Infinite and unconditional. Christmas 2022. The Rev. David M. Stoddart

 

Luke 2:1-20

In 2006, a young Englishman named David Ditchfield died. It was a freak accident: while saying good-bye to a friend on a railway platform when his coat got caught in a closing door and he was pulled under a moving train. First responders were actually able to get him to the hospital alive, but they lost him in the ER. Surprisingly, however, even miraculously, a team of doctors and nurses managed after some time to revive him. The thing is, the person they restored to life was not the same person who had died. In those long minutes of death or near death or whatever we want to call it, David Ditchfield had an amazing experience which forever changed him. Let me read just a brief passage from the account he later wrote about it. He says:

Now I see it, and in all my life, I never dreamt I would see such a beautiful sight with my own eyes. A swirling, three-dimensional tunnel of radiant light, with a glowing luminosity and intensity that is blindingly brilliant, and yet I can look straight into it. . . . Towards the center, flames of yellow become flames of cream, then transform themselves into white light. And at the very center of this radiant tunnel is the purity of white light itself.

 Perfection.

 In the presence of this luminous and wondrous Light, I become aware of every single cell of my body as they begin to vibrate with its love. And I feel more alive than I have ever done so before, because this is the Light of all Light. The Light of pure, unconditional Love.

 “I become aware of every single cell of my body as they begin to vibrate with its love.” I don’t know what kind of body he is inhabiting when he has this experience, but I am moved by the sheer physicality of what happens. His body trembles in the presence of complete and unconditional love. And, you know, I imagine many of us here have felt something like that. When we fall in love, for example, our faces can blush and our bodies can tingle when we are with our beloved. And it’s not just a sexual or romantic phenomenon. Parents can physically ache to hold their children; friends can yearn to hug those they feel closest to. There are moments when our whole being really can vibrate with love.

 And yes, that can happen when we feel close to God. Many saints and mystics, and many ordinary people down through the centuries have experienced this, have experienced moments of ecstasy and delight when their souls and bodies thrilled in the presence of the divine. But stories of such moments can seem one-sided: they describe how the human person feels. But what does that look like from God’s perspective? Is God indifferent or somehow above it all? Does God feel anything? We can only resort to metaphor when speaking of God, of course, but prophets like Isaiah and Hosea describe a God who passionately longs for us. We get a glimpse of that in our Christmas Gospel, when the angels praise God and proclaim peace among those whom he favors — and he favors all of us. That language of favoring, however, doesn’t go far enough for John’s Gospel, which says For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten son. Years ago, as a young man, I subscribed to the idea of the Incarnation as a kind of “Plan B,” a necessary rescue effort God undertakes after God’s original plan fails and humans fall into sin. God would do whatever is necessary, even to the point of becoming human, to save us. But I have long since stopped thinking that way. Instead I agree with all those in our tradition who have believed that the Incarnation was bound to happen no matter what, that God would join us in the flesh even if we had never sinned. Why? Because that’s what lovers do: they get as close as they possibly can to the beloved. The Incarnation of God in Jesus Christ is not just a tale of God fixing a problem, not merely an account of heroic self-sacrifice on God’s part. It’s a love story. In the Old Testament, the Song of Solomon begins with that great verse: Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth. Dear people, tonight, in the birth of Jesus, God kisses us on the mouth.

 Our bodies may not be vibrating with love for God right now, but that’s okay. The crucial thing is that God’s being is radiating with love for each one of us. And Jesus shows us the nature of that love. Christ doesn’t hold his nose and reluctantly associate with us as he tries to avert his eyes from our many sins and failings. No, he embraces us fully as we are. As David Ditchfield and countless others have discovered, God’s love is infinite and it is unconditional. God loves us with all our petty thoughts and hurtful actions, with all our vanity, selfishness, and greed, with all failures and addictions. God sees everything about us — and adores us: we are precious to her. I can stand up here and say that with full assurance because the Bible teaches it, because so many human beings have experienced it, and because I have felt it in my own life in ways that have made my body tingle and my spirit sing.

