Wedding Feast at Cana

Second Sunday After the Epiphany – Year C
Isaiah 62:1-5; Psalm 96 (96:1-10); 1 Corinthians 12:1-11; John 2:1-11
Sunday, January 14, 2007 – St. Alban’s, Westwood

I’ve always liked the story of the wedding feast at Cana. Perhaps it’s because I enjoy a really good wine, and that is one of the central images in this story. But I had never spent a lot of time considering what about the story delights me so much, other than the imagery. I had never really taken the time to figure out what the story of the wedding feast says about our relationship with God and with Jesus Christ.

As I prepared to preach on this lesson, I did as I usually do – I read through the lesson a number of times and just allowed the images to wash over me. Some of the usual images came to me. There was the image of Mary, the typical worrying mother, thinking she needs to do something when the wine runs out, or rather, to have her son do something. Frankly, that image always bothered me a little. What business was it of Mary’s? It wasn’t her party. Why was she so worried? Even after Jesus told her to basically mind her own business, she continued to push. She went to the servants and told them to do whatever Jesus told them. She essentially forced Jesus to take action, even though he had already told his mother that the matter was none of his or her concern.

When his mother started in on him to do something, he said his hour had not yet come. This says to me that he was not ready to reveal himself to the rest of the world. Yet, in what certainly appears to be the next moment, Jesus does act. Perhaps, after reflecting on the situation, Jesus decided there was no better time than the present for him to act – for him to begin his public ministry.

What better place to reveal himself than through the performance of a miracle at a very public event like a wedding? The choice of place is an important indicator. It says a lot about what is important to Jesus, and by extension, to God. It says a lot about who Jesus is. Weddings are cause for celebration – for public celebration. We know that Jesus did not shy away from celebratory occasions. The Gospels are full of stories of Jesus eating, drinking, and generally having a good time with all sorts of people. In fact, the Pharisees even accuse him of being a regular party animal – dining with tax collectors and sinners, of being a glutton and a drunkard. Personally, I think they were just jealous because Jesus got invited to all the cool parties and they didn’t. At any rate, Jesus’ predilection for attending dinners and other celebrations shows that he was not about being all ascetical and somber. He was about enjoying life in a very communal way, about sharing joyous times with family and friends.

This desire for joy and celebration is evidenced at the wedding feast at Cana. Perhaps it was this overriding desire that got the better of him and caused him to change his mind about revealing himself. After all, the party had run out of wine. How can you have a celebration without wine? There is not quicker way to kill a party, short of inviting the Pharisees, than to run out of wine. So to prevent this from happening, Jesus chose to act – he chose to provide what was needed for the party to continue. By changing the water into wine, Jesus revealed himself, and God, to be concerned with the happiness of humanity – with the joy of the party guests.

Jesus providing what is needed for the banquet to continue is an appropriate image for Jesus himself. Because of God’s love for us, because of God’s concern for our well-being, because of God’s desire to be in relationship with us, God provided what was needed for us to continue in joyous celebration of our life and relationship with God – Jesus Christ himself. The banquet that we call the human race was on its way to destruction and despair. To keep the banquet going, we needed something to enliven it, to enliven us. And God provided what we needed in the form of Jesus – a savior who would care for us and lead us in a new direction – not down a path of destruction and of despair, but down a path of new life and of hope. With Jesus, the banquet does not end, but promises to continue forever.

Yes, the occasion of a celebratory banquet is certainly fitting for Jesus’ revelation of himself to humanity. Throughout the New Testament, there are stories of other banquets and feasts, with the allusion to the fact that these are pale images of the eternal heavenly banquet that awaits us all – a banquet where God and Christ are the hosts and we are the honored guests. The manner in which Jesus begins his earthly ministry points out what we can expect not only in our lives here on Earth, but for eternity.

But this revelation of himself did not occur at just any banquet. The fact that Jesus’ first miracle took place at a wedding feast is also poignant. Weddings are about new life – the new life together of the bride and the groom. Jesus chose to reveal himself to humanity not just at any social event, but at an event celebrating love. This is a celebration of the beginning of a new life together for two people, of the formation of a new family, bound together in love. This reveals Jesus’ desire for us to live together in a community of love, as a family. Throughout the Old Testament, God is imaged as a bridegroom, and his people are imaged as the bride in whom God delights. Similarly, the New Testament uses imagery of Christ as a bridegroom. By revealing himself to humanity at the wedding banquet at Cana, Jesus invokes this imagery of God as bridegroom, foreshadows himself as bridegroom, invokes the image of us, his people as bride – bound together with Christ to form a family of faith, of which he is the head.

Then there is the act of changing water into wine – a pretty cool trick. Frankly, I was hoping that after my ordination to the priesthood, I would be able to do that one. It could come in real handy at parties. But, apparently that is not one of the gifts conferred at ordination. But back to the wedding feast. We are told that Jesus turned the water into wine, and that it was obviously top shelf. He did not turn the water into the same old glug that was being served at the wedding. This was not Ripple or even Two Buck Chuck. This was the really old, really expensive stuff that you save for very special, intimate occasions with your family or closest friends – not what you would serve at a large party of relative strangers – and particularly not what you would serve after most of the guests were already tanked. I have always wondered why Jesus turned the water into the really good stuff. If he felt like he needed to do something (thanks, Mom), why not turn the water into the same old stuff that had been served all evening? No one would be the wiser. Why call attention to himself by producing wine of a better quality and vintage than what the guests had already been drinking?

Here again, just as the venue for Christ’s first miracle, for his revelation to humanity, reveals something about our relationship with God and with Christ, so, too, do the particulars of the miracle reveal something about that relationship. In this simple act (for him), “Jesus inaugurates his ministry with a vivid enactment of the gift he has to offer” (O’Day, 536). Let’s start with the water. Water is a common substance, found in everything in creation. We ourselves are about two-thirds water. Water is nothing special because it is so common – comprised of two very ordinary elements – hydrogen and oxygen. But at the same time, it is so necessary to life. Life as we know it could not exist without it. In his miracle, Jesus takes this common, ordinary, substance and makes it into something special – wine. While wine is a fairly ordinary drink in many cultures, we still associate it with festive occasions. If you want to turn an ordinary dinner into a special event, you pop the cork on a bottle of wine. If you want to celebrate something, you open a bottle of wine. As the psalmist tells us, God made wine “to gladden our hearts” (Ps. 104:15). This miracle reveals that in Jesus, the common, the ordinary, is made special, is made extraordinary. Through Jesus, we have a gift that is meant to gladden our hearts – to bring great joy to all who partake.

The amount of wine produced is also significant, in more ways than one. The Gospel tells us that the water was in six jars, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. That’s 180 gallons of water. That’s 180 gallons of wine! That’s certainly an extravagant amount of wine. That’s more wine than could possibly have been needed to end out the banquet. But it is “the extravagance (of the amount of wine produced) [that] is at the heart of the miracle.” In this miracle, we are “shown the superabundance of gifts available through Jesus” (O’Day, 538). He is able to provide us with more than we could possible want, need, or imagine. His grace is limitless.

But abundance is not the only issue. There is also the issue of quality. As we noted, Jesus did not just turn the water into any old wine. He turned it into a top quality vintage. It is apparent that God’s grace, bestowed through and manifest in Jesus Christ is not only about abundance – it is also about quality. Not only is there 180 gallons of wine, but there is 180 gallons of really, really good wine. Not only is God’s grace limitless, it is also comprised of the best of the best. God doesn’t just want us to have good things. God wants us to have the best possible things. And that’s what God provides in and through Jesus. The wine steward’s words to the bridegroom “‘you have kept the good wine until now’ have a double meaning. They work on the level of the story line, but the steward’s words also inadvertently witness to the deeper truth. He attributes the good wine to the beneficence of the bridegroom whose wedding is being celebrated, when in fact the wine derives from the beneficence of Jesus, the true bridegroom” (O’Day, 538).

