest selves and the possibilities that are out there. All we have left is God to rely on; there is nothing else. We give up expectation and control and strike out into a new world.
We see this in the response of Peter. Okay, boss, I'll do what you say, but you know we are fishing experts and know all about our trade. We've worked hard all night and come up with squat. Not sure what a carpenter knows about fishing, but hey, I'll do what you say because others seem to think your a big shot, but don't expect much. I certainly don't.
Peter gives just a wedge of opening to Jesus in his heart and Jesus comes in and breaks him wide open. The unexpected happens. Their needs are met and then some. And they don't sink, but rather Peter realizes that all his illusions have been tossed overboard. He is not obeying a boss; he is entering into partnership with God. God has come in and said if you trust in me you will have the riches of true life.
But even then, Peter wants to go back to the shallows. He clearly recognizes that he has just had a head-on collision with God, but he wants out. Leave me alone, he cries. I am sinful, I am not worthy. Go find someone else to fish with. I'm booked every morning from now until the end of the season---trout season, catfish season, salmon season, any season you can name—I'm busy! Jesus pays him no mind. He simply tells Peter he will be catching people. His life is changed and it didn't depend on any of the worldly status markers we use or even so called divine ones. He is a sinner. So what? Aren't we all? And God is reaching out for us all the same. God will reach us if we delve into our own deep places and draw us up into a new life, not perfect, but graced and freed to live anew. We see this too in the letter of Paul. A former persecutor of the Church, the least of the disciples, one who encouraged and presided over the stoning of Stephen, yet God called him and changd his life. We are picked as we are.
This is one of those great paradoxes of the life of the soul. When we allow ourselves to go into our deepest places and share them we often get the opposite of what we expect. We think if we really let it all hang out others will run screaming away. If others really were allowed to peek at our failings and fears and hurts they would find us weak, silly, not worth their time. But so often we find that such honesty is met with astonishing compassion, grace and forgiveness. We find that we pull up a net not broken but teeming with truly eternal life-giving gifts. Yes, such work can make us lose things in the world. We might lose a job for speaking our truth about justice or exploitation. We might lose a “friend” by sharing our pain. We might give up a way of relating to the world shaped by control and dominance, but we gain so much more. We gain integrity, we gain love, we gain the gift of true friends over false ones, we gain an ability to serve others first rather than striving to prove ourselves. And so it goes. And here is the truth of God: God never runs away. God says, yes, I know all that my dear heart, so let's get moving, OK? Where do you want to go from here? I have some ideas.
And where might this take us? Right out into the world we live in. If we are caught by Jesus, truly caught, we can see no other way than to want to feed the hungry, and care for the sick, and visit those in prisons of whatever kind, and work for peace, and if we have much to give it away and to let go of status for service. We begin to be open people, not hiding behind masks and personas. We are willing to be transparent and honest about our own struggles and need. We begin to build true communities. We start to really know what it means to be humble and non-judgmental of others.
When we can go into the deep and encounter Jesus, we are given the opportunity to truly let the image of God within us break free. Perhaps one way to think of this is in the words of Marianne Williamson made famous by Nelson Mandela:
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually who are you NOT to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't save the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear our presence automatically liberates others.
In short, we are ready to give up the securities of the world for the risk of being the living Gospel because no matter how much we give up in worldly terms we know God is holding us in his net and the life we are experiencing is one that no one and nothing can ever take away. We've been caught in the deeps by Jesus. And we begin to know we can go into the deep without fear of rejection. Jesus net is always open and his arms are always spread wide to say come in. Here you are always wanted and always loved, no matter who you think you are. Trust me on this one.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Monday, February 1, 2010
January 31, 2010, 4th Sunday after Epiphany
January 31, 2010
The Rev. Natasha Brubaker Garrison
Jeremiah 1:4-10, Ps 71:1-6, 1 Corinthians 13:1-13, Luke 4:21-30
4th Sunday after Epiphany, Year C
In thinking about what to say today I had the notion that I could do a great State of the Parish address—a little parody, a little humor, a little seriousness. But while that would have been fun, the moment requires that we look with both joy and focus on where we are as a parish and where we hope to go, where God is calling us.
Our readings today are about transition, challenge and change in self-understanding. The Gospel is particularly hard. It is an extremely charged and violent text. The Romans weren’t the first people that wanted to get rid of Jesus, neither were the local leaders. It was his peers and kin. On another day we will delve into this story of mob violence, rivalry and envy that leads his hometown to move from admiration to trying to instigate a group murder within minutes. Hurling Jesus off the cliff and to his death was the idea. And part of what is circulating in this story is the challenge to change, to seeing things in a different way, of calling people to adjust their perspective by calling out the old way of doing things that are taken for granted. So it is with Jeremiah. Jeremiah appeals to God that he is not ready for this new task. Who is he? He is just a young one! How can he be asked to move in this new direction, a risky and very public direction? He is resistant and who can really blame him!
In a very real way, these stories of transition and the various ways we respond to it fit well with our life here as a parish. We are in a time of transition as a community for a variety of reasons. For some of us, we may have thought that now that the rector search is over, in fact a year and a half ago, we have mostly left transition time and we are mostly going through the changes of getting to know each other and the inevitable adjustments that come with that. This is true. But our parish is by definition in transition. In all those books on congregation size and life we fit into the category called “transitional”. By our membership numbers we fall squarely into that class. By our Sunday attendance we are almost approaching it. Transition parishes are either growing or shrinking. They are at the edge of needing and wanting more staff and more resources, yet still operating out of older systems and funding (that worked well for a smaller size) realities. It’s a risky time in many respects, but it also a time of great opportunity.
The vision articulated during the search process was one of looking to growth and moving forward through this transitional stage of life. One such major leap was made before: moving from mission to parish status. Part of making this next leap is adjusting systems and creating the space so that growth can fit in.
Here is part of how our leadership is doing that. We are moving into changing our structures around our common governance. Our finance team is codifying its processes and has created input mechanisms for ministries to tell of their hopes and needs. We have created a property committee that has taken on the task of long-term planning, prioritizing and shepherding of major projects to care for and improve our grounds and buildings. On the one hand, projects and ideas that have been out there for quite a while are getting done in a more focused and organized manner. On the other hand, it means ideas and implementation flow through a new process. Our stewardship and development teams are looking this year at establishing year-round programs. Our vestry is taking on the work of supporting our 5-year vision, creating stronger ties between vestry and our ministries, and living into mutual ministry reviews. The way of doing business is being shifted outward into groups and teams, which is what we need, I believe, at our size and moment of life. Part of this is widening the circle of those invited into leadership, both long-time members and people newer to our community. New ideas and new perspectives, but also change.
One large transition and change that happened to us was in our music ministry. In taking our time, discerning as a community, not rushing into a quick answer we have arrived at a new configuration. It is even more a team ministry; it has been a reconciling time. We are blessed beyond measure with our music leaders, CORAME, choir, choristers and other musicians. They are integrating the common themes and responses to our questionnaire gradually and wisely.
We have added new ministry groups and a new Sunday evening worship service. Our Sunday attendance is up and so are the numbers of members. Much good ministry is happening in and from this place. We have much to offer and offer it we do, but we also have the charge to invite people in and share all the good things that are happening here at Resurrection.
Here are some of our challenges. We need to discover as a community how we are going to support more fully our nursery and Sunday School. Our teachers are wonderful and dedicated, but they are small in number and to prevent them burning out and feeling overworked we do need to expand the number of folks participating in this ministry. It’s a great work, teaching and caring for our youngest members. We say we want to attract families, and this is one of the critical ways we make that possible.
We need to look at our long-term financial health both in terms of assets in reserve and our annual operating budget. There is a trend of roughly the last decade where our numbers are growing but our giving is declining. This is not a sustainable pattern in the long run. In order to support and have our ministries grow into the future we are asked to find how to increase our annual budget by about $15-20,000, which for a parish our size is not a huge increase. I am confident that we can do this because we love this place and we know how much comfort, community and witness to the Gospel flows from it.
We need to look at increasing our compensation for our music ministers and hopefully increasing our secretary’s hours (we could certainly use more) and therefore pay. And we are going to enter into a period of invitation around whether we are a parish that works bests with a part time or a full time rector. As of April, I will be going onto ¾ time as our finances do not support a full time position. Since my maternity leave will coincide with the beginning of this shift the effects of it will likely be most noticed come this fall. The most obvious change is that I will be here 3 Sundays mornings per month rather than four. However, during my maternity leave and beyond I intend to still celebrate the 5:30 p.m. vespers with Holy Communion each Sunday. We will also be further developing our lay pastoral ministry, and I am very excited about this.