 But of course we can’t make ourselves feel any certain way, nor should we try. What we can do is consent to God’s love, to deliberately open ourselves up to that reality. And that can be as simple as saying, “God, I choose to trust that you love me as I am. Help me to experience your love.” The life of faith inevitably leads us to change and grow, and calls us to become ever more like Christ. But everything, everything, depends on that crucial first step, which is accepting the fact that God happily meets us where we are and loves us completely as we are. The beauty of this liturgy, the music, the decorations, the story of the Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, the angels, and the Christ child, all of it, is there to help us let down our guard and lower our defenses and allow ourselves to be vulnerable enough to see the truth revealed in the birth of Jesus: like any lover, God desires to be as close as possible to the beloved, and we — you and I, in all our messy, embodied humanity — are God’s beloved. And, more than anything, God longs for us to know that.

 

 

 

 

The Messiah is among us. December 18, 2022. The Rev. Kathleen M. Sturges

 Matthew 1:18-25

We are just a week away from celebrating Christmas so it’s fitting that on this 4th Sunday in Advent we hear the account of Jesus’s birth from the perspective of Matthew’s gospel. And so our reading begins, “Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way.” However I always laugh because what follows is such a stereotypical male perspective on birth - as in there’s really nothing about the actual birth and the woman who did all the work laboring. Rather Matthew’s focus is on the man in the story and how the circumstances surrounding Jesus’ birth impacted him. Which, don’t get me wrong, is a very important story to tell, it’s just the lead in to the story that I find rather funny.

So as Matthew explains, Joseph is engaged to a woman named Mary, but before the marriage is consummated he discovers that Mary is pregnant. That's a big problem because he knows that the child is not his. And this puts Joseph in quite a bind because he’s a righteous man - someone who follows the rules - and in this situation the rules tell him that Mary should be exposed as being unfaithful and that she, along with her unborn child, should be stoned to death.

Interestingly, though, Joseph opts to not follow the letter of the Jewish law, but the spirit of God’s law - in the sense that he privileges compassion over rules. He is a righteous man in the best sense of the word. So he hatches a plan in hopes of sparing Mary as much grief as possible while extricating himself from this messy situation. He will quietly dismiss her and break all ties. But, thankfully, before he follows through with his plan he does a very wise thing and he sleeps on it. And that is when an angel of the Lord comes to him in a dream and gives him a new plan. A plan that begins with, “Do not be afraid…” and then follows with directions to take Mary as his wife, accept the child as his own, and give him the name of Jesus. Then we hear that upon waking, Joseph does exactly that.

It sounds so easy, but I doubt that that was the case because in order for Joseph to live into this new plan, this new, unexpected dream he had received from God it required of him to let go of his own. And that is never easy. Whatever dreams Joseph had for his own life, which was probably along the lines of marrying a nice Jewish girl, having children with her, and living a quiet life together, he had to abandon all that in order to live into God’s dream for him, and really, for the world. Which is not just Joseph’s story, but our own. Because life rarely goes as planned. Things are always bound to happen that are beyond our control. And although we may not be visited by an angel in our dreams telling us exactly what to do when the unexpected occurs those unplanned, uncharted paths in life that sometimes we are forced to take have the power to open us up in new ways to the dream that God has for each one of us - the dream that we might know God’s love more fully in our lives and let that love generously flow into the world. For no matter the circumstances, the struggles, or just the plain ordinariness of life, God is with us in all of it.

Ultimately, that’s the message that Matthew’s gospel wants to communicate. Which explains why the writer doesn’t care so much about the actual details of Jesus’ birth, but rather what that birth means and how it can transform our lives. For in addition to giving Joseph a new plan, the angel explains that this child will fulfill the long awaited prophecy of Emmanuel, God is with us. Meaning that whether or not our life follows a certain plan or fulfills a particular dream we are never lost, never abandoned, never without hope. We hear this good news proclaimed at the very beginning of Jesus’ life here in chapter one in the gospel of Matthew and then if turn to the final verse of the last chapter you will also find it there. The resurrected Jesus’ last words to us are, “And remember, I am with you always to the end of the age.” This promise, that God is with us, is a truth that not only frames Matthew’s gospel, but Joseph’s life and ours as well.

