Today, December 10, we remember, celebrate, and give thanks for the life and resurrection of Thomas Merton. This is a new and welcome commemoration to the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church as set forth in Holy Women, Holy Men – Celebrating the Saints. The date of this commemoration marks the anniversary of Merton’s death. While attending an international conference on Buddhist and Christian monasticism in Bangkok, Thailand he was accidentally electrocuted on December 10, 1968.
Today, December 12, is the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. On this day in 1531 she appeared to an Indian peasant, Juan Diego, on Mount Tepeyac outside of Mexico City. The meeting of the Virgin and Juan is described in a text entitled Nican Mopohua. She identified herself with these words (translation by The Rev. Virgilio Elizondo):
St. John the Baptist (source)
“Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another” (from Matthew 11:2-11, Advent 3A)?
That doesn’t sound like the guy we heard from last week. So what’s happened to John the Baptist? Last week he was a name calling wild man. He stood in the wilderness announcing that the kingdom of heaven had already come near. He demanded that we change our ways, shape up, and respond appropriately to the kingdom’s coming. There was no question in his mind, doubt in his heart, or hesitation in his words. He didn’t want excuses or explanations he wanted action.
This week, however, John seems rather tame. He doesn’t proclaim and he doesn’t demand. There’s no name calling. The wilderness expanse has given way to the confines of a prison cell. The prophet with a voice is now a prisoner with a question. “Are you the guy or is it someone else?” Despite what his question sounds like John still believes. He still expects the one who is more powerful to come. But how will he know? How do we know? His question is not one of doubt, despair, disillusionment, or disappointment. It is not a lack of belief but a lack of recognition. Recognition is the middle ground, the bridge, between a prophet’s voice and a prisoner’s question.
John’s question is the same question with which we often wrestle. How do we recognize the one who is more powerful than us? What does God’s Messiah look like in the midst of our life? How do we recognize the kingdom of heaven coming near to us? What does the kingdom look like in the situations and circumstances of our life?
All through Advent the message to us has been to prepare, be watchful, stay awake, get ready, he’s coming, the kingdom is here. So what are we looking for? That is John’s question. Am I looking for you or another? It’s not just his question. It’s ours too. Think about the many ways in which that question comes up for us.
“Is she the love of my life or is it another?” “Is this my career or should I be doing something else?” “How do I know God’s will for my life; is it this or is it that?” “Did I make the right decision or should I have chosen differently?” Sometimes we say or hear someone else say, “Well God has a plan and someday we’ll understand.” That comment reveals our inability to recognize the kingdom, the Messiah, in the particular situation in which we find ourselves. Those other examples describe our searching to recognize and identify God with us. They reveal our desire to align our lives with the kingdom.
Beneath all those comments and questions, beneath John’s question, is the longing to know our selves, to be fully alive, to be made whole, to be complete, to live with meaning and significance. It is not about getting the right answer but about living the right relationship with our selves, with each other, and with God. What does that look like in your life’s circumstances? In mine? In John the Baptist’s? Maybe there is not a monolithic, one size fits all, answer. Maybe that’s why Jesus does not directly answer John’s question.
Jesus does not say to John, “Yes, I’m the guy.” John will have to decide that for himself. So do we. Jesus rarely provides a direct answer. More often than not he answers a question with another question. What do you hear and see? Look around. Pay attention. Watch and listen.
Jesus is not denying us anything. He just won’t let himself be historicized, categorized, or localized. The kingdom is larger than it’s historical coming. The one who is more powerful cannot be confined or limited by time and space. The Messiah brings life not an answer to a question. So instead of giving John a yes or no answer, Jesus describes what to look for, how to recognize the kingdom, how to identify the coming of the one who is more powerful.
The kingdom, the one who is more powerful, the Messiah, come to us in a way that is unique and particular to our life and needs. For the blind the kingdom comes as sight, for the lame as walking, for lepers as cleansing, for the deaf as hearing, for the dead as rising, and for the poor as good news. These are descriptions, however, not limitations or definitions. While there is one kingdom and one Messiah they come to us in multiple and varied ways according to our situations and circumstances.
This means that the kingdom and the one whom John announced come to us in ways that are tangible, practical, and relevant to our lives. If they don’t, what difference does it make that they even come? Who cares if the kingdom has come near but it does not affect my life? It does a blind man no good to tell him the kingdom is coming to you and it’s all about hearing. The kingdom is meaningless to a crippled person if it is only about sight. So maybe we should stop looking for “the” messiah, “the” one, as if there is only one way, one answer, one expression of God’s life and presence among us. Instead, let’s start looking for the places in our lives to which Jesus says the kingdom is coming. Let’s look for the work Jesus describes happening; new life arising, hope and encouragement being given, and healing taking place. Let’s open our eyes to see the fruit of the kingdom and the strength of the one who is more powerful than us.
So what do you hear and see? Look around. Pay attention. Watch and listen. Have you ever had new insights into your life, discovered beauty in a place or person you thought it couldn’t be, seen new opportunities and possibilities for your life? Then you know the blind receive sight and the kingdom of heaven has come near.
Have you ever felt yourself crippled by grief and loss, depression, or addiction to the point you just can’t move? You feel as if you can’t go on? Then one day something happens you take a step, and another, and another. It may be slow but you are moving and you can see change and progress. The lame walk and the kingdom of heaven has come near.
Remember those times when you just couldn’t get comfortable in your own skin? Maybe it was shame or guilt. It seemed as if everyone saw it and pointed it out. You had no place of belonging. Then one day you experienced forgiveness and you discovered the original beauty of your creation. You accepted that you were acceptable. If you know what that’s like then you know lepers are cleansed and the kingdom of heaven has come near.
Have you ever heard a new truth about your life, the soft voice of love, or the silence that speaks of intimacy and presence? Have you heard a cry for justice or help and responded with prayer, action, compassion? Then you know the deaf hear and the kingdom of heaven has come near.
How about those times in life when it seems a part of you has died? Maybe it is a relationship, a dream, or a loved one. You feel incomplete, numb, broken. Something is missing. One day you sense a new vitality. There is energy and enthusiasm. Life, though changed and different, has returned. In those times the dead are raised and the kingdom of heaven has come near.
Sometimes it seems as if we have nothing left to give. We are empty. There are no resources or reserves. We cannot do it on our own and we face our own poverty. We are poor and in need of good news. Someone speaks a word of hope, encouragement, or love. Those are words of good news that reveal the kingdom of heaven has come near.
These and so many more are the moments of our life when we recognize the coming one, when we see and know that the kingdom of heaven has already come near to us, brushed against us and changed us. These are the moments of our “Christing,” our anointing, to share in the life and work of the Messiah, to participate in the kingdom of heaven, to take our place as members of the Body of Christ. They are moments of recognition. We recognize Jesus, the one who is to come, and in him we recognize our selves.
So tell me, what do you hear and see? Look at your life and recognize the one who is to come.
“Now the birth of Jesus took place in this way….” (Matthew 1:18-25)
Matthew’s description of how Jesus’ birth happens does not mention anything that is on my to-do list. There is no busyness in his description. There are very few words spoken. Mary and Joseph are silent. They say nothing. An angel announces and declares as angels do, but there are no explanations of how this birth can be only a declaration that it is. The angel offers no explanations. So maybe the real work, the final work of Advent, is to get out of the way and let the baby be born. Get out of the way and let the baby be born. Such difficult work. Such necessary work. Such holy work.