One of the main tasks of our leadership this coming year is entering into conversation about the clergy model we want and desire. Either model, part or full time, can work well in vibrant, growing parishes. It is an opportune moment to see how we want to shape our ministries. So you see, there is much room for creative and innovative thinking as we decide how we want to shape our life for the future.
There is so much that we can rejoice in about our life here. As always there are there things to do and new directions to explore. But most importantly we continue to be blessed in so many ways by each other and to be a place that seeks with warm hearts and intention to live out the Gospel in our corner of the world. And live it out we do, of that we can be assured. Amen.
The Rev. Natasha Brubaker Garrison
Jeremiah 1:4-10, Ps 71:1-6, 1 Corinthians 13:1-13, Luke 4:21-30
4th Sunday after Epiphany, Year C
In thinking about what to say today I had the notion that I could do a great State of the Parish address—a little parody, a little humor, a little seriousness. But while that would have been fun, the moment requires that we look with both joy and focus on where we are as a parish and where we hope to go, where God is calling us.
Our readings today are about transition, challenge and change in self-understanding. The Gospel is particularly hard. It is an extremely charged and violent text. The Romans weren’t the first people that wanted to get rid of Jesus, neither were the local leaders. It was his peers and kin. On another day we will delve into this story of mob violence, rivalry and envy that leads his hometown to move from admiration to trying to instigate a group murder within minutes. Hurling Jesus off the cliff and to his death was the idea. And part of what is circulating in this story is the challenge to change, to seeing things in a different way, of calling people to adjust their perspective by calling out the old way of doing things that are taken for granted. So it is with Jeremiah. Jeremiah appeals to God that he is not ready for this new task. Who is he? He is just a young one! How can he be asked to move in this new direction, a risky and very public direction? He is resistant and who can really blame him!
In a very real way, these stories of transition and the various ways we respond to it fit well with our life here as a parish. We are in a time of transition as a community for a variety of reasons. For some of us, we may have thought that now that the rector search is over, in fact a year and a half ago, we have mostly left transition time and we are mostly going through the changes of getting to know each other and the inevitable adjustments that come with that. This is true. But our parish is by definition in transition. In all those books on congregation size and life we fit into the category called “transitional”. By our membership numbers we fall squarely into that class. By our Sunday attendance we are almost approaching it. Transition parishes are either growing or shrinking. They are at the edge of needing and wanting more staff and more resources, yet still operating out of older systems and funding (that worked well for a smaller size) realities. It’s a risky time in many respects, but it also a time of great opportunity.
The vision articulated during the search process was one of looking to growth and moving forward through this transitional stage of life. One such major leap was made before: moving from mission to parish status. Part of making this next leap is adjusting systems and creating the space so that growth can fit in.
Here is part of how our leadership is doing that. We are moving into changing our structures around our common governance. Our finance team is codifying its processes and has created input mechanisms for ministries to tell of their hopes and needs. We have created a property committee that has taken on the task of long-term planning, prioritizing and shepherding of major projects to care for and improve our grounds and buildings. On the one hand, projects and ideas that have been out there for quite a while are getting done in a more focused and organized manner. On the other hand, it means ideas and implementation flow through a new process. Our stewardship and development teams are looking this year at establishing year-round programs. Our vestry is taking on the work of supporting our 5-year vision, creating stronger ties between vestry and our ministries, and living into mutual ministry reviews. The way of doing business is being shifted outward into groups and teams, which is what we need, I believe, at our size and moment of life. Part of this is widening the circle of those invited into leadership, both long-time members and people newer to our community. New ideas and new perspectives, but also change.
One large transition and change that happened to us was in our music ministry. In taking our time, discerning as a community, not rushing into a quick answer we have arrived at a new configuration. It is even more a team ministry; it has been a reconciling time. We are blessed beyond measure with our music leaders, CORAME, choir, choristers and other musicians. They are integrating the common themes and responses to our questionnaire gradually and wisely.
We have added new ministry groups and a new Sunday evening worship service. Our Sunday attendance is up and so are the numbers of members. Much good ministry is happening in and from this place. We have much to offer and offer it we do, but we also have the charge to invite people in and share all the good things that are happening here at Resurrection.
Here are some of our challenges. We need to discover as a community how we are going to support more fully our nursery and Sunday School. Our teachers are wonderful and dedicated, but they are small in number and to prevent them burning out and feeling overworked we do need to expand the number of folks participating in this ministry. It’s a great work, teaching and caring for our youngest members. We say we want to attract families, and this is one of the critical ways we make that possible.
We need to look at our long-term financial health both in terms of assets in reserve and our annual operating budget. There is a trend of roughly the last decade where our numbers are growing but our giving is declining. This is not a sustainable pattern in the long run. In order to support and have our ministries grow into the future we are asked to find how to increase our annual budget by about $15-20,000, which for a parish our size is not a huge increase. I am confident that we can do this because we love this place and we know how much comfort, community and witness to the Gospel flows from it.
We need to look at increasing our compensation for our music ministers and hopefully increasing our secretary’s hours (we could certainly use more) and therefore pay. And we are going to enter into a period of invitation around whether we are a parish that works bests with a part time or a full time rector. As of April, I will be going onto ¾ time as our finances do not support a full time position. Since my maternity leave will coincide with the beginning of this shift the effects of it will likely be most noticed come this fall. The most obvious change is that I will be here 3 Sundays mornings per month rather than four. However, during my maternity leave and beyond I intend to still celebrate the 5:30 p.m. vespers with Holy Communion each Sunday. We will also be further developing our lay pastoral ministry, and I am very excited about this.
One of the main tasks of our leadership this coming year is entering into conversation about the clergy model we want and desire. Either model, part or full time, can work well in vibrant, growing parishes. It is an opportune moment to see how we want to shape our ministries. So you see, there is much room for creative and innovative thinking as we decide how we want to shape our life for the future.
There is so much that we can rejoice in about our life here. As always there are there things to do and new directions to explore. But most importantly we continue to be blessed in so many ways by each other and to be a place that seeks with warm hearts and intention to live out the Gospel in our corner of the world. And live it out we do, of that we can be assured. Amen.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
January 24, 2010, Third Sunday after Epiphany
January 24, 2010
The Rev. Natasha Brubaker Garrison
3rd Sunday after Epiphany, Year C
Nehemiah 8:1-3,5-6,8-10, Ps 19, 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a, Luke 4:14-21
There is a common thread woven throughout all our readings today. It is the idea of interpretation. Interpretation is central to our faith and how we understand our Holy Scripture. Every age and every person who reads the Bible engages in interpretation. Its meaning is neither static nor is there only one, unequivocal understanding. This has always been the case. We read it in the context of our personal lives; we read it in the context of our social setting. And this is a good thing, for if it didn’t continue to raise up questions for us it would be a dead text. It is a vehicle, a sacrament, I think, of God’s ongoing revelation and working in the world.
Of course, there is the need for an appropriate starting point and understanding about the texts in order to interpret them well. We see this in the reading of Nehemiah where all the people “who could understand” listened to the book of the law and this book was read to them “with interpretation”. Nehemiah was written after the return of the people from their exile in Babylon. They had been away for three hundred years and they were different. The law was reinterpreted to fit new times and places while holding to its essence. The law also helped people interpret the world and times around them. And it was interpreted by those believed to be wise enough and prayerful enough to give a sound rendering.
The wisdom spoken of in the Psalm is a variation of interpretation. Jesus engages in a bold and audacious act of interpretation by saying that this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing, meaning that he was the fulfillment. We take that as a given, but imagine if I or someone else here made that statement today. We’d be shocked and understandably skeptical. Jesus’ claim is vitally important to us, though. We as Christians believe he is correct in that daring speech. Jesus is the Word of God for us, and it is this Word that we worship, not the words of the Bible. Those words, beautiful, essential and utterly necessary, point to him and to God and to a path of understanding. A very real temptation and reality is that all too often we begin to worship the Bible and that is idolatry. It is Jesus who is our ultimate and primary interpretive lens on our faith and our world.
This theme of interpretation is not as visible in the letter to the Corinthians, but it is there. It is not so much an interpretation of the written word, but an existential interpretation, an interpretation of who we are and how we see and understand ourselves. The image Paul gives is powerful and profoundly important. We have heard it so much that it is almost a cliché, but we do ourselves a disservice by passing over it lightly. It deserves our time and willingness to stop and really examine what this image is meant to help us understand.
Paul grounds us in the point I made earlier: Jesus the Christ is our starting point, the place from which our understanding and interpretation flows. Without that as a starting point the inclusive picture he paints would not have emerged so clearly and so quickly—one body of Jews and Greeks, slaves and free. And therein is the second vital point: we are a body.
