Beyond 20/20 - VISION

Christmas 1b, December 28, 2014 (Luke 2:22-40 with Isaiah 61:10-62:3 in the b.g)

 

Today we are encountered by two elderly people who have vision. Their names are Simeon and Anna. On the one hand this may seem very strange. Generally we think of a person's vision diminishing as he or she grows older. My own parents, Ken and Vera, now both use magnifying glasses to read the newspaper or any book. When there's a baseball or hockey game of interest on Television I literally move my mom's big comfortable to within two feet of her huge flat screen TV so that she can "see".

 

Nevertheless, in today's Gospel reading, even as the baby Jesus is brought by his financially strapped parents to the Temple forty days after his birth it's only those two older people, Simeon and Anna who can clearly see who he is.

 

Perhaps vision isn't primarily about one's eyesight. Maybe vision involves a lot more than that.

 

We are told that old Simeon was righteous and devout. Righteous means that Simeon attempted to live in ways that honored God and therefore also others. Devout means that Simeon practiced his faith in ways that kept his senses alert to God's work in both the seemingly ordinary and extraordinary.

 

We are also informed that Anna (whose Greek name would have been Hanna) was of a great age. She never left the temple. Wow! She worshiped there with fasting and prayer. Anna was also working at paying attention to God in everything she did.

 

Somehow, these two quite elderly people have vision. They have vision that is beyond 20-20. So much so, that when a seemingly very ordinary couple, quite poor actually, present their 40 day old baby for that usual temple ritual, both Simeon and Anna realize beyond the shadow of a doubt that this child is no ordinary child! Not that any child is ordinary. Not that any child isn't loved by God and special to many people. But this child, the child that Mary and Joseph present this day is extra special. This baby, Jesus, is the One who will deliver, who will save, even as His name specifies. Seeing this child, holding this very One of God, moves Simeon and Anna's hearts. How can they keep from singing?

 

Simeon's song underlines that God has allowed him, Simeon, to literally see God's salvation in the flesh. This baby is the One who will show those who aren't Jewish that God loves them. This baby is the One of God who can lead people beyond self-centeredness, beyond violence, destruction, envy and fear to new life with God and with others. This baby, says Simeon, will allow Israel to be honored by others, to realize the central purpose of her existence. Because of this baby Jesus, because Simeon has been enabled to actually hold that child in his arms – now Simeon can depart in peace. He knows – God keeps God's promises.

 

And Anna? She also came to that place in the temple where the baby Jesus was with Mary and Joseph that day. She too is moved beyond herself both to praise God and to speak about this child to all who were longing for Jerusalem to be freed from the powers of evil and death .

 

Here we are in our post modern temple. Do we have vision, like Simeon and Anna? Are we even aware that we also desperately need deliverance – deliverance from anger, from hatred, from fear, from clinging to past wrongs, from consumerism which so often has its tentacles in us?

 

Are we even aware that we need deliverance to – to be able to love unconditionally, to let go in order to  forgive, to know deep within our hearts and minds that our life does not consist of the abundance of our possessions? Do we realize, do we have we the vision to know that God can work in the "ordinary" and often does?

 

Such vision has little to do with our age, with the acuity of our eyes. Such vision may even have very little to do with our education. Sometimes such vision is definitely aided by our practice of our faith – by regular disciplines of prayer, of worship of giving of our time, our talents and goods as God directs.

 

Oh, dear people, we live in a time where the vision of God is often rare or skewed. May we be dedicated as Simeon and Anna were to seeing God, to waiting for God, to trusting that God is at work, in loving us and the world. May we like Simeon and Anna be enlivened by God to see and partake in God's salvation, in thought, word and deed.

 

In and through God and God's Son there can be peace within and a growing peace without.

 

Mary and Joseph present their baby, this Son of God, this salvation of God working in the world into our midst this morning. Will we see him, hold him, be moved by him to sing, speak and pray – to know that God is here, that we are God's people, that God is at work, loving the world? Or blinded by so much else will we miss him?            Amen.

 

(Give us vision O God, to see Jesus, here and now – and to be part of His work, your work, as your children. Amen.)

 

 

What a WORD!