At Christmas we often think, and rightfully so, of God’s gift of Jesus to the world. We celebrate and rejoice that God has been born into this world as one of us. God is with us in a new way. God has given us himself in the baby Jesus. The early Church, while recognizing God’s gift to his people, also understood and saw the nativity of Jesus as a time when creation gave to God. For the ancient Christians all of creation participated in this great feast day. This is readily seen in the following hymn:
“What shall we bring Thee, O Christ, when Thou art born on earth as Man for our sake; for each of the creatures, who have their being from Thee, brings thanks to Thee: angels their songs, the heavens a star, the wise men gifts, the shepherds wonder, the earth a cave, the wilderness a manger, but we – the Virgin Mother.”
Icon of the Nativity (source).
Learn about the meaning of this icon and its symbols.
Jesus was able to become human because Mary, on our behalf, gave him that possibility. She gives him humanity even as he gives us divinity. The early church fathers said that God became human in order that humanity might become divine. God and humanity exchange gifts. We share our lives with one another and in so doing discover that God and human beings are united and joined as one. Here, St. Mary is our teacher and guide.
The particularity of God’s human embodiment and the nativity of Christ are found in St. Mary. She is archetypal for us. She invites us to consent, to say yes, to offer our vulnerability, our receptivity, our life, and our “How can this be?” These are the gifts we bring. These are what we offer God. These are the gifts that change our lives and the world. These gifts create space and place within us for Christ to be born anew.
In reflecting on this great mystery Meister Eckhart, a fourteenth century German monk, asked a profound question in one of his sermons. “What good is it to me if Mary gave birth to the son of God fourteen hundred years ago and I do not give birth to the son of God in my time and in my culture?”
Let’s not just celebrate Christmas this year. Let’s also participate in Christmas. Let’s dream and consider, or as St. Luke says of the Blessed Virgin Mary, “ponder” and “treasure.” How will we give birth to the Son of God in our time and in our culture? How will we give birth to the Son of God here in our community, in our schools and workplaces, in our families, in our churches, in caring for the poor, the sick, the homeless, in speaking and working for peace and justice, in our relationships, in our brokenness and pain, and in our joys and celebrations?
“We are all,” Eckhart says, “meant to be mothers of God,” and the fullness of time is this: “When the Son of God is begotten in us.”
Theotokos of the Sign (source)
From you, our God who is before eternity,
became a child!
He has made your womb His throne,
making it more spacious
than the heavens.
In you, O woman full of grace,
all creation exults.
Glory to you!
(Joseph Raya, Theotokos: Mary Mother of our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ, 40.)
Theotokos of the Sign (source)
What is the most shocking part of today’s gospel (Matthew 1:18-25, Advent 4A)? What’s the thing that makes you wonder whether it really happened the way Matthew describes? What’s the hardest part to believe? For most people, I suspect, the thing that raises questions, controversy, and debate is Mary’s virginity.
Aren’t virginity and pregnancy mutually exclusive? How is it possible for a virgin to be pregnant let alone give birth? That does not fit with what we know about how babies are made. It just doesn’t make sense. There is no rational explanation for Jesus’ conception and birth. That’s where most of us get stuck with this reading. That’s where Joseph got stuck as well. So he “planned to dismiss her quietly.”
Joseph has decided to dismiss Mary. He’ll send her away. They can just go their separate ways and get on with their lives. We should’t be too surprised. Isn’t that what we tend to do when we don’t understand? We dismiss what makes no sense. We turn away from possibilities that don’t fit with our ideas, beliefs, and experiences. Joseph knows better than to believe babies are made without a man. So do we. Joseph knows what he believes and believes what he knows. And that’s the problem. It’s too small. It’s too narrow. It’s too limiting. I suspect there are times when we’re probably a lot like Joseph.
How many relationships have been lost because it just didn’t make sense that those two should be together? Race, money, religion, families. For whatever reason we just couldn’t imagine it ever working so we never gave it a chance. Have you ever given up on someone because it seemed all they did is offer one unbelievable excuse after another? Did you ever pass up an opportunity or let go of a dream because it seemed too implausible? So we chalk it up to just another crazy, irrational, irresponsible idea. Have you ever misjudged someone because you couldn’t accept their explanations and later learned what they said was true? Think how many arguments and conflicts are based on different expectations and experiences. Sometimes we assume that if it’s not our experience it can’t happen. It can’t be true so it can’t be another’s experience. Have you ever had that deep sense of joy and excitement about something you really wanted to do or be only to begin hearing the negative chatter? “You? Ha, no way! That could never happen. You know better than that.” Certainly, we’ve all had those times when we dismissed and walked away only to later wish we had waited a bit longer, made a different decision, or spent more time asking, seeking, and knocking.
We dismiss people, relationships, ideas, opportunities, vocations, dreams all the time because we don’t understand. Because they do not fit our usual experience or expectations. Because they don’t make sense. Because the explanations are unbelievable. In dismissing what makes no sense, that which we don’t understand or can’t explain, we are refusing to open ourselves to something new. Sometimes that means we refuse to open ourselves to God.
Isn’t that what Joseph is doing when he decides to quietly dismiss Mary? Joseph is dismissing the mystery of Emmanuel, God with us. He is dismissing not just Mary but the Mother of God, the very one who will give God human flesh, a body, the one who makes Emmanuel possible. That’s what often happens when we are dismissive. We foreclose the life and opportunities God wants to birth in us and through us.
I am not suggesting that we ought to be naive, that we should be gullible, or that we should fall for anything and everything. I wonder, though, what we lose when we demand answers and refuse to live with questions. I wonder how often we miss our own life because we limit it to what we know, what’s familiar, what makes sense, and close our selves to the not-knowing, to something new, different, or unexpected. I wonder if we dismiss God with us by our searching for explanations and understanding rather than trusting and entering into the mystery.
Ultimately, Joseph took Mary as his wife. However, he first had to move beyond what he understood and what made sense. He had to allow God with us to transcend the limits of his knowledge. He had to let go of trying to put it all in terms of a rational explanation. None of that, however, could happen between he and Mary. It would first have to happen within Joseph himself and it must first happen within us as well. It is a shift that happens within us.
Mary and Joseph cannot simply talk it out or work through it. Think about it. Joseph notices Mary’s belly is growing. She’s gaining a few pounds. He is hurt and disappointed. He’s got questions. “Where’ve you been Mary? Who is it? Was it that time I was out of town? Why?” There’s really only one conclusion Joseph can reach. There is no other explanation that can make sense of all this. You can be pregnant or you can be a virgin but you can’t be both. Mary knows that as well as Joseph. It leaves her rehearsing what she will tell Joseph, deciding when and the best way to tell him, all the while knowing that he’ll never understand. How could he? She doesn’t understand. It makes no sense to her either.
Matthew, however, doesn’t tell us about this or any other conversation. How odd that Mary and Joseph say nothing in today’s gospel. Surely there was a lot to talk about. Matthew’s omission of those conversations is intentional. Matthew doesn’t describe any of Mary and Joseph’s conversations because they just don’t matter. Making sense of this pregnancy, figuring out and explaining how it happened, is not the point. So let me go back to where I started. What is the most shocking part of today’s gospel? What makes you wonder if this story really is true? What is the hardest part of this story to believe? If Mary’s virginity is not the scandal then what is?
