Incarnate (Christmas 1B)

 

The Pillars of Creation, photo courtesy of NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage team.

 

Incarnate

John 1:1-18
Homily delivered First Sunday of Christmas (Year B RCL TEC)
31st December 2017: 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)

God, give us hearts to feel and love. 

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

Today’s Gospel takes a very different approach than Luke or Matthew.  Rather than tell a story of Jesus’ earthly origins, John tells us of something quite a bit deeper and much, much more hidden. 

 The hymn to Jesus Christ as the Logos, the eternal word of God, in John chapter 1 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 Greek word logos is where we get out word logo, our word logic, and our words analogue and dialogue. It means much more than just “word.”   Its basic meaning is whatever it is that makes 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 of all things, there existed Meaning.”

Episcopal priest Jim Stamper gives us the following paraphrase of John 1:1-18, pointing to the meaning that John’s Gospel gives such words as “word,” “light,” and “darkness”: 

Initially there was a pattern for everything.
The pattern was God’s; God was the pattern.
The pattern was always God.
Everything came from that pattern.
There isn't anything else.
The pattern is both the source of life and the meaning of life.
It is a way of being alive in opposition to death, and death cannot overcome it.

God sent a man named John to tell people about the possibilities of this way of being alive in opposition to death so everybody would trust the source of life. John wasn't the source of life; he taught how to recognize the pattern.

The true pattern, the source and meaning of everybody's life, was coming to people.

To some people, however, life, and what life is all about, is unrecognizable. Some who could be expected to see the possibilities of this way of being alive select death instead. Others embrace life. They trust what life offers.

Life offers something more intense than the strongest family ties:  obtaining a new parent, God, the source, the meaning of life itself.

The initial pattern for everything that is, became a human being and lived among us.

We experienced how awesome [he] is: as awesome as a newborn baby is to its [dear father], the gift of life and all its possibilities.

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, and the ignorances, 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—one directional love, without condition, of its nature giving.  Truth—genuineness, authenticity, transparency.   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.”

Detail from the Ghent Altarpiece

 

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-- Jesus is monogenes—one-of-a-kind. We on occasion can transcend ourselves. Despite all the limitations his humanity imposed, Jesus 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.”

Mystic Christ, icon by Fr. John Giuliani

 

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 adopted as Children of God.  Joy, joy, 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.

Stained glass window in Morrison Chapel, Macau.  

The inscription is John 1:1--太初有道 (in the beginning was the Tao). 

St. John the Evangelist

 

 The beginning of the Gospel of John in the Book of Kells.

St. John the Evangelist

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

December 27, 2017

“Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book.  But these things are written so that you might come to trust that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through trusting you may have life in his name.”  (John 20:30-31)

Today is the Feast Day of St. John the Evangelist.  Though the Gospel of John in its present form comes to us from an editor a generation or two later, it is written in the tradition of the “beloved” disciple of Jesus.   It comes from a somewhat isolated community of Christians in Southern Asia Minor that had its own cycle of stories about Jesus.  As a result, it tells things a bit differently from the Synoptic (shared -view) Gospels, Mark, Matthew., and Luke. 

In the Synoptics, Jesus begins his ministry when he is about 30 years old, and accomplishes it within a year’s span, ending with a single trip to Jerusalem that results in his death.  In John, Jesus is just shy of 50 (see John 8:57) and conducts his ministry over a three year period marked with annual trips to Jerusalem.  Matthew and Luke agree that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the city associated with King David and his royal anointed successor “the “Messiah” coming in the end of time.  In John, Jesus ridicules the idea that the Messiah comes from Bethlehem:  what matters is that he comes from Heaven. John the Baptist baptizes Jesus in the Synoptics; in John, he simply bears witness to him.  In the Synoptics, Jesus cleanses the Temple early in Holy Week, and this is what leads to his death.   In John, Jesus cleanses the Temple at the very start of his three-year ministry.  Jesus institutes the Eucharist at the Last Supper in the Synoptics; in John, he simple washes the disciples feet and says a long prayer for them.  For John, the feeding of the 5,000 seems to be the scene most fraught with images of the Eucharist.    In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus suffers shameful death on the cross and only later is raised to glory; in John, Jesus is lifted up in glory on the Cross itself. 

