Loss and Hope (Midweek)

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Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

December 30, 2015

Loss and Hope

At year’s end, we look backward and forward; memory and expectation are mixed.    At one extreme, we might feel regret for the past year and fear for the coming one; at the other, our hearts might be filled with gratitude and hopeful anticipation.   But like much of life, most of us feel somewhere in between.

We have had several deaths in the parish family recently, especially adult children of parishioners.  Grief is closely related to regret and fear, but this need not be so.  In thinking about bereavement and grief, I was reminded of a wonderful poem by John O’Donahue. 

Though we need to weep your loss,
you dwell in that safe place in our hearts,
where no storm or might or pain can reach you.
Your love was like the dawn
brightening over our lives
awakening beneath the dark
a further adventure of colour.
The sound of your voice
found for us
a new music
that brightened everything.
Whatever you enfolded in your gaze
quickened in the joy of its being;
you placed smiles like flowers
on the altar of the heart.
Your mind always sparkled
with wonder at things.
Though your days here were brief,
your spirit was live, awake, complete.
We look towards each other no longer
from the old distance of our names;
now you dwell inside the rhythm of breath,
as close to us as we are to ourselves.
Though we cannot see you with outward eyes,
We know our soul's gaze is upon your face,
Smiling back at us from within everything
To which we bring our best refinement.
Let us not look for you only in memory,
where we would grow lonely without you.
You would want us to find you in presence,
beside us when beauty brightens,
when kindness glows
and music echoes eternal tones.
When orchids brighten the earth,
darkest winter has turned to spring;
may this dark grief flower with hope
in every heart that loves you.
May you continue to inspire us:
to enter each day with a generous heart.
to serve the call of courage and love
until we see your beautiful face again
in that land where there is no more separation,
Where all tears will be wiped from our mind,
and where we will never lose you again.

Grace and peace, and joy for the coming year. 

Fr. Tony+

The Pattern (Christmas 1 ABC)

 

The Pattern  
John 1:1-18
Homily delivered First Sunday of Christmas (All Years RCL TEC)
27th December 2015: 8:00am Said and 10:00am Sung Eucharist
Parish Church of Trinity Ashland (Oregon)
Readings: (Isa 61:10-62:3; Ps 147, Gal 3:23-25; 4:4-7; John 1:1-18)

Take away our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.

I saw a picture on Christmas of Pope Francis kissing the feet of a statue of the Baby Jesus during his Midnight Mass.  At our own Midnight Mass here, Deacon Meredith at one point in her sermon talked about us worshipping the Baby Jesus. 

And that indeed is what we Christians do at Christmas.

Frankly, it is something of a scandal. “O Come, Let us adore Him,” we sing, without a thought about what we are saying. Worship a baby? Barely born and in diapers? (That’s basically what the “swathing bands” were for.) Worship a little creature with a brain that is just beginning to organize sensory input and is still years away from rational thought? How can this be?

But other lines of carols seem to have given the matter some more thought: “Veiled in flesh the Godhead see, Hail the incarnate Deity,” “Of the Father’s Love begotten, ere the worlds began to be,” and “God from God, Light from Light, Lo he abhors not the Virgin’s womb. Very God, begotten, not created. O Come let us adore him.”

Today’s Gospel does not tell the story of Jesus’ earthly origins.   John tells us of something quite a bit deeper and much, much more hidden.  He begins also by quoting a hymn, this one to Christ as

the Logos, the eternal word of God.  It begins, “In the beginning was the Word.”

This translation misses the richness of the Greek en arche en ho logos. Another way of translating might be, “At the start, at the root of all, the logos existed.”  The usual way it is translated in Chinese captures the idea much better than any I have seen in English: 太 初 有 道 “At the great beginning of all things, there was the Tao.”

The Greek word logos is where we get our words logo, logic, and analogue and dialogue. It means much more than just “word.”   Its basic meaning is whatever it is that creates or conveys meaning or sense, whether in our minds or on our lips.   Something is logical, or has logos, because it coheres and is patterned.  Geo-logy is the patterns we see in the physical world, Gaia.  Theology is a patterned and coherent way of talking about God, Theos.   Logos is a deep pattern, a coherence, that lies behind and beneath disparate and apparently random facts. 