We are a body. We are described as part of Christ’s body and that body is clearly described and understood by analogy to a human body. Here are some of the implications of such an image. It is organic. It is unified, though diverse. It is utterly interdependent and mutually dependent in ways clearly seen and ways that we can’t even comprehend. Every part is essential, necessary. If part of the body is lost or injured it affects all the rest; it may compensate, but is not ever again quite the same. Though there are perceived hierarchies, they are completely interwoven with a basic horizontal equity. One cannot exist without the other. No part is expendable. No part can be exploited or used without damage and detriment to the rest. This is how God sees us…absolutely necessary and needed, indispensible. No matter what we hear out there or at times within our own hearts, we are seen by God as part of this body. We each matter profoundly. And that type of love and connection is indeed Good News.
It is a tremendously powerful image of community within which resides autonomy and independence. It is a collective understanding in which individuals live and from which they are shaped and formed. But they never leave it and they cannot exist without it.
This is a radically different understanding of self, I believe, than that of our culture and the institutions we have created. There, the individual is seen as completely discreet, independent, mostly unattached to others by nature or need. Hierarchies sort people into separate groups and obscure notions of commonality. We believe we are self-defined and able to act on the world around us as if our ties to it were voluntary, not intrinsic. It is a picture of isolation presented as freedom. It is individuality presented as true identity. It is disconnection presented as common reality. It severs ties and mutuality in their existential sense and creates ties that are artifice and construct, often without much commitment or sense of accountability. To me that is a lonely and bleak prospect.
Paul’s vision calls us into a truly interdependent life. His community exists based on Christ, nothing else and nothing less. Today community often means a group of people who share the same viewpoint or who like the same activity as us. But beyond that there is often not much that ties us together, requires us to stay with each other and bear with each other. We might join a line-dancing group and share good times, but when we are feeling blue or a difficult time arises are these people we feel we could call to be with us? Or Tom Friedman who writes that technology has made the world flat. Is that true? We may be able to connect with people all over the world in a second, but is a connection done through an impersonal medium where we can present (or recreate) ourselves as we want the same as face-to-face interaction? Is there the possibility for true understanding when we can’t meet and experience each other’s realities?
Our world may indeed be more immediate, but it is not intimate. Paul’s vision is one of profound intimacy and caring. It is a redefined freedom and identity, not one that negates our individual-ness and particular gifts, rather it rejoices in them, but one that puts them into a richer context and a deep understanding that we exist for each other first, even if that means that we can’t always do what we want or have all that we want. We discover that his image though gives us so much more of what we need and truly taps into who we are as created beings. Paul believes we find this by a deep recognition that our fullest life is found by understanding ourselves as part of Christ at all times and in all places. We are communal creatures defined and guided by his life. This is the community the Church aims to be at its best. It’s a grand and wonderful vision. It takes work and awareness and an openness to growth within us all.
I would suggest that this vision is not just valid for Christians. We aren’t the first people to have a similar idea of self and community. It exists in Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, native traditions and so on. Ours has its particular aspects that are unique and that we hold to be divinely revealed. All to the good. But if we believe our understanding has a divine source, it is not just for us, but also saying something about the whole world and its character. This vision of Paul’s has something to offer the secular world. We have something to offer it based from this understanding. We have something of value to say to a world where suddenly corporations, artificial constructs of the state, are defined as and given all the rights of people and citizens. Such entities are not people; rather, they are collections of people and legal arrangements and constructions defined on paper and in practices. The interface with them is through lawyers and boards and ultimately many persons and yet no one. The relationship is ephemeral. They can be created and they can be undone overnight. Function is confused with essence. Corporations are necessary and needed for many things, but I think this is a symptom of confused interpretation and understanding. It is so very different from the body image.
Fragmentation and disconnect are the force pulling in the other direction depending on how we see ourselves. I am reminded of the words of the “Grapes of Wrath” where the farmers who are struggling to survive in a natural calamity are being forced off their land, even though they have not been negligent or irresponsible. The refrain from the representatives is it’s not me it’s the bank. Impersonal, everywhere yet nowhere, not in connection to the men and women who grow the very food they eat.
There is much in the world that will be shaped based on our images of who we are: the situation in Haiti, the vote this week, the ideas being put forward around our economic activity and actors, our annual meeting next week, and surely our own private concerns and situations.
My invitation to us this week is to ponder and pray with Paul’s image. What does it mean to us? What does it invite us to? Where is it good news and where does it challenge us? What does it mean to how we understand ourselves? What does it mean to be Church, to be part of this community? What does it call us to do in how we look at the world outside these walls and take part in it? What hope can it offer in times that are so very hard and where the tension is very real between highly differing visions of society? Where is the Word, Jesus, present to us here and now?
The Rev. Natasha Brubaker Garrison
3rd Sunday after Epiphany, Year C
Nehemiah 8:1-3,5-6,8-10, Ps 19, 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a, Luke 4:14-21
There is a common thread woven throughout all our readings today. It is the idea of interpretation. Interpretation is central to our faith and how we understand our Holy Scripture. Every age and every person who reads the Bible engages in interpretation. Its meaning is neither static nor is there only one, unequivocal understanding. This has always been the case. We read it in the context of our personal lives; we read it in the context of our social setting. And this is a good thing, for if it didn’t continue to raise up questions for us it would be a dead text. It is a vehicle, a sacrament, I think, of God’s ongoing revelation and working in the world.
Of course, there is the need for an appropriate starting point and understanding about the texts in order to interpret them well. We see this in the reading of Nehemiah where all the people “who could understand” listened to the book of the law and this book was read to them “with interpretation”. Nehemiah was written after the return of the people from their exile in Babylon. They had been away for three hundred years and they were different. The law was reinterpreted to fit new times and places while holding to its essence. The law also helped people interpret the world and times around them. And it was interpreted by those believed to be wise enough and prayerful enough to give a sound rendering.
The wisdom spoken of in the Psalm is a variation of interpretation. Jesus engages in a bold and audacious act of interpretation by saying that this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing, meaning that he was the fulfillment. We take that as a given, but imagine if I or someone else here made that statement today. We’d be shocked and understandably skeptical. Jesus’ claim is vitally important to us, though. We as Christians believe he is correct in that daring speech. Jesus is the Word of God for us, and it is this Word that we worship, not the words of the Bible. Those words, beautiful, essential and utterly necessary, point to him and to God and to a path of understanding. A very real temptation and reality is that all too often we begin to worship the Bible and that is idolatry. It is Jesus who is our ultimate and primary interpretive lens on our faith and our world.
This theme of interpretation is not as visible in the letter to the Corinthians, but it is there. It is not so much an interpretation of the written word, but an existential interpretation, an interpretation of who we are and how we see and understand ourselves. The image Paul gives is powerful and profoundly important. We have heard it so much that it is almost a cliché, but we do ourselves a disservice by passing over it lightly. It deserves our time and willingness to stop and really examine what this image is meant to help us understand.
Paul grounds us in the point I made earlier: Jesus the Christ is our starting point, the place from which our understanding and interpretation flows. Without that as a starting point the inclusive picture he paints would not have emerged so clearly and so quickly—one body of Jews and Greeks, slaves and free. And therein is the second vital point: we are a body.
We are a body. We are described as part of Christ’s body and that body is clearly described and understood by analogy to a human body. Here are some of the implications of such an image. It is organic. It is unified, though diverse. It is utterly interdependent and mutually dependent in ways clearly seen and ways that we can’t even comprehend. Every part is essential, necessary. If part of the body is lost or injured it affects all the rest; it may compensate, but is not ever again quite the same. Though there are perceived hierarchies, they are completely interwoven with a basic horizontal equity. One cannot exist without the other. No part is expendable. No part can be exploited or used without damage and detriment to the rest. This is how God sees us…absolutely necessary and needed, indispensible. No matter what we hear out there or at times within our own hearts, we are seen by God as part of this body. We each matter profoundly. And that type of love and connection is indeed Good News.
It is a tremendously powerful image of community within which resides autonomy and independence. It is a collective understanding in which individuals live and from which they are shaped and formed. But they never leave it and they cannot exist without it.
This is a radically different understanding of self, I believe, than that of our culture and the institutions we have created. There, the individual is seen as completely discreet, independent, mostly unattached to others by nature or need. Hierarchies sort people into separate groups and obscure notions of commonality. We believe we are self-defined and able to act on the world around us as if our ties to it were voluntary, not intrinsic. It is a picture of isolation presented as freedom. It is individuality presented as true identity. It is disconnection presented as common reality. It severs ties and mutuality in their existential sense and creates ties that are artifice and construct, often without much commitment or sense of accountability. To me that is a lonely and bleak prospect.