The miracle at the wedding at Cana is one of abundance, of quality, of extravagance. It is one of transformation and of new possibilities. This miracle “is significant because, in showing forth the unprecedented grace of Jesus, it reveals the glory of Jesus and anticipates his ultimate moment of glorification, his death, resurrection, and ascension. The extravagance of Jesus’ act, the superabundance of the wine, suggests the unlimited gifts that Jesus makes available. Jesus’ ministry begins with an extraordinary act of grace, a first glimpse of the ‘greater things’ to come” (O’Day, 540).

We are all guests at the wedding feast. We have been invited to share in a celebration of love. We have been invited to share in a celebration of new life and of hope. We have been invited to celebrate a community of which we are a part, a family bonded together with one another and with Jesus Christ, the bridegroom. We are invited to partake of his unlimited grace, freely offered. In this gracious gift, Christ has taken what is ordinary and made it extraordinary. If Jesus can do something as fantastic as taking some plain old water and turning it into top-quality wine, imagine what he can do with something even more wonderful like a human life. Imagine what more he can do with a collection of human lives, like this community here gathered.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.


References

O’Day, Gail R. “The Gospel of John: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflection.” In Vol. IX of The New Interpreter’s Bible. Edited by Leander E. Keck, et al. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995.

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First Sunday as a Priest

Today I presided at the Eucharist for the first time, twice. The 8:00 service went off without a hitch – everything went very smoothly. And Moki gave an absolutely beautiful and inspiring sermon (see sermon text). After the service, I got some very positive feedback. People really liked the way I did the Eucharistic Prayer, how I slowed down at certain points to make it more meditative, giving people a chance to think about what the words mean.

The 10:00 service was not quite as smooth. I made one blunder during the Eucharistic Prayer. After the Lord’s Prayer, I had a slight moment of disorientation. I thought there was supposed to be a musical fraction anthem, so I waited. When nothing happened, I looked at Vivian (the Minister of Ceremonies), who kind of motioned for me to continue. So, I did a said fraction anthem. Then, after I said the “Gifts of God for the people of God” piece, I looked down at the paten and saw the whole priest’s hose and realized that I had not actually done the fraction. My breaking of the host was supposed to be Jim’s cue to start the music for the sung fraction anthem. I felt like an idiot. But no one seemed to notice.

For the Eucharistic prayer, I chanted all the appropriate parts. I did okay, but not as well as I could have. This was for two reasons. First, I started developing a cold yesterday evening, which made it difficult for me to control my voice and to hit some of the notes. And second, I was really nervous. Not only was there a larger crowd, but also my parents were there. But after church I talked with both Vivian and Jim (the Music Director) and both said they thought I did pretty well for a first time.

Moki gave another wonderful sermon – this one different from the one at 8:00 (see sermon text). There were some parts that were similar, and the overall message was essentially the same, but the words and illustrations were different. It was a very moving sermon – a real blessing.

After the service, I was talking with a couple of parishioners. One of them asked me if I felt different now that I was a priest. I told her I felt a little different. She then said that I looked different – I carried myself differently, seemed to have more confidence, and had a more spiritual air about me. She thought I seemed like a different person than I was before my priesting.

After church, Moki and I went to Santa Monica and had lunch at PF Chang’s on Wilshire Blvd. Then we walked along the 3rd Street Promenade and looked in some shops. When we were done with that, I took him to LAX and then went home. Overall, it was a great day. Very tiring, but definitely satisfying. It was a good kind of tired.

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Moki's Sermon at the 10:00 Liturgy

Following is the text of the sermon delivered by the Rev. Moki Hino at the 10:00 liturgy on Sunday, January 7, 2007 at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, Westwood for the occasion of my first celebration of the Eucharist.


Two thousand years ago a group of wise men – some say they were astrologers, some say they were magicians – took a leap of faith and set out on a journey across the Eastern desert and followed a star – a star of peace, a star of hope, and a star of love. And at the end of their journey, they found the Christ child, the Messiah, and they were overwhelmed with joy.

Four hundred years later, another group of people took a leap of faith and set out on a journey over a different kind of desert – a vast, deep, blue desert, the Pacific Ocean, sailing in double-hulled outrigger canoes from the Marquesas Islands in the South Pacific and north toward a land – a land they had no certainty was there. It was a leap of faith. They had no idea what they would find at the end of their journey, if anything at all. The only thing they had to go on was the knowledge that a golden bird, the plover, that flew to the Marquesas from the north and never settled on water but only settled on land. And after watching this, they deduced that there must be land somewhere north in that vast region beyond the blue ocean. And so they set off, and as they sailed north, they looked at the night sky and watched constellations like the Southern Cross disappear behind them, but they also noticed groups of stars that they had never seen. And then one night they saw the star Arcturus, and below it they saw the silhouette of the Hawaiian Islands, the islands that became their new home. They were overwhelmed with joy and named this zenith star Hokule`a, the star of gladness.

This first group of Polynesian sailors charted a course from the Marquesas to Hawai`i and shared the knowledge with others who came in waves from the Marquesas, from Tahiti, and from other islands in French Polynesia. And on every subsequent voyage they would set out in their double-hulled canoes, sail north, and look for and follow Hokule`a, the star of gladness, to the islands of Hawai`i. And as they settled there they began to develop legends, lore, and tenets - legends, lore, and tenets based on lives connected to the land and lives connected to the sea. I ka olelo o ke ola, I ka olelo o ka make. In the word there is life, in the word there is death. Mohala i ka wai ka maka o ka pua. Unfolded by the water are the faces of the flowers. O na hoku no na kiu o ka lani. The stars are the spies of heaven.

But the one I like best is the old Hawaiian saying that at birth, God gives each of us a bowl of light that reflects God’s goodness, that reflects God’s purity, and that reflects God’s love. And we hold our bowls of light in front of us wherever we go and those around us take it in, embrace it, bask it in, delight in it. But sometimes there are rocks along the paths in our lives and we pick them up and place them in our bowls – when we do inappropriate deeds, when we say unfortunate things, when we hold unsuitable thoughts. And as we go along, sometimes our bowls become so full of rocks that very little light can come through – and we have trouble giving glory to ourselves, we have trouble giving glory to others, we have trouble giving glory to God. We each hold a bowl of light. And in it we each hold a bowl of rocks. This is part of human life.

Not long ago – maybe six or seven years back, Michael held a bowl of light and, like all human beings, in it he held some rocks. And one day he felt a stirring that said, “Something isn’t right. Something needs to change.” And with that stirring, that thought, he took a rock out of his bowl and some of his God-light came through. “I feel called to ordained ministry, to Holy Orders.” And with that thought, he took another rock out of his bowl and even more God-light came through. He talked to his parish priest and another rock came out, more God-light came through. Together they formed a discernment committee, another rock came out, more God-light came through. He undertook a ministry study year – another rock out, more light came through. He went before the Commission on Ministry and the Bishop – we’ll take out two rocks for that one! The light continued to grow stronger. He quit his very lucrative job, sold his house, and moved into a cramped studio apartment at seminary – not in warm and sunny California, but in cold and windy Chicago- and another rock came out more light came through. He spent a summer in a hospital with the sick, with the dying, with their loved ones – another rock came out, more light came through. He graduated from seminary and headed home to California. Another rock came out and more light came through. And then yesterday, he said, “I will,” in front of you, in front of me, and in front of seven bishops. Six times he said it, “I will. I will. I will. I will. I will. I will.” And the rocks flew out of his bowl like they were flying out of a popcorn machine. And Michael’s light came through and the bishop lay hands on his head and confirmed what God had already decided, making Michael a priest, and for that one special God-filled moment he holds a bowl of pure light, shining so strong that it’s as if it rises above him on the wings of that golden plover for all of us to see, that Hokule`a, that star for wise men from the East to follow, that star for the Polynesian voyagers to follow, that star for you to follow, that star for me to follow, that star for all of us to follow. That Hokule`a, that star of gladness, that star which is God.

