Lectionary readings
Those of you who have heard some of my sermons or might have read some of my other lectures and publications may recognize that I’m a bit obsessed with the U.S. Civil Rights Movement. We are in a period where we’ll be hearing a lot about this era in American history, as we enter a stretch of 50th anniversary milestones: last August, we commemorated the March on Washington. Just a few weeks ago, NPR reported on the 50th anniversary of President Johnson’s War on Poverty. Some of you know that I’m particularly taken by stories about Freedom Summer, that great campaign in the summer of 1964 in which a thousand young volunteers, mostly white college students, descended on Mississippi to organize the black community, register them to vote, teach African American history to its children, and build leadership in the poorest, most vulnerable neighborhoods. It’s easy, as I’m wont to do, to romanticize this period as the story of nobly minded, idealistic people living out the best of the human spirit amidst adversity, saints in our midst.
But I want to share with you a story that I just recently heard, about one of the volunteers of Freedom Summer. Gwendolyn Zohara Simmons was a student at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia, when plans for Freedom Summer were underway. Before she left home for college in 1962, her grandmother made her promise that she would never get involved in the movement. Two years later, word got back to Simmons’ family that she was preparing to travel to Mississippi with the Freedom Summer volunteers, and at 6 am one morning, her grandmother, mother and stepfather knocked on her dorm room to take her back to Memphis. In Memphis, Simmons was able to get a money order from Freedom Summer organizers to get back to Atlanta before the entourage traveled to Mississippi. In a last ditch effort to convince her to stay, her grandmother said to Simmons, “If you leave, don’t ever come back.” We don’t usually hear these kinds of stories about the movement, do we? Simmons recounts that she cried the entire bus ride to Atlanta. For her grandmother, Simmons’ going to Mississippi meant that her granddaughter would return in a coffin; going to Mississippi was a death sentence. Simmons went to Mississippi for the summer, to set up Freedom Schools and libraries. She stayed for seven years in the deep South. She’s still at it! She’s still on this great adventure. Simmons is now a professor of religion at the University of Florida, and a member of the National Council of Elders, a group of activist veterans who work with young activists today to keep alive the legacy of non-violent work for justice, peace, and reconciliation.
Somehow, this 20-year old woman found the capacity, the audacity, to take this journey to Mississippi, to respond to the call to action, even as her face surely was breaking as the bus pulled away from the station and the face of her grandmother surely also breaking grew more distant. I wonder where this courage comes from. I yearn to have this kind of experience, the experience of being so compelled by something that to respond to such a call is irresistible, even if or especially when that call is fraught with risk and uncertainty and danger. I wonder if you have wondered and yearned for this too. Frederick Buechner, a Presbyterian minister and author, calls this irresistible call, vocation. Here’s how he explains it: “Vocation comes from the Latin Vocare, to call, and means the work one is called to by God. In life there are all different kinds of voices calling you to all different kinds of work and the problem in life is to find out which is the voice of God rather than of society or the super ego or self-interest.
“By and large” Buechner continues, “a good rule for finding out your calling is this: the kind of work that God usually calls you to is the kind of work (a) that you need most to do, and (b) that the world most needs to have done. If you really get a kick out of your work, you presumably have met requirement (a). But if your work is writing TV deodorant commercials the chances are you’ve missed requirement (b). On the other hand, if your work is being a doctor in a leper colony you have probably met requirement (b). But if most of the time you’re bored and depressed by being a doctor in a leper colony the chances are you have not only bypassed (a) but probably are not helping your patients much either. Neither the hair shirt nor the soft berth will do. The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”
This then is what makes Epiphany, the manifestation of God in the activity of our everyday human affairs, all the more radical, because it teaches us that God engages with God’s creation, us, not only through the visitation of angels, or from the eruption of a star announcing a birth, or in the excitement of a trip to Jerusalem, but in the very simple invitation that we hear in this morning’s Gospel lesson: “Follow me.” In those two words resides a different world than the one that Peter and Andrew, James and John, inhabited before. The four fishermen may very well have heard about the danger that was inherent in Jesus’ invitation: after all, it is after John is arrested for his insurrectionist activities that Jesus begins his ministry of preaching and healing, of proclaiming the coming of God’s reign over the reign of Herod and Rome. Before Jesus’ invitation, the four men did what they knew, perhaps enjoyed their livelihood, and most likely helped themselves, their families, and their friends. And it is very likely that as they abandoned their nets, a family member, a father, a wife, a cousin, stood there with faces breaking saying to them, “If you leave, don’t come back.” But it was when the invitation was made—Follow me—that the four realized what their deep gladness might mean for the world’s deep hunger. They recognized in Jesus the walking epiphany of God, and were invited to become themselves epiphanies to others, to shine into the broken, hungry world of 1st century Palestine that a different way of being was possible. They must have known, as did Zohara Simmons in 1964, the cost of their discipleship, of family members faces and hearts breaking. But they also knew in their bones that in responding to Jesus’ call, they were engaging, accessing, finally, perhaps for the first time in their lives, their deepest gladness as it rose up to meet the world’s terribly deep need.