Paul’s vision calls us into a truly interdependent life. His community exists based on Christ, nothing else and nothing less. Today community often means a group of people who share the same viewpoint or who like the same activity as us. But beyond that there is often not much that ties us together, requires us to stay with each other and bear with each other. We might join a line-dancing group and share good times, but when we are feeling blue or a difficult time arises are these people we feel we could call to be with us? Or Tom Friedman who writes that technology has made the world flat. Is that true? We may be able to connect with people all over the world in a second, but is a connection done through an impersonal medium where we can present (or recreate) ourselves as we want the same as face-to-face interaction? Is there the possibility for true understanding when we can’t meet and experience each other’s realities?
Our world may indeed be more immediate, but it is not intimate. Paul’s vision is one of profound intimacy and caring. It is a redefined freedom and identity, not one that negates our individual-ness and particular gifts, rather it rejoices in them, but one that puts them into a richer context and a deep understanding that we exist for each other first, even if that means that we can’t always do what we want or have all that we want. We discover that his image though gives us so much more of what we need and truly taps into who we are as created beings. Paul believes we find this by a deep recognition that our fullest life is found by understanding ourselves as part of Christ at all times and in all places. We are communal creatures defined and guided by his life. This is the community the Church aims to be at its best. It’s a grand and wonderful vision. It takes work and awareness and an openness to growth within us all.
I would suggest that this vision is not just valid for Christians. We aren’t the first people to have a similar idea of self and community. It exists in Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, native traditions and so on. Ours has its particular aspects that are unique and that we hold to be divinely revealed. All to the good. But if we believe our understanding has a divine source, it is not just for us, but also saying something about the whole world and its character. This vision of Paul’s has something to offer the secular world. We have something to offer it based from this understanding. We have something of value to say to a world where suddenly corporations, artificial constructs of the state, are defined as and given all the rights of people and citizens. Such entities are not people; rather, they are collections of people and legal arrangements and constructions defined on paper and in practices. The interface with them is through lawyers and boards and ultimately many persons and yet no one. The relationship is ephemeral. They can be created and they can be undone overnight. Function is confused with essence. Corporations are necessary and needed for many things, but I think this is a symptom of confused interpretation and understanding. It is so very different from the body image.
Fragmentation and disconnect are the force pulling in the other direction depending on how we see ourselves. I am reminded of the words of the “Grapes of Wrath” where the farmers who are struggling to survive in a natural calamity are being forced off their land, even though they have not been negligent or irresponsible. The refrain from the representatives is it’s not me it’s the bank. Impersonal, everywhere yet nowhere, not in connection to the men and women who grow the very food they eat.
There is much in the world that will be shaped based on our images of who we are: the situation in Haiti, the vote this week, the ideas being put forward around our economic activity and actors, our annual meeting next week, and surely our own private concerns and situations.
My invitation to us this week is to ponder and pray with Paul’s image. What does it mean to us? What does it invite us to? Where is it good news and where does it challenge us? What does it mean to how we understand ourselves? What does it mean to be Church, to be part of this community? What does it call us to do in how we look at the world outside these walls and take part in it? What hope can it offer in times that are so very hard and where the tension is very real between highly differing visions of society? Where is the Word, Jesus, present to us here and now?
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
January 17, 2010, Second Sunday after Ephiphany
January 17, 2010
The Rev. Natasha Brubaker Garrison
Isaiah 62:1-5, Ps 36:5-10, 1 Cor. 12:1-11, John 2:1-11
When I hear the words of the steward in this story, “everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk”, I always give a wry smile. In the midst of this amazing story of grace, overflowing grace, there is a moment of subtle humor…and within it the crucial point for us. The steward reminds me of those music clubs that entice one in with “select 10 free and only buy 5 more at regular club prices” type of deals. Reading through that list of options is a music-lovers’ dream. All these latest and greatest groups! And so one blithely signs up only to discover down the road that it seems like the future selections aren’t as good and neither are the prices. We are given categories and definitions that may or may not be very good or accurate. Or on a more serious note we see it in our social discourse that seems so stuck in old and tired, virtually meaningless clichés, such as choice, freedom, socialism, development, free market, the American Dream, that we end up not really having much of a discussion at all. We’ve been hearing words and definitions of the way things are for so long that even when reality is truly presenting a starkly different picture we struggle to adjust our view. It must fit the old category!
The steward gets all confused and lost in conventional categories. He thinks that the bridegroom has broken etiquette, that something got confused in the planning. He tries to explain this miracle of superabundant and superb quality wine by the usual rational means. Consequently, he misses the whole point. The disciples, in contrast, and this is the point, recognize that God has worked in an unexpected and transformative way through our world to shower us with abundant grace. It is a gift larger than we can explain in our limited capacities; it is running straight into God’s glory and accepting it.
This story of the miraculous is John’s first showing of who and what Jesus is and offers. After the lyrical prologue, after his baptism, and after his calling together his disciples, the first major act of Jesus in this Gospel is the story we hear today. It is a story that gives us a first definition of God who can and desires to transform our world into a place saturated with grace. It is God that offers us the very best wine, that can convert our lives into vessels of beauty and holiness, plenty and good. It is a God that meets our needs if we are open to give God the space to act in ways that are unexpected yet so truly meeting our needs and our places of brokenness.
This is the God the disciples meet in Jesus. It is the God we meet in Jesus: God with us to shower us with this grace. We meet God in the face of a fellow human who can take what we have and through his love and holiness turn it into the kingdom of God. We can’t do it without him, but with him we can do things, as Jesus says later in this Gospel, even greater than these. Jesus, we are told, is the well of life of which the psalmist speaks. Jesus is that good wine drawn from the jars. He is the wine we drink after we have drunk the wine of the world and realize it can only offer so much. Even the best wine from the finest vineyards in France is inferior, eventually gives out, when compared to the wine of Jesus, which he freely gives.
The community that gave us the Gospel of John experienced intensely this grace found in Jesus. It is why it is the first and foundational story of this Gospel. Through that grace they withstood being kicked out of the synagogue (this community was Jewish), they withstood rejection, and they flourished because they continued to draw on the love and grace of Christ. This was the Jesus they shared with the world. It invited them into living in this world but within new definitions, new categories, and the trust that through Jesus working in them they too could be the initiators of miracles as great as providing abundant wine to others—be it spiritual or material sustenance. What a glorious vision they held! And even in the face of their own losses and adjustments, they knew they had the better portion.
Which leads me to Martin Luther King, Jr. He is honored tomorrow in our calendar of saints, but our music today is in tribute to him and the movement that he represents is worthy of our attention, gratitude and continued allegiance. In preparing this sermon I spent time watching footage of his speeches and of the larger struggle of for civil rights. The images are arresting: thousands of people gathered, stirring speeches, vibrant, hope-filled faces, dogs, fire hoses, lynchings, beatings, the hate-twisted faces of other Americans yelling at men and women forcefully yet peacefully demonstrating their utter humanity and demand to be acknowledged as people of dignity and worth, equal in the eyes of God. What sustained them was not only the belief in the justice of their cause, not only great leaders, not only a desire that their children be given a better world, but a drawing on the wine of Jesus, a continual drawing on the grace and power of the crucified and risen one that enfolded them in a hope and a truth that was larger than the world.
They drank of the wine of that grace, relied on it, and trusted it would see them through years of struggle. In drinking that wine they lived into different categories—who they were and who they were to become; and how to reach the end for which they were aiming. If they had chosen violence to match the violence inflicted on them nothing would have been transformed. If they had chosen to adopt a belief of racial superiority over whites that would justify inverting the system nothing would have been transformed. If they had chosen to work within the established categories of media, lawsuits and so on, nothing would have changed or it would have been a continuation of the snail-like pace they already knew. They drank the wine and created new categories…categories founded on a justice rooted in love and reconciliation.
For us the invitation is to believe in the outpouring of God’s grace as revealed in Jesus Christ. He draws wine from the water jar and offers it to us if we can open our hearts to a larger world. He offers that wine so that our hearts will open for this is his desire for us. To drink of his wine is to live into a new category: living members of the Christ. Before all else, this is who we are. It can’t be put on a passport or seen in our language or ethnicity. It is a reality that can’t be made to fit into the world’s categories. But it is our reality, and we are reminded of it and nourished from it each time we receive Holy Communion, each time we look with Christ’s eyes on the world, each time we step out and offer our lives to be incarnations of the kingdom of God.