The big scandal and shock of this story are not that a virgin is pregnant and gives birth. The real scandal is that God is with us. The shocker is that God through Mary takes on flesh and blood and comes to us. God is flesh and blood real. That means God is with us in people, relationships, ideas, opportunities, vocations, dreams. So why would we dismiss them? God is with you. God is with me. God is with them. God is with us in all the circumstances and situations of our life; in joy and sorry; in celebration and grieving, in success and failure, in hope and repair; in courage and parlaying fair. You name it, God is there with us. That’s the point of this story. Sometimes, however, the truth of what is gets lost or ignored in our attempts to explain how it is, to make sense of it, to make it conform to our understanding.
Take a moment and look at the last week of your life, the last month, the last year. Who are the people you’ve dismissed? What relationships or opportunities have you quietly abandoned? What dreams have you walked away from? What happened? Why do we do that? Somewhere in those people, relationships, opportunities, and dreams there was something that made no sense. An explanation was lacking. Something didn’t match our experiences or expectations. We couldn’t understand what was happening. We didn’t know what to do. We couldn’t get straight in our head how it could all work out so we let it go, walked away. Another quiet dismissal. In the end we struggled, whether consciously or unconsciously, to recognize and believe Emmanuel, God with us.
Here’s the deal. We all live on a spectrum between quietly dismissing Mary and taking her as our spouse. Joseph has shown us that. He reveals to us our own dismissive ways but he also shows us that we can take Mary and establish with her a relationship of commitment, love, intimacy. That is our final work in this season of Advent. It is our preparation for Christmas. It means that instead of analyzing and explaining how the story could happen we simply bask in its beauty and let the truth wash over us. It means that we are to see people, relationships, ideas, opportunities, vocations, dreams, situation and circumstances, the entirely of our life, though the lens of God with us. Instead of looking for answers let’s ponder what might be born in us, what needs to be born in us, what is waiting to be born in us. That’s how we open ourselves to the life and possibilities God offers us. That’s how we experience Emmanuel, God with us. That’s what Joseph did. He took Mary as his wife and opened himself to something new, something different, something unexpected, something unexplainable. He opened himself to the life and possibilities God offered and he named it all Jesus.
She gave birth, wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger. It’s all rather matter of fact as St. Luke tells it (Luke 1:1-20; Christmas Eve). It sounds like it could be any birth. It was probably like a lot of births throughout the world today. A newborn, a blanket of sorts, and a makeshift crib. “Good news of great joy,” the angel called this birth. So what does this child bring us? He can’t walk or talk. He can’t feed or care for himself. He can’t really do much at all. Despite all this, however, the angel declares this child to be our Savior, our Messiah, our Lord. So what does he offer us? Why would God choose to come among us and enter our world as a newborn baby? What do we see in this child? What draws us to this night?
Let’s start with another child. Answer me this. What do you think your parents saw the very first time they gazed into your eyes? Imagine the hopes and dreams they held for you. Imagine the joy, happiness, and good things they wished for you. Imagine the potential and possibilities they saw in you. Imagine the life they wanted you to have. They saw all that and more. They saw beauty that has nothing to do with physical appearance. They saw holiness that has nothing to do with behavior or being good. They saw a miracle, the fullness of God’s life, contained in your little body.
Every one of us knows what it’s like to see that. We too have seen it, in ourselves and in others. Go back and look at one of your baby pictures. Look beyond what your life is right now. Go back to the beginning. Do you see it? Do you see what they saw? It’s all there: the dreams, the hopes, the possibilities, the potential, the beauty, the love, the innocence. That’s you. If you’re unable or unwilling to see it in yourself then go back to that day you first looked into the face of your child or grandchild. I know you saw it there. Recall the last baby you witnessed being baptized. It was there too. Think about a time you gazed into the face of a child you didn’t even know and would never meet. Maybe it was a kid on a playground or a baby being pushed in a basket at the grocery store. It was there too. Those anonymous faces revealed something attractive, familiar, and recognizable.
Remember what that was like? Remember how watching those babies and seeing those faces touched and affected you? Something caught and held your gaze. It re-energized and re-vitalized your life.
What do you make of that? What’s that about? It’s about more than being a parent or grandparent. It’s about more than cuteness and sentimentality. It’s about more than memories of the past. And it’s about more than the baby. The attraction and the reason we continue to look and are captivated in that gaze is because we have caught a vision larger than what we are seeing. Because we are standing in the midst of a revelation greater than the presence of a baby. In that moment of gazing we are being reminded of what we have forgotten. We are seeing a reality that we have sometimes ignored or been told doesn’t apply to us. We are learning a truth we may have never known before. In that gaze we have caught a glimpse of God become human. In that little face we are seeing Emmanuel, God with us. We are experiencing our truest and most authentic self. The fullness of our life is there and we are seeing all the possibilities of what might be. In that gaze we have touched the original beauty and holiness of our creation. That’s why God came among us as a baby. And that’s why we show up tonight, to gaze into the face of God’s child and see our own reflection.
Don’t think this holy night is only about the birth of Jesus. Let’s not limit this night to be only a celebration of what was. Let it also be our participation in what is and what might be. Let this holy child’s face show us the reality and truth of our own lives. In him we see all the goodness, love, holiness, beauty, and possibilities for life that we wish and want for ourselves. And it’s all there. It’s already there within us. We can only ever see and recognize that which we already know. So what we see in Jesus somehow already exists in us. It’s how we were created. It’s what God desires for us.
In some deep way this baby, the Christ child, shows us who we are, who we can become, and what our life is really about. His birth offers us a new beginning. Who among us here has not at some time or another wished, prayed, and struggled for a new beginning? Who among us has not wanted the chance to begin again? Not just to do different but to be different. This is our night, a festival of re-creation, a night of new beginnings.
This night Jesus has revealed the truth about humanity. Let us not hide.
In the child born this night we see our selves. Let us not turn away.
This is the child of peace. Let us not be violent or anxious.
This is the child of love. Let us not hate or be angry.
This is the child of compassion. Let us not be indifferent.
This is the child of gentleness. Let us not be harsh or hurtful.
This is the child of joy. Let us not be sorrowful.
Tonight divinity was wrapped in humanity. Let us be wrapped in divinity.
Tonight we behold the child. Let us become what we see.
Tonight a child is born to us. Let us claim our new beginning.
“And the Word became flesh and lived among us” (From John 1:1-18; First Sunday after Christmas)
How was your Christmas? It is a question I have asked and been asked over the last few days. While I understand what is being asked I also hear an underlying assumption that Christmas is over. It is the same assumption that underlies the birthday wishes to Jesus. “Happy birthday Jesus” suggests that Christmas is the celebration of a past event, an anniversary. It is the reason why in at least a few homes the tree has already been taken down, the decorations packed away for another year, and the leftovers thrown out.
I raise these three points not as a criticism or judgment but diagnostically, in recognition that we are event driven people. We tend to live our lives from one event to the next. If you don’t think so, take a look at your calendar. It is a schedule of events. Our days are full of events and if there is a day or two with no scheduled events then we say things like, “Nothing is going on that day,” or “I am not doing anything that day,” as if there is no life, nothing to learn or discover, nothing to experience on those days. How different is St. John’s understanding of Christmas, life, and humanity.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.