Two thousand years ago, wise men in the desert found hope. Four hundred years later, Polynesian voyagers from the Marquesas Islands found hope. Yesterday, a new priest found hope. They followed a star. But the Epiphany story isn’t just the wise men’s story. The Epiphany story isn’t just the Polynesian voyagers’ story. The Epiphany story isn’t just Michael’s story. The Epiphany story is your story. The Epiphany story is my story. The Epiphany story is a story that belongs to all humankind. Each one of us holds a bowl of God-given light. And as life goes on, we each put rocks in our bowls. It’s an inevitable part of the human experience – jealousy, resentment, self-doubt, anger, fear, self-righteousness, complacency. And yet in spite of all of it, the Christ child at the end of the star redeems us. The Christ child at the end of the star redeems us at Christmas, The Christ child redeems us at Epiphany, The Christ child redeems us at Easter. The Christ child at the end of the star redeems us at baptism and every time we renew our Baptismal Covenant saying, “I will, with God’s help.” We’re redeemed when we come to this table, this table over which, in a moment, your new priest will preside. This table of spiritual nourishment, this table of spiritual renewal. This table where we say, “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.” When we set our hearts on that, it’s one moment in our lives where we, too, hold a bowl of pure light in front of us, in front of our neighbors, in front of Christ.

What will you do with your bowl of light? In a moment we will recite the Baptismal Covenant and we will make some very serious promises. My prayer for you, for me, for all of us this morning is that we will continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers. That we will continue to persevere in resisting evil, and that when we fall into sin, we will repent and return to the Lord. That we will continue to proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ. That we will continue to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors as ourselves. That we will continue to strive for justice and peace among all people, and that we will continue to respect the dignity of every human being.

We’re called to follow the star. We’re called to follow the star and go beyond the four walls of this church building and into the world with our bowls of light, beacons of God’s goodness and stars of gladness, serving those who have yet to come through our doors, whether it’s our students across the street at UCLA, our hungry people who need a meal this morning, our sisters and brothers living with chronic diseases like HIV/AIDS, or those in our midst, who like us, need the help of others, need the help of others to take the rocks out of their bowls so that their light can shine forth – shine forth as stars of peace, stars of hope, stars of love, stars of gladness.

The wise men in the desert followed a star. The Polynesian voyagers followed a star. Michael followed a star. You can follow the star. I can follow the star. We can all follow the star, the Hokule`a, the star of gladness – and so can our sisters and brothers out there – with your help, with my help, and with God’s help. And may the Hokule`a, the star of gladness, lead you to the Christ child, the Messiah. May the star of gladness lead you to peace, to hope, and most of all, to love.

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Moki's Sermon at the 8:00 Liturgy

Following is the text of the sermon delivered by the Rev. Moki Hino at the 8:00 liturgy on Sunday, January 7, 2007 at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, Westwood for the occasion of my first celebration of the Eucharist.


I lost my father quite suddenly in a boating accident thirteen years ago, December the 28th, right between Christmas and New Year’s. It was a sad time. And about ten days later, around the time of what would have been the Feast of the Epiphany, I got a sympathy card from a cousin that I tucked it away and saved, for it had some of the most beautiful words I have ever read, words by Sarah Williams:

Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;
I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.

And I have love the stars fondly - the stars that represent hope, the stars that represent dreams, and the stars that represent possibilities that are larger, that are grander, that are more vast than our world, that are larger, that are grander, that are more vast than ourselves, that are larger, that are grander, that are more vast than our fears.

The world of Joseph and Mary two thousand years ago is a time of darkness to many – it is a time of political tyranny, oppression, fear. And in the midst of this world, a child is born, a star rises in the night, and wise men feel compelled to follow the star across the desert and to the child, and when they find him, they are filled with joy. And after offering their gifts, the frankincense, gold, and myrrh that are the tools of their trade, they leave for their own country by another road, hopefully filled hope, dreams, and a sense that things that seem unattainable are now attainable. Christ is in their midst.

In the 1890s my great-grandparents in Hiroshima and Yamaguchi, Japan lived in a time of darkness – it was a time of political tyranny, oppression, and fear – all in the wake of the Tokugawa Shogunate and the Meiji Restoration, where Admiral Perry sailed into Tokyo Bay and forced the Emperor to open Japan’s doors. Japan, a country that had been closed off and isolated for over three hundred years became open, and dreams and hopes of places beyond its shores became possible – places like the Hawaiian Islands. My great-grandparents followed a star to the sugar plantations of Hawai`i.

In the darkness of their night – their poverty and their desperation – in the darkness of their night an Epiphany star, a glimmer of hope shone in the hearts, minds, and aspirations of my great-grandparents and, like the wise men, they set out on a journey across a vast, deep, and blue ocean desert in search of a dream. They followed a star. And yes, there was hardship. Seasickness, harsh work in the hot sun of the Hawaiian sugar fields, fear of the overseer’s leather whip as he rode by on his horse. But my romantic side wants to think of my great-grandparents under the Hawaiian skies, with no ambient light, looking at the stars and shooting meteors the way I do in my home in Hawai`i today, the way I do when I need that God-shot telling me that there is hope and that what may seem unattainable might actually be attainable. After all, my great-grandparents – plantation workers from Japan - lived to see their children and grandchildren become educated enough to work as teachers, accountants, Army Majors, Air Force Colonels, attorneys, insurance executives, judges, diplomats, biologists, engineers, systems analysts, bank managers, pilots, and the list goes on to include great-grandchildren who became architects, actresses, and even priests. My great-grandparents left their country by another road and they, too, loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.

It is said that the wise men not only offered gifts, but also sacrificed and shed the tools of their trade as astrologers and magicians when they followed the star and presented the Christ child with their frankincense, their gold, and their myrrh. Not long ago, your new priest did much the same, shedding a healthy pay check, a comfortable home, an honorable job, presenting the Christ child with the frankincense, gold, and myrrh of his trade so that he could follow a star, saying yes to God’s call, busting through the fear of the night that swirled around him saying, “You’re not ready, you don’t have what it takes, this must be some kind of mistake,” and setting off on a journey – a journey to seminary – not in warm and sunny California, but in cold and windy Chicago, and then coming back to his own country by another road – a road that was paved by worship in the Seabury chapel, academic formation in classrooms, a summer in a hospital ministering to the sick, to the dying, and to their loved ones, developing relationships with people who have become lifelong friends, and then finally, yesterday, saying, “I will,” so that your bishop could lay hands on his head, confirming what God had already decided, and making Michael a priest. Michael followed a star and came back to his country by another road. He, too, loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.

Two thousand years ago, wise men in the desert followed a star. A hundred and twenty years ago, my great-grandparents followed a star. A few years ago Michael followed a star, a journey that culminated yesterday in his ordination to the priesthood. They followed a star.

But the Epiphany story isn’t just the wise men’s story. It isn’t just my great-grandparents’ story. It isn’t just Michael’s story. It’s your story. It’s my story. It’s a story that belongs to all humankind.

The darkness of the night is an inevitable part of the human experience – where we experience fear - fear in the form of jealousy, resentment, self-doubt, anger, self-righteousness, complacency. And yet in spite of all of it, the Christ child at the end of the star redeems us. He redeems us at Christmas, he redeems us at Epiphany, he redeems us at Easter. The Christ child at the end of the star redeems us at our baptism and every time we renew our Baptismal Covenant saying, “I will, with God’s help.” He redeems us when we come to this table, this table at which, in a moment, your new priest will preside for the first time. This table of spiritual nourishment, this table of spiritual renewal. This table where we say, “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.” It’s one moment in our lives where we, too, can say, “I love the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.”

And we know that there’s more to the story. In our Baptismal Covenant we made some very serious promises. My prayer for you, for me, for all of us this morning is that we will continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers. That we will continue to persevere in resisting evil, and that when we fall into sin, we will repent and return to the Lord. That we will continue to proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ. That we will continue to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors as ourselves. That we will continue to strive for justice and peace among all people, and that we will continue to respect the dignity of every human being.