Such a reception of Jesus’ abundant grace may draw us into struggles just as intense and profound as that of the Civil Rights. God knows they are out there. It will help us be open to new categories in our perception. God knows they are needed. But first and always we must take our empty vessels to Jesus and ask that he fill them and transform them so that it is indeed his wine that we are drawing from and that it is his grace that is sustaining our lives. As members of the Body of Christ we are invited to live constantly into new categories or to challenge the categories of this world with the radical categories of Jesus. It is his concern and he will freely and lovingly fill us in ways expected and unexpected, known and unknown, for it is his very nature to lavish us with grace. And as his people it is our nature to lavish others from that same grace. May it be that we serve the good wine to this world. Amen.
The Rev. Natasha Brubaker Garrison
Isaiah 62:1-5, Ps 36:5-10, 1 Cor. 12:1-11, John 2:1-11
When I hear the words of the steward in this story, “everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk”, I always give a wry smile. In the midst of this amazing story of grace, overflowing grace, there is a moment of subtle humor…and within it the crucial point for us. The steward reminds me of those music clubs that entice one in with “select 10 free and only buy 5 more at regular club prices” type of deals. Reading through that list of options is a music-lovers’ dream. All these latest and greatest groups! And so one blithely signs up only to discover down the road that it seems like the future selections aren’t as good and neither are the prices. We are given categories and definitions that may or may not be very good or accurate. Or on a more serious note we see it in our social discourse that seems so stuck in old and tired, virtually meaningless clichés, such as choice, freedom, socialism, development, free market, the American Dream, that we end up not really having much of a discussion at all. We’ve been hearing words and definitions of the way things are for so long that even when reality is truly presenting a starkly different picture we struggle to adjust our view. It must fit the old category!
The steward gets all confused and lost in conventional categories. He thinks that the bridegroom has broken etiquette, that something got confused in the planning. He tries to explain this miracle of superabundant and superb quality wine by the usual rational means. Consequently, he misses the whole point. The disciples, in contrast, and this is the point, recognize that God has worked in an unexpected and transformative way through our world to shower us with abundant grace. It is a gift larger than we can explain in our limited capacities; it is running straight into God’s glory and accepting it.
This story of the miraculous is John’s first showing of who and what Jesus is and offers. After the lyrical prologue, after his baptism, and after his calling together his disciples, the first major act of Jesus in this Gospel is the story we hear today. It is a story that gives us a first definition of God who can and desires to transform our world into a place saturated with grace. It is God that offers us the very best wine, that can convert our lives into vessels of beauty and holiness, plenty and good. It is a God that meets our needs if we are open to give God the space to act in ways that are unexpected yet so truly meeting our needs and our places of brokenness.
This is the God the disciples meet in Jesus. It is the God we meet in Jesus: God with us to shower us with this grace. We meet God in the face of a fellow human who can take what we have and through his love and holiness turn it into the kingdom of God. We can’t do it without him, but with him we can do things, as Jesus says later in this Gospel, even greater than these. Jesus, we are told, is the well of life of which the psalmist speaks. Jesus is that good wine drawn from the jars. He is the wine we drink after we have drunk the wine of the world and realize it can only offer so much. Even the best wine from the finest vineyards in France is inferior, eventually gives out, when compared to the wine of Jesus, which he freely gives.
The community that gave us the Gospel of John experienced intensely this grace found in Jesus. It is why it is the first and foundational story of this Gospel. Through that grace they withstood being kicked out of the synagogue (this community was Jewish), they withstood rejection, and they flourished because they continued to draw on the love and grace of Christ. This was the Jesus they shared with the world. It invited them into living in this world but within new definitions, new categories, and the trust that through Jesus working in them they too could be the initiators of miracles as great as providing abundant wine to others—be it spiritual or material sustenance. What a glorious vision they held! And even in the face of their own losses and adjustments, they knew they had the better portion.
Which leads me to Martin Luther King, Jr. He is honored tomorrow in our calendar of saints, but our music today is in tribute to him and the movement that he represents is worthy of our attention, gratitude and continued allegiance. In preparing this sermon I spent time watching footage of his speeches and of the larger struggle of for civil rights. The images are arresting: thousands of people gathered, stirring speeches, vibrant, hope-filled faces, dogs, fire hoses, lynchings, beatings, the hate-twisted faces of other Americans yelling at men and women forcefully yet peacefully demonstrating their utter humanity and demand to be acknowledged as people of dignity and worth, equal in the eyes of God. What sustained them was not only the belief in the justice of their cause, not only great leaders, not only a desire that their children be given a better world, but a drawing on the wine of Jesus, a continual drawing on the grace and power of the crucified and risen one that enfolded them in a hope and a truth that was larger than the world.
They drank of the wine of that grace, relied on it, and trusted it would see them through years of struggle. In drinking that wine they lived into different categories—who they were and who they were to become; and how to reach the end for which they were aiming. If they had chosen violence to match the violence inflicted on them nothing would have been transformed. If they had chosen to adopt a belief of racial superiority over whites that would justify inverting the system nothing would have been transformed. If they had chosen to work within the established categories of media, lawsuits and so on, nothing would have changed or it would have been a continuation of the snail-like pace they already knew. They drank the wine and created new categories…categories founded on a justice rooted in love and reconciliation.
For us the invitation is to believe in the outpouring of God’s grace as revealed in Jesus Christ. He draws wine from the water jar and offers it to us if we can open our hearts to a larger world. He offers that wine so that our hearts will open for this is his desire for us. To drink of his wine is to live into a new category: living members of the Christ. Before all else, this is who we are. It can’t be put on a passport or seen in our language or ethnicity. It is a reality that can’t be made to fit into the world’s categories. But it is our reality, and we are reminded of it and nourished from it each time we receive Holy Communion, each time we look with Christ’s eyes on the world, each time we step out and offer our lives to be incarnations of the kingdom of God.
Such a reception of Jesus’ abundant grace may draw us into struggles just as intense and profound as that of the Civil Rights. God knows they are out there. It will help us be open to new categories in our perception. God knows they are needed. But first and always we must take our empty vessels to Jesus and ask that he fill them and transform them so that it is indeed his wine that we are drawing from and that it is his grace that is sustaining our lives. As members of the Body of Christ we are invited to live constantly into new categories or to challenge the categories of this world with the radical categories of Jesus. It is his concern and he will freely and lovingly fill us in ways expected and unexpected, known and unknown, for it is his very nature to lavish us with grace. And as his people it is our nature to lavish others from that same grace. May it be that we serve the good wine to this world. Amen.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
January 10, 2010, The Baptism of Our Lord
Mother Tasha did a Question and Answer sermon on January 10. Replies to unanswered questions and will soon be posted in the church.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
January 3, 2010, The Second Sunday of Christmas
January 3, 2010
The Rev. Natasha Brubaker Garrison
Jeremiah 31:7-14, Ps. 84, Ephesians 1:3-6, 15-19a, Matthew 2:1-12
Year C, Christmas 2
One of the more interesting things one can do while preparing a sermon is to look at what others have written on the same passage. All I can say is be glad that Martin Luther or St. Chrysostom are not your preacher today. They took this passage from Matthew and talked about it for at least an hour if not longer, traveling all through both testaments to make their points. I promise you I will be much briefer and not nearly so comprehensive! Aside from their rather lengthy eloquence, it was also very instructive to see where their emphasis lay. There was a lot of concern around the issue of astrology and sorcery, disproving it or showing how God worked through the Magi beyond that, and explaining the star and all that. There was a lot of concern with buttressing the story as the fulfillment of various prophecies or earlier Biblical stories other than the one reference made in the story itself. There was quite a bit of talk, particularly in Luther, focusing on the laws of Scripture and proper behavior. Only in passing do we hear of Herod’s fear of an insurrection and what God might be saying to us about our way of doing business and that of Jesus. Of course, that habit is not unique to Luther; we find it alive and well at all points in Christian history. But it’s rather odd given that the Wise Men came in order to pay homage, that is the reverence due a king and only a king, an earthly ruler, to Jesus, not to go and pray over him.
This story is read on the Feast of Epiphany, which is on the 6th of January, when we celebrate traditionally the baptism of Jesus and the discovery of seeing and realizing that what we have been looking for, searching for, has broken into this world and into our hearts. An epiphany! The wise men are looking, looking hard for God, for the holy. Unlike the shepherds they aren’t given the answer, but are invited to walk a road. They see something and believe it may reveal more than what is on the surface. So they collect themselves, gather precious gifts, and head off on a long journey into a foreign land. They are not mere tourists out on a spiritual holiday; they are searching for God. They are searching for the source, for what it is we are to look at, gaze at, so that we can enter into truth and life.