Thus, a good way to translate the first verse is, “At the root and heart of all things lies a Pattern, a Meaning.”

I propose the following paraphrase of John 1:1-18, pointing to the meaning that John’s Gospel gives such words as “word,” “light,” and “darkness”: 

At the start and in the heart of all things,

there was a meaningful pattern.
The pattern was God’s; God was the pattern.
At the moment of creation, it was already this pattern with God.

Everything came into existence from it.
Nothing exists that didn’t come from it.
The pattern brought forth life and

    the light of meaning for humankind.
This light shines in darkness, and darkness cannot put it out. … The genuine light, the source and meaning of everyone's life,

was coming into the universe,

and though the universe came into being by the light,

the universe did not recognize it for what it was.  

It came into its own realm,

but his own kin did not take him in.

But he empowers all who do take him,

those who trust in all that he is,

to become children of God:   

children not born from masculine will,

    reproductive instinct, and the blood of birth,

but rather, begotten from God alone.  

The pattern and meaning of everything

Took on human flesh

and lived with us a short time.

We experienced how wonderful he is:

as wonderful as a father’s only child,

full of joyful promise, where things are as they should be.

The hymn says that the Word/Meaning/Pattern of God took on flesh. The choice of the word “flesh” is deliberate. In Semitic culture, basar “flesh” was the physical, earthy part of a person that you could see, touch, and smell. It was a key part of you, and not wholly separable from your mind or spirit. The symbol for a man to be part of God’s covenant with Abraham was that he be circumcised in his flesh. For Greeks, sarx “flesh” was the changeable, impermanent part of a human being. For some Greek philosophers, it was the part that resisted reason and had a mind of its own, the part that I think we would identify by talking about addictive, obsessive, or compulsive behaviors. It was in this sense that Saint Paul had occasionally used the word—sarx for him sometimes is shorthand for that part of a human being that resists God’s intentions for us.

When the prologue of John says the logos became sarx, it means that Reason, Pattern, Meaning itself, took on all it means to be a human being: all the limitations, all the doubts and fears, the ignorance, all the handicaps.

The hymn adds “he dwelt among us.” The word used for “dwelt” is eskenasen: he “set up his tent” among us. The image is of a temporary habitation, like the Tent of the Meeting or the Tabernacle of the ancient Israelites, where God Himself was made manifest to Moses.

The hymn adds, “and we saw his glory, as of a father’s only Son, full of Grace and Truth.”

Grace—joyful and tender love, without condition.  Truth—genuineness, authenticity, things being as they ought to be. It is here that the conflict between divine and human, the perfect and imperfect, the boundless and the bounded is resolved: Grace and Truth. For despite all our limitations, we human beings can on occasion transcend ourselves and open ourselves to Grace and Truth. On even fewer occasions, we can even become the channels or instruments by which Grace and Truth can be given to others.

“We saw the glory of God made flesh, we saw the beauty of the pattern behind the worlds placed within this apparently meaningless world—and we recognized that glory as Grace and Truth.”

It is in Jesus’ gracious love and authenticity that the Gospel of John says we can recognize the pattern of the universe, see Jesus is the Logos from all eternity.   But he adds “the only child of the father.” Jesus is monogenes—one-of-a-kind.   Despite all he shares with us, he is different in this one way.  Despite the limitations his humanity imposed, Jesus as Eternal Pattern of Meaning is Transcendence Itself.

The hymn to the Logos ends by saying, “The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known.”

The Ultimate Meaning of the universe found a place in human flesh, in the person of this helpless baby, who was only beginning to enjoy the good things life offers. But he was also just beginning to suffer everything that life can throw at any of us. Despite it all, he remained ever steadfast.

This only Son of God offers us Grace and Truth.  He gives us the chance to be born as Children of God, to share in the pattern and meaning.  Grace and truth:  Joy, love and thankfulness on our part. 