We’re called to follow the star. We’re called to follow the star and go beyond the four walls of this church building and into the world with love, serving those who have yet to come through our doors, whether it’s our students across the street at UCLA, our hungry people who need a meal this morning, our sisters and brothers living with chronic diseases like HIV/AIDS, or those in our midst, who like us, need the help of others, the help of others to see the star – the star of peace, the star of hope, the star of love.

The wise men in the desert followed a star. My great-grandparents followed a star. Michael followed a star. You can follow the star. I can follow the star. We can all follow the star – and so can our sisters and brothers out there – with your help, with my help, and with God’s help.

And may the words of Sarah Williams hold true for all of us today:

Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;
I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.

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Ordination Day

Epiphany – the feast day celebrating the revelation of God to all of humanity through the person of God’s Son Jesus Christ. What a glorious day for an ordination! At the ordination to the priesthood, the ordinand is charged by his or her bishop to “proclaim by word and deed the Gospel of Jesus Christ” to all people, declaring to them God’s love, mercy, and forgiveness. The ordinand similarly vows to “nourish Christ’s people from the riches of his grace, and strengthen them to glorify God.” In our meeting with Bishop Bruno during our pre-ordination retreat, he told us about one of his favorite icons, an icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary entitled the Theotokos (“God-bearer”). He talked about this as an image of what it means to be priest – to be the God-bearer to all those whom we serve. In a follow-up discussion, our retreat leader quoted from William Countryman, who explains that the function of priest is to point the way to the holy that is already in our midst – to help people see the holy in their lives and within themselves. By being God-bearers, by discerning and pointing the way to the holy in our midst, we are called to facilitate the on-going Epiphany of God to humanity. You couldn’t ask for a more symbolic and meaningful day to be granted the awesome privilege and responsibility of being priest than on this day.

The actual ordination day was nothing short of awe-inspiring and awe-filled. All through the pre-ordination retreat, I had many mixed feelings – anxiety, nervousness, questions as to whether I was truly ready and able to undertake such an awesome role. Those feelings and the accompanying knots in my stomach continued throughout the morning. But then, about 9:45, as we were beginning to line up for the procession into the church, I was filled with an incredible sense of peace. All my anxiety, all my questions, subsided. I knew I was ready to walk into that place, to kneel before my Bishop and have him lay his hands on my to invoke the grace and power of the Holy Spirit that would make me a priest in God’s Church. With that sense of calm, that sense of assurance that could only have been a gift from the Holy Spirit, I was able to confidently walk into the church to the processional hymn “St. Patrick’s Breastpate” (“I bind unto myself today the strong name of the Trinity”), which happens to be one of my favorites.

The whole service was incredibly mystical and miraculous and transforming. There are way to many details to cover in this entry. But there were four definite highlights for me. The first was the sermon (see sermon text), given by the Right Reverend Michael Ingham, the Bishop of the Diocese of New Westminster (Canada). Bishop Ingham talked about the meaning of Epiphany and the meaning of being a priest. It was undoubtedly one of the best sermons I have ever heard. The second highlight was when I knelt before Bishop Bruno and he placed his massive hands firmly on my head while invoking the Holy Spirit. I wish I could remember Jon’s exact words, as he used unique biddings for each ordinand, biddings specifically related to the gifts and talents of the individual. All I specifically remember was reference to my gifts and passions for kindness, honesty, and equality. The third highlight was having the Bishop anoint my hands with oil, making them “holy hands.” What an awesome act – to realize that now my hands are now holy, and that I am charged with using those hands solely for the work of God. And the fourth highlight was the vesting in stole and chasuble, which was done by three of my seminary classmates who came for the event – the Rev. Michelle Bolt (deacon, Diocese of California), the Rev. Moki Hino (priest, Diocese of Hawaii), and the Rev. Shana Price McCauley (priest, Diocese of California), and. I was incredibly moved that classmates would travel all the way to LA for this event, and even more moved that they were the ones to vest me in the symbols of my priesthood.

Following the ordination service, as is customary, the newly ordained priests were available to give blessings to anyone who wished to receive them. I was privileged to provide blessings and prayers of thanksgiving for several bishops, a number of colleagues, parishioners, and friends. Each individual blessing was powerful in its own unique way, just as the people I blessed are unique gifts in my life. I realized, as each one thanked me for my blessing, that I was just as, if not more, grateful to them for allowing me the privilege of granting a blessing. It was a very moving and powerful experience for me.

As I was finishing my blessings, I was approached by a homeless man who wanted prayers and a blessing. He was incredibly disheveled and wreaked of alcohol. At first, I felt like I did not want to have anything to do with him. He was getting in the way of me enjoying “my day,” taking me away from spending time with friends. And then, all of a sudden I was blessed with a lesson from the Holy Spirit. I realized that the Bishop had just ordained me as priest, with holy hands to help with the hurts of the world. And here was someone who really needed healing, prayers, and blessing – someone that others merely look at and walk past. I was moved to stand there and listen to his story – a story of much pain, a story of illness and addiction, a story of self-loathing for ever having taken a drink of alcohol. I listed as he poured out his soul to me. After he was finished, I offered a prayer for healing, for him to know God’s love and to be strengthened by that love, and blessed him as a beloved child of God. In talking with Moki later in the day, he said I had learned a valuable lesson as to what it means to be a priest, that I had lived into that calling in the simple act of listening to that man and taking time with him when no one else would. As Moki said, for all we know he may have been Christ in an unlikely form. Maybe, maybe not. I will never know, but I do know that man gave me an incredible and priceless ordination gift – the understanding of what it means to be a priest and a brief glimpse at the true meaning of the vows I had taken only an hour before. For me, he made those vows more than just mere words – he embodied them, and in so doing, helped me to embody them.

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Ordination Sermon

[Following is the text of the sermon preached at my ordination to the priesthood on Saturday, January 6, 2007 at St. John's Episcopal Church, Los Angeles.]

Epiphany Ordinations 2007 – Diocese of Los Angeles
Sermon by Bishop Michael Ingham (Diocese of New Westminster)

What an awesome day to become a priest! Epiphany: the manifestation of Christ to the world. This is the day Jesus became known beyond his immediate family and people: the day you become his servants and apostles to continue that work.

And priesthood is an awesome calling. Despite all the negative publicity of the last few years, priests today still enjoy an extraordinary level of public respect. Priests have access to people's lives, to their homes, to their stories and confidences, in a way no one else in our society does. You will meet and get to know people at every level of your communities, from the poor to the rich, from the marginalized to the powerful, people of every language, race and nation. We are the profession that still makes house calls. We are welcome at births and deaths, marriages and times of sickness. We help people through deep moments of sorrow and high moments of joy.

This access to people's lives is not given because of us. It is given because of Christ. A priest is the servant of Christ, and when people invite us into their homes and lives it is Christ they are expecting to receive. Along with the office of a priest comes an authority we have not earned. It's an authority given to us by the people themselves because Christ has entrusted us with his ministry. An ordained person is therefore to be an icon of Christ, and this is a very sacred trust indeed, a trust being given to you today by the Church, a trust you must honour and preserve with dilligence. For when we fail in our office, as some of us do, it is Christ himself who suffers as well as those who have placed their trust in us in his name.

A priest is given authority upon ordination, but earns respect through being part of a local community. As you work among people, as you become involved in their lives, as you become the holders and keepers of their sacred stories, you will see the power of God come alive in new and astonishing ways in your community. The greatest reward you will ever receive as a priest is when someone says "you were there for me when I needed you. You helped me when I had nowhere to turn. You will never know how important you were in my life."

The rewards of priesthood are not material. They are certainly not financial. The deep satisfaction is to know that at a given moment, in the life of a particular person or community, you were the incarnation of Christ to them. You were the love of God made real. You changed their darkness into light through the grace of God working in you. There will be no rewards greater than these, at least not in this world.