In those days of Roman rule the only person who could be called a Son of God was Caesar. It was on his coins. He was divine, end of discussion. The will of the gods was indistinguishable from earthly power. Herod was a crafty politico trying to maintain power in his petty kingdom and this depended on the continuing benevolence of Rome and the guarantee on his part of no political upheaval. Thus, when three foreigners walk in and announce that they have seen someone else’s star rising and that they want to go and recognize this person’s authority, rule and kingship, Herod is not pleased. Kings had one purpose and that was earthly rule in the model of earthly kings. In other words, Herod had a challenger to the throne, his throne, and this was not welcome news. Herod is not interested in his star waning. He has plans. Herod overlooks the treasonous claim of the wise men and at first consults the other leaders for background. There is the public conversation. Then, the backroom deals and secret talks begin as he calls the wise men to him in private and makes an arrangement. Go and find this child, read upstart, for me so that I too may worship him, read find out where he is and get rid of this threat. The wise men leave with their heads still attached to their shoulders, which is almost a miracle in and of itself, and continue their search.
The essential question, though, has been posed: what we look to for guidance and the way we are to live will call us to one road or another. Do we look to Herods and Romes, or do we look to God as revealed in Jesus? The heart of this story is about looking and gazing and being transformed by that gaze. Where we focus that gaze has the possibility of being a place of glorious change and transformation if it is searching for God. Do we look with the eyes of the Magi or do we look with the eyes of Herod?
The wise men in all their elegance and wealth continue to search, looking, looking for this true king, this divine king, the one to whom they are to give ultimate and full allegiance. And finally, their search ends at a humble house in Bethlehem. Jesus is not a newborn baby any longer; he is a child, probably out toddling around and exploring his world. What must he make of these strangers who come in such grandeur to see him. What must Mary make of these nobles coming to her modest home. In some sense she knows her child is destined to be a special servant of God, perhaps as a temple priest or a teacher or prophet, but who are these strangers that treat her son as if he were the rightful ruler of the world? And the mystery grows as they greet them all with joy; in fact, they are overwhelmed with joy--speechless and gazing with pure adoration at a child, an innocent, a powerless and growing one. This is not the reaction of people to rulers generally or of the power of the world. Herod’s reaction and that of all Jerusalem is the norm: fear, awe, compliance, but not joy, not a sense that something wonderful has come to us.
The power of the gaze and of recognition is at the heart of the Magis’ encounter with Jesus. It is a transforming event. Their eyes have seen something of the will of God and it is an invitation to another road, another way of being. In the face of such a recognition there are two reactions: fear or joy. We see both in this story, but it is the reaction of the wise men that we are to listen to most closely and to imitate, for they are worshipping the right thing. In him they have found themselves in the presence of the God of Psalm 84, a place of springs, a safe haven for the sparrow not just the eagle, a nest for the youngest and most vulnerable not just a castle for the wealthy and powerful. They see a new world opening up through this gaze of men and child that is enfolded by God. Where are they looking, these wise men from afar? And thus, where are we looking? And what happens as we allow that gaze to linger, to lengthen, to penetrate us to our core? What happens when our gaze no longer focuses on the world defined by the powers that be, but instead gazes on the world around us with intent, with a deep understanding of God’s action in the everyday and the face of Jesus revealed in all?
James Allison, a brilliant Roman Catholic theologian and one whose piercing gaze has caused the powers of the Roman Church to marginalize him, writes this about our passage and the wise men:
“…at the center of this feast is a mystery of looking. Who looks at whom? As adults we tend to focus on adult looks. Matthew, with his picturesque details, trains our gaze on the strangeness of the kings, the determination and persistence of their journey, their exotic dress, their laden beasts, their rich and symbolic gifts. What might this One be who is the desire of the nations?
We are taught by the Magi to value the One who lies in the manger. He acquires worth and splendor through their eyes. That is part of what the feast gives us: models for our desire, for our adoration. With each gift we are offered a way to shift the weight of our heart in an unaccustomed direction. When the Magi offer him gold, which indicates a king, we are invited to lessen the tribute we offer to the power structures to which we belong and on which we depend; when they offer him frankincense, which indicates a priest, we are invited to tiptoe out from under the delusions of our sacred canopies, to be drawn into the jagged-edged sacrifice of presence that this Priest will carry out; and when they offer him myrrh, which indicates a prophet's death, the Magi invite our hearts to lighten as death loses its hold over our drives and desires.”
We, like the Magi, are invited to realize that if our gaze is shaped by Jesus and if our lens on all the world is shaped by Jesus, then we too must take another road, a different way. This discovery should be one that overwhelms us with joy, not fear. The old road and the old glasses don’t fit any more, not after they have adored the Christ. So, come, let us adore him…and let us follow the other road that invites us to shift our hearts in unaccustomed directions. Amen.
The Rev. Natasha Brubaker Garrison
Jeremiah 31:7-14, Ps. 84, Ephesians 1:3-6, 15-19a, Matthew 2:1-12
Year C, Christmas 2
One of the more interesting things one can do while preparing a sermon is to look at what others have written on the same passage. All I can say is be glad that Martin Luther or St. Chrysostom are not your preacher today. They took this passage from Matthew and talked about it for at least an hour if not longer, traveling all through both testaments to make their points. I promise you I will be much briefer and not nearly so comprehensive! Aside from their rather lengthy eloquence, it was also very instructive to see where their emphasis lay. There was a lot of concern around the issue of astrology and sorcery, disproving it or showing how God worked through the Magi beyond that, and explaining the star and all that. There was a lot of concern with buttressing the story as the fulfillment of various prophecies or earlier Biblical stories other than the one reference made in the story itself. There was quite a bit of talk, particularly in Luther, focusing on the laws of Scripture and proper behavior. Only in passing do we hear of Herod’s fear of an insurrection and what God might be saying to us about our way of doing business and that of Jesus. Of course, that habit is not unique to Luther; we find it alive and well at all points in Christian history. But it’s rather odd given that the Wise Men came in order to pay homage, that is the reverence due a king and only a king, an earthly ruler, to Jesus, not to go and pray over him.
This story is read on the Feast of Epiphany, which is on the 6th of January, when we celebrate traditionally the baptism of Jesus and the discovery of seeing and realizing that what we have been looking for, searching for, has broken into this world and into our hearts. An epiphany! The wise men are looking, looking hard for God, for the holy. Unlike the shepherds they aren’t given the answer, but are invited to walk a road. They see something and believe it may reveal more than what is on the surface. So they collect themselves, gather precious gifts, and head off on a long journey into a foreign land. They are not mere tourists out on a spiritual holiday; they are searching for God. They are searching for the source, for what it is we are to look at, gaze at, so that we can enter into truth and life.
In those days of Roman rule the only person who could be called a Son of God was Caesar. It was on his coins. He was divine, end of discussion. The will of the gods was indistinguishable from earthly power. Herod was a crafty politico trying to maintain power in his petty kingdom and this depended on the continuing benevolence of Rome and the guarantee on his part of no political upheaval. Thus, when three foreigners walk in and announce that they have seen someone else’s star rising and that they want to go and recognize this person’s authority, rule and kingship, Herod is not pleased. Kings had one purpose and that was earthly rule in the model of earthly kings. In other words, Herod had a challenger to the throne, his throne, and this was not welcome news. Herod is not interested in his star waning. He has plans. Herod overlooks the treasonous claim of the wise men and at first consults the other leaders for background. There is the public conversation. Then, the backroom deals and secret talks begin as he calls the wise men to him in private and makes an arrangement. Go and find this child, read upstart, for me so that I too may worship him, read find out where he is and get rid of this threat. The wise men leave with their heads still attached to their shoulders, which is almost a miracle in and of itself, and continue their search.
The essential question, though, has been posed: what we look to for guidance and the way we are to live will call us to one road or another. Do we look to Herods and Romes, or do we look to God as revealed in Jesus? The heart of this story is about looking and gazing and being transformed by that gaze. Where we focus that gaze has the possibility of being a place of glorious change and transformation if it is searching for God. Do we look with the eyes of the Magi or do we look with the eyes of Herod?
The wise men in all their elegance and wealth continue to search, looking, looking for this true king, this divine king, the one to whom they are to give ultimate and full allegiance. And finally, their search ends at a humble house in Bethlehem. Jesus is not a newborn baby any longer; he is a child, probably out toddling around and exploring his world. What must he make of these strangers who come in such grandeur to see him. What must Mary make of these nobles coming to her modest home. In some sense she knows her child is destined to be a special servant of God, perhaps as a temple priest or a teacher or prophet, but who are these strangers that treat her son as if he were the rightful ruler of the world? And the mystery grows as they greet them all with joy; in fact, they are overwhelmed with joy--speechless and gazing with pure adoration at a child, an innocent, a powerless and growing one. This is not the reaction of people to rulers generally or of the power of the world. Herod’s reaction and that of all Jerusalem is the norm: fear, awe, compliance, but not joy, not a sense that something wonderful has come to us.
