Love finds a way. December 24/25, 2018 The Rev. David M. Stoddart

Christmas Eve/Christmas Day

What are the odds? What are the odds that the UVA men’s basketball team will win the NCAA tournament? Well, right now, the bookies in Las Vegas are saying that UVA has a 1 in 12 chance. Those may be good or bad odds, I suppose: it depends on your perspective. They are certainly better odds than, say, the odds of winning the Powerball lottery, which are about 1 in 292 million. But even those aren’t terrible odds compared to some things. For example, what are the odds that random chemical processes on the primordial Earth would somehow produce a single small protein consisting of 150 amino acids, the basic building block of life? Current science tells us that the odds of that happening were in 1 in 10 the 164th power. That means that the odds of a single correctly sequenced protein forming by chance were one in a million trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion. It was . . . unlikely.

But we live in a universe where unlikely things happen. Now, please stay with me for a minute: I’m going to get to Jesus. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was a French scientist and priest. He was a paleontologist who studied evolution, and became increasingly awed by what he learned. He was amazed that, after the Big Bang, all these particles didn’t just float away into infinite solitude. Instead, stuff formed. Quarks combined to form atoms; atoms combined to form molecules; clouds of gas and clumps of matter came together to form galaxies, stars, and planets. Increasingly large and complex molecules took shape, leading to organic molecules and the beginning of cellular life; plants and animals developed, coming together in ecosystems and forming intricate communities, including human civilization. Despite the law of entropy, matter keeps coming together in ever more complicated and incredible ways. It was Teilhard de Chardin who said that everything that rises must converge: it’s the law of the universe. And he had a name for that law, that fundamental power of attraction: he called it love, and believed it is hardwired into the the very nature of matter itself, into everything that exists. And he believed it was ultimately unstoppable. All of which makes perfect sense if, like him, we truly believe that God created the universe, and that God is love.

As I have prayed about this day, it’s the unstoppable power of love that keeps coming to my mind. Through all the vicissitudes of human history, through all the triumphs and all the horrors, love keeps emerging. That is certainly evident in the history of Israel. Through wars and exiles, through periods of bondage and strife, in the midst of bad kings and corrupt priests, love still kept coming, prophets and inspired people and miraculous moments still kept happening. I think of that as I imagine an unwed, teenage girl — a virgin, no less — stumbling to give birth to her baby in a dirty stable in an obscure town. Against all odds, love finds a way.

The birth of Jesus Christ, the Feast of the Incarnation, necessarily makes us rethink all of our notions of divine power. If we think God is almighty because God can do anything God likes and can smite anyone God dislikes, we need to think again. For sure, there are passages in Scripture which seem to imply such a view, but the Bible is an amazing, self-correcting book, and the story we celebrate tonight reminds us that God’s almighty power really is the power of love. It is not coercive or violent, even though we human beings have often projected that onto God. No, God is love, and so God’s power is the power of gentle, infinite perseverance. God is relentless and just won’t give up: love keeps coming and coming and coming, no matter what. It may seem quiet and weak and ineffective, and yet it is the strongest of forces. It is the great force at the heart of the universe. And we see it fully expressed in the life of Jesus, this peasant born to a poor mother, who has no formal education, possesses no wealth or social status, writes no books, and holds no office. He is executed as a common criminal at a young age, seemingly a total failure. In the few short years he has on this Earth, he just loves — and the sick are healed, the hungry are fed, the outcasts are included, the poor are blessed, and the sinful are forgiven. And when they kill him, he just rises to new life, and the world is changed. Against all odds, love finds a way. That’s what makes God almighty: God always finds a way.

We celebrate that love and that power tonight, but we would be missing the boat if we treated this occasion merely as a history lesson, an act of nostalgia. Because if love found a way for billions of years to create billions of galaxies, and if love found a way to be enfleshed in the person of Jesus Christ, then we can be certain that love didn’t just stop when the last book of the Bible was written: God’s love continues to find ways to express itself down to this very moment, and it will forever. In our reading from Titus, we hear that the Holy Spirit has been poured out on us. The very energy of God’s love at work in the universe is right now at work in our lives, all of our lives, without exception. It doesn’t matter whether we’ve been naughty or nice; it doesn’t matter how badly we’ve screwed up or how little we believe. God’s love is looking to find a way to reveal itself in your life and in mine. Not, as the letter to Titus assures us, because of any works of righteousness that we have done, but because God is love and that is what love does.

