Visions of Wonderment
18 Dec 2011 2 Comments
in 2Samuel, Advent, Bible Essays, Luke, Mary, Psalms, Romans Tags: Advent, annunciation, essays, Mary
In countless homes across America, the same scenario is being played out.
Trees are arriving on the roofs of cars, ornaments and decorations are coming forth from attics and basements. Cookies are baking. Ribbons and brightly colored paper are stacked in corners and closets are filled with shopping bags.
While the spice of cinnamon mingles with the scent of pine, children try desperately to “be good” all the while nearly shivering with anticipation.
That is the word that most perfectly describes this time–anticipation. And it is now beginning to reach a fevered pitch. All things are headed inexorably to one end: Christmas day.
Children reflect in rare moments of quiet just how it can be that Santa will visit every single house in one night. Wonder and miracle are the words of the day. Not only children, but even adults are subject to moments when pure magic seems in the air.
As our readings this week tell us, this sense of miracle and wonder are central to our faith lives at this time of year. Today we are astounded at how beautifully all comes to a head–the promise is about to be fulfilled. Anticipation fairly crackles in the air. Christ is Coming!
From Second Samuel to Luke we listen in awe. God has promised and God will make it so. So long after the promises Nathan reveals in Samuel, the final step is taken in Luke. The angel Gabriel visits Mary and gives her the astounding news that she is to be the Mother of God. In her will grow the fulfillment of the promise. God’s son will come to his people.
As we read, we quicken in our anticipation, even though we have been through this story and “the event” so many times before. It has that kind of power over us–the ability to reawaken within us that sense of wonder and miracle.
No matter how we view the story, we feel it. Was Mary really visited by an angel? Did she conceive this way?
Does it matter? In truth, no. For as with much of what we read in the stories of old, it is not always the actual facts that matter, but the beautiful truths being exposed.
No matter how it happened, Mary is to give birth to a man whom we believe is the Son of God, specially made and blessed with the ability to bring God to us in an extraordinary way. Through him, we will learn more than we can imagine about what it means to love God, to be God’s creation, to be loved beyond measure. God reaches out to us in this most personal of ways, in our simple humanity, and becomes REAL.
And Mary? Oh goodness, can there be a more perfect answer than hers?
“Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.”
Mary responds with the most radical of faiths. If I am to be a single woman and pregnant in a world that reviles and rejects such women, then let it happen, if that be God’s will. Mary asks no more that to do God’s will. Whatever the consequences to herself. She asks no favor, no explanation, no protection. She simply bows to her God.
Think of Moses and his arguing, and Jonah. Think of all the prophets, most of whom did whatever they could to refuse God’s command. How they hid in their “unworthiness” and limitations. It was just plain old fear. Fear that life would not be the same, and that it would be hard.
But not Mary. No, this simple girl is portrayed quite differently. She assumes no superiority, nor any objective bravery. She simply acquiesces, since she can imagine no other response to God.
That is a wonderment. That is a miracle. That is what stops my dead in my tracks as I read this beautiful story.
Could I ever do this?
Could any of us ever do this?
Never. But, we now know one thing. We must try.
Mary has defined faith. Will any of us ever be the same?
2Sm 7:1-5, 8b-12, 14a, 16 Ps 89: 2-3, 4-5, 27, 29 Rom 16: 25-27 Lk 1: 26-38
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Hark! Good News!
11 Dec 2011 4 Comments
in Advent, Isaiah, Jesus, John, Luke, Thessalonians Tags: Advent, Biblical essay, Isaiah, John, Luke
There aren’t many people who can’t tell you exactly how many days there are left before Christmas. That’s because time is running, and there is still so much to do. Menus to be finalized, food to be bought, baking to get done, presents to be bought and wrapped, cards to address, decorating to finish.
And so we limp into our places of worship this Sunday, and what an uplifting message we get. Just exactly when we need it.
And it comes, with a fanfare of trumpets blaring.
Listen. You can hear them.
Just like in movies of the times of merry old England, and certainly in those times in Rome when the Emperor was about to arrive, the trumpets were heard upon the ramparts.
The Good News is on its way! Rejoice, we hear again and again. Rejoice. We have been blessed with a God who listens and who responds to our call.
From Isaiah we are told that glad tidings come to the poor, the brokenhearted will be healed, the prisoners will be released. In the Magnificat, Mary rejoices that God will fill the hungry with good things and will have mercy on every generation. Paul says we all will be made perfect because our God is faithful and it will be accomplished.
John reminds us that we may believe all this because John the Baptist told us so. He told us that he was the one coming to announce the coming of the Light.