The power of the gaze and of recognition is at the heart of the Magis’ encounter with Jesus. It is a transforming event. Their eyes have seen something of the will of God and it is an invitation to another road, another way of being. In the face of such a recognition there are two reactions: fear or joy. We see both in this story, but it is the reaction of the wise men that we are to listen to most closely and to imitate, for they are worshipping the right thing. In him they have found themselves in the presence of the God of Psalm 84, a place of springs, a safe haven for the sparrow not just the eagle, a nest for the youngest and most vulnerable not just a castle for the wealthy and powerful. They see a new world opening up through this gaze of men and child that is enfolded by God. Where are they looking, these wise men from afar? And thus, where are we looking? And what happens as we allow that gaze to linger, to lengthen, to penetrate us to our core? What happens when our gaze no longer focuses on the world defined by the powers that be, but instead gazes on the world around us with intent, with a deep understanding of God’s action in the everyday and the face of Jesus revealed in all?
James Allison, a brilliant Roman Catholic theologian and one whose piercing gaze has caused the powers of the Roman Church to marginalize him, writes this about our passage and the wise men:
“…at the center of this feast is a mystery of looking. Who looks at whom? As adults we tend to focus on adult looks. Matthew, with his picturesque details, trains our gaze on the strangeness of the kings, the determination and persistence of their journey, their exotic dress, their laden beasts, their rich and symbolic gifts. What might this One be who is the desire of the nations?
We are taught by the Magi to value the One who lies in the manger. He acquires worth and splendor through their eyes. That is part of what the feast gives us: models for our desire, for our adoration. With each gift we are offered a way to shift the weight of our heart in an unaccustomed direction. When the Magi offer him gold, which indicates a king, we are invited to lessen the tribute we offer to the power structures to which we belong and on which we depend; when they offer him frankincense, which indicates a priest, we are invited to tiptoe out from under the delusions of our sacred canopies, to be drawn into the jagged-edged sacrifice of presence that this Priest will carry out; and when they offer him myrrh, which indicates a prophet's death, the Magi invite our hearts to lighten as death loses its hold over our drives and desires.”
We, like the Magi, are invited to realize that if our gaze is shaped by Jesus and if our lens on all the world is shaped by Jesus, then we too must take another road, a different way. This discovery should be one that overwhelms us with joy, not fear. The old road and the old glasses don’t fit any more, not after they have adored the Christ. So, come, let us adore him…and let us follow the other road that invites us to shift our hearts in unaccustomed directions. Amen.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
December 20, 2009
December 20, 2009
The Rev. Natasha Brubaker Garrison
Fourth Sunday in Advent, Year B
Micah 5:2-5a, Canticle 15, Hebrews 10:5-10, Luke 1:39-55
God is a marginal character.
God likes to operate on the margins, on the edges.
God operates on the margins because it is where we are able to be most aware of God’s presence. As conscious beings we are mostly caught up in the center of our world or the world created by human beings.
The margins are places of change, of transition, of transformation. Prayer is a marginal place; we pray far less of the time than we work or sleep or eat or play. Worship is a marginal place. We worship far less than we work or sleep or eat or play. Dawn, dusk, oceans, mountains, rivers, islands, and deserts are all marginal places deeply associated with union and encounter with the divine. Transitions such as birth, and death are marginal moments. Margins are places of openness and connection. Margins are places where human power, pride and delusions of self-sufficiency are exposed as the folly and hubris they are. Margins are places where redemption happens, deeper awareness begins, and the kingdom of God can begin to be born into the world.
Social margins, I would suggest, follow the same pattern. It is those on the fringes-- the poor, the outcast, those without social power due to gender or race or other quantifiers—that so often have the most illumination to bring to social ills and injustice, to the dangers of human power. Those without worldly power are uniquely able to be divine catalysts. Being in positions of worldly power or ones benefiting from it make it hard to stand back and work to challenge and change it. Yet many do for they have grasped this essential tenet of the Good News. This is the one of the deep and difficult revelations of the Gospel; it is one of the deep and difficult understandings of orthodox Christianity as revealed in the story of God in Jesus: letting go of power, living a life of love on the margins, trusting that on the edges is where God is going to begin again and again the coming of the kingdom of heaven.
Where does this idea come from? The cross most certainly and the life of Jesus most definitely. But the idea is understood from the very start of the story of Jesus. The stories of the births of Jesus and John came later in the life of the early Church, yet the idea of margins and power revealed in the resurrection was woven into these genesis tales. Unless we grasp this from the very start, Christian faith as lived easily becomes another version of worldly power being divinely sanctioned. It easily becomes a civic religion rather than a holy one.
Enter Elizabeth and Mary. I must confess that these stories make my woman’s heart joyful. Sorry, gents, but your off-stage in this one! For nearly the entire first chapter of Luke the main characters are women. In fact, for most of the chapter they are the main actors, the main speakers. Zechariah is struck dumb by God’s angel for not believing that Elizabeth will conceive. God dramatically silences the social voice of power—that of the male—in pretty stunning fashion. Zechariah comes out of the temple not sharing his vision, but unable to speak. We must look elsewhere for where God is going to tell us what the divine plan is. In time Elizabeth indeed becomes pregnant with a child that will be a prophet for the people.
Then the action moves to Mary. The angel tells her she will conceive a child by the power of God before her marriage and that he is to be a savior. In this incredible place on the edge of human experience she says yes to God’s outrageous plan. Unlike Zechariah, Joseph’s opinion is not even sought. The whole story of God’s plan for salvation in Jesus happens in the margins, starting at his very conception.
Women are the ones, in Luke, who are entrusted through their very femaleness to nurture and bear God and the witness to God into the world. Women too are images of the divine and seen by God as part of the divine drama in primary, not subservient, ways. God is being a radical again! Women were property strictly speaking in those days. Women had virtually no independent power or control of person. They were not public figures. They lived in the margins of a world defined by men. Elizabeth, as the wife of a temple priest, was less marginalized than others, but she was still defined as Zechariah’s wife. Mary was even more the edge: a woman, marrying a craftsman, poorer, and not connected to an institution of social power through her husband-to-be or family. Yet, God says, here is where I am working. Here is where my plan, my salvation begins and lives. In the margins, in these faithful women who can perceive me because they are not living at the center of worldly power. It is not a man in this story that can birth the savior into the world. It is a woman. Pay attention!, God is saying. Do not dismiss the creative, life-giving, God-revealing strength of women and who they are! Revisit the definitions and roles. Not just of women, but of everyone!
These two women are not just faithful, trusting and courageous women who believe and accept God’s audacious plan for them, standing tall among people’s stares and questions and derision. They are filled with the Holy Spirit. They are chosen to have intimate union with God, something primarily heard of in Scripture as happening to men. Mary is overcome with the Holy Spirit. Elizabeth as we hear today is filled with it as is her unborn child.
They are also prophets. Elizabeth understands that her child’s leap isn’t simply a baby’s normal movement or a response to her happy greeting to see her cousin Mary. She interprets its meaning and understands that Mary carries the Messiah. This is what prophets do. She is also a priest for she blesses three times: “Of all women you are the most blessed, and blessed is the fruit of your womb…Yes, blessed is she who believed that the promise made her by the Lord would be fulfilled.”
Mary, too, is a prophet. She sets out immediately after her encounter with the angel and goes as fast as she can to see Elizabeth. Prophets act with urgency, without delay. Her reply to Elizabeth is a prophetic poem about the way God works, has worked, and will work in the world.
The Magnificat, as it is called, is a glorious summation of salvation history. It speaks that God’s power is not the world’s idea of power. Princes and presidents are brought low and the masses, the humble of the world have a place given to them. The hungry are fed; the proud are unmasked. Mercy is given. All are invited into a new heaven and a new earth and if the invitation is missed you will find your hands holding dust. It is utterly and completely about life here and now in this world. It is about the nature of our communities. This is not only about personal, private piety. This about the dangerous work of building new structures in our lives.