You want to worship Christ tonight? Let him love you. And if for any reason you think it is unlikely you can experience such love, if it seems impossible for you to know that love as you stress out at work or struggle through family crises or suffer from chronic illness or grieve the death of someone you loved with all your heart . . . well, think again. I think of a woman I knew earlier in my ministry, who showed up at our church broken, battling alcoholism and a terrible marriage. She didn’t think God could help her, and told me that repeatedly. Years later, after singing in the choir and sinking into the life of that parish community, she wrote me a simple letter. It said, “Before I came to this church, I did not believe Jesus is alive. Now I do.” I think of a senior member of this parish, a man who has gone to church his whole life, for decades, coming up to me after a Sunday Eucharist within the last twelve months with tears in his eyes and saying, “I never really knew God loved me until today.” God just never gives up — on any of us. The One who beat the odds by becoming human in Jesus is not fazed by any odds. There is something even bigger than a million trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion, and that something is the love of God Almighty. It is pulsing around us right now. It is flowing through us at this very moment. It never grows tired. It never gets discouraged. It will not be stopped. It will always find a way. Always. Thank God . . . Thank God!

Magnifying, rejoicing, waiting. December 23, 2018 The Rev. Kathleen M. Sturges

Luke 1:39-55

I still remember the moment.  I was four.  It was December and I was old enough to be totally in tune with all the excitement surrounding Christmas.  I knew that sometime soon I would be getting presents.  Presents, that perhaps, were in my house right at that moment.  And given that my parents were nowhere in sight it seemed like a perfect opportunity to investigate.  I began my search.  Quietly, I opened up closet doors and looked inside.  Then I tiptoed into parents’ room and spied under the bed.  Next I opened some cabinets searching every nook and cranny.   Until finally I peered behind a couch and saw a thin box slid between the back of the couch and the wall.   My heart began to race for I knew I found something.  And pulling it out into the light I saw what it was my gift! - a Dressy Bessy doll.  Very likely the reason I remember all of this so vividly is because of the intense feeling that rushed through me at that moment of discovery.  It wasn’t joy.  It wasn’t excitement.   It was crushing disappointment.  Not because I didn’t want Dressy Bessy, I did.  But because I had ruined the surprise - the wait was over and with it gone was the delight of anticipation.

Today on this fourth Sunday of in Advent our wait is almost over, but I trust no one will experience crushing over that.  In a little more than twenty four hours from now our Christmas Eve services will commence as we celebrate the coming of God in Christ into the world.  Our reading this morning reflects our being on the cusp of Jesus’ birth as we listen to part of Mary’s story.   Really we are jumping into the middle of her story. Mary’s life has just been completely disrupted.  The angel Gabriel has just appeared out of nowhere to announce that Mary will conceive and give birth to a son.  She will name Jesus and he will be God’s Messiah.  It’s a lot to take in.  And perhaps that is the reason why Gabriel mentions, somewhat as a postscript, that Mary’s aged and barren relative, Elizabeth, is now miraculously with child and in her sixth month - which means that Mary is not alone.

Seizing on this news, Mary sets out in haste to journey to Elizabeth’s house.  And when she arrives, the baby in Elizabeth’s womb (whom we know to be John the Baptist) leaps for joy.  Filled with the Holy Spirit, Elizabeth exclaims, “Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb.  And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes for me?”   Mary responds with her own proclamation, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.…”  She goes on to extol the mercies of God who has reversed the world’s status quo - the proud have been scattered, the lowly lifted, the hungry filled, and the rich sent empty away.  Yet as beautiful as Mary’s song of praise is all she needs to do is walk outside to see that, sadly, the world falls far short of this vision of justice, harmony, and fullness.