Such an important word “the Light.”
Such a word was known to Jews. Light was knowledge of the Lord, yet here it is used in a new way. Light is God and that God is coming among us to perfect us, and to heal and to have mercy. God as Light will teach us.
John the Baptist may indeed be a prophet of the Good News. But Paul warns, “test everything, retain what is good”. Paul is of course speaking after the fact, and is reminding us that we know what Jesus taught. Examine all that is given by so-called prophets in that light. Retain what is good. In other words, lay everything that is preached to you alongside the teaching of the Light, and keep only that which aligns with the Master’s teaching.
Would that that occurred today.
Today, we unfortunately have a plethora of spokespersons for the Light. And too many of them, sad so say, have messages that in the end serve to further other agendas. They seek to serve political parties or perceived ingrained beliefs that may have little or in some cases, nothing to do with what our Master taught.
When someone tries to tell you that Jesus would be for a certain economic ideology, by twisting a parable or taking a sentence all too literally, beware. Test everything. When someone attempts to tell you that Jesus would be of this or that position in regards some sexual moray, beware. Test everything.
Prophets abound even today. And some are indeed listening to God, but some are not. Retain what is good.
Test against what the Light proclaims. What is warm and life-giving? What opens up for all to see? What offers hope, healing, mercy? What on the other hand is dark, divisive, and fearful? Reject it as not light.
Indeed, this is GOOD NEWS!
It is this good news that will carry us through the days and hours to come. It is this which sustains us through real and perceived obstacles and the dark. A new day is dawning. Come to the Light!
Amen.
Is 61:1-2a, 10-11 Lk 1: 46-48, 49-50, 53-54 1Thes 5: 16-24 Jn 1: 6-8, 19-28
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Cleansing the Temple
04 Dec 2011 2 Comments
in 2Peter, Advent, Bible Essays, Isaiah, Jesus, Mark, Psalms, Seasons Tags: Advent, make straight the path, Mark
In reading through the texts for the second week of Advent, I came upon the familiar lines of Isaiah, echoed in Mark:
“Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.”
As I often have, I wondered exactly what that meant.
To me at least, I pondered that directed me to not get caught in many of the twists and turns of life, but rather to keep my eyes and heart locked on the goal–making myself and my life a fitting example of Christ’s teachings.
We are reminded in Isaiah that God has dealt generously with Jerusalem and thus with us as well. We are promised that God is coming!
Yet, in our second reading from Second Peter, we get a quite different message. It is one of chaos and fire, of destruction and upheaval. All that we have done here on this earth is to no account, it will be destroyed and replaced with a “new earth”. We apparently have so ruined this one, that the only recourse is a cleansing.
But look a bit deeper. The writer of 2Peter is writing in perilous times for his community. While Jesus himself, and Paul thereafter spoke of his return in terms of years, now perhaps as much as 70 years has gone by. And few if any eye-witnesses remain. Hardly anyone has even heard an eye-witness speak.
The community is disheartened, distressed, and persecuted.
“What have we done wrong?” you can hear them ask.
The one writing assures then that God gauges time much differently than they. God so loves his people that he gives them this time to make of themselves that perfect being, worthy of the Kingdom. And so the delay is not out of anger or disgust, but rather out of love.
In effect we are told that as we cleanse ourselves of sin, so we bring forth the day we long for.
We do not sit passively, tending the fire, waiting for salvation. No we participate in the Kingdom now by our very actions as Christians. If we do our jobs, living lives worthy of the Kingdom, then we hasten the return of our King, we make the fire unnecessary.
We cleanse the Temple in a literal sense as our way of making straight the path of the Lord.
Come Lord Jesus!
Amen.
Is 40:1-5, 9-11 Ps 85: 9-14 2Pt 3: 8-13 Mk 1: 1-8
To The Watch Towers!
27 Nov 2011 2 Comments
in Advent, Bible Essays, Corinthians, God, Isaiah, Jesus, Mark, Psalms, Seasons Tags: Advent, Gospel, Kingdom, Mark
As an adult, Thanksgiving has come to be my favorite of holidays. Although I spend hours and hours buying food, preparing it, and setting up the table, finally the moment arrives and we sit down to a feast.
But more glorious to me, is the fact that I have no cooking to do for the next three days. When we feast, we feast. We eat Thanksgiving dinner for four days, enjoying it anew each time, and leaving little in the way of leftovers.
But I admit, that around Saturday, I start to lose my contentment. It has nothing to do with the cooking. It has everything to do with the looming specter of the holidays to come and all the work that that entails.