This is an extraordinary privilege you are being given today. But it's a privilege given in uncertain times, in tumultuous times. We live in a polarized world, and a polarized Church. We are deeply divided over important matters – war and peace, poverty and wealth, justice and power, moral values, the sustainability of the planet on which we live. You are being ordained today into all the chaos and tumult of these divisions. And your job in this situation, as in every situation, is to be an icon of Christ in the midst of it all. In these deep discontents, you are to be the love of God. What does this actually mean?

When I became a bishop someone told me that the job of a bishop is to sit on the fence while keeping both ears to the ground. I tried this for a while, and found it rather painful. I asked myself, is this what it means to be an apostle of Christ in contentious times? Did Jesus look for any fence to sit on? Did Jesus make the mistake many of us do, which is to become managers instead of leaders, program directors instead of teachers, mediators instead of pastors, or even worse, avoiders of conflict for the sake of a spurious peace?

There are two temptations facing leaders in a time of crisis. One is to find where the nearest fence is and get on it as fast as possible. The other is to become one of the protagonists in the conflict, one of the poles in the polarity, pulling as hard as you can against the other side.

I remember one time I started a new job in a parish and one of the church wardens said to me, "In our church everyone is encouraged to join a group. There are two main groups, Group A and Group B. The purpose of Group A is to undermine Group B, and the purpose of Group B is to sabotage Group A." This was the parish in which I found myself back then, and I've seen many of them since as a diocesan bishop, and I am sad to say this is the Communion in which we find ourselves today.

What does God require of us in such a time, in such a Church. Fence sitting? Divisiveness? Are these the only options? It's important to ask, what does God require of us? It's not the same thing as asking what the Church might need, or even our local communities. Despite what some might think, you are not being ordained today to save the Church. That is God's responsibility. You are being ordained to be an icon of Christ and to further the Reign of God in people's lives and in this world.

What God needs, and has always needed, from us is faithfulness to the witness of Jesus Christ; the Jesus who came to serve and not to be served, the Jesus who said 'put away your sword: those who live by the sword will die by the sword', Jesus who had compassion upon the lepers and the widows and even unbelievers, Jesus who refused to condemn the sexual sins of his day but roundly condemned the spiritual ones, Jesus who created new kinds of community among people the world rejected, Jesus who loved at the cost of his own life, and died that we might live.

This is what God requires of us. But there is even more. Priests are not merely local. You will be priests of the whole Church, the whole family of God stretching throughout time and space. You will be priests of the Church visible and the Church invisible. We live in a time in which the pressures in our world are driving people apart and into separate camps, where it takes great courage to stand in the centre. We live in a time of extremism and rising fundamentalism. And there are different kinds of fundamentalisms we have to deal with, not just one. There are religious kinds, and secular kinds.

You know that religious fundamentalism is growing in every major faith tradition, including our own. Religious fundamentalism is based on fear – fear of change, fear of loss, fear of the future and what it means to personal or tribal identity. When people see all their anchors being pulled up, and the world they know set adrift upon uncertain seas, they re-assert old dogmas, old traditions, and insist that God demands all this to stem the tide of change.

In itself this is understandable. It is a natural human reaction. But it is a human reaction and should not be confused with God's action. And one of the jobs of a priest is to know the difference between God's action and human reaction, and to help people avoid the mistake of confusing one for the other.

Secular fundamentalism is quite different, but no less real. This is the distorted view that we are sufficient unto ourselves, that all we need is an effective marketplace where all our human problems can be resolved to everyone's mutual profit. It is the view that everything important in human life can be measured, that everything significant can be quantified - by economic indicators, for example, or the expanse of our lawns - that the purpose of human life is to maximize individual well-being, and that people are to be valued by their success in the market place as the principal indicators of their human worth.

I would say this is the dominant religion of the West today. It's the culture we live in, the air we breathe. So we have these two fundamentalisms – one religious, one secular; one based on fear, the other on pride: one that has tried to co-opt and capture God, and one that has tried to banish God – and in the midst of this our priests and leaders have to be not just pastors but also prophets, not just comforters but also sounders of the alarm. We need from our priests, and indeed from all the baptized and faithful members of our Church, the leadership and vision to set us free from captivity both to false religion and to false ideologies alike.

Fear and pride are the very opposite of biblical values. They are not what God wants nor what God offers us through Jesus Christ. Our Scriptures bear witness to a Son of God whose very incarnation sets us free from idolatry, free from false attachment to bad religion and to unsustainable economic systems. Genuine biblical spirituality opens us to truth from any source so long as it incarnates the compassionate grace and mercy of God who has created all people as inter-connected, members one of another; as St. Paul says, to be one with each other and with the earth that supports us.

Kenneth Leech, a great Anglican writer, says genuine Christian orthodoxy is subversive, not conformist, it overturns human convention in the name of divine wisdom, it is not dogmatic but transformative, it doesn't fit into patterns of domination and exclusion but stands against them for a radical inclusion. Christian orthodoxy is not a tribal theology, a God-on-my-side sectarianism. It's a global vision of a world united in its very plurality, a world at one in its respect for difference and its deep commitment to justice. This is not the narrow orthodoxy of fundamentalists and demagogues, nor even may we say of some archbishops and primates. It's the radical orthodoxy of Jesus, grounded in his incarnation as the Son of God, who also lived in dangerous and polarized times and who refused all its temptations of avoidance and power.

We celebrate today the visit of strangers from a far country to the manger in Bethlehem. They were not Jews, and certainly not Christians. They are called in Greek "Magi." This is wrongly translated as 'wise men' and even more wrongly translated as 'kings.' They may well have been wise, but they were not kings. We do not even know if there were three of them because we are not told that.

In the ancient world a magos was an astrologer, an observer of astral phenomena, and also a priest. So the strangers who came to visit Jesus were priests from a far country, priests from another religion, scientists of their day who had observed something quite unusual in the stars and decided to pursue it. They were scientists open to the religious meaning of the universe. There was space in their understanding for God. They did not function with a closed, mechanistic view of reality. They made no separation between the spiritual and material dimensions of existence. They were seekers of knowledge, both divine and earthly, and they were willing to pursue it wherever it might lead. That's what we need from you, the priests of our Church.

And they trusted their dreams. They were guided by their dreams. St. Matthew tells us their dreams were reliable guideposts that led them safely home. These were remarkable scientists, were they not? Attentive to the mysteries of the universe, alive to their own inner voices, to the whisperings of God in the non-rational world.

This is what God needs of our priests today: people who have a deep trust of God, people who have a deep hope despite all the evidence of tragedy, people whose spirituality has set them free not shut them down, people who are acquainted intimately with the mysteries of the inner life and can show others the way to the very heart of God, people of prayer, people of courage.

[Sari, Joseph, Gabriel, Michael, Martha, William, Sarah, and Colleen, please stand up.]

You are about to be given one of the greatest gifts of your lives. It's a gift that will test you to the very limits of your humanity. It's privilege few others in our society can understand. It's a sacred responsibility that – if you are truly called to it - will not burden you, but set you free in ways you cannot possibly imagine.

Take this gift and be an icon of Christ to us all. Be the love of God that people long to have in their lives. Be pastors and prophets not only to your local community, but to the world and all the people that still long for fulfilment, justice and peace.

Push the tradition forward if you must, but always stand within it. Remember it is not your authority you carry but that of Christ himself. Do no harm in his name. And above all else have courage: courage to build up, courage to draw the circle wide, courage to resist your own fears, courage to let the grace of God flow freely in you. My prayer is that your ministries may set you and all of us free, and that your dreams always lead you safely home.


Source: Ingham, Michael. “Epiphany Ordinations 2007,” The Episcopal News, Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, 17 January 2007, http://episcopalnews.com/ViewDailyArticle.php?key=3363 (17 January 2007).