Doesn’t that ring true for us as well?  Tomorrow as we celebrate the good news of Jesus’ birth with songs of peace, joy, and love we know that strife, sadness, and hatred still have mighty strongholds in our world.  Indeed, it is an odd and sometimes confusing land that we, with Mary, Elizabeth, and all the faithful, inhabit.  We  rejoice in the wondrous things that God has done while at the same time wait for the promises of God to be fully expressed.  We proclaim that God’s Kingdom has come while recognizing that it is not totally here yet.  We know that God with us as we believe that God is also coming to us in new and fresh ways  Our life of faith is one that is lived in the tension and the mystery of this already-and-not-yet world.  

Mary and Elizabeth know well how to live in this place of paradox that embraces both the rejoicing in what is and the waiting for what surely will be.  They do this, with God’s help, by looking beyond the circumstances that present right in front of them.  When Mary visits Elizabeth early on in her pregnancy her condition is not obvious.  Yet Elizabeth is able to recognize not just that Mary is with child, but that Christ resides within her.  Elizabeth sees Christ in the other.  And Mary magnifies the Lord.  Now when something is magnified the thing itself does not become bigger, but magnification does alter one’s perception, it enhances the ability to see.  Mary magnifies God by her words and deeds.  She helps us to better see and experience God’s presence in our world.  And we, too, are called and gifted by the Spirit to do the same - to recognize Christ and magnify God - all the while rejoicing as we wait.   

Beyond the initial greeting, we are given no details about Mary’s visit with Elizabeth except for one thing, she stayed for three months.  And that’s an important part of the story because it means that neither woman was alone in her waiting for the promises of God to unfold.  Faith never flourishes in isolation.  We need one another.  During Advent, and all the seasons of our lives, we are to wait for the fulfilling of God’s promises together, in community.  For it is in community that we hold each other up when one of us is in need.  In community we encourage one another, we pray for one another, we serve one another, we love one another.  And sometimes when there’s no apparent fix to a situation, we sit in the dark with one another, waiting together for God’s light to shine.   For it will shine.

Jesus is the light of the world and with his coming we know that love can, does, and will prevail in all times, in all places, in all relationships, in all circumstances.  That is why we rejoice.  And that is why the wait is worth it.  It only took that one time finding of my present to learn the lesson that part of the joy of Christmas is actually found in the wait.   As we celebrate the great gift of God with us this Christmas may we also discover the joy in the wait.  For we can rest in faith and trust that in God’s time, all of God’s promises will surely be fulfilled.       

The invitation. December 16, 2018 The Rev. David M. Stoddart

Philippians 4:4-7

As I begin this homily, I have two questions I want to ask you. First, when was the last time you felt joy? We might vary a bit on how we define that word, but I think all of us have some innate, visceral sense of what joy is. So, when did you last feel joyful? Second, are you at peace right now? The wonderful Hebrew word for peace, shalom, means “complete” and “whole.” Do you feel complete and whole today? Are you at peace?

Paul writes in our epistle this morning: Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. This is such a great passage from Philippians, and it emphasizes both joy and peace, two words we hear a lot this time of year. We’ll see them on Christmas cards, holiday decorations, and ornaments on the tree. We’ll hear them in readings at church and sing them in hymns and carols. But many people will not always feel joyful and peaceful, and many will find that any moments of joy and peace seem fleeting at best. And clearly just throwing the words around does not suffice: we could sing “Joy to the World” over and over again or hear how the angels proclaimed “Peace on earth, goodwill towards all” a hundred times, and still not experience the joy and peace we are supposed to be experiencing because, well, it’s December. So if you do not feel fully at peace or if you cannot make yourself be joyful, then this reading from Philippians is for you. I find that it unlocks the truth about joy and peace, and opens me up to experience them ever more fully.

Philippians is an awesome letter, and notable for many reason. Philippi was the home of the very first church on European soil. It was founded by the apostle Paul and a woman, Lydia, who was a leader in that community. The Philippians clearly occupied a special place in Paul’s heart, and he wrote to them with obvious love: this is by far Paul’s happiest letter. But in the midst of all the positive energy this epistle radiates, it’s easy to forget that when Paul wrote it, he was in prison, and his life was in extreme jeopardy. He says in the first chapter that he is not sure he is going to get out alive. So when he writes about joy and peace, he is not being glib or superficial. He’s not just saying, “Don’t worry! Smile and be happy!” He is in touch with something essential and life-giving, and we need to be in touch with it, too.