There is of course more buying and cooking of food, but there is the addition of decorating, holiday cards, gifts, and all the sundry events and parties and so forth. And it seems overwhelming.
In my thirties, it seemed nearly impossible. I seem to never have a moment when I wasn’t shopping, decorating, baking, or obsessing. As I’ve aged, and our lives have settled down, frankly little of this troubles me now. But I remember it quite well.
Advent comes as an island in the chaos. It tells us to slow down, stop our obsessing about things that don’t matter much at all, and to concentrate on what truly is. The LORD IS COMING!
And we are reminded that instead of all this unnecessary busy work, we should be concentrating on what is truly valuable–doing our best to usher in the kingdom that we so long for.
Believe me, we can be at our worst during the hustle and bustle of holiday times. We can be rude and pushy, arrogant, and down right mean to those who we see as getting in our way or obstructing our plans. And Advent reminds us, that that is not what we should be about at all.
It is a time of shared love and charity. It is a time of community, and caring for each other. It is a time when we join together in our hope for the future that we know to be ours.
Mark reminds us: “What I say to you, I say to all: ‘Watch!’”
And Paul tells us that we have been given all we need to be at the watch: “in him you were enriched in every way,
with all discourse and all knowledge,. . . “
We take a pause in our busyness, and contemplate these things.
We realize that we get caught up in the Madison Avenue of it all, and we lose sight of our need. Our need is great. It is the need for our God:
”Yet, O LORD, you are our father;
we are the clay and you the potter:
we are all the work of your hands.
We need with a deep yearning to recall that we are fashioned as God would have us. We are not consumers. We are not Italians, or Irish, or Puerto Ricans. We are not Presbyterians or Catholics, Baptists or Lutherans. We are not lawyers, or mechanics, teachers or real estate agents. We are not parents, children, aunts, or cousins. We are not old or young, rich or poor.
We are God’s creation. We are gifted with love and compassion and humility. We are awaiting our Savior’s return to bring glory to God in the Kingdom. We wait. We watch. We hope.
Is. 63:16b-17, 19b, 64: 2-7 Ps 80: 2-3, 15-16, 18-19 1Cor 1: 3-9 Mk 13: 33-37Related articles
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And What of Joseph?
19 Dec 2010 4 Comments
in Advent, Bible Essays, Faith, Jesus, Matthew, St. Joseph Tags: annunciation, bible essays, Gospel of Matthew, Jesus, Joseph, Matthew
Today’s Gospel is from Matthew and relates the story of Mary’s pregnancy, Joseph’s determination to divorce her, and the appearance of the angel who explains to Joseph from whence came the child in Mary’s womb. (MT 1:18-24)
Poor Joseph is given little attention in the Gospels. The event described in Matthew is not mentioned in Luke, Mark or John. In fact Mark and John ignore the entire birthing scenario altogether.
Given that Matthew and Luke both rely on at least some of the same sources, there is no explanation as to why Luke makes no mention of this extraordinary occurrence. Indeed, Luke moves from the annunciation to the visitation, and then to the birth sequence in Bethlehem.
It is hard to know what to make of this section in Matthew. Matthew entirely skips the annunciation and we aren’t sure if he is unaware of it, or if quite possibly it originated in the creative head of Luke and was not historical. This makes the textual understanding problematic.
If we conflate the two renditions we come up with this scenario. Luke describes the annunciation, followed by the visitation to Elizabeth, followed by Matthew’s explanation of how Joseph came to accept this pregnancy, and then the actual birth, recorded by both.
Again, we must proceed with caution because of the errors that conflation can bring about. Still, we have some interesting possibilities.
Matthew reports that “Mary is ‘found’ with child. (Both the NRSV and NJB use this word as does the interlinear translation. Does this mean that Mary kept her pregnancy quiet until she was showing? This would be possible under the conflation that she went immediately to Elizabeth, for she “sat out at that time.” She stayed three months. But few women show a pregnancy at 3-4 months.
The alternative possibility it seems to me is that she told Joseph and apparently he did not believe her, and thus determined to put her “quietly away.” The NJB renders this “divorce her informally”, the NRSV says “dismiss her quietly.”
In both cases Joseph is adjudged “righteous” or “just”. My understanding of righteousness is one adjudged to be following God according to Torah. In other words, Joseph was a faithful Jew, abiding by the standards laid out in the Torah. We can be bolstered in this claim since the infant was taken to the Temple in Jerusalem for “presentation” and Jesus apparently from very early on with comfortable and at home in the synagogue. We can assume that both Mary and Joseph were pious in so far as this was possible being amme ha-arets, or country folk.