Perhaps you’ve heard the story about a wise abbot of a monastery who was the friend of an equally wise rabbi. This was in the old country, long ago, when times were always hard, but just then they were even worse. The abbot’s community was dwindling, and the faith life of his monks was fearful, weak and anxious. So one day he went to his friend and wept. His friend, the Rabbi, comforted him, and said “there is something you need to know, my brother. We have long known in the Jewish community that the Messiah is among you.”

"What,” exclaimed the abbot, “the Messiah is among us? How can this be?” But the Rabbi insisted that it was so, and the abbot went back home wondering and praying, comforted and excited. Upon returning to the monastery, the abbot started to wonder about his fellow monks as he passed them by in the halls. Then sitting in the chapel he would hear a voice and look intently at a face and quietly ask himself, “Is he the One?” The abbot had always been kind, but now he began to treat all of his brothers with profound kindness and awe, ever deeper respect, even reverence. Soon everyone noticed. And one of the other brothers came to him and asked him what had happened.

After some coaxing, the abbot told him what the rabbi had said and news spread: The Messiah is among us. Soon all the monks were looking at his brothers differently, with deeper respect and wondering. The monastery began to flourish in love, devotion, and grace. And they still say that if you stumble across this place where there is life and hope and kindness and graciousness, that the secret is the same: The Messiah is among us.

As you celebrate Christmas this year, take care to remember that the Messiah is among you. If you are waiting for perfection, Christmas is going to be a lonely and frustrating time. If you are looking for some future time, the wonders of this moment will pass you by. If you are expecting salvation outside yourself, you might just miss God’s Holy Spirit that dwells within. And if you hold your loved ones to impossible standards you likely will not recognize the Messiah who is sitting right there next to you. For the Messiah is among you and this is how the birth of Jesus takes place just like Matthew tells us - not just one time long ago or even once a year but God is with us every single day of our lives.

What do we expect of Jesus? December 11, 2022. The Rev. David M. Stoddart

Matthew 11:2-11

Reality does not always meet our expectations. We all know that, of course, but it can still be difficult when what we expect is not what we get. My wife, Lori Ann, for example, expected that after being fully vaccinated and boosted and having had COVID just three months ago that she would not be hit by it again any time soon. But despite all that, lo and behold, she has COVID again. I do not: I am testing negative and feeling fine, but I’m wearing a mask today and abstaining from up-close and personal greetings out of an abundance of caution. And I’m thinking a lot about that tension between expectation and reality.

 It’s the central tension in our Gospel today. Referring to John the Baptist, Jesus asks the crowds: What did you expect when you went out into the wilderness to see John? Some weak and timid person, dressed in fine robes? If that’s what they were looking for, they were disappointed. Did they expect to see a prophet? If so, they got more than they bargained for. They found not just a prophet but the forerunner of the Messiah, a fiery and formidable presence who pronounced judgment on the rulers of his day and confronted the powers-that-be so strongly that they had to lock him up in prison.

 But it’s not the expectation of the crowd that moves me today: it’s the expectation that John himself has of Jesus. Today’s reading comes from Matthew, and in Matthew’s account, John knows about Jesus even before he baptizes him. Somehow John knows that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, and acknowledges that before submerging him into the waters of the Jordan River: In fact, at first he refuses to baptize Jesus, saying I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me? (Matt. 3:14) And after baptizing him because Jesus insisted, John is there when the heavens are opened and the Spirit of God descends upon Jesus like a dove and a voice from heaven declares, This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased (Matt. 3:17).