Paul understands that joy and peace are not dependent on circumstances, nor are they simply feelings that come and go, emotions we either have or don’t have. Joy and peace do not just happen to us when the stars align and everything is great. No. They are the direct result of living close to God. The lynchpin of this passage is “The Lord is near.” It’s when people realize how near God actually is that everything changes. Circumstances may not get any easier, and we may still feel real pain and sadness. But joy and peace will be the foundation that undergirds our existence. In Galatians, Paul says that they are fruits of the Spirit, they are what happen when we realize that the Spirit of God lives within us and flows through us. They are the work of God in our lives, gifts that are continuously given. This is why Paul writes, Rejoice in the Lord; this is why he talks about the peace of God. Put simply, joy and peace are not primarily emotional: they are primarily relational. And they are not feelings we passively have: they are experiences we actively live . . . when we live close to God.

And the Gospel conveys the same message. John the Baptist obviously did not graduate from charm school, and he lacks Paul’s eloquence, but he makes the same point. God is coming into the world. The Lord is near: live accordingly. “Repentance” doesn’t mean “feel bad about your sins”: it means “change your mind.” If the God of love is close, we don’t have to cling to our possessions out of fear or selfishness: we are free to share what we have with others. If the Holy One is coming into the world, then we don’t need to abuse power or use violence to further our own interests: we are free to live differently. John does not talk about joy and peace, but he doesn’t have to: if we live and act like the Lord is near, then joy and peace will follow naturally.

God has come into the world in the person of Jesus Christ. Yes, we look forward to the final fulfillment of all things, when God’s reign of love will be fully established. But in the meantime, the Spirit of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit of God, is coming into the world every single moment. The Lord is near. If we want truly to observe Advent, then we will live each day like the Lord is near. We don’t want to be people who eat and drink Jesus on Sunday, and then live the rest of the week as if Christ were somewhere beyond the planet Jupiter. So rather than trying to conjure up seasonal feelings, think about where you are living as if Christ were not close. How would your life change if you started living as though Christ were very close — at work, or as you deal with illness, or as you grieve the loss of someone you love, or wherever you are currently living as though God were absent? That is the invitation given today and every day of our lives.

And we can be sure: the Lord is near, no matter what. Etty Hillesum was a Dutch woman who, along with her whole family, was murdered at Auschwitz. She kept a diary, and even as she observed the horrors around her and anticipated her own death, she lived with a strong sense of God’s near presence. Not long before they killed her, she wrote: “Truly my life is one long hearkening unto myself and unto others, unto God. And if I say I hearken, it is really God who hearkens inside me. The most essential and the deepest in me hearkening unto the most essential and the deepest in the other. God to God.” The nearness of God allowed her to endure even the worst atrocities. She wrote, “The realms of the soul and the spirit are so spacious and unending that this little bit of physical discomfort and suffering doesn’t really matter all that much. I do not feel I have been robbed of my freedom; essentially no one can do me any harm at all.” That kind of peace is unshakeable; that kind of joy goes deeper than any suffering. Etty Hillesum experienced it in a Nazi concentration camp. Paul experienced it in prison. We can experience it in any and all circumstances, because it’s true: the Lord is near. Live it . . . and rejoice . . . and be at peace.

God is always coming to us. December 2, 2018 The Rev. David M. Stoddart

Luke 21:25-36

So Jesus came to me the other day on the John Warner Parkway, of all places. It was a crazy day: my schedule was too full, I was already behind and running late, and I hit heavy traffic. And I was not handling it well: I was feeling a lot of stress, but as I drove by a dead deer on the side of the road, without even thinking about it, I began to pray the Jesus prayer. It’s a simple prayer — “Lord Jesus, have mercy” — and I pray it a lot. But on that day it just happened, unbidden, and all of the sudden it was like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. My whole body relaxed, my breathing deepened and slowed down, and I felt so much better — I mean, literally, in a moment. Externally, nothing had changed: the traffic was still heavy, I was still late, and the deer was still dead. But Jesus came anyway, and that’s the point.