Sermon Christmas Day, 2014 (Isaiah 52:7-10; Hebrews 1:1-12; John 1:1-14)

 

Recently, I was in a synagogue. The people of that Synagogue had invited me to join them in listening on different nights to each of the three leaders of our federal parties before the election of October 2015. This particular night the guest speaker was Justin Trudeau. The first question from the audience piqued my interest. "What role would faith have in a Liberal government?" I edged forward. Trudeau responded. "Let me tell you what role faith plays in my life". He then spelled out the practice of his life for the first eighteen years of his life - weekly worship, daily family prayers. He admitted that after he turned eighteen he left the practice of the church, thinking that what the "old" priest was saying had little to do with him. But then after his twenty-eighth birthday both his brother and his father died. Suddenly, he said, he found solace in his faith. Now he again practices his faith. He hears in that practice words that are being spoken of God, by God, of himself and the world.

 

I am convinced that the most important reality of Christmas has to do with God speaking to any who might hear. In Christmas, God speaks in a way that not only can bring us solace but has the power to bring us new life - life with God and as a result also new life with others. Let me say more. . .

 

We must know that not all words are equal. Some spoken swords are merely words, words that make sounds, but which are somehow empty or even illusory, claiming to provide us with things that they are not capable of. This is because the source behind the words itself is either illusory or deceitful. I think of so many infomercials in this regard: if I just buy product x, I will have the skin of a 20 year old, lose 40 pounds without any effort or change on my part, or suddenly have such a greater mental capacity. Deep down, we know - these claims are false!

 

But there are other words, spoken by ONE WHO HAS THE WILL AND THE CAPACITY TO BACK THEM UP. These words spoken by such a person, TAKE ON FLESH FOR US. Such a word or words can provide us with meaning, with hope.

 

I remember the first time Martha (my wife) said, "I love you, Tim". Her words took on her flesh. They continually change my life, and influence the lives of many others.

 

My mother is now 90. She is increasingly frail. Her fragility includes short term memory loss and significant deafness. Every week I call my mother attempting to have a conversation. She ends each and every conversation with the same words, regardless of how much or little she has heard me, or of how of that conversation she can remember. My mom closes her conversation with these spoken words, "I love you son, more than you will ever know!" Her words of life and love have taken on flesh. This is the woman who carried me in her body for nine months. This is the woman who has sat beside me on the edge of a bath tub, near the toilet bowl as I battled through flues and various stomach ailments. This is the woman who has listened to and shared my joy and pain for over 60 years. She loves me – more than I will ever know. This is HER WORD to me and for me!

 

It's Christmas. God has a WORD TO US and more importantly, FOR US! Listen.

 

This morning God speaks through a representative, John, who writes to a struggling community. They live nearly sixty years after Jesus has died. Their life is tough. There is a huge cost to their faith. John knows them. John is moved by God to write to them. Listen.

 

 IN THE BEGINNING! Not just our beginning but, THE BEGINNING - before any and all beginnings. Now that John "has us" he proceeds: "IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD, AND THE WORD WAS WITH GOD AND THE WORD WAS GOD". You see, God desperately wants to communicate with us! God is the WORD!

 

The writer to the Hebrews points to this longing communicative process. God is aching to communicate with us, to draw near to us, to lead us, to help us, to protect us, sometimes even by correcting us. "Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Amos, Joel, Hosea, Amos, Obadiah –the list is long), but in these last days God has spoken to us by a Son." Hear this.

 

This Son, through whom God speaks is the exact imprint of God's very being... the exact imprint. This Son, who takes children on his knees, who knocks over the money changer's tables in the temple, is God's Word to and for us.  This Son, this Word of God, takes on flesh for us!

 

We know the story, maybe too well. But do we hear God?

 

We love some others? But do we hear them?

 

What God is saying to us makes all the difference, now and ... forever. John's Gospel tells us that many will not hear this Word of God, this one who dares to take on our flesh. Sometimes we have been among them. But listen this Christmas day. "To all who received him – (to those being opened to trusting God's promises) – He gives power to become children of God.

 

When we hear God, this WORD BECOME FLESH, speaking to us, encouraging us, wooing us to trust Him, our hearts are opened, our minds lifted - beyond ourselves. We are not merely dust, ideas, successes or failures. All such realities pale beside whose we are and therefore who we are. We are God's children, God's sons and daughters. Jesus has come to enflesh God's love. Jesus comes to tent among us.  As we see and hear Him, this GOD WORD communicating to us we shall not remain the same.