You and I are called to do likewise in our baptismal covenant, when we promise to strive for justice and peace amongst all people, to respect the dignity of every human being, and indeed of all of God’s creation. This doesn’t have to be dramatic like it was for Zohara Simmons or Peter, Andrew, James, and John. Jesus’ invitation to follow him, to be walking epiphanies so that you can discover your true gladness as you confront what the world needs, is a daily, constant invitation and opportunity. When you engage family and friends, when you walk out your door and confront strangers and coworkers, when you read the newspaper, when you cast your vote, or help someone in need, every moment is an invitation to reveal what Desmond Tutu calls the “divine goodness” in each person you encounter. And when the divine goodness in you and me meets and enables others to see the divine goodness in themselves, then sisters and brothers we will bring ever closer God’s reign, God’s dream, on earth, our hearts rising up to meet and heal the broken heart of the world.
A Sermon by Dee Tucker, Senior Warden - 2nd Sunday of Epiphany
Second Sunday after Epiphany
Isaiah 49:1-7, Psalm 40:1-11, I Corinthians 1:1-9, John 1:29-42
Many of you know in a previous life, I was a foster parent of 6….living and working in a group home with my husband in Culver City. During that time, in a rainstorm, we ran into a restaurant with six sopping-wet kids. We had made a terrible mistake. The place was not the family friendly, casual cafe we had expected. It was a fancy-date restaurant, with a piano player and tablecloths and about a zillion people waiting to be seated. The hostess took one look at us, gathered some menus, smiled broadly and announced to the hungry crowd, "I seat kids first." Faces fell, foam appeared in the corners of certain mouths. And yet she sashayed nonchalantly past the angry rabble and seated our family of 8. After thanking her, I asked, "How did you do that?" She looked at me. "Prep school," she said. "I was the poor kid on scholarship." Oh, I thought. That's how it's done. Under every unruffled, totally composed person is a scholarship kid who went to prep school or the kid with the headgear. It's the reward you get after years and years of being ruffled and uncomposed. Which is what I need to remember the next time I meet such a person. There is no pixie dust or biological gene that makes some people awesome. In general, that quality is earned.
So, here we are now in this season of Epiphany. Christmas is but a memory now, the presents have been tried on, the thank-you's have been said, and, most likely, you've had time to exchange your presents if need be.
But, the seasons of the church-- and this season of Epiphany-- seem to move a bit slower. In this season, this greatest of all presents to the world-- Jesus-- is just being unwrapped. He has come into the world, and, now, the marvel and magnitude of his life for all men and women is being revealed.
Certainly, this is true of our Gospel lesson today, in which John the Baptizer proclaims that there is something special about this man: indeed, the Holy Spirit rests on him; it is revealed to his disciples that Jesus is the one they have been waiting for. From this point on, the ministry of John fades and the ministry of Jesus will be more and more revealed-- the truths of God made manifest in his life. Jesus is the greatest epiphany of all-- God revealing who we really are and how we should really live. An epiphany is defined as a moment in which you suddenly see or understand something in a new or very clear way.
But, it must be said, that the lives of others can and have also served as epiphanies of God. The Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, contains the stories of men and women whose lives can be seen as epiphanies-- epiphanies of who God is and what God would have us do and be. The patriarchs, prophets, judges, and kings, the apostles, martyrs, and saints of the New Testament are revealers of God's grace. Yet, even the Bible cannot contain all the men and women in whom God has revealed himself-- men and women of Bible times-- and men and women who have lived up even to our own day-- and, I dare say, are alive right now in this room. The gospel says to us we are all of us saints of God….just as the seating hostess in that restaurant years ago.
I am serving this year as Senior Warden for the Messiah vestry. If you are visiting today, that is like the President of the Board. As in all Episcopal parishes, the Vestry is the elected governing body of the parish. In addition to the Rector, the Vestry is composed of the senior and junior wardens and ten other members who oversee the work of the church. Today, following this service, our parish will conduct their annual meeting. We will hear the financial report of 2013 and the budget prepared for 2014, reports of the recent gifts to Messiah and elect new vestry members. All will have an opportunity to participate and ask questions. If you are visiting, please join us to learn more about the work of this church.
In the fall of 2009, Father Brad Karelius (our former rector) asked me to return to vestry and further he wanted me to be senior warden. After prayer and contemplation I asked and, yes, he was going to retire. He announced in May of 2010 and we celebrated his 30 year ministry here on October 2, 2011. The journey of transition has been one of learning, change, challenges, joys, frustrations and many, many prayers…right up to the calling and welcoming our new rector, Father Abel almost one year ago today!
Everything in my life has prepared me to be senior warden in this transition time for Messiah:
As we heard read in Isaiah this morning:
1. Before I was born the Lord called me; from my mother’s womb he has spoken my name.
2. He made my mouth like a sharpened sword, (this may be especially true for me)
3. He said to me, “You are my servant, in whom I will display my splendor.”
In high school in Missouri, there was a marching drum corps that you had to try out for. I played the piano, yet, practiced hours marching and attempting to beat the drum in time. I did not win a place in this coveted group and cried many tears. Instead, I became a member of the debate team and learning the craft of public speaking even winning some awards. Now which do you think has served me more….being able to march and drum OR being able to stand and speak?
As a professional administrator of publicly funded child development programs I was a member of the statewide organization. I admired the state board members thinking silently I could never do what they are doing – speaking before the legislature, meeting with lobbyists, the governor, other organizations. In attending meetings here in southern California I thought I did have something to contribute – so I volunteered (just as Ellen ask us to do last week)….saying to myself, ‘you cannot sit and criticize – you must either join in to make a difference OR be quiet.’ So I went to the section president and volunteered. I wanted to be at the registration desk – I wanted to make entering the meeting room a pleasant and welcoming experience. I did that job for several years before moving to treasurer of the local section and then of course, was asked to consider being a member of state board. Quaking in my boots, I said yes. I’ve heard it said that fear is simply courage that has said its prayers. It was a life changing experience which prepared me for this job - senior warden.