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Diocese of Los Angeles Meets the Matrix

Moki took this picture at the ordination rehearsal session. The mysterious looking woman to the right is my Soul Sister, the Rev. Alexandra Conrads, who was one of the Ministers of Ceremony for the service. I love this picture because it has that surreal, Matrix-esque quality that I imagine comes with life in the priesthood. (Love ya’ Alexandra – this is sooooo you!)

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The Risk of Chrismas

Christmas Day – Year C
Isaiah 9:2-4,6-7; Psalm 96; Titus 2:11-14; Luke 2:1-14(15-20)
Monday, December 25, 2006 – St. Alban’s, Westwood

The angel of the Lord proclaimed, “I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ, the Lord.”

Bringing a child into the world is an awesome responsibility and an awesome privilege. First time parents haven’t a clue as to what to do with a newborn baby – how to care for it, how to raise it. It’s a scary experience, at best. Mary and Joseph would have been no exception. Yet, God places a great deal of confidence in Mary and Joseph by entrusting them with God’s Son. What was God thinking, giving his son into the care of these two novices? And I wonder how Mary and Joseph felt, knowing that they were bringing not just any baby into the world, that they were not going to be raising just any child. Not only did they have the great responsibility of raising a child – no small feat in itself – they were responsible for the welfare of the Messiah, the Son of God They had been given the responsibility of raising he who was to be the hope and salvation for all humanity.

Even though they had both been filled in on what would happen – Mary by the Archangel Gabriel and Joseph in a dream – there was no way they could have really known what they were getting themselves into. There is no way they could have really known what it all meant. It had to be an overwhelming experience for them. They had taken a big risk in accepting God’s call to be the earthly parents of the Son of God.

It wasn’t only Mary and Joseph who risked. The baby Jesus is God Incarnate, God made flesh, God in human form. And God didn’t just become human. He came in the form of a baby – a few pounds of helpless flesh, totally reliant upon Mary and Joseph. The Almighty God, Creator of the Universe, came as a baby, unable to care for even the most basic of human needs. God took a big risk in becoming human. God took a big risk in allowing himself to be put in the hands of inexperienced human parents, in the hands of an inexperienced mother who was nearly a child herself. In so doing, God made himself vulnerable. But under God’s plan for the salvation of humankind, this was necessary. God needed to become a child, God needed to grow into adulthood, complete with all the experiences that process entails – all the joy, all the trials, all the pain that that process brings. God needed to experience firsthand what it meant to be human, so that he could ultimately save humanity. In doing so, God took a big risk. In so doing, God made himself vulnerable for our sake.

And God took another risk in the process. God put a lot of confidence in the human race – that it would be able to accept God’s son as the Messiah, as the redeemer of the world. God, being who God is, undoubtedly knew that not all people would accept Jesus. Some would be shaken by the words and deeds of Jesus – to the point that they would seek to have him executed. But at the same time, these people were necessary to help bring about the fulfillment of what Jesus was called to do – what he was brought into the world to do. God trusted that some would play their part to condemn and execute Jesus – so that he could ultimately be resurrected; and that others would carry on the vision of what Jesus stood for. God risked by trusting that humanity would do its part – that we would embrace his Son, that we would see for ourselves that we are loved by our God.

But all this risk was necessary. It was necessary for our sake. God loves us so much that He was willing to do whatever it took to get our attention, to risk whatever he had to, to demonstrate his love for us. By becoming human, God sought relationship with us. We had not done a good job of relating to an omnipotent, omniscient God. We needed something more tangible to relate to. So God become one of us so that we could better relate to God. In becoming human, God reached out to us.

And now it is our turn to risk. God has reached out to us. The Christ Child born this day in Bethlehem is not just Mary and Joseph’s baby. He is not just God’s Son. He is the child given for all of us. He is our hope and our salvation. He is a tangible sign of God’s love for us, of God’s desire to be in relationship with us, and for us to be in relationship with him. Mary may have given birth to Jesus, but we are to risk by sharing in the raising of Christ, to make his love known to all humanity – by proclaiming along with the angel of the Lord, “I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you – to every one of you – is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ, the Lord.”

Merry Christmas!

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Elizabeth and Mary - Icons for Advent

Advent 4 – Year C
Micah 5:2-4; Psalm 80; Hebrews 10:5-10; Luke 1:39-49(50-56)
Sunday, December 24, 2006 – St. Alban’s, Westwood

Where do you see God in your life? Where do you meet the holy? In what ways does the Divine touch your life?

Last week, the LA Times reported how the holy and the mundane intersected in a rather interesting, if not unusual way, right here in Southern California. In August, the workers at a chocolate factory in Fountain Valley, just down the 405, experienced what they described as a miracle. The Blessed Virgin Mary, the mother of our Lord, appeared to them. This was not an ordinary appearance. She did not come to them in a vision. Rather, she appeared to them in a material form. She appeared in the form of a two and a half inch glob of chocolate. The miraculous confection, extruded from a mixing vat spout, was in the likeness of the Virgin Mary standing in prayer.

This was not the first such miraculous appearance of the Virgin Mary to humanity. While I was living in Chicago several years ago, the image of the Blessed Virgin appeared in a rust stain on a retaining wall of an expressway underpass near downtown Chicago. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see it, as the Illinois Department of Transportation promptly painted over the image, much to the consternation of the Archdiocese of Chicago, the local media, and the faithful of Chicagoland. She has also appeared in such items as pretzels and grilled cheese sandwiches. And such unique appearances are not limited to the Virgin Mary. Being a family trait, even Jesus has gotten in on the act, appearing on such mundane items as a tortilla.

Now it may just be me, but being a chocoholic, the appearance of the Blessed Virgin in the form of chocolate is most certainly divine – or at least a sign from on high that chocolate in and of itself is divine.

I always approach such reports of miraculous appearances of the holy in such everyday items as food products and expressway underpasses with mixed feelings. There is the skeptic in me that thinks, “yeah, right. Why would the Virgin Mary appear on a grilled cheese sandwich?” Seems kinda silly to me. But then, there is the part of me that recognizes that people are hungering for a glimpse of the holy in their lives, longing to be touched by the Divine in their otherwise ordinary, even downtrodden, existences. People want to know that they are loved by God. They yearn for assurance that God is really with them, blessing them in a world where no one else seems to care, let alone bless them. They want someone to point the way to that divine assurance – even if that someone is only an image on an everyday object.

Throughout Advent we have heard and reflected on the stories of those who pointed the way to God’s assurance of his love for us – to Jesus Christ. In our lectionary, the Gospel readings for both the second and third Sundays of Advent focus on John the Baptist. The words of the prophet Isaiah, “See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight’” invoke in us the image of John the Baptist, the one who points the way to Jesus, to the Messiah. This is our traditional image of Advent. John the Baptist serves as the primary icon for our understanding of Advent. But I think we’ve gotten it all wrong. John was not the first person to point the way to Jesus as the Messiah. Rather, as today’s Gospel lesson clearly shows us, it was two women who first pointed the way to Jesus – Elizabeth and Mary.

In considering what this means, it is important to remember that at the time of Jesus’ birth, women were little more than property. Their only importance was to provide their owner, their husband, with an heir, with a male child who would carry on the family lineage. Otherwise, they were insignificant. With that understanding, let’s look at each of these women, these remarkable women, and see what they can teach us about the meaning of Advent.

As we’ve already established, the Gospel lessons for two of the four Sundays of Advent tell the story of John the Baptist. What we do not get, however, is the story of Elizabeth and Zechariah, John’s parents. Only the Gospel According to Luke tells us of these two remarkable people and the circumstances surrounding the birth of he who cries in the wilderness “prepare the way of the Lord.” But even so, the lectionary selections for Advent do not even give us the full story. Today’s Gospel lesson comes closest, only picking up a small piece of the story – the interaction between Elizabeth, John’s mother, and Mary, mother of he whom John would precede. But if John the Baptist is an integral part of the story of the Incarnation, then his mother is likewise integral to that all-important story – to the story of our faith – to the foundation of our faith.