 

In God's WORD to us and for us we are transported beyond our beginnings. He is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. Jesus is the terminus and the goal. He sweeps us up into His orbit of love and forgiveness, hope and sacrifice and sends us out!

 

Oh, dear people: MERRY CHRISTMAS!  Go tell it on the mountain. The Word has become flesh drawing us to Him in Word and Sacrament. No matter what we have done, where we have been or how we have failed – we are God's own children. We are called to embody this so others too can know and experience, this most amazing gift - they too are God's own children. Our word to and for them, becomes their word, which all comes from God in Jesus, the WORD BECOME FLESH. Amen.

 

 

Telling Vulnerability

Christmas Eve 2014, Luke 2:1-20 with Isaiah 9:2-7 and Isaiah 11:1-10 in the b.g.

The celebration of Christmas brings with it all kinds of feelings. As we grow older Christmas also brings with it all kinds of memories. As I watched the young children of our Day Care singing last week, I remembered my first day of school. In 1960 one's parents didn't accompany their child to that first day of school, especially if both those parents worked. Do you remember your first day of school - how big everything and almost everyone else seemed? Do you remember how small, how insignificant you may have felt?

 

I felt that way once again on my first day of university transitioning from a high school of 500 to a university campus of 10,000 full time students, moving from a city of 20,000 to a city of over 100,000.  I was 713561 – my student number. I felt alone, unsure – in some ways like I was "blowing in the wind".

 

Even now, sometimes my first days in new congregations feel like that. Or when I have sat with one of my closest friends undergoing chemotherapy – I have felt helpless, vulnerable along with so many others. I have also felt that deep vulnerability when death has arrived for people I have deeply loved or when other's beloved babies have died...

 

Can you identify with any of that, even or especially at Christmas – our profound vulnerability? In those times none of the buying, not even the best spa in the world or the grandest accolades coming our way can rid us of our vulnerability.

 

I tell you all this, because vulnerability is an essential part of God's reaching out to us – especially at Christmas, and particularly in the Gospel of Luke. Mary and her guy, Joseph, are extremely vulnerable. They aren't married. She's pregnant. They live as part of the lower class in an occupied country. Their future - both immediate and distant is anything but secure.

 

You think that you have tax problems or have to go through red tape to visit another land? Try being forced to make a thirty-four mile journey on foot when you are over eight months pregnant. Do not what you want, but what the emperor says you must do. When the big boss says, "GO"– you go, regardless of how you feel. Maybe some of us do know something about that.

 

Mary and Joseph aren't the only ones who are vulnerable in Luke's account. There are also the shepherds. They work nights. Their tarnished reputations are so bad that their testimony is not accepted in a court of law. Many people won't have anything to do with them.

 

Have you ever been excluded? During your time at school – because you didn't look a certain way, or your parents weren't rich enough, or you were too smart or not smart enough – or too athletic or not athletic enough? Maybe you have been excluded because of your beliefs or lack of supposed "beliefs". Whatever the case, being left out is not easy. Exclusion means we experience vulnerability, AGAIN.

 

We all have the same needs! We need to be loved, cared about and for, unconditionally. We all need to be respected, celebrated, commiserated with regardless of our mental capacity, our gender, our sexual orientation, our age, our political convictions, our "status" on Facebook.

 

So we've come here tonight - as we are. God knows us just as we are. Maybe one or two other people  also know much of our truth.

 

Here are the shepherds also, just as they are. They are tending the flock – maybe having a drink or two, just to keep warm. The nights can be cold near Jerusalem. To them, just as they are, their vulnerability and all, God comes!

 

I know - it sounds crazy. Sometimes, we might think that God, if there really is a God, only shows up way back there. Or maybe God, if there is a God only reveals God's self to highly educated, "important" people who have degrees in philosophy or theology.

 

BUT, LISTEN TO LUKE. One of God's messengers approaches the SHEPHERDS. God refuses to exclude them. How God speaks through that angel. Dare we listen? For God is also speaking to us! The shepherds are terrified as they realize that God is speaking to them. I mean think of it – God, the Creator of the universe choosing to speak TO YOU!