This, for St. John, is the Christmas story and it is set in the context of creation, “In the beginning.” Creation is not an event of the past but the ongoing life of God with his people. St. John echoes and continues the Genesis story of creation, “In the beginning God said, ‘Let there be…’ and there was….” Land, sky, vegetation, living creatures from the water, birds of the air, living creatures from the earth, and humankind made in the image and likeness of God.
Christmas is God continuing to give life to his people. “And the Word became flesh and lived among us.” Christmas, says St. Gregory of Nyssa, is the “festival of re-creation.” It is God giving God’s own life to his people. It is as if God said, “I want humanity to see my face. I want them to hear my voice. I want them to touch me. I want them to smell my sweat. I want them to eat my body. I want to live their life. I want them to live my life.” “And the word became flesh and lived among us.” This is God in the flesh, the divine human, holy humanity.
This festival of re-creation is God’s celebration of humanity. It is God entrusting God’s self to human beings, to you and to me. It is God’s reaffirmation of humanity’s goodness. It is the sharing and exchanging of life between God and you and me. That’s why the early church could say that God became human so that humanity might become God. The Son of God became the son of man so that the sons of men might become sons of God. Divinity was clothed in humanity so that humanity might clothed in divinity.
How beautiful is that? Imagine what that means for us. It means we are holy and intended to be holy, not as an achievement on our own but as a gift of God. This is the gift of Christmas. We have been given the power to become children of God. This happens not by blood, or the will of the flesh, or the will of people, but by God. “And the Word became flesh and lived among us.”
God sees humanity as the opportunity and the means to reveal himself. Yet far too often we use our humanity as an excuse. “I’m only human,” we declare, as if we are somehow deficient. We fail to see, to believe, to understand that in the Word becoming flesh and living among us we are God’s first sacrament. Human beings are the tangible, outward, and visible signs and carriers of God’s inward and spiritual presence.
Have you ever thought of yourself as a sacrament? Have you ever looked at someone across the street and said, “Hey, look! There is the sacramental image of God?” Why not? Why do we not see that in ourselves and each other? After all, “The Word became flesh and lived among us.”
In the Jewish tradition that rabbis tell a story that each person has a procession of angels going before them and crying out, “Make way for the image of God.” Imagine how different our lives and world would be if we lived with this as our reality and the truth that guided our lives.
Everywhere we go the angels go with us announcing the coming of the image of God and reminding us of who we are. That is the truth of Christmas for us. It is also the Christmas truth for the person living next door, for those we love, for those we fear, for those who are like us and those who are different, for the stranger, and for our enemies. “And the Word became flesh and lived among us.”
The implications are profound. It changes how we see our selves and one another, the way we live, our actions, and our words. It means that Christmas cannot be limited to an event. Christmas is a life to be lived, a way of being. It means that Christmas is more properly understood as a verb rather than a noun. So maybe we should stop asking, “How was your Christmas?” Instead we should be asking, “How are you ‘Christmassing?’” Are you recognizing the Word become flesh in your own life? Are you recognizing the Word become flesh in the lives of others? Do you see the procession of angels and hear their voices?
“And the Word became flesh and lived among us.” The Word became flesh and has never ceased living among us. The Word became flesh and will never cease living among us. So make way. Wherever you go. Whatever you are doing. Whoever you are with. Make way for the image of God. Christmas your way through life.
γνῶθι σεαυτόν, know yourself (source)
The saying “Know yourself” means therefore that we should recognize and acknowledge in ourselves the God who made us in his own image, for if we do this, we in turn will be recognized and acknowledged by our Maker. So let us not be at enmity with ourselves, but change our way of life without delay. “For Christ who is God, exalted above all creation,” has taken away our sin and has refashioned our fallen nature. In the beginning God made us in his image and so gave proof of his love for us. If we obey his holy commandments and learn to imitate his goodness, we shall be like him and he will honor us. God is not beggarly, and for the sake of his own glory he has given us a share in his divinity.
- Hippolytus (c. 236), On the Refutation of all Heresies 10, 33-34: PG 16, 3452-3453, found in J. Robert Wright, Readings for the Daily Office from the Early Church, 37.
2013 Epiphany Blessing
The Church has a custom of blessing homes on the Feast of the Epiphany and the week following. Family and friends gather to ask God’s blessing on their homes and those who live in or visit the home. It is an invitation for Jesus to be a daily guest in our home, our comings and goings, our conversations, our work and play, our joys and sorrows.
A traditional way of doing this is to use chalk blessed during the Epiphany liturgy and write above the home’s entryway, 20 + C + M + B + 14. The letters C, M, B have two meanings. They are the initials of the traditional names of the three magi: Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar. They also abbreviate the Latin words Christus mansionem benedicat, “May Christ bless the house.” The “+” signs represent the cross and 2014 is the year.
Blessing of Chalk
V. Our help is the name of the Lord:
R. The maker of heaven and earth.
V. The Lord shall watch over your going out and your coming in:
R. From this time forth for evermore.
V. The Lord be with you.
R. And also with you.
Let us pray.
Loving God, bless this chalk which you have created, that it may be helpful to your people; and grant that through the invocation of your most Holy Name all who use it in faith to write upon the doors of their homes the names of your saints, Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar, may receive health of body and protection of soul for all who dwell in or visit their home; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Instructions for Blessing the Home
Using the blessed chalk mark the lintel of your front door (or front porch step) as follows:
20 + C + M + B + 14 while saying:
The three Wise Men, Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar followed the star of God’s Son who became human two thousand and thirteen years ago. May Christ bless our home and remain with us throughout the new year. Amen.
Then offer the following prayer:
Visit, O blessed Lord, this home with the gladness of your presence. Bless all who live or visit here with the gift of your love; and grant that we may manifest your love to each other and to all whose lives we touch. May we grow in grace and in the knowledge and love of you; guide, comfort, and strengthen us in peace, O Jesus Christ, now and for ever. Amen.
At times God has commanded his people to mark their doors. The Israelites marked their doors with the lamb’s blood on the night of the passover. A similar command was given with the Shema Yisrael:
Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart … and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. (Deuteronomy 6:4-6, 9)
“Chalking the door” is a way to celebrate and literally mark the occasion of the Epiphany and God’s blessing of our lives and home. With time the chalk will fade. As it does we let the meaning of the symbols written sink into the depths of our heart and be manifest in our words and actions.
Adoration of the Magi by John Flaxman (source)
The Church has a couple of traditions related to The Feast of the Epiphany. One of those is The Epiphany Proclamation (another being the blessing of homes). During the liturgy on the Feast of the Epiphany, January 6, the Church proclaims the date of Easter as well as other feast and fast dates. The Proclamation announces more than dates. It proclaims the reality that our lives are to be lived in rhythm with and according to Jesus’ life. Here is the proclamation for this liturgical year:
Epiphany Proclamation 2014
Dear brothers and sisters, the glory of the Lord has shone upon us, and shall ever be manifest among us, until the day of His return.
Through the rhythms of times and seasons let us celebrate the mysteries of salvation.
Let us recall the year’s culmination, the Easter Triduum of the Lord: His Last Supper, His Crucifixion and Death, His Burial, and His Rising, celebrated between the evening of the 17th day of April and the evening of the 19th day of April, Easter Sunday being on the 20th day of April.