As helpless, pathetic fellow human beings, let us accept what he offers, and in Love offer the same Grace and Truth to those around us.

In the name of God, Amen.

A Peaceful Christmas (Mid-week Message)

 

 

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

December 23, 2015

A Peaceful Christmas

 

“Most holy God, the source of all good desires, all right judgments, and all just works: Give to us, your servants, that peace which the world cannot give, so that our minds may be fixed on the doing of your will, and that we, being delivered from the fear of all enemies, may live in peace and quietness; through the mercies of Christ Jesus our Savior. Amen.” (BCP)

 

I often get anxious and preoccupied this time of year:  many things to do in a limited amount of time, many people to please, and a fear deep down in the eleven year boy inside of me that I might, by not measuring up or not doing all that I need to do, “ruin Christmas.” 

 

The art of turning off the Christmas machine is the art of letting go.  Recognizing that all good comes from God, we slow down, occasionally wait in silence, and let our faces reflect the joy that we find in that silence (usually called a smile):  no more rushing, abrupt answers, distracted glances, and background noise of dissatisfaction.   Just joy and serenity. 

 

Merry Christmas. 

 

Fr. Tony+

 

God Bearer (Advent 4C)

God Bearer
Micah 5:2-5a; Hebrews 10:5-10; Luke 1:39-45; Canticle 15

Fourth of Advent (Year C)
Homily delivered at Trinity Parish Ashland (Oregon)
20th December 2015: 8:00 a.m. Said Eucharist

The Rev. Dr. Anthony Hutchinson, SCP

God, give us hearts to feel and love,

Take away our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.

Today, the fourth Sunday of Advent and the Last Sunday before Christmas, is Mary Sunday.  The Lectionary Readings are about the Incarnation of our Lord, and in these stories, Mary plays a leading role. 

The early undivided Church taught that how we talk about and relate to Mary is part of how we talk about and relate to the person of Jesus Christ. All who desire to follow in the tradition and fellowship of the early bishops, successors to the apostles, should take note.  The Councils of Ephesus (431 C.E.) and Calcedon (451 C.E.) in the early fifth century both recommended referring to the Mother of Jesus as the Theotokos, “the one who gave birth to the one who is God,” that is, the One who gave birth to God Made Flesh.

They defined this in reaction to a minority group of bishops who felt it was wrong to call Mary the God-bearer.  They preferred to call her the Christ-bearer, arguing that God is eternal, outside of time and space, without parent or origin.    But the vast majority of the bishops determined that understanding Mary as the Mother just of a human part of Jesus rather than of his whole being and person profoundly misunderstood the nature of Christ.  Jesus was not a 50%-50% hybrid of Divinity and Humanity, but was both 100% human and 100% God. Because these two natures were perfectly united in the one person of Jesus, it was only right that Mary be referred to not only as Mother of the Man Jesus, but also as Mother of God Incarnate. The defeated bishops separated themselves from the main body of Church, ultimately fled the territory of the Roman Empire and went East.  Missionaries from the Great Church of the East they founded were those who took the Gospel to Persia, India, and ultimately, China, in the fifth through the seventh centuries. 

But the main body of the Church remained firm in its worship of a Jesus who was both truly God and truly human, and devotion to a Mary who was the one who bore God.  As a result, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Old Catholic, Eastern Uniate, Lutheran, and Anglican traditions all retain the usage of the term “Mother of God,” or “God-bearer.”

Such devotion is rooted in scripture:  the Gospel of John portrays Jesus on the cross giving charge of his mother to the ideal disciple, saying he is her child and she is his mother.  Most of the words of the great Marian devotional prayer of the West, the Ave Maria, come from the New Testament, most of them from the infancy story in the Gospel of Luke.