In 2003 a new job brought me five minutes north on Main with a chancellor that stated to all managers ‘we are a community college – part of each day of your work life should be spent working for the betterment of this community.’ Again another signpost that I was in the right place at the right time with the right skills to meet the needs of Messiah!
To serve as Senior Warden has been an honor and privilege because of you – your encouragement, your prayers, all your yes’s to the work. As I end this four year commitment, many of you tell me what a great job I have done, many saying ‘we were lucky to have you.’ You know, I believe luck is when preparation meets opportunity. I know many of you believe I have done more than anyone should or could or would. Nonsense….I remind you that I don’t have any pixie dust or special biological gene. Oh, I can hear you guffawing in your head. Here this…I was simply doing the work called forth in today’s gospel – living God’s epiphany in the world. I take Messiah personally. I cannot nor will ever be a bystander. I believe in this community. We are not the perfect church, we make mistakes, we have issues, we have challenges – yet, we are solving these together by listening with our whole hearts and looking to the path ahead.
I ask myself ‘how is Messiah doing at the end of this four year transition?’ Each Sunday we come, listen, pray, bring our financial gifts, receive communion and see our ‘family’. Many come to ministries during the week both here and in our homes. We bring food for the homeless, coats of compassion, books for the sale and items for the auction. We volunteer to read, to usher, to clean the altar linens, to visit during every member canvass. We truly have busy hands. We certainly have a dynamic, deeply spiritual leader that continues to challenge us! Is this enough? Here is my humble opinion – I hear folks say – we said it in writing in the profile – we want to grow. Yet, we have one priest who has been working nearly 7 days a week for the past year attempting to simply keep up! We say we want to grow, yet, we do not have any marketing plan to reach out to new folks or budget to do it. At vestry budget workshop this year we actually talked about making less copies especially those in color….imagine if Coke a Cola board decided to stop all ads especially those in color. We are excited when we have visitors, yet, how many of us get their names and phone them the next week or make a special effort to invite them to an event? We do not have a solid process lead by any of us to build and nurture the connection between visitors and this family of God. Yes, we have busy hands – we simply needs more hands. If we continue just as we are do you think we will be ok?
I am proud that we continued the work during the transition together, and yes….I am challenged by the work ahead.
In the pitch-black night, stung by jellyfish, choking on salt water, singing to herself, hallucinating … Diana Nyad kept on swimming. And that's how she finally achieved her lifetime goal as an athlete: an extreme 100-mile swim from Cuba to Florida -- at age 64. She trained relentlessly. She failed four times. She believed in her dream. Her motto, ‘find a way.’ When stinging jelly fish inflicted unbearable pain, when the weather forced her from her dream, when the cold seized her muscles, when seasickness plagued her - she found a way!
If Messiah is important to you….If you truly believe in this family…you will help us find a way … you will do as Jesus asks – be an epiphany – a revelation of God in the world - without any pixie dust or biological gene – you will find a way to make a difference here and now.
Amen.
Dee Tucker, Senior Warden
Isaiah 49:1-7, Psalm 40:1-11, I Corinthians 1:1-9, John 1:29-42
Many of you know in a previous life, I was a foster parent of 6….living and working in a group home with my husband in Culver City. During that time, in a rainstorm, we ran into a restaurant with six sopping-wet kids. We had made a terrible mistake. The place was not the family friendly, casual cafe we had expected. It was a fancy-date restaurant, with a piano player and tablecloths and about a zillion people waiting to be seated. The hostess took one look at us, gathered some menus, smiled broadly and announced to the hungry crowd, "I seat kids first." Faces fell, foam appeared in the corners of certain mouths. And yet she sashayed nonchalantly past the angry rabble and seated our family of 8. After thanking her, I asked, "How did you do that?" She looked at me. "Prep school," she said. "I was the poor kid on scholarship." Oh, I thought. That's how it's done. Under every unruffled, totally composed person is a scholarship kid who went to prep school or the kid with the headgear. It's the reward you get after years and years of being ruffled and uncomposed. Which is what I need to remember the next time I meet such a person. There is no pixie dust or biological gene that makes some people awesome. In general, that quality is earned.
So, here we are now in this season of Epiphany. Christmas is but a memory now, the presents have been tried on, the thank-you's have been said, and, most likely, you've had time to exchange your presents if need be.
But, the seasons of the church-- and this season of Epiphany-- seem to move a bit slower. In this season, this greatest of all presents to the world-- Jesus-- is just being unwrapped. He has come into the world, and, now, the marvel and magnitude of his life for all men and women is being revealed.
Certainly, this is true of our Gospel lesson today, in which John the Baptizer proclaims that there is something special about this man: indeed, the Holy Spirit rests on him; it is revealed to his disciples that Jesus is the one they have been waiting for. From this point on, the ministry of John fades and the ministry of Jesus will be more and more revealed-- the truths of God made manifest in his life. Jesus is the greatest epiphany of all-- God revealing who we really are and how we should really live. An epiphany is defined as a moment in which you suddenly see or understand something in a new or very clear way.
But, it must be said, that the lives of others can and have also served as epiphanies of God. The Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, contains the stories of men and women whose lives can be seen as epiphanies-- epiphanies of who God is and what God would have us do and be. The patriarchs, prophets, judges, and kings, the apostles, martyrs, and saints of the New Testament are revealers of God's grace. Yet, even the Bible cannot contain all the men and women in whom God has revealed himself-- men and women of Bible times-- and men and women who have lived up even to our own day-- and, I dare say, are alive right now in this room. The gospel says to us we are all of us saints of God….just as the seating hostess in that restaurant years ago.