 

But God's messenger refuses to allow them to be paralyzed by or remain in their fear. The angel continues to speak, "Do not be afraid; for see – I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people!"

 

Wait! Good news? Don't we often think that those two words, good and news are mutually exclusive? When is that you have experienced news that is good both for you and for many others?

 

The angel doesn't apologize for that message, that proclamation of GOOD NEWS OF GREAT JOY FOR ALL THE PEOPLE! That message is literally thrown out there...

 

What could this good news of great joy be for the shepherds? No more taxes? Annual vacations? All you can drink and eat for the rest of your life? Being included in many circles?

 

 

No. The good news of great joy for all the people is more than that. The messenger of God points those foul smelling shepherds and us to a baby that is born nearby, in Bethlehem. This baby, says the messenger, is THE CHOSEN ONE, anointed by God to flesh out good news for ALL PEOPLE. This baby is THE ONE who will change the ways of the world, take on the powers of death and evil – and somehow usher in new life, hope, love for all. Then, of all things, the angel gives those shepherds a sign: In Bethlehem they will find this baby wrapped in swaddling clothes, (very common), but also lying in a feed trough, a manger.

 

Just as the shepherds and any of us who dare to listen are attempting to make heads or tails of all this, we begin to hear other sounds. It is a symphony of heavenly beings praising God and praising God for bringing peace on earth.

 

What to do? The shepherds get on their horse (OK, it's an expression) and head off to Bethlehem where they see Mary and Joseph, still so vulnerable, with their oh, so profoundly vulnerable baby, Jesus. The shepherds tell Mary and Joseph all that they have heard and seen. The walls of exclusion are beginning to crumble. Now, there is no going back even as Mary ponders all these things in her heart.

           

It's crazy, isn't it. Ilogical - that God the creator of the universe would come to a young uneducated seemingly unimportant yet oh so vulnerable couple in an occupied country – and be born TO THEM. Wherever this occurred, it's pretty crazy that God would empty God's self of God's power to take on such frail human flesh to reach us. And it's pretty crazy  that the first people God would actually show any of this to would be shepherds, whose word seemingly IS NOT trustworthy...

 

But then, if God actually loves us and this entire world, who better to first come to than a couple who are really vulnerable, who desperately need that love – in many ways, quite a bit like us.

 

And actually, if God truly loves us, why wouldn't God draw you here tonight to hear God's message, even from an old fart in a white dress, telling the story as best he can, as it has been done for nearly two thousand years? Why not, indeed.

 

The amazing truth is exactly as we hear it again tonight. This baby, Jesus, is God in the flesh. He comes to love and therefore transform the world. This baby Jesus, God in the flesh, comes to love us unconditionally and in that gift transform us.

 

Dare to listen. Dare to hear. Dare to come to that feeding trough wherever you may be at this moment. As our hearts , minds, eyes and imaginations are captured, embraced and enlivened by Jesus, just as the shepherds we are compelled to go and see for ourselves. Beginning to see we are moved to tell all those around us all that we have seen and heard, all that we are experiencing of God.   

 

We begin to realize, even as the shepherds did, that wherever we are, whatever we've done or not done, whatever has been done to us or not done to us, this baby, this Jesus we meet tonight, reaches out to and for all, including us. In Him, we too have GOOD NEWS OF GREAT JOY for all whom we meet. Do hear. Do see. Do tell! Amen.

           

Building that Lasts!

GOD IS BUILDING FOREVER (II Samuel 7:1-11, 16) (Psalm 89:1-4 in b.g. & Luke 1:26-38)

Advent 4b, December 21, 2014

Greetings favored ones, the Lord is with you.

 

They were 4 years old – a boy and a girl. It was spring, wet and muddy. They were playing outside their houses. It was a long time ago. The streets weren't yet paved. Those two children found this delightful because there were mud puddles everywhere. They loved to splash, to plod, to explore everything, anything. They knew each other well having spent their entire lives in adjacent houses, while their parents went back and forth even as they played together.

 

The boy starts the conversation. "You know, God built my house". He could really pontificate. The girl wasn't buying it. She shakes her head. "No! Daschuk Construction built my house and your house too. My mom said!"