And even more striking is Mary’s bold assertion that this work has already begun. For indeed it has in God’s partnership with her to bear the Christ child. Notice that the verb tenses are not future. It is not God will show strength, or the hungry will be filled. It is already begun. God has done these things and continues to do these things. Which throws us once again back on to the margins. Women are the principal prophets of this new revelation, not men, though their sons, with the participation of women and men, will bring it to pass. God chose a poor unmarried girl not the wife of the local Jerusalem nobility. Herod’s wife, powerful, a princess, was not selected to bear John or Jesus. Mary and Elizabeth have been filled with good things—the Holy Spirit, the children they will bear, the power to bless and to understand God’s activity. All on the margins, all on the fringes. This is where it begins and from where it grows.
For us, we are invited to remember the marginal nature of our confession of Jesus as the Messiah—it’s not a confession of power and way of life as the world generally understands it. We are reminded that we are to live in faith on the edges of the new creation and the margins of this one. We are invited to pay careful attention to the voices and the peoples on the margins of our societies for we are told today quite clearly God is acting here. If we are on the margins we are told that our lives and experiences are places of prophetic action, that we have important, God-filled things to share with the world. The voices of those on the margins matter profoundly to God and are to be heard. We are invited to pay attention to the margins of our own lives for it is there we will certainly encounter God’s activity. The margins are the places where hope and expectation begin to be transformed into something real, perhaps small, perhaps fragile, perhaps the tiniest of movements, but this is how God works.
Can we this Advent say yes again to be a marginal people, who believe the outrageous way God works, who chose to sing Mary’s song, and who accept once again a God that comes to us in the most vulnerable, powerless and beautiful of ways? Will something in us leap when the announcement of the birth happens? Will we believe that in this child and this child’s life lie all the hope that God’s promises will be fulfilled?
The Rev. Natasha Brubaker Garrison
Fourth Sunday in Advent, Year B
Micah 5:2-5a, Canticle 15, Hebrews 10:5-10, Luke 1:39-55
God is a marginal character.
God likes to operate on the margins, on the edges.
God operates on the margins because it is where we are able to be most aware of God’s presence. As conscious beings we are mostly caught up in the center of our world or the world created by human beings.
The margins are places of change, of transition, of transformation. Prayer is a marginal place; we pray far less of the time than we work or sleep or eat or play. Worship is a marginal place. We worship far less than we work or sleep or eat or play. Dawn, dusk, oceans, mountains, rivers, islands, and deserts are all marginal places deeply associated with union and encounter with the divine. Transitions such as birth, and death are marginal moments. Margins are places of openness and connection. Margins are places where human power, pride and delusions of self-sufficiency are exposed as the folly and hubris they are. Margins are places where redemption happens, deeper awareness begins, and the kingdom of God can begin to be born into the world.
Social margins, I would suggest, follow the same pattern. It is those on the fringes-- the poor, the outcast, those without social power due to gender or race or other quantifiers—that so often have the most illumination to bring to social ills and injustice, to the dangers of human power. Those without worldly power are uniquely able to be divine catalysts. Being in positions of worldly power or ones benefiting from it make it hard to stand back and work to challenge and change it. Yet many do for they have grasped this essential tenet of the Good News. This is the one of the deep and difficult revelations of the Gospel; it is one of the deep and difficult understandings of orthodox Christianity as revealed in the story of God in Jesus: letting go of power, living a life of love on the margins, trusting that on the edges is where God is going to begin again and again the coming of the kingdom of heaven.
Where does this idea come from? The cross most certainly and the life of Jesus most definitely. But the idea is understood from the very start of the story of Jesus. The stories of the births of Jesus and John came later in the life of the early Church, yet the idea of margins and power revealed in the resurrection was woven into these genesis tales. Unless we grasp this from the very start, Christian faith as lived easily becomes another version of worldly power being divinely sanctioned. It easily becomes a civic religion rather than a holy one.
Enter Elizabeth and Mary. I must confess that these stories make my woman’s heart joyful. Sorry, gents, but your off-stage in this one! For nearly the entire first chapter of Luke the main characters are women. In fact, for most of the chapter they are the main actors, the main speakers. Zechariah is struck dumb by God’s angel for not believing that Elizabeth will conceive. God dramatically silences the social voice of power—that of the male—in pretty stunning fashion. Zechariah comes out of the temple not sharing his vision, but unable to speak. We must look elsewhere for where God is going to tell us what the divine plan is. In time Elizabeth indeed becomes pregnant with a child that will be a prophet for the people.
Then the action moves to Mary. The angel tells her she will conceive a child by the power of God before her marriage and that he is to be a savior. In this incredible place on the edge of human experience she says yes to God’s outrageous plan. Unlike Zechariah, Joseph’s opinion is not even sought. The whole story of God’s plan for salvation in Jesus happens in the margins, starting at his very conception.
Women are the ones, in Luke, who are entrusted through their very femaleness to nurture and bear God and the witness to God into the world. Women too are images of the divine and seen by God as part of the divine drama in primary, not subservient, ways. God is being a radical again! Women were property strictly speaking in those days. Women had virtually no independent power or control of person. They were not public figures. They lived in the margins of a world defined by men. Elizabeth, as the wife of a temple priest, was less marginalized than others, but she was still defined as Zechariah’s wife. Mary was even more the edge: a woman, marrying a craftsman, poorer, and not connected to an institution of social power through her husband-to-be or family. Yet, God says, here is where I am working. Here is where my plan, my salvation begins and lives. In the margins, in these faithful women who can perceive me because they are not living at the center of worldly power. It is not a man in this story that can birth the savior into the world. It is a woman. Pay attention!, God is saying. Do not dismiss the creative, life-giving, God-revealing strength of women and who they are! Revisit the definitions and roles. Not just of women, but of everyone!
These two women are not just faithful, trusting and courageous women who believe and accept God’s audacious plan for them, standing tall among people’s stares and questions and derision. They are filled with the Holy Spirit. They are chosen to have intimate union with God, something primarily heard of in Scripture as happening to men. Mary is overcome with the Holy Spirit. Elizabeth as we hear today is filled with it as is her unborn child.
They are also prophets. Elizabeth understands that her child’s leap isn’t simply a baby’s normal movement or a response to her happy greeting to see her cousin Mary. She interprets its meaning and understands that Mary carries the Messiah. This is what prophets do. She is also a priest for she blesses three times: “Of all women you are the most blessed, and blessed is the fruit of your womb…Yes, blessed is she who believed that the promise made her by the Lord would be fulfilled.”
Mary, too, is a prophet. She sets out immediately after her encounter with the angel and goes as fast as she can to see Elizabeth. Prophets act with urgency, without delay. Her reply to Elizabeth is a prophetic poem about the way God works, has worked, and will work in the world.
The Magnificat, as it is called, is a glorious summation of salvation history. It speaks that God’s power is not the world’s idea of power. Princes and presidents are brought low and the masses, the humble of the world have a place given to them. The hungry are fed; the proud are unmasked. Mercy is given. All are invited into a new heaven and a new earth and if the invitation is missed you will find your hands holding dust. It is utterly and completely about life here and now in this world. It is about the nature of our communities. This is not only about personal, private piety. This about the dangerous work of building new structures in our lives.
And even more striking is Mary’s bold assertion that this work has already begun. For indeed it has in God’s partnership with her to bear the Christ child. Notice that the verb tenses are not future. It is not God will show strength, or the hungry will be filled. It is already begun. God has done these things and continues to do these things. Which throws us once again back on to the margins. Women are the principal prophets of this new revelation, not men, though their sons, with the participation of women and men, will bring it to pass. God chose a poor unmarried girl not the wife of the local Jerusalem nobility. Herod’s wife, powerful, a princess, was not selected to bear John or Jesus. Mary and Elizabeth have been filled with good things—the Holy Spirit, the children they will bear, the power to bless and to understand God’s activity. All on the margins, all on the fringes. This is where it begins and from where it grows.
For us, we are invited to remember the marginal nature of our confession of Jesus as the Messiah—it’s not a confession of power and way of life as the world generally understands it. We are reminded that we are to live in faith on the edges of the new creation and the margins of this one. We are invited to pay careful attention to the voices and the peoples on the margins of our societies for we are told today quite clearly God is acting here. If we are on the margins we are told that our lives and experiences are places of prophetic action, that we have important, God-filled things to share with the world. The voices of those on the margins matter profoundly to God and are to be heard. We are invited to pay attention to the margins of our own lives for it is there we will certainly encounter God’s activity. The margins are the places where hope and expectation begin to be transformed into something real, perhaps small, perhaps fragile, perhaps the tiniest of movements, but this is how God works.
Can we this Advent say yes again to be a marginal people, who believe the outrageous way God works, who chose to sing Mary’s song, and who accept once again a God that comes to us in the most vulnerable, powerless and beautiful of ways? Will something in us leap when the announcement of the birth happens? Will we believe that in this child and this child’s life lie all the hope that God’s promises will be fulfilled?
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