In the Lucan story, the Angel Gabriel greets her with the words, “Hail Mary, full of Grace, the Lord is with you.”  He declares to her she will become pregnant with a holy child who will bring about the great setting of things straight hoped for by Israel’s prophets.  She asks how this can possibly be, since she has never been with a man.  She obviously knows as well as we do about the birds and bees.  The angel replies that it will be a pregnancy without any man involved—God’s power alone will do.  Despite the dubious credibility of such an announcement and all the trouble such a pregnancy obviously will entail, Mary focuses on what the angel says this baby will be and do.  So she accepts the angel’s saying, replying “Behold the Lord’s handmaid, may it happen to me just as you have said.” 

In the story, she conceives by the action of the Holy Spirit alone.   Then what we read in the Gospel today: she hurries off to visit her cousin Elizabeth, who the angel had told her was also pregnant, similarly in decidedly odd circumstances, given her previous sterility and advanced age.  After the baby leaps in Elizabeth’s womb for joy at the sight of Mary, Elizabeth says to her, “Blessed are you among women and blessed is the child in your womb,” Mary then replies with what we recited instead of a psalm today:  the great Canticle of fierce joy and hope, the Magnificat, where she trusts the angel’s word enough now to speak about the salvation of Israel’s poor as if it has already happened. 

Mary here is not meek and mild.  She is not submissive to anyone but the God who beckons her.   She doesn’t need a man to have a baby.  She doesn’t follow what society expects of her. In fact, she prophesies the overturning of the whole social order, proclaiming that the lowly will be lifted up, the rich turned away empty. She doesn’t ask permission. 

This young Jewish girl, probably 13 or 14 at most, is unafraid to say yes to the new, the strange.  She is open to the wildness of a God who does surprising acts. She is willing to offer herself, her body, her reputation, her life, to see through the wonderful things God has in store, whatever they may be. 

Submission in our culture has bad, bad overtones: victim, doormat, tool. 

Mary’s submission is not that.  It is not to the system, but to the Unseen Love that drives the world.  It is joyous, and it is fierce.  She is joyous and she is fierce. 

It all comes down to heart.  If we insist that God do things the way we want or that we find comfortable, we do not, with Mary, sing “my soul proclaims the Greatness of God!”  We sing bitterly, “I did it my way.” We take offense at this or that, even at Jesus or Mary.  Farewell to the fierce joy of following a living God, a God of surprise, of wildness.

 

The prophet Mary  stands before us, with her fierce and joyful song, her example of putting everything on the line for the love of God and Good. Blessed among women, she says “yes,”  “yes,” “yes,” to God, before even knowing what God has in mind.

“All generations will call me blessed,” Mary sings, but what a harsh blessedness!  Joyous moments, to be sure, but also a life involving fierce pain, humiliation, terror, and the bitter loss of her child. 

But the joyous truth behind “all generations will call me blessed” is even greater than she suspects:  resurrection on the third day, a recognition that Christ was fully God in fully human form, and that this young Jewish girl was in fact the means of God’s incarnation, the Theotokos, the God-bearer, the Mother of God. 

The Magnificat is a song of fierce joy, of shared blessing and our common lot.  Yet its words hint at the passion of Jesus, in both senses, foreshadowing Jesus’s commitment and his sufferings.   Mary empties herself as Christ empties himself when he says,  “Now my soul is in turmoil, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour.  Father, glorify your name!  (John 12:27-28).    Jesus’ emptying himself is not a hierarchical obedience but a total surrender, one coming from his deepest heart’s passion.  It expresses who he his, both God and human being.  And he learned such passion, such fierce joy, from his Mother.

Sisters and brothers, this week let us pray, like the Blessed Virgin Mary, the God-bearer, to accept the wild and surprising spirit of God in our hearts and very bodies.  Let us accept God’s blessings, whatever they may be, and have God lead us to the surprising deeds needed for his reign to come.  May we not let new things or the unexpected trip us up.  Let us share, in our actions and in our words, the glories and beauty of a God who turns the world on its head, who has done wonderful things for us, and never forgets his promise of mercy. Let us be like our sister Mary, Mother of God, joyous and fierce, bearing God in our lives. 

In the name of God, Amen.