Because John’s Gospel is so idiosyncratic, a rogue Gospel by any accounting, it almost was not included in the canon of the New Testament when the early lists were drawn up in the 4^th century.   But the early Fathers recognized that alone among the Gospels John taught clearly the divinity of Christ, and they included John so that we might read the Synoptics with this truth clearly in our minds.

Grace and Peace,

Fr. Tony+  

Res Miranda (Christmas Day II)

Res Miranda

Christmas Day (Selection II all years)
Isaiah 9:2-7 ;Titus 2:11-14 ; Luke 2:1-14(15-20) ; Psalm 96

Homily delivered at Trinity Parish Ashland (Oregon)
24th December 2017: 6 p.m. and 11:00p.m. Sung Festal Eucharists

The Rev. Fr. Anthony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D.

God, give us hearts to feel and love,

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

Last Sunday, our Trinity Choir sang a modern setting for a Medieval Carol to the Blessed Virgin:

“There is no rose of such virtue

As is the rose that bare Jesu;   Alleluia.

For in this rose contained was
Heaven and earth in little space;  Res miranda.  (A thing to be marveled at)."

Marvel or wonder is what Christmas is all about.  At this darkest time of the year, we put up lights on the streets, the shops, and our houses, and try to drive the dark away.  We sing and listen to a wonderful special repertory of music set aside for this time in all the year.  We bring in greens and flowers to our homes and churches to remind us that summer will once again come. We open them to loved ones and strangers alike.  We exchange gifts.  We give extra support to those most in need.  Wonder is what Christmas is all about. 

The stories about why we celebrate Christmas, the ones read in churches, are the ones most fraught with wonder, most freighted with joy.

Sometimes familiarity and repetition of these stories means we don’t really hear them.  But they are so strange that they stretch our hearts and minds. 

A young woman gives birth without ever having been with a man?  Really? 

Angels appear to her and her intended husband, guiding them and reassuring them that this child is holy, the fulfillment of people’s deepest hopes for justice and rescue? What are angels, anyway?

They appear to poor shepherds, telling them to find this child in diapers snuggled in a feeding trough.  They break into a joyful chorus praising God.   “Peace,” they sing.  When has there ever been peace really?  

Res Miranda.  Wonder, wonder, wonder.

One of the great joys I have as a priest is teaching and guiding people about faith, wonder, and joy.

A question I often hear is “How can I have faith?”  Sometimes even, “I don’t really think I believe in a God.  Does that make me a bad person? And what point is there in the Church for someone like me?”  Or, “Making a living, advancing my career, having a family and taking care of them—this is what matters to me. But it seems not to be enough.”  

Listening to others talk about their doubts, their fears, and their hopes, tells me that we are all pretty much the same on these important core issues of meaning and value.  It’s all a question of how honest we are willing to be about our hopes as well as our fears and doubts.  

Faith is about trust, about openness.  It is an orientation of the heart, not a content of opinions. 

When we say “I believe in God,” we are not saying “I am of the opinion that an entity referred to as God exists.”   The word believe actually is related to the old Germanic word for heart, Lieb, and it means “give my heart to.”   “I believe in God” actually means something like, “I trust God,” or even, “within relationship with God, I love for all I’m worth.”   

Faith is about wonder.  It is about trust.  It is about hope, having an optimism that in the end all will be well; if all is not well, it is not yet the end.

These stories do not explain how things happen, but point beyond to why things happen, to what end.  Light shining in the darkness, the desire of nations coming to us to save us, God taking on all that it means to be human—these are images pointing to the heart of things.