I am serving this year as Senior Warden for the Messiah vestry. If you are visiting today, that is like the President of the Board. As in all Episcopal parishes, the Vestry is the elected governing body of the parish. In addition to the Rector, the Vestry is composed of the senior and junior wardens and ten other members who oversee the work of the church. Today, following this service, our parish will conduct their annual meeting. We will hear the financial report of 2013 and the budget prepared for 2014, reports of the recent gifts to Messiah and elect new vestry members. All will have an opportunity to participate and ask questions. If you are visiting, please join us to learn more about the work of this church.
In the fall of 2009, Father Brad Karelius (our former rector) asked me to return to vestry and further he wanted me to be senior warden. After prayer and contemplation I asked and, yes, he was going to retire. He announced in May of 2010 and we celebrated his 30 year ministry here on October 2, 2011. The journey of transition has been one of learning, change, challenges, joys, frustrations and many, many prayers…right up to the calling and welcoming our new rector, Father Abel almost one year ago today!
Everything in my life has prepared me to be senior warden in this transition time for Messiah:
As we heard read in Isaiah this morning:
1. Before I was born the Lord called me; from my mother’s womb he has spoken my name.
2. He made my mouth like a sharpened sword, (this may be especially true for me)
3. He said to me, “You are my servant, in whom I will display my splendor.”
In high school in Missouri, there was a marching drum corps that you had to try out for. I played the piano, yet, practiced hours marching and attempting to beat the drum in time. I did not win a place in this coveted group and cried many tears. Instead, I became a member of the debate team and learning the craft of public speaking even winning some awards. Now which do you think has served me more….being able to march and drum OR being able to stand and speak?
As a professional administrator of publicly funded child development programs I was a member of the statewide organization. I admired the state board members thinking silently I could never do what they are doing – speaking before the legislature, meeting with lobbyists, the governor, other organizations. In attending meetings here in southern California I thought I did have something to contribute – so I volunteered (just as Ellen ask us to do last week)….saying to myself, ‘you cannot sit and criticize – you must either join in to make a difference OR be quiet.’ So I went to the section president and volunteered. I wanted to be at the registration desk – I wanted to make entering the meeting room a pleasant and welcoming experience. I did that job for several years before moving to treasurer of the local section and then of course, was asked to consider being a member of state board. Quaking in my boots, I said yes. I’ve heard it said that fear is simply courage that has said its prayers. It was a life changing experience which prepared me for this job - senior warden.
In 2003 a new job brought me five minutes north on Main with a chancellor that stated to all managers ‘we are a community college – part of each day of your work life should be spent working for the betterment of this community.’ Again another signpost that I was in the right place at the right time with the right skills to meet the needs of Messiah!
To serve as Senior Warden has been an honor and privilege because of you – your encouragement, your prayers, all your yes’s to the work. As I end this four year commitment, many of you tell me what a great job I have done, many saying ‘we were lucky to have you.’ You know, I believe luck is when preparation meets opportunity. I know many of you believe I have done more than anyone should or could or would. Nonsense….I remind you that I don’t have any pixie dust or special biological gene. Oh, I can hear you guffawing in your head. Here this…I was simply doing the work called forth in today’s gospel – living God’s epiphany in the world. I take Messiah personally. I cannot nor will ever be a bystander. I believe in this community. We are not the perfect church, we make mistakes, we have issues, we have challenges – yet, we are solving these together by listening with our whole hearts and looking to the path ahead.
I ask myself ‘how is Messiah doing at the end of this four year transition?’ Each Sunday we come, listen, pray, bring our financial gifts, receive communion and see our ‘family’. Many come to ministries during the week both here and in our homes. We bring food for the homeless, coats of compassion, books for the sale and items for the auction. We volunteer to read, to usher, to clean the altar linens, to visit during every member canvass. We truly have busy hands. We certainly have a dynamic, deeply spiritual leader that continues to challenge us! Is this enough? Here is my humble opinion – I hear folks say – we said it in writing in the profile – we want to grow. Yet, we have one priest who has been working nearly 7 days a week for the past year attempting to simply keep up! We say we want to grow, yet, we do not have any marketing plan to reach out to new folks or budget to do it. At vestry budget workshop this year we actually talked about making less copies especially those in color….imagine if Coke a Cola board decided to stop all ads especially those in color. We are excited when we have visitors, yet, how many of us get their names and phone them the next week or make a special effort to invite them to an event? We do not have a solid process lead by any of us to build and nurture the connection between visitors and this family of God. Yes, we have busy hands – we simply needs more hands. If we continue just as we are do you think we will be ok?
I am proud that we continued the work during the transition together, and yes….I am challenged by the work ahead.
In the pitch-black night, stung by jellyfish, choking on salt water, singing to herself, hallucinating … Diana Nyad kept on swimming. And that's how she finally achieved her lifetime goal as an athlete: an extreme 100-mile swim from Cuba to Florida -- at age 64. She trained relentlessly. She failed four times. She believed in her dream. Her motto, ‘find a way.’ When stinging jelly fish inflicted unbearable pain, when the weather forced her from her dream, when the cold seized her muscles, when seasickness plagued her - she found a way!