Each Easter—as on each Sunday—the Holy Church makes present the great and saving deed by which Christ has forever conquered sin and death. From Easter are reckoned all the days we keep holy.
Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, will occur on the 5th day of March.
The Ascension of the Lord will be commemorated on the 29th day of May.
Pentecost, the joyful conclusion of the season of Easter, will be celebrated on the 8th day of June.
And this year the First Sunday of Advent will be on the 30th day of November.
Likewise the pilgrim Church proclaims the Passover of Christ in the feasts of the holy Mother of God, in the feasts of the Apostles and Saints, and in the commemoration of the faithful departed.
To Jesus Christ, who was, who is, and who is to come, Lord of time and history, be endless praise, for ever and ever. Amen.
Icon of the Adoration of the Magi (source)
Flight into Egypt (source)
“Now after the wise men had left….” How strange that that is how today’s gospel (Matthew 2: 13-15, 19-23; Second Sunday after Christm) begins. We hear of their departure before we hear of their arrival. The wise men left before they’ve even arrived. At least that’s what happens as the readings are presented to us in the liturgy. We don’t hear the story of the wise men’s arrival until tomorrow, the Feast of the Epiphany.
Chronologically, the story goes like this: Jesus is born, the wise men visit, the holy family flees to Egypt. We, however, hear the story in this order: Jesus is born, the holy family flees to Egypt, the wise men visit.
So, what’s up with that? Why would the Church ask us to hear the story out of order? Some of it is just the way the calendar falls this year but I think there is more to it than that. To hear the story out of order makes us slow down and listen a bit more closely. Maybe it’s the Church’s way of yelling, “Wake up and pay attention!” Maybe it allows us to hear something we’ve not heard before.
With the birth of Jesus God entrusts God’s self to humanity. God becomes one of us and lives among us. God comes to us as we are. The world does not get cleaned up, sanitized, and made presentable for the birth of Jesus. The Christmas story is not one of preparing the nursery, painting the walls, and making it look cute. It is a story that reveals the truth about God and humanity. That God comes to us as a newborn offers us a new beginning. It also reminds us that the divine life is vulnerable, fragile, and needs to be cared for and protected. There is nothing sentimental or romantic about Matthew’s version of the Christmas story. It’s reality life.
Before we can celebrate the Epiphany light, the arrival of the wise men and the manifestation of the Christ to the world, we must first remember and acknowledge the darkness of our world. That’s what the reordering of the story does for us. Today’s story reminds us that Herod is real, not only in Jesus’ time but in ours as well. I don’t know if the slaughter of the innocents happened the way Matthew describes it but I know it is a true story. It has been lived in every age throughout history. I don’t know if Herod really killed all those babies but I know that the Herods of this world will always seek to destroy life, that which is holy and sacred.
Herod is in the news every day. You won’t see or hear his name but you’ll recognize him. He’s hard to miss. He’s in some of our families and relationships. He’s in some of our own words, actions, and choices. Herod is our indifference that prevents compassion, our hate and anger that destroy love, our busyness and distractions that deny presence, our violence and anxiety that defeat peace, our inhumanity that negates our creation in the image and likeness of God, and our politics when it is narrow, self-serving, discriminatory, and exclusive. Our world and sometimes our lives are full of Herods.
Today’s gospel will not let us deny Herod’s existence. That doesn’t, however, mean that all is lost. It means that the world of Herod is the world into which Jesus is born. The world of Herod is the world in which Jesus puts our lives back together. The world of Herod is the world in which Jesus reveals God is with us and for us.
To see Herod before the wise men invites us to move from the darkness of today’s gospel to the light of tomorrow’s Epiphany. Herod’s darkness is not the final reality. Darkness will not prevail. That means, however, that each of us, just like Joseph, has both the opportunity and the responsibility to guard the divine life and protect that which is holy and sacred. That life, that holiness, that sacredness is not only about Jesus it’s also about you and me. It’s about our lives and our relationships. It’s about people we know and people we’ve never met. It’s about the infinite ways in which the divine life is entrusted to all of us. This divine life is the gift of God for the people of God.
Look at your life. Where do you see holiness? What’s sacred? In what ways is God entrusting himself to you? Don’t give me soft, vague, and mushy answers like love, peace, or happiness. I don’t want that. I want names. I want places. I want events. I’m not trying to limit or restrict God’s holiness and presence. I’m trying to get us to see the flesh and blood God born on Christmas, an embodied God, a God that comes to us in ways as unique as are each of our lives. So be specific. God is. God comes to us in very tangible ways. Where is God showing up in your life? How? In or by whom? Call them by name. Picture their faces. Return to the places.
Perhaps it’s in your marriage, your husband or wife, and the life you have created together. Maybe it’s the child or grandchild God has entrusted to you. Maybe it’s the holiness of a best friend. Maybe it’s an early morning cup of coffee and the silence of divine presence. Maybe it’s in reading the scriptures. Maybe you experience the liturgy as the joining of heaven to earth and earth to heaven. For many it will be the beauty of nature: a sunrise in which you offer yourself to God, a sunset in which you give thanks for your life and those you love, or a starry sky and the realization that everything you see speaks of God. For some of you the ordinary routine of work becomes the place in which your life and God’s life intersect. Maybe studying is a way in which God entrusts himself to you. You read, think, question, pray, and your eyes open to a new way of seeing. It might be your prayer group, shared intimacy, and the experience that wherever two of three are gathered Christ is there. For some it will be your passion for the poor, feeding the hungry, speaking out for justice, or visiting the sick or dying. I know many of you experience the sacredness of your work around this parish; preparing and setting up for the liturgy, fixing meals for the sick or grieving, working in the office, caring for the building, or helping run our parish school.
Every one of you could add to my list. There are thousands and thousands of ways in which God offers his life to us, entrusting us with that which is holy and sacred. With each gift God says, “Here, this is yours. Care for it. Guard and protect it. Nurture it. I trust this to you. I have no one else. You are Joseph. You are the one to do this.” So how do we care for and protect that life, beauty, and holiness in a world of Herods?
It has to begin with waking up to the presence of God in our lives. Isn’t that what Joseph did? Isn’t that what he always does? He did it before Jesus was born and he does it again today. Before Jesus was born Joseph had decided to quietly dismiss Mary. It was a matter of life and death. But a dream and an awakening would reveal that Mary’s child was of the 
Holy Spirit so he took Mary as his wife and named the child Jesus. Today Joseph has another dream and another awakening, and again it is a matter of life and death. “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt…; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.”
When it comes to the holy life of God with us, Emmanuel, Jesus, it is always a matter of life and death; the child’s, each other’s, our own. God has entrusted his Son to each one of us in a variety of ways. Just like Joseph we stand in the middle between Jesus and Herod, between life and death, between the life-giver and the life-taker. No one gets to ride the fence, however. We can’t stay in the middle. Each one of us chooses. Day by day, minute by minute, we choose. Over and over again we choose. Will we get up and take the child and his mother or will we sleep through and miss what God is doing in our lives? What will it be for you? For me? What are we choosing? Are we nurturing and growing the life of Christ within us? How are we caring for the sacred pieces and parts of our lives? How are we creating a home for Jesus?