 So John gets who Jesus is and is fully on board, right? Well, maybe not. In this reading, he is in prison and will soon be executed. He’s devoted his life to serving God and preparing the way for God’s Messiah. He believed Jesus is the One when he baptized him. But John, too, struggles with the tension between expectation and reality. He expected Jesus to be the kind of Messiah John spoke about in our Gospel reading last week, a fierce figure with a winnowing fork in his hand, separating the wheat from the chaff and burning the chaff with unquenchable fire. John may have expected someone more like himself, someone who would condemn the corrupt powers of this world and usher in a new age with force and with fire. And if so, he was not alone. Certainly many Jews were hoping for a mighty Messiah who would, at the very least, drive out the Romans and restore the kingdom of Israel and reign on the throne of David. Expectations were high.

 But Jesus did not meet those expectations. Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. Instead of a hero, he’s a healer. Instead of a soldier, he’s a savior. So different is Jesus from what people expected that even John the Baptist questions him: Are you really the one? Or should we wait for someone else?

 Many people felt disappointed in Jesus back then, and Jesus knew it, which is why he says today, Blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me. But I’m not concerned about people back then: I’m concerned about us right now. What do we expect of Jesus? And how will we react if Jesus does not meet our expectations? Do we, for example, expect that if we believe that Jesus is God’s Son and go to church that God will bless us with wealth and success? Certainly there are plenty of people preaching the so-called “prosperity Gospel” who believe that. And, I suspect, there are plenty of people who did believe that and now feel disappointed and disillusioned. Do we expect that if we believe in Christ that our lives will be easy and free from illness, struggle, or heartache? Well, if you believe that, let me know how it’s working for you. I imagine it’s not.

 On this third Sunday in Advent, the season of expectation, Jesus reminds us of what we can expect if we trust in him. Based on what he says today, and what he proclaims throughout the Gospels, I think that we can expect this: if we put our faith in Christ, then through Christ God will touch the hurting and broken parts of our lives and our world with love and mercy, a love and mercy that will make us whole, even beyond death and forever.

 Having the right expectation is critical, because we will look for Christ where we expect to find him. Jesus, for example, forgives sins and sets us free from the power of guilt. If we expect that, then we will confess our sins and look for that forgiveness and all the renewed life and hope that comes with it. I don’t know about you, but I count on that forgiveness. So, too, Christ gives us strength in our weakness. If we expect that, then we will honestly acknowledge our weaknesses and limitations and look for him to help us. I for one could not get through my days if that were not the case. Throughout the Gospels, those who are humble in heart and poor in spirit are the ones who trust in Jesus and find God. If we  expect that to be true, then we will practice being humble in heart and poor in spirit. In other words, we will practice being open to God because we know how much we need God. I often fail to do that, but when I get back on track and renew that practice, Christ is always there. And I have found this to be true as well: the more we experience God’s love and mercy, the more we expect that God will not only pour out that love and mercy on us but use us to pour out that love and mercy on others, a wondrous and joyful gift. If we expect these things, if in short, we expect Jesus to be our Savior, then we may be challenged at times, we may frequently be surprised, but we won’t be disappointed. We know who we’re looking for, and we know what he’s about.

Through love alone. December 4, 2022. The Rev. David M. Stoddart

 Isaiah 11:1-10

The wolf shall live with the lamb,

the leopard shall lie down with the kid,

the calf and the lion and the fatling together,

and a little child shall lead them. . . .

They will not hurt or destroy 

On all my holy mountain.

Those words have captured the imagination of people for almost 3,000 years. They emerged from the religious experience of ancient Israel, and they were expressed by one of the greatest pf all Jewish prophets, Isaiah. And hundreds of years after they were first spoken, those words found renewed meaning and energy in the life and witness of Jesus of Nazareth, another Jewish man. And I say that deliberately: Jesus was born as a Jew; he lived as a Jew; he died as a Jew. I feel the need to emphasize that this morning because, as we all know, disturbingly, anti-semitism in this country is on the rise. Recently a number of public figures have made vile statements disparaging the Jewish people, and hate crimes against Jews across the nation are increasing. That is an awful trend, and the church needs to offer clear testimony here: that kind of thinking and behavior is repugnant. Any bigotry directed at people because of their religion, their race, their ethnicity, their gender identity, or their sexual orientation is deplorable and morally wrong. And it’s always wrong:  it’s wrong when it’s done by  conservatives and it’s wrong when it’s done by liberals. And it is especially abhorrent when it’s done by people who claim to be Christians, because Christians should know better. That kind of prejudice goes completely against the person Jesus is and the Gospel Jesus proclaims. 