Being just, or righteous would mean that it would be appropriate for Joseph to divorce Mary in the manner laid out in Jewish tradition. Yet, he determines to act “not justly” but rather out of deep compassion. Perhaps here we have a clue as to why Mary or Joseph were chosen for such an enormous task and honor.
In Joseph we see a man perhaps not persuaded that the Law is always meeting its objectives and so on occasion needs to be set aside. On the other hand, how this could be done quietly is anyone’s guess. These were exceedingly small communities, Nazareth perhaps having about 300 people. Everyone knows everyone’s business.
What comes next is truly interesting. In the Greek, the words are “while he was thinking” an angel comes to him “in a dream.” Similarly, the NRSV uses the phrase, “just when he had resolved to do this,” the angel “appears in a dream.” Even more oddly, the NJB says, “He had made up his mind to do this when suddenly. . .” the angel appears in a dream.
What is odd here, is this sounds less like a dream than a vision. In none of the cases does it appear that Joseph had retired to his bed, or fallen asleep at table. He is “thinking, deciding, resolving,” when out of nowhere, he is in a dream.
I conclude that it was more vision than actual dream. But in any case, something extraordinary is occurring here. Joseph, like Mary is asked to make a leap of faith, and each, independent of the other, does so. God has chosen well it seems.
Of course we are treated to many such occurrences in the Hebrew Testament as well as the New Testament. In each case, a person is asked to accept beyond the knowable world they inhabit. They are asked to accept what they cannot see, hear, taste, touch or smell. Faith is required, and a good deal of it.
Why? Because in all such instances, there will be those who will question. Certainly in this event of Mary and Joseph and the mysterious pregnancy, people in their town could count. They knew when Joseph and Mary began co-habiting. They knew when she was clearly pregnant. Both of these people knew they would be required to stand by their faith, in the face of petty gossip.
And both did so quite willingly.
To be fair, they lived in a time, when the break between the touchable world and the transcendent was much more blurred. People without question believed in miracles, prophets and that God directed events and intervened in their lives with clear regularity.
Today, we find this all much harder to swallow. We are inclined to search for “answers” explicable by our senses. We forego demons for “epilepsy” and, we deny walking on water for tricks of the eye. We need natural explanations in order not to appear foolish to modern-day skeptics.
So our leaps of faith are tiny and ordinary, not risking much most of the time. Would we respond to such a leap of faith as God called both Mary and Joseph to? Would I? Would you?
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Joyous Preparation
05 Dec 2010 4 Comments
in Advent, Bible Essays, Catechumenate, Isaiah, Matthew, Romans, Seasons Tags: Advent, Catechumenate, Isaiah, Matthew, Romans
Those of us who chase our faith know that this time of year is more special than anything non-believers can experience in this season.
Chase our faith? I mean by that those of us who are not content to “believe in God,” attend church now and then (mostly weddings and funerals and perhaps midnight Mass and Easter), and otherwise give lip service to faith. We are out there seeking, running God down and demanding with humility but sincere intensity, “I want a relationship with YOU!”
Today we welcomed and accepted into our community those seeking full admission into the Church and full communion with God. The Catechumenates and Candidates were presented at Mass, and we promised to “stand with you and pray for you, child of God”. They received the sign of the cross upon their foreheads, eyes, mouths, shoulders, hands and feet. They were presented bibles. They are entering the final few months before reception into the Church at the Easter Vigil.
I remember the time well. It was more exciting that I can tell you. Along with all the preparations for the holidays, the shopping, the parties, the decorating, baking, wrapping, and so forth, there was all this wonderful mysterious, glorious newness–the new person I was becoming. I was awed, humbled, bubbling with excitement and joy. I couldn’t wait for the next week, the next class, the next opportunity to grow in knowledge and faith.
I saw that in the eyes of the assembled class today. The shining eyes, the bright smiles, the reverence. It was all there, and took me back to those days. That in fact is a good reason for doing this ceremony in public. We are all reminded of our days of preparation for full communion with the Church.
It is no accident that the timing of all this coincides with Advent, the annual time of preparation of the entire Christendom for the coming of the Lord. As our Catechumenates and Candidates stand in a special relationship with Jesus– actively preparing to be joined to him in the most intimate and perfect way, they also join in the Church’s preparation. Doubly blessed!
We, the congregation, also get to recall our own time in similar shoes, as I have said, and we too join this with the entire Church in her readying for our Savior.
We prepare our secular lives, and we prepare our spiritual lives. We are all about preparing. In our readings today, Isaiah reminds us of the Kingdom to come when our Lord returns. Paul in Romans, tells us that our preparing is done by way of “putting on the mind of Christ,” in other words, by treating others in the “same friendly way as Christ treated you.”