 

Now that little boy wasn't one to back down from an argument. In his loudest 4 year old voice he proclaimed, "God built our houses – my dad said.!" The little girl wasn't to be outdone. Just as loudly she shouted, "Daschuk construction build them – MY MOM SAID." And so it went, back and forth.

 

There is a profound truth being enunciated by these two...

 

King David really thought he was something. So did most people of his time. He was the greatest King Israel ever had, ever would have. He began inauspiciously – as a shepherd boy. A prairie blast of wind, even a West Coast gust may have knocked him over. Yet David progressed to become a great warrior. Many of his military feats still stand recorded nearly 3000 years after the fact. King David was also blessed with superior musical abilities. Although the music has been lost some of his lyrics continue to be read and reflected upon for nearly 3 millenia. Will any of our music survive so long? If it does we certainly won't be here to observe it.

 

It is in the light of  "his accomplishments" that King David decides to do something "for God". He will build God a house. Seems like a generous offer. At first even the prophet Nathan was on side. Yes, David would build this amazing house, temple, for God.

 

But there's an inherent danger. Anytime I think that I will do something for God, anytime we think that we will do something amazing for God, we are beginning to think, to act, to live as if we know best, as if we are in control.

 

So – God the LORD sets David straight through the prophet Nathan. He interrogates David: "Did I ever ask any of the leaders of Israel to build me a house of cedar? And you, David – was it not I, the LORD, who took you from the pasture, from following the sheep to be prince over my people Israel? And wasn't it, I, the LORD, who has been with you wherever you went, giving you victory over your enemies, thus allowing your reputation to become great?"

 

The Lord then concludes the interrogation: "And you, David, are going to do something for me?"

 

Then comes God's counter-offer. It's good. "No, instead, I, the LORD, am continuing to do something for you, David and through you, FOR ALL PEOPLE... I will make you a house, not out of cedar, or stone, but out of flesh and blood."

 

So it was, so it is, that God, the LORD, made King David a promise that his house, the line coming out from him, would in some way last forever...

 

Even at this darkest time of the year, there are times when we think that we understand clearly. We may rightly recognize that God has given and gives us gifts. Some of our gifts are wonderful: to compose or perform music, to build and construct things, to tell stories, to teach others, to aid others in their healing, to listen, to love. Much of this is good. But sometimes we have the audacity, the arrogance to think that we are doing this on our own, maybe even that we are doing this for God.

           

It is then that God comes to us turning our best laid plans upside down. God chooses to act, even in and through our lives. But unlike us, as God acts the results are often so much more than temporary. The results may be lasting, even eternal.

 

See the genealogy of Jesus. King David is back there in Jesus' genealogy. To be sure all that David built has decayed, even disappeared – but JESUS' birth, life, death and resurrection continue to impact the entire earth and universe.

 

Right now we hear about more of God's activity. Gabriel, a messenger of God, comes to the, oh so young woman, Mary with an amazing declaration. "You will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the LORD God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.

 

What does this mean for us?

 

Let's return to the two 4 year olds playing in puddles. If we could go back and look at the houses they grew up in, we would see aging structures. Over 50 years later the roofs have bowed. Many of the neighboring houses have been torn down, replaced with large apartment buildings.

 

But there are some things, some acts which God builds, acts upon, that last forever.

 

Today we are preparing ourselves to celebrate the primary one. In the birth of the Christ child God's love encounters the entire human race, collectively and specifically again and again and again. The love of God, becoming flesh, creates, brings into being, forever. It is because of this amazing, living wonderful truth of what GOD DOES FOR US and the ENTIRE CREATION in Jesus, that we are enabled to light candles, to stand on our tip toes with heightened anticipation, to watch, to wait, to hope, to have our hearts and minds stirred.

 

Even in this darkest time of the year we are moved to trust that this same great God, who dares to become human in Jesus, who makes incredible promises to King David and works through King David, also has come and will come again to us and for us. This is God's promise – a promise to bask in, celebrate and live from.

 

Like Mary, may we opened to God, so that God's life giving and bringing work which stands forever may also be done among, in and through us. May we by God's grace echo both Mary's words and purpose: "HERE WE ARE LORD, YOUR SERVANTS; LET IT BE WITH US ACCORDING TO YOUR WORD."  Who knows, God may be even be doing something that lasts in and through us. Amen.