Sadly, Christian anti-semitism is not new. Too many times over the centuries Christians have been guilty of hateful speech, unjust acts, and outright atrocities against the Jewish people. It would take many hours to relate that dismal history, but ultimately it’s not just terrible, it’s nonsensical. As our readings today indicate, as our worship invariably demonstrates, we are the fruit of ancient Israel. Our roots as a church are deeply Jewish. We worship a Jewish Savior . . . which makes it all the more compelling and necessary that we denounce anti-semitic bigotry and ignorance. 

I have to say that, but that is not actually what I want to focus on today. As followers of Jesus Christ, we need to stand against evil certainly, but our primary calling is not negative but positive: not just to stand against what’s wrong, but to stand for what’s right, to stand for the vision of God and humanity that Jesus proclaims. And to do that, let’s look again at that reading from Isaiah. Two things about it really leap out at me. The first is how inclusive it is. This offspring of Jesse the prophet talks about, whom the church understands to be Jesus, will care for all persons, including the meek, the poor, and the powerless. And just as Isaiah envisions all sorts of different creatures living in harmony on God’s holy mountain, so too he looks to the time when all sorts of different nations and peoples will also live in harmony. The root of Jesse will stand as a signal to all the peoples of the earth, he says. Isaiah elaborates on this later on in chapter 25 when he says, On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines. There is no sense at all here that there will just be one people, one nation, or one religion; no sense that everyone will either become Jewish or perish. The earth will be full not only of circumcised Jews or only of baptized Christians. N0, the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the seas. If anything, Isaiah prophesies a time when religious differences will not matter, a time when humans will encounter the truth and reality of God directly. And that fully accords with the teachings of Jesus, who celebrates faith wherever he finds it, including among the gentiles, and who loves and welcomes everyone. The biblical ideal we stand for is not uniformity, but unity, a unity in diversity that is grounded in love. And in that vision, there is just no place for denigrating or excluding anyone.

The second thing that really strikes me is that this unity can never be imposed or established through force. Isaiah’s vision does not look to a great king or a mighty warrior for its fulfillment. Rather he says a little child shall lead them. It’s a vision that leaves no room for violence or coercion: they will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain. And Jesus himself lives this: he comes to us as a child, and when he grows up he never forces faith on anyone. He would literally rather die than resort to violence or oppression. The only power he exercises is the power of love. This idea that some of our fellow believers have that we should somehow establish an exclusively “Christian state” or forcefully impose Christianity on others against their will is unbiblical and directly opposes the teaching and the example of Christ. The truth we stand for is that God’s kingdom will ultimately be ushered in through love and through love alone.

Advent is the season where we remind ourselves that we are waiting for the coming of that kingdom. Only God can finally bring it to pass, but until God does, we do not wait passively. We hope for it, we pray for it, and to the degree that we can, we work for it. And certainly we are called to be signs of that kingdom, to be yeast in the loaf, salt of the earth, and light for the world, to use Jesus’ words. And when it comes to confronting anti-semitism, racism, and other forms of hatred, it really matters that our lives reflect the values of Christ and point to God’s kingdom. That includes acknowledging and confessing any prejudices we might have, and asking for forgiveness and grace to change. It means refusing to participate in hateful speech of any kind. And it demands that we practice being loving and inclusive. At the very least, we can look at people in our own lives who are different than we are and make a point of treating them with kindness and respect. There are some terrible currents moving in our society and no one of us can control that. But each one of us can do our part, in our thoughts, our words, and our actions, to illustrate, to manifest to the world, what we are looking for when we pray, “your kingdom come” — and in doing so, bring that wondrous vision of Isaiah at least a little closer to fulfillment.