The Great O Antiphons

The “O” Antiphons

I remember the first time I heard the carol “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.”  I was 8 or 9.  I remember thinking that it was a very ancient song, with old, old feelings and sounds.  It sounded very “Old Testament,” and that marked it as ancient for me.  I was surprised as a teenager to learn that the English hymn we sang was from the mid-1800s.  And though it had originally been written in Latin, it was not all that ancient—probably first published in its Latin present form in the 1500s.

But the fact is, the hymn itself is a poem drawn from a series of very ancient liturgical texts, from as early as the 6^th century. 

In monastic daily prayer, Psalm and Canticle texts were often given “headers” and “footers” to set them apart, ornament them, sum up their ideas, and make the chanting seem not so monotonous.  These lead-ins and codas are called antiphons.   In the seven days leading up to Christmas, the normal daily evening singing of the Blessed Virgin’s Canticle of Praise The Magnificat (“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord…”) was set off by a special set of antiphons, one for each day.  Each of these began with the word “O” and calling upon Christ with one of the various titles and images for him in these early Christians’ reading of their Old Testament.  Each is a meditation on Christ, and on the prophetic vision of the Hebrew prophets. 

The “O Antiphons” were a way for the monks to prepare for Christmas.  In an 8^th century manuscript, each of the officials of the monastery are given a separate antiphon to chant on one of the days—together with the responsibility of paying for that day’s wine or holiday snacks for the monks after service or in the upcoming holiday feast! 

The titles used all come from prophetic passages, mainly Isaiah:  Wisdom (Sapientia), Lord (Adonai), Stem of Jesse (Radix Jesse), Key of David (Clavis David), Rising Sun (Oriens), King of the Gentiles (Rex Gentium), and, of course, Emmanuel.  The choice of names in this order was intentional:  when read backward from Christmas Eve, the first letter of each title spelled out the message ERO CRAS. “Tomorrow, I will be there!” 

Beginning this morning, in daily morning prayer in the Church at Trinity, we will be singing the Magnificat and the Great O Antiphons, one for each day, in the days leading up to Christmas. 

I encourage all of us to take a little time each day December 16-23 to read aloud and reflect on the antiphons.  I have included my translation of them here, plus a few of the scriptural passages behind them.  Simply reading one a day, either once through or with a Lectio-style repeated reading with contemplation, would make a good addition to our private prayers and devotions as we approach the Holiday. 

Grace and Peace,  Fr. Tony+

ANTIPHONS FOR THE FINAL 7 DAYS OF ADVENT

THE “O” GREAT ANTIPHONS

  

Dec. 17

O Sapientia (O Lady Wisdom):

 “O Lady Wisdom, you came forth from the mouth of the Most High, and reach from one end of the earth to the other, mightily and sweetly putting all things in order: come and teach us the way of being present!”

“The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him: a spirit of wisdom and of understanding, a spirit of counsel and of strength, a spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord, and his delight shall be the fear of the Lord.” (Isaiah11:2-3); “Wonderful is His counsel and great is His wisdom.” (Isa 28:29).

 

Dec. 18

O Adonai (O Yahweh; Lord):

“O Adonai, ruler of the House of Israel, you appeared to Moses in the fire of the burning bush; on Mount Sinai you gave him your law: come, stretch out your mighty hand to set us free.”

“But He shall judge the poor with justice, and decide aright for the land’s afflicted. He shall strike the ruthless with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked. Justice shall be the band around his waist, and faithfulness a belt upon his hips.” (Isa 11:4-5);  “Indeed the Lord will be there with us, majestic; yes the Lord our judge, the Lord our lawgiver, the Lord our king, he it is who will save us.” (Isa 33:22).

Dec. 19

O Radix Jesse (O Root of Jesse):

“O Root of Jesse, you stand as an ensign for all peoples; before you kings stand silent; all nations bow in worship: come and save us, and do not delay.”

“But a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse, and from his roots a bud shall blossom.” (Isa 11:1),  “On that day, the root of [David’s father] Jesse, set up as a signal for the nations, the Gentiles shall seek out, for his dwelling shall be glorious” (Isa 11:10).  “But you, Bethlehem-Ephrathah, too small to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel”  (Micah 5:1).