If you recall the remainder of the story, Elizabeth and Zechariah, like most married couples, desperately wanted to have a child. Being persons of profound faith, both being from priestly families, they undoubtedly prayed endlessly, at least in the early years of their marriage, for a child – preferably a male child, who would carry on the family and who would care for them in their old age. But as time went by, and their prayers remained unanswered, it became obvious that they were not destined to have a child. This would have been a source of despair, particularly for Elizabeth. Not only did she not have her prayers answered and her dreams of motherhood fulfilled, she would have also had to endure pity and scorn from her neighbors. If she and Zechariah were unable to conceive, surely they must have done something to deserve their fate. For these antiquated and misguided impressions, Elizabeth would have had to endure disgrace.

But then, their fortune changes. Literally, by the grace of God, Elizabeth was able to finally conceive a child. But not just any child. She would conceive and bear a son who would become one of the greatest prophets of all time, at least for Christians. She would be mother to the prophet who would bridge the gap between the Old Testament and the New. He would point the way to the Messiah, foretold by the prophets of the Old Testament – the Messiah who would be revealed through the writings of the New Testament.

For all intents and purposes, though, it is not John who first points the way to Jesus, but rather, Elizabeth. As we hear in today’s Gospel lesson, it is Elizabeth who first realizes that Mary is pregnant, and not only pregnant, but that Mary is carrying within her womb the Messiah. Luke tells us that upon hearing Mary’s greeting, Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit – the only woman in all of Scripture to be so characterized. Because of this indwelling of the Holy Spirit, Elizabeth speaks from an inward witness and boldly asks “And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me?”

In that moment, Elizabeth knows unimaginable joy. Her dreams of having a child have been realized. Her disgrace at being barren has been removed. And she experiences the most wondrous joy of realizing, not just for her personally, but for all of humanity, for the whole world, that the Messiah is about to be born. In that moment, Elizabeth realizes something that we all long to experience – that God not only comes into the world, but God comes to us individually. God meets us where we are in our own particular life’s situations. God wants to be in relationship with each of us individually, and because of this, comes to us one by one.

We know from our own lives that relationships are delicate things, built one on one, built one person at a time. We have to invest our time and energy in those relationships if they are going to grow and to last. And each relationship is unique. Elizabeth learns first hand that the same is true of our relationships with God. God invests time and energy into building relationship with each of God’s beloved children. And because of this process, each relationship is individual and unique and precious. Through Christ, God comes to us to enter into a unique relationship. Through Christ, we enter into relationship with God. Advent is about the anticipation of that relationship. Advent is about preparation for that relationship – a relationship that is as unique as each of us, and that is as eternal as God.

And now, for Mary. Since Mary is the mother of our Lord, we know a little more about her. She is certainly featured more prominently than her cousin, Elizabeth, both in Scripture and in our understanding of divine history. Again, as with the story of John the Baptist and his mother Elizabeth, only the Gospel According to Luke gives us the full story of Mary. Again, our lectionary lessons for the season of Advent do not give us the whole story, but we, of course, know what happens. Just before the Gospel lesson for today, Luke tells us of the visit from the Archangel Gabriel announcing to Mary that she would become pregnant by the Holy Spirit and bear the Son of God. Or rather, was Gabriel asking her permission? After all, there is a period of discussion, of Mary asking questions of Gabriel, attempting to understand what was being proposed. It almost seems as if Mary might have a choice in the matter. This is particularly emphasized when, after being satisfied with Gabriel’s answers, Mary finally responds “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”

Wow! Talk about faith. Talk about discipleship. Mary, a young, naïve girl from a backwater town in Galilee is asked to agree to something that is completely unimaginable – to become the mother of the Son of God. Most of us would have gone running from the room. But Mary had faith in her God. She was willing to do whatever God asked of her, even if it did sound a little out there, if not downright impossible. She was willing to trust her God and to allow herself to be used as an instrument of God’s grace.

Mary could not have fully understood what she was being asked to do – to bear the Son of God. But she accepted her assignment willingly. And in the course of her personal Advent, her time of anticipation and preparation for the birth of her son, the Messiah, she came to accept her role and to embody what she was being asked to do. And that’s were we find ourselves in today’s Gospel lesson – at that moment of Mary’s realization of what all this means – at that moment where Mary lives into what it will mean to be the one who will bring the Messiah into the world. In that moment of realization, facilitated by the greeting of her cousin Elizabeth, Mary boldly states “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” She realizes not only what her willingness to bear the Messiah means for her personally, but also what it means for all of humanity. Through the Magnificat, she proclaims what this action of God’s, made possible by her willingness to serve as an instrument of God’s grace, says about God – about God’s mercy, about God’s strength, about God’s desire for justice.

In this proclamation, Mary is pointing the way not just to the person of Jesus, but to the very message that he would himself proclaim – that his Father is a God of mercy and justice, and not just for the Jews, as had been professed in the Old Testament, but for all of humanity. She points the way to the Good News that God loves and cares for all God’s children.

The Message, the contemporary translation of the Bible that uses everyday language and idioms to convey the meaning of Scripture, translates the first lines of the Magnificat as “I’m bursting with God-news; I’m dancing the song of my Savior God.” To me this translation says it all. Mary is filled with the news of God, with the Good News, with God-news. And in her joy, she doesn’t just proclaim it in words. She proclaims it in her very being, as in a dance. She dances the song of her Savior God, expressing God’s message, but at the same time making it her own through her own movements and actions, just as a dancer interprets music through the outward and visible form of her movements.

John the Baptist may be credited with pointing the way to Jesus Christ, to the Messiah. But it was his mother Elizabeth who first recognized how God operates in the world, through individual relationships with each and every one of us – through relationships only made possible through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and through God Incarnate, Jesus Christ. And Mary points the way to the embodied message that God is a loving, caring, merciful God who desires justice for all people. During this Advent season, as we anticipate the coming of Christ, may we all be blessed with the joy and wonder that Elizabeth felt in the days leading up to the birth of our Messiah. And may we embody the message of our Lord as we proclaim the God-news that bursts within us, expressing it in our lives for all to see, as we dance the song of our Savior God.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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Advent and Exile

Advent 2– Year C
Baruch 5:1-9; Psalm 126; Philippians 1:1-11; Luke 3:1-6
Sunday, December 10, 2006 – St. Alban’s, Westwood

Advent is the season of anticipation and preparation – anticipation of the coming of our Savior at Christmas, and our preparation for that most joyous of events. I love the season of Advent, perhaps more than Christmas itself. I like having this time to reflect on what Christ’s coming means in my own life – how it defines and informs who I am as a person of faith. While I try to take time throughout my day and throughout the year to reflect on these things, Advent is a time when such matters are foremost on my mind, and is a constant subject of contemplation during prayer and my quiet time with God.

This year, as we once again embark on the journey of anticipation and preparation that is Advent, I find that I have a different perspective. In the past, Advent has seemed to me to be a time of private reflection about my relationship with Christ. Yes, our worship services during Advent do have a distinct feel, focusing on the themes of our communal anticipation and preparation. But the content of public worship only seemed to serve as a backdrop to or means of facilitating my own personal reflection and contemplation, of my own personal anticipation and preparation. In short, it was all about me. But now, this Advent season, I find that I am approaching Advent from a slightly different perspective. At this point in my life, I find that it is not all about me, but rather, all about us – about what Advent means to us as a community, what it means to us as the Body of Christ, as the Kingdom of God living here and now, in this time and this place, two millennia after the initial coming of our Lord into our midst.

I can’t help but think that at least part of it has to do with what this [pulling on my clerical collar], this collar and these vestments, represent. During my ordination as deacon, I took vows to not only serve all people in the name of Jesus Christ, but also to “look for Christ in all others” (BCP, 544). Now maybe I’m over-analyzing the situation, but in order for me to be able to do that, for any of us to be able to do that, means that Christ has to be already here in our midst – and if we believe that we are the Body of Christ, then of course he is in our midst. But put in the context of Advent, what does it mean? What is Advent if Christ is already in our midst? To try to answer that, I turned to Scripture – specifically, to the lessons appointed for today.