Don’t be too anxious or distracted by Herod. Remember, neither God nor Joseph dealt directly with Herod. They didn’t give Herod time, attention, or effort. Maybe we shouldn’t either. That doesn’t mean we deny or ignore the Herods of our lives. It means, rather, that we gain more by nurturing, feeding, and growing the divine life. It means that our work is to cultivate deep relationships, a life of prayer, and love for all people. It means that in the end holiness always wins.
“Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?” (From Matthew 2:1-12, Feast of the Epiphany)
I received an anonymous letter in this afternoon’s mail. There was nothing to indicate who or where it was from. Everything was handwritten. It was a single piece of notebook paper. It said, “God please forgive me!” Someone is looking for the child who has been born king of the Jews.
Earlier, in the morning, I spoke with a woman who will soon be having cancer surgery. She said, “I keep praying and hoping.” Someone else is looking for the child who has been born king of the Jews.
They’re not the only ones. There are a thousand other stories just like theirs. They are your stories and my stories. They are stories of struggle and despair, stories of courage and perseverance, stories of loss and grief, stories of joy and celebration, stories of longing and desire. They are the stories of our lives. Every one of those stories is an echo of today’s gospel. “Wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, ‘Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?’” (Matthew 2:1-2)
That question is at the center of the wise men’s journey. It has been with them for a long time. It caused them to pack up and leave home. It kept them searching and watching. It gave meaning and purpose to their lives. It offered direction and led them to the child. It’s a question that is still asked today.
We may not use their exact words but at some point, in one form or another, we’ve all asked that question. Sometimes we speak it with calm assurance. Other times it’s a frantic cry. Sometimes it’s the prayer with which we fall asleep. Other times it’s the prayer on our lips when we awake. It’s always with us. It’s the question that drives our lives even when we don’t know it. It lives deep within each one of us. As St. Augustine said, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”
“Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?” That question is our guiding star. It illuminates the night skies of our lives. It pushes back the darkness and points the way. The question doesn’t seek information. It creates space for God’s self-revelation. It’s less about what’s going on in our heads and more about what’s happening in our hearts. It isn’t so much a question to be answered as it is a question to be followed. That doesn’t mean there is no destination. There absolutely is. It is the child. The star stopped over the house where the child was. The wise men entered and saw the child with Mary his mother.
To follow the question rather than to seek a final answer means that there is no end to the ways in which God reveals and makes himself known in our lives. It means there is a star guiding, leading, and drawing us to the child in every circumstance or situation we face. God is continually going before us preparing houses of his presence for us to enter. In these houses God makes himself known and available to us.
There is only one God but there are many houses in which God makes himself present. They are houses of mercy and forgiveness, houses of second chances, houses of healing and wholeness, houses of beauty and generosity, houses of wisdom and guidance, houses of love and compassion, houses of peace and consolation, houses of strength and courage, houses of life and hope. There are as many houses of God’s presence as there are stars in the sky.
The Epiphany of Christ is not limited by time or geography. It is as real today as it was in Bethlehem some two thousand years ago. Throughout our life we journey, following the star, from one house, one revelation, to the next. There is a house for each situation and circumstance of our life. In every one of those houses the child and Mary his mother await us.
I don’t know what houses God has prepared for you but I know this. The next house to which God’s star is leading you sits at the intersection of God’s self-revelation and the question, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?” That is the Epiphany promise. It is a promise made not just to some but to all; to you, to me, to the wise men, and, yes, even to Herod. The star is there for all to see.
The only reason Herod couldn’t see the star is that he wasn’t looking. He wasn’t asking the question. He was unwilling to make the journey. He thought it was enough to tell the wise men to go find the child and to report back the child’s location. Herod only wanted information. He made no room within himself for God’s revelation. What Herod didn’t understand is that there can be no secondhand journey. We do not search or question by proxy. God offers only firsthand experience.
Don’t settle for what the wise men saw. Go look for yourself. “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?” Ask the question. Follow the star. Open your life. Give God the opportunity to say, “Look! Right here, right here in the middle of your life, here is the child who has been born king of the Jews.”
You need a spiritual pilgrimage.
Begin by closing your mouth.- The Sayings of the Egyptian Fathers (Quoted by John McGuckin in The Mystical Book of Chapters, 47).
The Baptism of Jesus (source)
“And do you come to me?” (From Matthew 3:13-17, Feast of the Baptism of our Lord, the First Sunday after the Epiphany) That’s the greeting Jesus receives from John. John almost seems surprised, taken aback, that Jesus has come to him. John has been in the wilderness preaching and baptizing. “Repent,” he says, “for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” The people of Jerusalem, Judea, and all the region around the Jordan went out to John. Pharisees and Sadducees, the ones John called a brood of vipers, went out to him. John continued, “One who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals.” That one, according to John, will purge and separate. He will gather the wheat and burn with unquenchable fire the chaff. John has some big expectations.
“Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him.”
That is more than John expected. “I need to be baptized by you,” John says to Jesus. It’s one thing for Jesus to show up but it’s another for him to show up wanting to be baptized. It’s one thing for Jesus to show up in power. It’s another for him to come just like all the others and to stand amidst the crowd and wait his turn to be baptized. So what about all that time preaching in the wilderness? Did John really understand what he was saying? I don’t think John had any idea just how near the kingdom would come to him. He had no idea that power would be found in humility, submission, and immersing one’s life in the life of another. He had no idea that he would be baptizing Jesus. He thought it would be, that it should be, just the other way around.
I speak from experience when I say that John had no idea. It’s less a judgment and criticism, and more a recognition and resemblance. There have been times in my life when I had no idea how close the kingdom of heaven had come to me. I suspect you can recall times like that as well. They are times when we just didn’t see it or recognize it for what it was. We had no idea that God would show up in that way, that place, that time, that situation. We look back now and realize what we missed. John’s question echoes in our head, “And do you come to me?”
I imagine each of us has known moments in life when it felt as if we had no choice but to muscle our way through. Power was the only way. The power to overcome, to defeat, to push aside. It was “do or die” as they say. So we hammered ourselves into shape. We got by on sheer will power. There was no one to help, or so it seemed. It was up to us. Anything else looked and sounded like weakness. It never crossed our mind that there might be another way. We had no clue that one more powerful than us would really show up and redefine what power means.
I wonder how many times we have said no to God simply because we had no idea. It was not a matter of disobedience, rejection, or unfaithfulness. We just had no idea that God’s ways are not our ways and God’s thoughts are not our thoughts. We thought we understood and had it figured out. We thought our ways and our thoughts were God’s and left no room for God to surprise us. Who can blame John? How could he or we expect the Creator to be baptized by the created, that the Creator would give his sandals to the one who is unworthy to carry them? And yet, that is exactly what Jesus does.
“And do you come to me?” That’s not just John’s question. It’s also ours. At some point or another we’ve all asked it. Sometimes it just seems too incredible to believe that God would come to us. Maybe it’s because we see God as distant, cold, and uninvolved. Maybe it’s because we see ourselves as unworthy and undeserving. Maybe it’s because we were taught that God is more concerned about our behavior than our life. Maybe the pain, difficulty, and losses of our life have caused us to wonder whether God even cares. Maybe God’s ways don’t fit within our expectations. God won’t fit within our box and we can’t seem to get out of it. I don’t know when or how that question comes up for you but I know where we find the answer.