Dec. 20

O Clavis David (O Key of David):

“O Key of David, and scepter of the House of Israel; you open and no one closes; you close and no one opens: Come and deliver us from the chains of prison, we who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.”

“I will place the Key of the House of David on His shoulder; when he opens, no one will shut, when he shuts, no one will open” (Isa 22:22);  “His dominion is vast and forever peaceful, from David’s throne, and over His kingdom, which he confirms and sustains by judgment and justice, both now and forever” (Isa 9:6).

Dec. 21

O Oriens (O Eastern Dawn):

“O Rising Dawn, brightness of the light eternal, sun of justice: come, shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.”

 “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom a light has shown” (Isa 9:1).

Dec. 22

O Rex Gentium (O King of the Nations, Gentiles):

“O King of all the nations, and their desire, you are the cornerstone that binds two into one: come and save the creature you have fashioned from clay.”

“For a child is born to us, a son is given us; upon his shoulder dominion rests. They name him Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero, Father-Forever, Prince of Peace” (Isa 9:5); “He shall judge between the nations, and impose terms on many peoples. They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; one nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again” (Isa 2:4).

Dec. 23

O Emmanuel (O God with Us):

“O Emmanuel, our King and Lawgiver, the Desire of all nations and their Savior: come and set us free, O Lord our God.”

 “The Lord himself will give you this sign: the Virgin shall be with child, and bear a son, and shall name him Emmanuel” (7:14). 

Images by Sr. Ansgar Holmberg, CSJ  

Foreshortened Grace (Mid-week Message)

 

Fr. Tony's Mid-week Message

December 16, 2015

Foreshortened Grace

 

St. Augustine had the great insight that the miracle stories we see in scripture are often simply scenes where the natural processes we see around us are sped up. Water, taken into a living vine, enriched by sunlight and soil nutrients over a season, becomes fruit that ripen, are crushed and fermented, and becomes wine. Yet at Cana, Jesus condenses the natural process and makes it happen in a word. We heal from illness slowly and gradually, with nourishment and rest. Yet Jesus did it with a touch and a blessing. Miracles summarize, recapitulate, and embody what we otherwise see as natural processes. In theological terms, a sign from God to be marveled at (what the Latin word miraculum means) shows us in a moment the ultimate good intentions and purposes of God. They bring close God's final loving purpose.

 

In this sense the birth, life, and death of Jesus constitute a miracle. By becoming wholly human while remaining wholly divine, he shows God's final good and loving intention. He heals. He announces the Reign of God has already arrived. He teaches ethics that seem impossibly demanding to us, but says that with God all things are possible. The worst of life is seen in his being rejected, betrayed, and unjustly killed. The best hopes we have are seen in his being raised and received back by God. 

 

Biblical scholar and bishop N.T. Wright says,

 

"The whole point of what Jesus was up to was that he was doing up close, in the present, what he was promising long-term in the future. And what he was promising for that future and doing in the present was not saving souls for a disembodied eternity but rescuing people from the corruption and decay of the way the world presently is so they could enjoy, already in the present, the renewal of creation which is God's ultimate purpose—and so they could thus become colleagues and partners in that large project."    

 

Jesus calls us to follow him, to also become foreshortened grace for others. 

 

Grace and Peace,

Fr. Tony+

2015 Christmas Letter

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Ashland, Oregon

December 16, 2015

Dear Members and Friends of Trinity Church,

Writing in the midst of bombed out cities in the Serbian civil war, poet Jane Kenyon reflected on God taking on flesh and becoming truly human in these words:  

Mosaic of Nativity: Serbia, Winter 1993

On the domed ceiling God
is thinking:
I made them my joy,
and everything else I created
I made to bless them.
But see what they do!
I know their hearts
and arguments:

“We’re descended from
Cain. Evil is nothing new,
so what does it matter now
if we shell the infirmary,
and the well where the fearful
and rash alike must
come for water?"

God thinks Mary into being.
Suspended at the apogee
of the golden dome,
she curls in a brown pod,
and inside her the mind
of Christ, cloaked in blood,
lodges and begins to grow.