If Messiah is important to you….If you truly believe in this family…you will help us find a way … you will do as Jesus asks – be an epiphany – a revelation of God in the world - without any pixie dust or biological gene – you will find a way to make a difference here and now.
Amen.
Dee Tucker, Senior Warden
2014 Annual Meetings
Sunday, January 19, after each service
- Pot-luck brunch: bring something to share: breads and cheese, egg dishes, fruit, salads.
- 11:30 a.m. Official Annual Meeting. Presentation and dialogue about 2014 Budget.
Women’s Book Group
Wednesday January 13, 6:30pm at Linda Chapel’s
This month the group will be discussing And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini. Stephanie Miller will be facilitating the discussion. The meal will be provided by Jean Hollingshead and Linda Chapel.God Risks It All-A Christmas Sermon by the Rev. Jim Lee
My older daughter Sona was born on June 12, 2005. You hear this all the time, that the experience of becoming a parent is one that no book, no council of elders, no class can fully encompass: you have to live it to understand it. I won’t deign to understand the intensity and pain that Julie went through in labor and delivery, though I imagine the moms this morning can tell you some stories. What I remember of those first few hours and days after Sona’s birth was that car ride home. I think I drove, like, 4 miles an hour. And the whole time, I’m thinking, “Jesus, they’re in our lane! Move over! Slow down!” The hospital was 3 miles away from home, and I think it took an hour to make the trip. When we parked, I carried Sona in her bucket seat into the house. Julie whispered to her, “Welcome home.” And then she shut the door. Sona was awake but quiet. The house was musty and silent. And in that moment, as it dawned on me that we had this new creature in our home, I muttered to myself, “What fool thought it was a good idea to leave this child with us?”
I can’t help but wonder if Mary and Joseph felt something similarly when light broke that morning after their first child was born. Our crèche scenes and our paintings and sculptures of the Holy Family can shield us from the awesome sense of vulnerability that must have dawned on Jesus’ parents that morning: my God, we are responsible for this baby, the task is ours, and we are unmoored. Joseph and Mary were poor Jews living under Roman occupation, from a small village that held probably no more than 500 people. It’s a miracle that Mary survived her labor and delivery, as maternal death during childbirth was not uncommon in the ancient world. And then there’s the stark reality of infant mortality during this period: modern scholarship estimates that one in three children died in infancy in the time that Jesus was born. Even as she might be caressing her baby, Mary may have also been thinking, “Will it be too cold this winter? Will I be able to produce enough milk?” And Joseph might have wondered anxiously, “Will enough people want me to carve furniture or erect a shed? Will I be able to buy enough flour and oil for Mary to cook? Will I be able to escape being harassed and shaken down by Roman soldiers?” The Holy Family wasn’t especially protected from the fraught circumstances of life in the 1st century. They lived, like everyone else in Palestine, precarious lives. Every day was a day of risk, and so that morning, as day light poured into that mucky, manure-smelling barn, the question unvoiced but ever present in the minds of this young couple might have been something like mine in 2005: who left this child with us?
In the Gospel of John’s version we don’t actually get a birth narrative like we do in Luke. Instead, we get a prologue that describes Jesus in seemingly abstract terms: the Word, the Word with God, the Word as God. But John does tell us toward the end of that prologue that “the Word became flesh and lived among us.” Eugene Patterson’s version in The Message puts it this way: “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.” This is the extraordinary, unbelievable story of the Gospel, that God puts God’s very self at risk by moving into the neighborhood as a flesh and blood, fragile, vulnerable human being. God puts God’s self into the loving, caressing, trembling arms of a young Jewish teenager and her poor husband, this couple living such precarious lives, and it is this radical act of Emmanuel, God with us, God in the muck and danger of our world, God moving into the neighborhood, that moves the shepherds to wonder and to praise God in our Gospel lesson, and that moves John in his gospel to say that “we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.” Again, Peterson helps us discern the radical, risky act of God’s taking on human vulnerability: “We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, generous inside and out, true from start to finish.”
What God shows us this Christmas morning is that God’s power is in the simple of transformative act of generosity, of solidarity, with God’s creation, a creation that is always at risk and in danger. And God tells us through this fragile child that is God incarnate, God with us, God as us, “I will put myself in the same kind of risk that my creation is in.” God leaves God’s self with us, and while we might wonder at such divine wisdom, we can also marvel at this act: if God is willing to be with us in our human fragility then there is nothing and no place, NO PLACE, where God isn’t willing to be with us.
And this promise, God with us, always, gives Mary and Joseph and you and me the capacity, the energy, the responsibility to do the work of Christmas each and every day, even as morning breaks in and we hold the vulnerable Christ child in our arms and keep him alive one more day. This work of Christmas is best summed up by a poem with this very title, “The Work of Christmas,” by civil rights leader and theologian Howard Thurman:
When the song of the angels is stilled
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the Kings and Princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flocks,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost
To heal the broken
To feed the hungry
To release the prisoner
To rebuild the nations
To bring peace among brothers and sisters
To make music in the heart.
Sisters and brothers, who left this child with us? God left this child with us, and because God left God’s self with us, the promise is here, now, and eternal: God will never leave us. And because God will never leave us, we are inspired, called, and challenged to care for God’s creation, to do the work of Christmas not just on December 25, but each and every day of our lives. May we, this day and always, care for the Christ child, God who risks it all, by recommitting ourselves this morning to the work of Christmas, to find the lost, heal the broken, feed the hungry, release prisoners, bring peace to all, and to make music hum in the heart of God and all of God’s children.