The answer is found in the baptism of Jesus. His baptism answers once and for all the question, “And do you come to me?” “Yes, absolutely.” That is Jesus’ answer to John, to you, to me, to everyone. There is no one to whom Jesus does not come. That answer, however, is not without consequences. Jesus’ baptism sets before us a choice. We can either prevent or consent, closing or opening ourselves, to the baptism of Jesus. The issue is not Jesus’ coming to us. The issue is our preventing or consenting to his coming. Our work then is to always move from preventing to consenting. That is our repentance just as it was for John.
According to Matthew, John “would have prevented him.” John would have stepped in front of Jesus, stopping and denying Jesus’ baptism. That’s a pretty scary thought. It’s pretty frightening that we have the freedom and ability to prevent Jesus’ baptism. To prevent Jesus’ baptism means that we withhold ourselves from the God who comes. It means we deny God’s desire and longing for humanity expressed in the life of Jesus. It means we deprive God of the unique and irreplaceable love that he seeks in each one of us. In the end it means we deprive God of the life God wants to live and the life he wants to give to us.
Jesus’ baptism is more than his immersion in the water of the Jordan River. It is his immersion into all of creation, into the depths of humanity, and into your life and my life. This is the baptism of Jesus to which John consented. John moved form preventing to consenting. That movement, that consent, is the fulfillment of all righteousness. It puts life and relationships back together again. It joins earth to heaven and humanity to divinity. That consent is how we offer the waters of our life to Jesus. Over and over again Jesus returns to the waters of his baptism immersing himself into the struggles and triumphs, the joys and the tragedies, and the deaths and resurrections of our world and our lives.
There is no part of your life or my life devoid of Jesus’ baptism. He immerses himself completely. He sanctifies our life’s waters. He assumes all that we are and takes on our life. He immerses himself into our life that we might be raised up into his. For every immersion there is a raising up.
When Jesus came up from the water the heavens opened to him, the Spirit descended upon him, and a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” With Christ’s immersion into our life the heavens are opened to us. With his immersion into our life the Spirit descends upon us as well. With his immersion into our life we are also God’s beloved children, sons and daughters, every one of us.
“And do you come to me?” Yes, Jesus comes to us. He always has and always will. He can do nothing less. He is the God who comes. Consent to his coming. Offer the waters of your life. Let them be his baptismal water. Prevent nothing. Don’t withhold even one drop. Let every word, every action, every choice, every relationship be the place of his immersion and your raising up. It is the fulfillment of all righteousness.
(I am grateful for and indebted to the work of Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis, Fire of Mercy, Heart of the Word, Vol. 1. His thought and teaching have inspired portions of this sermon.)
Almighty God, by the hand of Moses your servant you led your people out of slavery, and made them free at last: Grant that your Church, following the example of your prophet Martin Luther King, may resist oppression in the name of your love, and may secure for all your children the blessed liberty of the Gospel of Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (Holy Women, Holy Men: Celebrating the Saints, 307)
“He said to them, ‘Come and see.’”
Those are probably familiar words for most of us. I don’t just mean in the context of today’s gospel (John 1:29-42, the Second Sunday after Epiphany, Year A). Even if you’ve never read or heard today’s gospel you’ve probably both heard and spoken those words.
How many times have you heard your child or grandchild say, “Come and see?” “Come and see my drawing!” “Come and see this bug!” “Come and see what I made!” There was excitement and joy in their voice, maybe even a sense of urgency. Their words were an invitation to share in their discovery, to experience their world, and to participate in their life. It was the invitation to let your life and theirs come together as one.
That’s why you can’t just sit back and say, “No, just tell me about it.” That’s not an acceptable answer. They know that information and relationship are not interchangeable. They are not the same thing. “No, I’m not going to tell you,” they will say. “You have to come and see.” In those moments there is only one thing to do; get up and go look.
If you haven’t heard a child say, “Come and see,” maybe you remember saying it when you were a child. Something happened and you just couldn’t keep it to yourself. “Come and see,” you yelled. You wanted that other person to enter into and be a part of our life. It’s not just kids that say that. Adults say it too. We invite our spouse, a best friend, a trusted colleague to come and see our work and accomplishments, to come and see our pain and struggles, to come and see our life. Not only that but we also want to be invited to come and see theirs. At some level these are moments of epiphany, moments when God reveals his life in us and among us.
It may be easier to see this in kids but it’s in us as well. It’s not a function of age but a function of being human. We never outgrow the desire to invite and to be invited, to share our life with another in a deep and meaningful way, and to participate in something larger than ourselves. That’s a part of our having been created in the image and likeness of God. Jesus knows that about us and about God. That’s why he doesn’t answer the disciples’ question when they ask, “Where are you staying?” He doesn’t offer information, he invites relationship. “Come and see.”
That invitation is the antidote to the ways in which we often live vicarious lives. Too often we allow political agendas, talk radio, surveys, and news to tell us what to think rather than to help us engage our world. We settle for church leaders telling us what to believe rather than pointing us to and opening the doors to the mystery of Jesus’ presence in our lives. We idolize what others have, what they do, and who they are rather than discovering the unique ways in which God reveals himself in and through our own lives. We are living secondhand lives and dying from a secondhand faith.
A secondhand faith can neither sustain nor transform life. That happens only by firsthand experience. Think about it for just a minute. Would you rather be told how pretty the sunset was or be drenched in the pinks, oranges, and purples of the evening sky? Would you rather hear a love story or fall in love and live a love story? Would you rather read a travel brochure or travel to a new land? Would you rather know about Christ or know him? That’s the difference between a secondhand faith and a firsthand experience. Our relationship with Christ, with one another, and with ourselves cannot be based on a secondhand faith. It must be a firsthand experience.
A firsthand experience won’t let us stay where we are. It moves us to a new place. It opens our eyes to a new reality. It turns our life in a different direction. It gives, grows, and sustains life in a way secondhand faith never will. The deepest and most profound firsthand experience is Jesus himself. In each of our lives he comes toward us. His coming is always a moment of decision. We must choose whether we will be spectators of or participants in his life. That was the choice John the Baptist set before his disciples.
John “was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, ‘Look, here is the Lamb of God!’” It was their moment of decision. Would they stay or would they go? Would they settle for a secondhand faith, information and facts about Jesus, or would they choose a firsthand experience of his life?
If they choose a firsthand experience they will have to leave John behind. They will have to let go of that which is familiar, comfortable, and known. The will have to open themselves to something new and something different. You can probably remember times like that. It can be difficult to let go of a secondhand faith and life. It usually means there will be more questions than answers. What are you looking for? Where are you staying? Those are not so much questions to be answered as they are experiences waiting and wanting to be lived. A firsthand experience invites us to discover the answers by living the questions.
Think how different today’s gospel would be if Jesus had just answered their question. “Where are you staying?” “Oh, it’s just a couple miles down this road. Second house on the left.” What do we do with that? How does that change anything? What difference does it make if we know Jesus’ address but we are not invited in. We might as well stay where we are. But that’s not how Jesus responds.
Jesus offers more than his address. “Come and see,” he says. There is reassurance and promise in his words. That means that he has something for us. It means that he is opening himself to us and inviting us in. He has gone ahead of us and prepared a place for us. Regardless of what’s going on in our life he makes it safe to move forward and take the next step in confidence that his life and presence await us. “Come and see” is his invitation to find ourselves and discover our lives.