The world is a thing of glorious beauty, our lives full of wonder.  The Creator made us for joy.  But often things in our lives do not quite fill the measure of God’s good creation.  The emptying of the Godhead of glory and power, its taking on flesh in a helpless baby in this troubled world—the incarnation—this is God’s great act to reconcile the creation as intended with the messed up way it often appears.   And this is both an eternal, timeless act (remember, “eternally begotten of the Father”) and one that took place at a particular time and place (in Bethlehem or perhaps Nazareth, during the reign of Augustus Caesar).   Of course, Christ’s unjust death is implicit in, part of the package of, becoming truly mortal.  And the raising of Jesus in glory, as the final act of this incarnation, foreshadows the raising of the whole creation, including us, in glory as well. 

Let me wish you and your loved ones every grace and peace during this season, with prayers for reconciliation for all.  Together with the angels at Christ’s birth, I pray that there be fullness of life on earth, with us all enjoying God’s grace.

With love and blessing, 

Fr. Tony+

In God's Hands (Advent 3C)

“In God’s Hands”

13 December 2015

Advent 3C

Homily preached at Trinity Episcopal Church
by the Rev. Fr. Tony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D.

Ashland, Oregon

8:00 a.m. Spoken Eucharist, 10:00 a.m. Sung Eucharist

Zephaniah 3:14-20; Philippians 4:4-7; Luke 3:7-18; Canticle 9

God, take away our hearts of stone, and give us hearts of flesh.  Amen

In the last three or four weeks, I have had a lot of conversations with people about fear:   fear of mass shootings, terrorism, the sudden and unexpected death of those we love. Others have told me of their fear about the xenophobic, nativist calls by reactionaries for restrictions on Muslims, Mexicans, or the current boogeyman of the month.  “We’re all so helpless!” said one parishioner,  “Helpless and at the mercy of powers at work far beyond our ability to do anything about it, really.”

Today, the third Sunday in Advent, is called Gaudete Sunday.  We light the pink candle on the Advent Wreath, and I wear rose vestments. This is the Sunday in Advent when fearful expectation of the coming of Christ is supposed to turn into joy anticipating the setting right of all things that are wrong.   Gaudete means “Rejoice.”

Be happy.  Rejoice.  Smile.  Despite all that is in the air, sing a happy song. 

How can we rejoice when things look so bad?

When the French want to tell you to be strong, find joy in the face of trouble, and deal with what life dishes out, they say “du courage!”  It’s like saying “buck up!” or “hang in there.”

One of the pivotal moments in my life, and one of the greatest bits of counsel I ever received, took place in Beijing China on June 6, 1989.  I had arrived to work at the U.S. Embassy there just days before.  In the closing days of May, things in Beijing had gotten more and more chaotic as the pro-democracy demonstrations in Tian’anmen Square dragged on.  The evening of Saturday June 3, the army moved in to recapture the Square, re-exert control over the city, and terrorize the people back into compliance with the Communist Party’s leadership.   Many of you saw the picture of the single protester standing his ground before a column of tanks.  That scene was unusual.  Generally people who stood in the way were simply run over by the armored personnel carriers, crushed and chewed up by the treads.   For days the army used random shooting toward crowds as a way of cowing people to get off the streets.  More than a thousand were dead, and rumors of dissenting Army units firing on each other raised the specter of Civil War.  In all this, the U.S. Embassy granted refuge to the leading dissidents in the country.  The next day, the army opened fire at U.S. diplomatic apartments—some with children in them—in an hour-long shooting spree in which, fortunately, none were killed.   The Ambassador James R. Lilley called us all together to announce that our dependents were being evacuated from the country and that we would mount a full-scale evacuation effort to take stranded Americans in remote parts of the city to the airport.  As we were meeting, automatic weapons fire opened up just outside the Embassy compound where we were meeting.  People crouched beneath the window levels until silence returned. 