I can’t help but wonder if Mary and Joseph felt something similarly when light broke that morning after their first child was born. Our crèche scenes and our paintings and sculptures of the Holy Family can shield us from the awesome sense of vulnerability that must have dawned on Jesus’ parents that morning: my God, we are responsible for this baby, the task is ours, and we are unmoored. Joseph and Mary were poor Jews living under Roman occupation, from a small village that held probably no more than 500 people. It’s a miracle that Mary survived her labor and delivery, as maternal death during childbirth was not uncommon in the ancient world. And then there’s the stark reality of infant mortality during this period: modern scholarship estimates that one in three children died in infancy in the time that Jesus was born. Even as she might be caressing her baby, Mary may have also been thinking, “Will it be too cold this winter? Will I be able to produce enough milk?” And Joseph might have wondered anxiously, “Will enough people want me to carve furniture or erect a shed? Will I be able to buy enough flour and oil for Mary to cook? Will I be able to escape being harassed and shaken down by Roman soldiers?” The Holy Family wasn’t especially protected from the fraught circumstances of life in the 1st century. They lived, like everyone else in Palestine, precarious lives. Every day was a day of risk, and so that morning, as day light poured into that mucky, manure-smelling barn, the question unvoiced but ever present in the minds of this young couple might have been something like mine in 2005: who left this child with us?
In the Gospel of John’s version we don’t actually get a birth narrative like we do in Luke. Instead, we get a prologue that describes Jesus in seemingly abstract terms: the Word, the Word with God, the Word as God. But John does tell us toward the end of that prologue that “the Word became flesh and lived among us.” Eugene Patterson’s version in The Message puts it this way: “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.” This is the extraordinary, unbelievable story of the Gospel, that God puts God’s very self at risk by moving into the neighborhood as a flesh and blood, fragile, vulnerable human being. God puts God’s self into the loving, caressing, trembling arms of a young Jewish teenager and her poor husband, this couple living such precarious lives, and it is this radical act of Emmanuel, God with us, God in the muck and danger of our world, God moving into the neighborhood, that moves the shepherds to wonder and to praise God in our Gospel lesson, and that moves John in his gospel to say that “we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.” Again, Peterson helps us discern the radical, risky act of God’s taking on human vulnerability: “We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, generous inside and out, true from start to finish.”
What God shows us this Christmas morning is that God’s power is in the simple of transformative act of generosity, of solidarity, with God’s creation, a creation that is always at risk and in danger. And God tells us through this fragile child that is God incarnate, God with us, God as us, “I will put myself in the same kind of risk that my creation is in.” God leaves God’s self with us, and while we might wonder at such divine wisdom, we can also marvel at this act: if God is willing to be with us in our human fragility then there is nothing and no place, NO PLACE, where God isn’t willing to be with us.
And this promise, God with us, always, gives Mary and Joseph and you and me the capacity, the energy, the responsibility to do the work of Christmas each and every day, even as morning breaks in and we hold the vulnerable Christ child in our arms and keep him alive one more day. This work of Christmas is best summed up by a poem with this very title, “The Work of Christmas,” by civil rights leader and theologian Howard Thurman:
When the song of the angels is stilled
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the Kings and Princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flocks,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost
To heal the broken
To feed the hungry
To release the prisoner
To rebuild the nations
To bring peace among brothers and sisters
To make music in the heart.
Sisters and brothers, who left this child with us? God left this child with us, and because God left God’s self with us, the promise is here, now, and eternal: God will never leave us. And because God will never leave us, we are inspired, called, and challenged to care for God’s creation, to do the work of Christmas not just on December 25, but each and every day of our lives. May we, this day and always, care for the Christ child, God who risks it all, by recommitting ourselves this morning to the work of Christmas, to find the lost, heal the broken, feed the hungry, release prisoners, bring peace to all, and to make music hum in the heart of God and all of God’s children.
Joseph's Vulnerability-A Sermon by the Rev. Jim Lee (Advent IVA)
Lectionary readings
Brené Brown, a professor at the University of Houston and a leading researcher on shame and vulnerability, tells the story of an encounter with a man in a yellow golf jacket. At a book signing, a couple came up to Brown to get four books of hers signed, and as the wife turned to leave, the man said that he wanted to stay and ask Brown a question. He expressed to her how much he agreed with Brown’s research findings on shame, and of the importance to acknowledge and move past shame, to reach out and share stories. But, he wondered, where were the stories of men? When Brown explained that she only studied women, he muttered, “Well, that's convenient.” Then he went on to tell his story: “We [men] have shame, we have deep shame, but when we reach out and tell our stories, we get the emotional [bleep] beat out of us. And before you say anything about those mean fathers and those coaches and those brothers and those bully friends, my wife and three daughters, the ones who you just signed the books for, they had rather see me die on top of my white horse than have to watch me fall off.” Then this man turned and walked away. “In that moment,” Brown recalls of that evening, “I realized that men have their own stories and that if we’re going to find our way out of shame, it will be together.”
It is 2013, almost 2014, and as a culture we have come so far. We’re not there yet, but we have learned so much from our feminist sisters to embrace and live out the simple premise that women’s lives, stories, and contributions are worth hearing, sharing, rewarding. We’re not there yet, but we have learned so much from our LGBT sisters and brothers to embrace the diversity of sexual and gender identity as gifts from God, and I am so thankful to be part of a church that lives out this ongoing prophetic call, that those at God’s table need not be made up simply of straight men, but of all people whom God has created in God’s image. In December 2013, there is much to marvel at, just how far we’ve come.