I love Advent. I love the sense of waiting and expectation that fills this season. I love the music, the blue vestments, the wreath (when it doesn’t fall down) and that sense of entering into an ancient tradition which reminds us we are part of something so much greater than ourselves. But I also have some conflicted feelings about Advent. My biggest problem is that it always seems to come right before Christmas — perhaps you’ve noticed this. It’s a crazy time of year, terribly busy, and loaded with stuff. And often I find myself fantasizing about doing Advent without all the stuff. If only I didn’t have to worry about the annual giving campaign and the church budget, if only there weren’t so many concerts and open houses and parties and meetings and seasonal activities to attend, if only I didn’t have to plan Christmas liturgies and write a Christmas sermon and prepare for the Vestry retreat in January, THEN I could really sink into this season and truly do Advent. And that fantasy actually predates my ordination: it goes back decades. If only I didn’t have to worry about college applications, if only I didn’t have to take exams and write term papers, if only I didn’t have to do all the stuff you have to do in December, then, THEN, I could enjoy the perfect Advent.

It’s a lovely fantasy, but it’s just that: a fantasy. And listening to many of you, I know that I am not alone in having such a fantasy. But whether we are talking about Advent in particular or life in general, we can never just eliminate all activities and make everything around us fall into place and everyone around us behave just right so that we can have the perfect God moment. For one thing, we don’t have that kind of control. And the older we get, the more we realize how little control we actually have. Life happens: unexpected crises come up, people get sick, circumstances change, we are pushed and pulled in ways we did not anticipate or plan for. If everything around us had to be perfect for us to encounter the living Christ, then it is safe to say we would never encounter him at all.

So thank God for this strange and disturbing Gospel passage today, because it reminds us that Jesus does not come into a perfect world. Luke writes about signs in the heavens, tumult in the seas, distress among the nations, people filled with fear and foreboding. Is Jesus referring to the end of time? Or the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, which would take place in the year 70? Or the turmoil which can be found in the world at any time and in any generation — say, like, right now? The answer is probably yes to all of them. Jesus often speaks on many different levels at once. But in all the scenarios he could be talking about, the central point remains the same: the Son of Man (as Jesus often refers to himself) does not come into a perfect world where everyone is behaving well and having only positive thoughts, a world where nothing bad ever happens and no one ever suffers. No: Christ always comes into the real world, an often broken and distressed place where flawed people live and struggle. And that’s exactly what we need: to have Christ come into our world just the way it is and into our lives just the way we are.

It is traditional at the start of Advent for preachers to admonish their congregations to slow down, make time for prayer and reflection, and not be seduced by the busyness of this season: you don’t have to send out 300 Christmas cards; you don’t have to buy 1,001 presents for everyone you know. And that is certainly good advice and I would urge anyone to heed it. But the real Advent challenge is not external activity: it’s internal disposition. We cannot create a perfect environment around ourselves — we’ll go nuts if we try — but we can be more open and expectant within ourselves. The great words of Advent are verbs like “watch,” “stay awake,” and “expect.” The message of the season is that Jesus is Emmanuel, God-with-us: God is always coming to us. Always. We don’t have to be saints or perfect people. We don’t have to spend eight hours a day in prayer. We don’t have to have stress-free lives with nothing going on. The Good News is that God loves us as we are and comes to us as we are.

So any practice which gently reminds us of that as we go through our busy days is a good practice. Saying simple prayers like the Jesus Prayer, or repeating short passages of Scripture like “Abide in me and I in you” can certainly be beneficial. But there is no one right way to do this: people should feel free to experiment and see what actually helps them to be more watchful and expectant. But Advent is not first and foremost a method: it’s a frame of mind, an openness of spirit, a willingness to trust that God comes into my life just because God loves me. It wouldn’t be Good News otherwise.

I said at the beginning of this sermon that Jesus came to me as I drove on the parkway. But, of course, that is not exactly the case. Christ was with me all along: I just woke up and remembered it, which filled me with renewed peace and strength. I wish many such wakeful moments for each one of you in the next few weeks. You don’t have to make them happen: please just find ways to remind yourself that Christ is coming to you all the time — and wants you to know it.