Matthew concludes with the teaching of John the Baptist, who called all to repentance in preparation. Thus we know what to look for, and what to do.
We leave the Church on Sunday, renewed, refreshed, and joyous. Our steps are a little livelier, our smiles a bit broader. We are kinder and more gentle with friends, strangers and family. We have a secret.
We are not just preparing the feast, the gifts, the parties. We are in an intimate and beautiful dance with the Lord as we confide in him, feel his steady comfort and guidance. It is all so very special and personal. Every Christmas light takes on a special twinkle, we find ourselves misting up at the silliest of things.
We know that the Lord is close. We are walking on holy ground.
Amen.
Getting Ready
28 Nov 2010 4 Comments
in Advent, Bible Essays, Isaiah, Jesus, Matthew, Romans, Seasons Tags: Advent, Isaiah, Jesus, Matthew, Romans, time
We have made it! Advent begins today, and a whirl of parties, cooking, buying and trimming are at hand.
Yet, there is, to the believer, so much more to the season. The readings for the first Sunday of Advent speak to what we really need to be preparing for: a celebration of the birth of the Lord, and most especially we prepare ourselves for the second coming of Christ.
All our readings speak to this today. Isaiah speaks in 2:1-5 of our hope in the coming Kingdom, a place and time of peace and goodwill. I time when war is gone forever, when we join together in unity among all.
So too Saint Paul who reminds the Romans that the time is close at hand and we should be practicing only those things that are of God. All those things that we tend to hide under darkness of night, we should finally and forever put aside. With the “armor” of Christ, we can rise to our highest selves. We will be ready to receive our Lord. (Rom 13:11-14)
And Jesus himself reminds us himself in the gospel of Matthew to be ready, for we know not the day nor hour. (Mt 24:37-44)
Ready means of course to be ready to be judged before God. And thus Paul and Jesus say the same thing–prepare by living a blameless life, don’t put it off until tomorrow, because you may be caught unawares, and thus found not worthy before your God.
Yet, none of us is very good at taking care of business as we should. We lead lives often so busy that we need lists and reminders to just get us to where we need to be some days. We are constantly having to juggle and prioritize to get most of what we need done. All too often, the first and most expendable “should” is that time we devote to Godly things, prayer, meditation, reading, studying, and just plain living out our baptismal promises.
And to be truthful, it is wrong, I think to place all this on one event only, the second coming of Christ and the full coming of the Kingdom. There is more to it than that, I venture. It is certainly true that the early Christian community expected the return of Christ to be within their lifetimes or soon thereafter. As time passed and that did not happen, the community had to rethink that proposition.
There is dispute as to whether Jesus himself believed that the full kingdom would arrive, with him in short order. Scholars disagree. Yet, if we only focus on the “end times” as what our preparation is for, we are always sure to fail. For life does get in the way. More than two thousand years have gone by. It is quite easy to put off our spiritual responsibilities for a week or so, or a month?
We should not limit ourselves in this way of thinking. Preparing is necessary now, because we needs be prepared to receive God’s grace, love, forgiveness, and love today. At any moment our world can come crashing down around us and we will desperately need all the support and hope that God offers. We must be prepared, if we are to see that and to receive it in fullness. Otherwise our suffering will be magnified, we will feel abandoned and alone. This God does not want.
So Advent reminds us to work every day in anticipation of the Lord’s return and also the day when we shall call upon the Lord to hold us most tightly as travails assault us. We know not when that will happen, but as humans, we know it will. It is part of life.
Our priest sang to us this morning, the opening lines of Jim Croce’s song “Time in a Bottle.” You surely remember it:
If I could save time in a bottle
The first thing that I’d like to do
Is to save every day
Till Eternity passes away
Just to spend them with youIf I could make days last forever
If words could make wishes come true
I’d save every day like a treasure and then,
Again, I would spend them with youBut there never seems to be enough time
To do the things you want to do
Once you find them
I’ve looked around enough to know
That you’re the one I want to go
Through time withIf I had a box just for wishes
And dreams that had never come true
The box would be empty
Except for the memory
Of how they were answered by youBut there never seems to be enough time
To do the things you want to do
Once you find them
I’ve looked around enough to know
That you’re the one I want to go
Through time with
Father Neal suggested that this might be Jesus’ song to us. There is never enough time in our lives, but Jesus offers us eternal time and he stands ready and waiting to go though time with us, making every wish a memory of love and unity with God.
Make this Advent special. Remember to devote time every day to prepare to receive God’s love and support in your life.
Amen.
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