And yet, there is also something in this morning’s Gospel lesson that reminds me that even in our complex, sophisticated, cosmopolitan world of the twenty-first century, something still rings true of that man in the yellow golf jacket who cannot voice his stories of shame, whose wife and children cannot bear to hear his deep vulnerability borne of shame. Shame is a universal experience, to be sure, and as Brené Brown has uncovered, the triggers for shame differ at times for women and for men. For a woman, shame is a sticky spiderweb of conflicting, competing expectations, of who she should be, what she should be, and how she should be. Tell me if you’ve heard this before: Be perfect, but make it look natural. Respond to every person’s needs, your children, your spouse, your parents, your boss, your coworkers, your friends. A real woman can have it all. For a man, the primary trigger for shame is the threat that he might be perceived as, or might think of himself, as weak. To be seen as soft, fearful, wrong, defective, to be ridiculed or criticized, are all ways that tell men that they are weak and not worthy of the love of their family and friends, of their coworkers, their supervisor, or their workers. Only strong men are real men. Brown tells another story—and before I tell it, I want to warn you all that I will be using a homophobic epithet. I use it because it is part of the story, but let me pause and say that I and Brené Brown both unequivocally repudiate this kind of homophobic language and its verbal violence. Brown tells the story of a young man in one of her classes who relayed how as a child he loved art—drawing, painting. When his uncle came to visit and saw this child’s art plastered on the refrigerator, he said to the father, “So what? You’re raising a f**got artist now?” That day was the last day this young man picked up a pencil, crayon or paintbrush. That day, a part of this young man’s soul died, and what replaced that part of his heart was this scar of shame that he carried into his adulthood.
In the honor/shame culture of the 1st century, Joseph knew very well how devastating the shadow of shame could be, for him and for Mary. It is a testament to his character that he planned to dismiss Mary quietly. Joseph could have turned what would have been a mark of shame on his identity as a Jewish man—his wife is pregnant but not with him—into an opportunity to project that shame onto Mary, to publicly disgrace her so as to maintain or regain his own sense of honor and manhood. But he doesn’t. There’s already a quiet dignity in Joseph. But that’s not enough. God wants more, and so what does God do? God meets Joseph where Joseph is most vulnerable: in his dreams. And in Joseph’s dream, God tells Joseph that God has a different dream, not only for Joseph but through Joseph for the world. And what does God’s dream look like? It goes something like this: “Joseph, I know this is scary, but there’s more to life than simply living out the same social expectations that leave women where they are, that leave men where they are. There’s more to life than trying to hide your weakness, to push down your fear, to let shame win again, and to let shame ruin so many lives. I know this is scary, but there’s a different way to live, where you live with your vulnerability and uncertainty and messiness, where you embrace all of that, and see what new thing happens.”
So when he awakes from his dream, this dream in which God reveals God’s dream, Joseph does just that: he decides to live differently. He casts aside the social conventions of honor/shame, between men and women, he marries Mary and he names and cares for the baby Jesus. God invited Joseph to step off the deadly wheel of shame that imprisons men and women, and Joseph did, and opened himself to a much more vulnerable way of being, but also a way of being that began to bring God’s dream into the world. Because Joseph embraced vulnerability, he modeled for Jesus a way of being open to others. Because Joseph embraced vulnerability, he taught Jesus that the meek would inherit the earth, that God is on the side of the poor. Because Joseph embraced vulnerability, he showed Jesus that no man should ever raise a hand or stone against a woman, that lepers should be embraced and not avoided, that a poor widow dropping two pennies in the offering plate touched God’s heart far more than the regular pledger, and that a father waits longingly for his lost son to come home so that he can embrace his child who has been found. And because Joseph embraced vulnerability, he gave Jesus the courage to say while he was dying, hanging on that Roman cross, that evil imperial form of execution, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” Joseph awoke from his dream and gave up the pretense that real men needed to be strong and powerful and right and perfect, and instead opened himself to vulnerability. And when he did, he allowed God’s revolution to begin in the life and ministry of the child he named Jesus.
My sisters and brothers, this Advent season is about preparing ourselves for the God who comes to us as a helpless, vulnerable, poor child born in a stinky barn. This God asks us to strip away the stories that the world tells us we need to be, what we need to have, or else we should be ashamed of ourselves. This God asks you and me to give up the very stories that demand that we be real men or real women, so that we can open ourselves up to being authentic children of God. This God asks us to do something new. And when we do, when we awake from our dreams and begin to live out God’s dream, to be open, to be vulnerable, and to model this radical openness in our lives, then you and I will be ready to receive this child we call our savior, and to make Christmas the truly liberating event that it is: to turn the world upside down by daring to turn the human race into the human family.
Brené Brown, a professor at the University of Houston and a leading researcher on shame and vulnerability, tells the story of an encounter with a man in a yellow golf jacket. At a book signing, a couple came up to Brown to get four books of hers signed, and as the wife turned to leave, the man said that he wanted to stay and ask Brown a question. He expressed to her how much he agreed with Brown’s research findings on shame, and of the importance to acknowledge and move past shame, to reach out and share stories. But, he wondered, where were the stories of men? When Brown explained that she only studied women, he muttered, “Well, that's convenient.” Then he went on to tell his story: “We [men] have shame, we have deep shame, but when we reach out and tell our stories, we get the emotional [bleep] beat out of us. And before you say anything about those mean fathers and those coaches and those brothers and those bully friends, my wife and three daughters, the ones who you just signed the books for, they had rather see me die on top of my white horse than have to watch me fall off.” Then this man turned and walked away. “In that moment,” Brown recalls of that evening, “I realized that men have their own stories and that if we’re going to find our way out of shame, it will be together.”