In previous Advent seasons, in my personal reflections and even in my preaching, I tended to focus on the Gospel story, especially the Gospel story for the second Sunday in Advent – the story of John the Baptist. I considered what it meant for John to be the one who points the way to Jesus, the Christ. I considered what was meant by the famous words from the Prophet Isaiah which are quoted in today’s Gospel lesson: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” I considered what these words, what this image, meant for me as a Christian. And when I happened to preach on this day, what this image meant for all of us as Christians.

The image of John the Baptist is certainly important to the story of who we are as a people. John is the bridge between the Old and the New Testaments. He points the way to the Messiah, foretold by the prophets of the Old Testament – the Messiah who would be revealed through the writings of the New Testament. Specifically, “in [Luke’s] schema of salvation history John marks the end of the age of the law and the prophets and the beginning of a new age of the good news of the kingdom of God” (Scott, 18). He is not to be dismissed – he cannot be dismissed. But this year, I find that I cannot go directly to the image of John the Baptist as a defining icon of what Advent means. I find that I need to take a slightly longer journey, through the history of the Old Testament – through events that formed the nation of Israel; the events that defined the culture and the religion that John was born into; the events that shaped who John would be as person and prophet; the events that shaped John’s understanding of messiah, and ultimately of his message to the world of the need to prepare for the long-awaited coming of the Messiah.

On such a journey, there are a number of equally viable entry points into the history of the Old Testament. But one that seems quite appropriate for me, at least during this year’s contemplation of the meaning of Advent, is today’s Old Testament lesson from Baruch. Okay, for all you Old Testament scholars, I know that Baruch is actually contained in the Apocrypha and not the Old Testament, but the subject matter deals with one of the central, defining moments in Old Testament history – the Exile.

The reading from Baruch is part of a poem to Israel, exiled in Babylon, telling them not to lose heart. It is a cry of hope in a time of crisis – a cry that God will one day come and lead the people of Israel back home. Israel has been punished for her sins, for turning away from God, by being taken into exile by the Babylonian conquerors. “Despite Israel’s punishment for its sin, God will restore the penitent people, [and] their ultimate renewal will serve as a witness to the nations of God’s faithfulness” (Johnson, 22). In his poem of consolation, Baruch provides a detailed account of preparation for salvation, placed in the context of the people’s exilic experience, which has been marked by defeat and despair. To convey his point, Baruch uses the imagery of changing clothes. “Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem, and put on forever the beauty of the glory of God. Put on the robe of the righteousness that comes from God; put on your head the diadem of the glory of the Everlasting” (Baruch 5:1-2). This language implies removing one’s funeral garments, the garments of sorrow and affliction, and replacing them with wedding clothes, the robe of righteousness and the diadem of the glory of the Everlasting. This is language of hope. It is an exhortation to act out of confidence in God and God’s mercy and loving kindness rather than solely relying on what is seen and experienced in the present.

Biblical scholarship indicates that in all likelihood, the book of Baruch was not actually written during the Exile, but possibly as late as two centuries after the return of Israel from Babylon. That being the case, the book would not have even been written by Baruch. Biblical scholar Elizabeth Johnson provides a context for this situation. She comments that “Although written in a postexilic context, the author takes as his pseudonym the name of one of the most well known exiles, the scribe of Jeremiah, because he considers himself and his people to be living in yet another time of exile, this one more cultural and religious perhaps than territorial. The people this time are surrounded by hostile forces that may or may not be violent . . . but are nonetheless contemptuous of the people’s attempts at covenant faithfulness” (Johnson, 22-23).

Because of the tone and nature of the book of Baruch, we are not given any clues as to the nature of what Johnson refers to as this cultural and religious exile. We know that the people of Israel were not placed in a physical exile from their homeland at any point following their return from Babylon. Yet, this general concept of cultural and religious exile resonates with me as I contemplate the meaning of Advent for those of us living two thousand years after the advent of our Lord. For we, too, are in midst of a cultural and religious exile.

Despite the doctrine of separation of church and state, this nation was founded on solid Christian principles and was intended to be a Christian nation – as the Pledge of Allegiance states, “one nation under God.” The foundation of our government and of our lives as citizens was our faith in God – as our national motto states, “In God we trust.” But somewhere along the line, we diverged from our founding principles. We are no longer one nation under God. We are a confederation of individuals worshiping whatever god suits us in the moment. But I’m not talking about the gods worshiped by those of other religious faiths, of non-Christian religions. Religious plurality is not the issue, it is not the problem in this cultural and religious exile in which we find ourselves. If anything, those other faiths are our ally in this time of exile.

Our motto is no longer “in God we trust,” but rather “in the Democratic Party we trust” or “in the Republican Party we trust.” Or maybe it’s “in Bill Gates we trust” or “in Alan Greenspan we trust.” As a nation, we no longer place our faith in God and in Jesus Christ, but rather we place our trust in wealth, in power, in material possessions – particularly whatever material goods are flashed on our television screens day in and day out. You don’t need to trust in God, trust in Oil of Olay to stay young and beautiful forever. Trust in Mercedes to make you feel rich and powerful. Run up your credit cards and mortgage your future. It will all be okay, trust us. You don’t even need to turn on the TV. Just drive down the short stretch of Sunset Boulevard between Beverly Hills and Hollywood and look at all the billboards and consider the messages they are sending to our society – to us and to our children.

And while we are being bombarded with the fantasy images of how our lives could be if we just trust in the right things, and while we willingly pursue those fantasies, while we follow society’s mandate to care for ourselves, to pamper ourselves, we are distracted from the central message of the Gospel – that we are to care for one another. We are so distracted by pursuing fantasies or protecting our possessions that we don’t see that there is a whole underclass of our brothers and sisters who are being forgotten, if not trampled upon.

We are living in exile – not a disconnect between a people and their homeland, but a disconnect between cultural values and the Gospel imperatives that Jesus proclaimed. But just as foretold by Baruch, there is hope. “Baruch urges hopeful action rather than hopeful thought or wishful thinking, and he calls on his contemporaries to remember that God did in fact restore those former exiles and to trust that God may similarly be trusted with their current experience of alienation” (Johnson, 23). That hope is provided in this season of Advent. But we have a part to play in keeping that hope alive, in making what is hoped for into a reality. Just as John the Baptist was called to point the way to Jesus 2,000 years ago, we are called to point the way to Jesus. We are called to speak the truth that has been revealed to us, to proclaim to the world that there is a better way, a more fulfilling way, than what our secular culture has fed us. We are called to proclaim the truth that leads to true life, to everlasting life, to life in Christ – and not only for us, but for the entire world, for all God’s children. But that means speaking out and taking action against the so-called norms established by our secular culture – the culture based on power and materialism, the culture that ignores those who do not have power and money, and worse yet, that exploits and uses those who do not have power and money for its own advancement. As theologian Jim Griffiss notes, “An incarnational faith calls for the transformation of the ‘secular’ or ‘political’ world in Christ, a transformation for which all Christians must take responsibility” (Griffiss, 52).

Advent is a time of anticipation of and preparation for the coming of the Messiah. It is the time to anticipate and prepare for a better way of life – a life based on the Gospel, a life that points to Jesus as the way, the truth, and the light. As Christians, we don’t need to anticipate. The Messiah has already come. As the Body of Christ in the world, we are proof of that. We know it, but the rest of the world needs to know. Our secular society needs to know it. What we do need to do is prepare the way. And to do that, we are called to go into the world, to be an example through our words and our actions, to live the Gospel boldly and unashamedly, and to bear witness to the fact that Jesus has come into the world and that we are his Body.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.


References

Griffiss, James E. The Anglican Vision. Vol. 1 of The New Church’s Teaching Series. Cambridge, MA: Cowley Publications, 1997.

Johnson, E. Elizabeth. Proclamation 6, Series C: Interpreting the Lessons of the Church Year: Advent/Christmas. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997.

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