Then Ambassador Lilley called us back into order.  What he said then is deeply etched in my memory.  Calmly, with emotion, he said, “We are not often called upon to show courage.  Courage is grace under fire, keeping your head and your heart focused on what you need to do, and why, and then doing it regardless of all the things you cannot control going on around you.  As you go out to help evacuate Americans, you must keep your cool and stay focused. As we send off our spouses and children, not knowing when we might see them again, we must give them confidence and hope by our own calm and love.  Stay on task, remember our values and the oath we took when we entered into Federal service.  Though all might not be well, you will have the calm of knowing you have done everything in your power.  It’s a matter of faith, both having faith, and keeping faith.  It’s called courage, and that is what we must step up to now, so we can make the best of this bad, bad situation.”  The words had particular impact on me as we drove the next two days in convoys across the barricades all over the city, facing the muzzles of AK-47s held by PLA teenage recruits from the provinces shaky with amphetamines to keep them awake. 

I have always thanked God that Jim Lilley knew exactly what to say to us and then modeled courage for us.  He taught where courage comes from.  As African American Spirituals say, “Keep your eyes on the prize! Keep your hand on the plough!  Hold on, hold on!”  This lesson has stayed with me from then until now.   

What Jim Lilley knew was this:  if we keep our minds on the goal and stay on task regardless of how bad things are, if we are true to the better angels in our hearts, grace under fire just happens.   We are no longer overwhelmed by the things over which we have no control.  And we find we can even find humor, satisfaction, and yes, even joy in pursuing our course, come hell or high water. 

It’s there in today’s Canticle:  ”Surely it is God who saves me, trusting him, I shall not fear.”  Paul says as much in today’s Epistle: “Rejoice always,” he says, but then adds, “in the Lord.”   “In the Lord”: Jesus is the prize that we need to keep our eyes on.  His teachings are the plough we must keep our hands on.  He is the source, object, and driver of our joy and courage, not the circumstances we find ourselves in.   Paul, like us, experienced bad stuff that he didn’t have any control over.  He says, “do not worry about anything that may happen,” but rather pray and ask God for our deepest desires in all aspects of our lives with a thankful heart.

If we have thankful, yearning hearts full of petitions to God, Paul says, the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will fill our hearts and minds with the knowledge and love of God.  Joy, serenity, and courage are there to be found.  

This week there were a many items of really good news that should cause us to smile and feel joy, since they are little glimpses of God’s love and care.   The Roman Catholic Church declared in clearer terms than ever before that Christians should not proselytize Jews, and that the covenant of God with the Jews is eternal and has not been superseded by Christianity. On the other side, a group of two dozen senior, influential, and very orthodox conservative Rabbis from Israel, the U.S., and Europe announced that Christianity is part of God’s plan, and that Jews and Christians have a common mission in bringing morality and a knowledge of God to all in the world.  As my friend Rabbi David Zaslow told me, “this is REALLY BIG.”   

There was also a fatwa issued by 70,000 Muslim clerics this week issued in India condemning terrorism and the misuse of religion for violence.  And there was an agreement signed in Paris between 200 some nations on taking steps to control the causes of climate change.  We prayed for Presiding Bishop Michael Curry after he suffered aphasia from a blot clot in his brain, later in the week, he was released from the hospital with hopes for a full recovery.  Within a day, he was addressing a serious problem in the central offices of the Episcopal Church.  Some senior officials had been accused of fiscal misconduct.  Instead of hushing it up or joining a media feeding frenzy, he put the accused on administrative leave and announced the start of a formal investigation without prejudice to the accused or the accusers.  This is good news because here the Church is reacting to a problem in the way it should, rather than concerning itself with public image one way or the other.   

Noting and remembering such glimpses of goodness when they happen are ways to help us  keep our eyes on the prize. 

Du courage!   Let us go forth from this Eucharist today, this Great Thanksgiving, renewed and recommitted to joy, to love, to caring for each other, to supporting and healing the ill and reconciling hurt, and to forgiveness.  Let us mourn with those who mourn, but always be ready to find joy and hope when it happens.  For Joy and hope are there.  We are in God’s hands. 

Thanks be to God. Amen.