It is 2013, almost 2014, and as a culture we have come so far. We’re not there yet, but we have learned so much from our feminist sisters to embrace and live out the simple premise that women’s lives, stories, and contributions are worth hearing, sharing, rewarding. We’re not there yet, but we have learned so much from our LGBT sisters and brothers to embrace the diversity of sexual and gender identity as gifts from God, and I am so thankful to be part of a church that lives out this ongoing prophetic call, that those at God’s table need not be made up simply of straight men, but of all people whom God has created in God’s image. In December 2013, there is much to marvel at, just how far we’ve come.
And yet, there is also something in this morning’s Gospel lesson that reminds me that even in our complex, sophisticated, cosmopolitan world of the twenty-first century, something still rings true of that man in the yellow golf jacket who cannot voice his stories of shame, whose wife and children cannot bear to hear his deep vulnerability borne of shame. Shame is a universal experience, to be sure, and as Brené Brown has uncovered, the triggers for shame differ at times for women and for men. For a woman, shame is a sticky spiderweb of conflicting, competing expectations, of who she should be, what she should be, and how she should be. Tell me if you’ve heard this before: Be perfect, but make it look natural. Respond to every person’s needs, your children, your spouse, your parents, your boss, your coworkers, your friends. A real woman can have it all. For a man, the primary trigger for shame is the threat that he might be perceived as, or might think of himself, as weak. To be seen as soft, fearful, wrong, defective, to be ridiculed or criticized, are all ways that tell men that they are weak and not worthy of the love of their family and friends, of their coworkers, their supervisor, or their workers. Only strong men are real men. Brown tells another story—and before I tell it, I want to warn you all that I will be using a homophobic epithet. I use it because it is part of the story, but let me pause and say that I and Brené Brown both unequivocally repudiate this kind of homophobic language and its verbal violence. Brown tells the story of a young man in one of her classes who relayed how as a child he loved art—drawing, painting. When his uncle came to visit and saw this child’s art plastered on the refrigerator, he said to the father, “So what? You’re raising a f**got artist now?” That day was the last day this young man picked up a pencil, crayon or paintbrush. That day, a part of this young man’s soul died, and what replaced that part of his heart was this scar of shame that he carried into his adulthood.
In the honor/shame culture of the 1st century, Joseph knew very well how devastating the shadow of shame could be, for him and for Mary. It is a testament to his character that he planned to dismiss Mary quietly. Joseph could have turned what would have been a mark of shame on his identity as a Jewish man—his wife is pregnant but not with him—into an opportunity to project that shame onto Mary, to publicly disgrace her so as to maintain or regain his own sense of honor and manhood. But he doesn’t. There’s already a quiet dignity in Joseph. But that’s not enough. God wants more, and so what does God do? God meets Joseph where Joseph is most vulnerable: in his dreams. And in Joseph’s dream, God tells Joseph that God has a different dream, not only for Joseph but through Joseph for the world. And what does God’s dream look like? It goes something like this: “Joseph, I know this is scary, but there’s more to life than simply living out the same social expectations that leave women where they are, that leave men where they are. There’s more to life than trying to hide your weakness, to push down your fear, to let shame win again, and to let shame ruin so many lives. I know this is scary, but there’s a different way to live, where you live with your vulnerability and uncertainty and messiness, where you embrace all of that, and see what new thing happens.”
So when he awakes from his dream, this dream in which God reveals God’s dream, Joseph does just that: he decides to live differently. He casts aside the social conventions of honor/shame, between men and women, he marries Mary and he names and cares for the baby Jesus. God invited Joseph to step off the deadly wheel of shame that imprisons men and women, and Joseph did, and opened himself to a much more vulnerable way of being, but also a way of being that began to bring God’s dream into the world. Because Joseph embraced vulnerability, he modeled for Jesus a way of being open to others. Because Joseph embraced vulnerability, he taught Jesus that the meek would inherit the earth, that God is on the side of the poor. Because Joseph embraced vulnerability, he showed Jesus that no man should ever raise a hand or stone against a woman, that lepers should be embraced and not avoided, that a poor widow dropping two pennies in the offering plate touched God’s heart far more than the regular pledger, and that a father waits longingly for his lost son to come home so that he can embrace his child who has been found. And because Joseph embraced vulnerability, he gave Jesus the courage to say while he was dying, hanging on that Roman cross, that evil imperial form of execution, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” Joseph awoke from his dream and gave up the pretense that real men needed to be strong and powerful and right and perfect, and instead opened himself to vulnerability. And when he did, he allowed God’s revolution to begin in the life and ministry of the child he named Jesus.
My sisters and brothers, this Advent season is about preparing ourselves for the God who comes to us as a helpless, vulnerable, poor child born in a stinky barn. This God asks us to strip away the stories that the world tells us we need to be, what we need to have, or else we should be ashamed of ourselves. This God asks you and me to give up the very stories that demand that we be real men or real women, so that we can open ourselves up to being authentic children of God. This God asks us to do something new. And when we do, when we awake from our dreams and begin to live out God’s dream, to be open, to be vulnerable, and to model this radical openness in our lives, then you and I will be ready to receive this child we call our savior, and to make Christmas the truly liberating event that it is: to turn the world upside down by daring to turn the human race into the human family.
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