Last week I went to visit a friend, an elderly priest who has been and continues to be my teacher. He sat in a recliner with his legs raised. His room is institutional; a twin bed, a desk, bare walls, a television. For the last few months he has lived in this nursing/retirement home with multiple fractures of his hip and leg. Before that he lived the last forty years alone in the silence and solitude of the South Texas desert, immersed in a life of prayer. That was his home, his vocation, his life. That place gave meaning to who he was and what he did. Forty years is a long time.
He said, “I will probably never walk again. I will never go home again. That is painful for me.” I nodded in silence. Then he said this. “All of this is in God’s providence. God is no longer back there, at home. It’s all changed. He is now here. I have work and ministry to do in this place and plenty of time to pray.”
That is a man who has heard the invitation to come and see. That is a man who, though he cannot walk, is bound and determined to get up and go look. That is a man who will not be denied a first hand experience of Christ. Firsthand experiences are not determined by or conditioned on our life’s circumstances. They arise from God’s eternal longing for and love of each one of us. In every circumstance of our life, good or bad, desired or dreaded, Jesus is calling us to himself. “Come and see.”
I wonder what Jesus wants to show you? In what ways does he want to share his life with you? How might he be offering himself to you, asking you to participate in his life? Look at your life. What do you see? What is it like?
Is it full and abundant? “Come and see.” Empty and desolate? “Come and see.” Filled with change, chaos, or the unknown? “Come and see.” Is it one of joy and celebration? “Come and see.” One of loss and sorrow? “Come and see.” Do you feel lost and confused? “Come and see.” Is it smooth sailing? “Come and see.” Is it weighed down by guilt, shame, despair? “Come and see.” However you might describe your life Jesus’ response is always the same.
Every life and every situation echoes with Christ’s invitation, “Come and see.” He is there offering himself as the firsthand experience of your truest self your truest life. Don’t just take my word for it. Don’t believe it just because I said it. Get up and go look for yourself.
Whatever happens always remember the mysterious richness of human nature and the nearness of God to each one of us.
- The Rt. Rev. Phillips Brooks, died 1893
After I graduated from seminary Cyndy and I moved to Kerrville where I began work as an associate priest at a large parish. Shortly after arriving I was invited to join a community prayer group. It was a small group of men all of whom worked in some form of ministry. I was the newest in the group, the newest to Kerrville, and the only Episcopalian. They were very interested in how I got from being an attorney to being an Episcopal priest.
“Tell us the story of your conversion,” they said. “Tell us how you found Christ and became a priest.” “Well…,” I began. And then there was silence. I thought hard about the question. I started again. “Well,…” More silence. Then I said, “You know it’s just sort of always been there, a sense of connection, relationship, longing. I can’t remember a time when it wasn’t.” One of them asked, “There wasn’t a particular day or event?” I shook my head. So did he. They were clearly disappointed and maybe even a bit doubtful about me.
I think that conversation highlights one of the difficulties with today’s gospel. It sounds as if one day Jesus shows up and immediately we walk away from our old life and leave everything behind. That’s how St. Matthew describes it for Peter and Andrew, James and John in today’s gospel. (Epiphany 3A, Matthew 4:12-23) I don’t doubt that’s true. I know that’s how it happened for some of you. That is a legitimate and valid experience. But it’s not the only way. Some of you would describe a story similar to mine; a continuous and steady experience of Jesus. Others would tell a story of struggle and wrestling, give and take, back and forth. Think about Jacob or Jonah. In truth our lives are probably a mixture of all three of those plus others. How does any relationship begin, continue, grow? There is no one way or even a right way. There are probably as many ways of being called, finding Jesus, being found by Jesus, whatever you want to call it, as there are people. It is unique and personal to each one of us.
The point, however, isn’t how it happened but that it did happen and it continues to happen. It’s never a once and for all, finally and forever, kind of thing. Our entire life is a conversion. We are always being converted, shaped and formed, into the likeness of Jesus. Over and over again Jesus comes to us saying, “Follow me.”
Following Jesus does not happen in the abstract but in the context, circumstances, and relationships of our lives. Our relationship with Jesus is grounded and experienced in the people and events of our lives and world. So it was for Peter, Andrew, James, and John. We see that throughout the remainder of Matthew’s account of the gospel. He not only describes the life and ministry of Jesus but the ongoing shaping and forming of Peter’s, Andrew’s, James’ and John’s lives. That shaping and forming happened in Jesus’ teaching of the beatitudes, in his healing of the sick, in his telling parables, in his feeding the 5000, in Peter complaining that they had left everything behind, in James and John arguing with the others and hoping to sit at Jesus’ right and left, in Jesus’ crucifixion, in his resurrection and ascension, and in the coming of the Holy Spirit.
Every one of those moments echo with Jesus’ words, “Follow me.” Every one of those is as much a turning point in the lives of Peter, Andrew, James, and John as was the day Jesus first saw them by the Sea of Galilee. Turning points always resound with the invitation to follow Jesus. They are the intersection of our lives and his life. Isn’t that what’s happening in today’s gospel? We hear it in Jesus’ words. He only says two things: “Repent,” and “Follow me.” At some level they are two sides of the same coin.
So often we hear the word “repentance” and think, “Uh oh, someone’s been bad. Someone better change their evil ways.” It can mean that and sometimes that needs to be the focus but it also means more than that. Repentance is more than just a moral change. It is a life change, a turning point. We look in a different direction. We see with new eyes. We establish new priorities. We travel a new road.
The turning points of our lives bring us face to face with Jesus and they come in lots of ways. Sometimes they come as we planned, worked, and hoped for. Other times they are completely unexpected and take us by surprise. Sometimes they bring us joy and gladness. Other times we are filled with sorrow and loss. Sometimes they affirm everything we thought and believed. Other times they leave us confused and not knowing what we believe. You’ve probably experienced all of those and more in the turning points of your own life.
Think about your turning points, times when, for better or worse, your life was turned around:
The list could go on and on. We could all tell stories of our life’s turning points. It seems as if our lives are a series of turning points, some big and others small. Regardless, with each turning point we see ourselves, others, and the world differently, we think differently, we focus on different concerns, we ask different questions, and we move in different direction. What they all have in common, however, is Jesus’ invitation, his command, to follow him.
Each turning point comes with the opportunity for and the promise of Christ to refashion our lives. That’s what Jesus did for Peter, Andrew, James, and John. “I will make you…,” he says. That’s what he does for us as well. He makes us more who we truly are to be. In him we begin to recognize ourselves.
This does not happen in spite of our life’s circumstances but in and through our life’s circumstances. That’s where and how it happened for Peter, Andrew, James, and John. Their turning point came in sailing the same boats, on the same lake, using the same nets, doing the same work they had done the day before, and the day before that, and the month before that, and the year before that.
Look at your lakes, boats, and nets, the circumstances of your life. What is the turning point you face today? What’s happening? What do you see? Somewhere in your life today is a turning point, a place of repentance. Maybe you know exactly what it is. Maybe you’ve not yet recognized it. Maybe you’ve closed your eyes to it. Regardless, it is there and so is Jesus, beckoning, calling, longing, desiring. He stands there saying, “Follow me. I’ve picked you.”