The joy of a new baby’s birth is a universal human experience.  In this story of this baby born we move beyond joy to meaning. In this story of light in the darkness, we feel warmth and hope.  In this story of a young woman taking on the world for justice’s sake, despite censure and prudish critique, we find courage. 

Church, prayer, meditation, and rules of life that bring focus to our service to  others—all these are methods of training our hearts to trust.  Their purpose is to open our hearts to the love that is already there at all times and in all places. 

As we celebrate Christmas, let us remember to open our hearts to love and life.  Let us allow ourselves to feel, to wonder.   In the words of the carols, let us look upon this Res Miranda, this thing to be wondered at.  Let us listen to this silent night.  Let us get up and follow that star, and tell it on the mountain.  Let “every heart prepare him room, and heaven and nature sing.”

In the name of God, Amen.

Pacing Ourselves for the Holidays (Midweek)

Pacing Ourselves for the Holidays

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

December 20, 2017

Those of you who have only known me the last 6 years might find it hard to imagine that your rector, now a rotund and portly man (that sounds so much more distinguished than “lard-bottomed”) once trained for and ran a full marathon, in 1989 in Taiwan.    One of the key things I learned in those months of training was the importance of pacing oneself.  At the start of the marathon run, you feel pretty good and want to let it all out and go for speed.  But that guarantees running out of steam early and the ability to run at all, or a complete crash against the “wall” that hits most runners at about the 20-mile line that is the main reason behind failure to complete the 26.5 mile race.   Pacing means going slower and more easily than feels right, but marshals and conserves strength and staying power.  Sometimes it means a slower pace of steps; sometimes it involves taking longer strides to get more distance from the steps thus reduced. 

As we approach the peak of the holiday season, let’s remember to pace ourselves.  Trying to do too much in too little time, spend too much on too small a budget, make Christmas “just perfect” by the standards of commercial-driven nostalgia or liturgy-police churchiness is a recipe for burnout, holiday depression, and a generally unhappy mid-winter experience. 

 One thing that we can do is limit our excursions, whether for shopping, partying, or concert-going, to a one-or two-a-day maximum.   Another is to focus (and strengthen) our charitable giving and service on only one or two well thought-out and intentional efforts.   Don’t overdo eating or drinking:  it will only make us feel miserable in the end.  Another way of pacing ourselves is remembering that there are twelve days to Christmas (Dec. 25-January 6) rather than just one.  You don’t need to get everything done for some mythical magic moment when Santa comes down the chimney.  You can continue your gift-giving, holiday meals, and visits until Epiphany—no rush or December 24 deadline. 

Another way of taking pressure off is to make time for prayer and meditation, as well as intentional rather than on-auto-pilot church-going.  This is easy this year, since the Sunday of Fourth Advent falls this year the morning of Christmas Eve.  So we will be having a single morning Sunday service on December 24 at 9 a.m., rather than our usual 8:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. services.  Then that evening we have the regular three services at 4 p.m. (children’s), 6:00 p.m. (with carols), and 10:30 p.m. (Midnight Mass with festival choir and instrumentalists, followed by light snacks in the parish hall).  On Monday, Christmas Day, we will have short and simple 10 a.m. service with carols.   

Merry Christmas and keep safe. 

Fr. Tony+

Witness to Light (Advent 3B)

                                     

Witness to Light 


Homily delivered the Third Sunday of Advent (Advent 3B RCL)
The Rev. Fr. Tony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D. 


17 December 2017; 8:00 a.m. Said and 10:00 a.m. Sung Mass 


Parish Church of Trinity, Ashland (Oregon) 


Readings: 
Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11; Psalm 126; 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24; John 1:6-8, 19-28

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

Christians at this season are all accustomed to seeing nativity scenes showing the baby Jesus in a manger surrounded the shepherds and the Magi, with the heavenly choir and the star of wonder in the night sky above.    But the scene as such is not scriptural.  It combines two separate and somewhat contradictory stories found in Matthew and Luke.  The Magi, the star, a house, and murderous King Herod are Matthew’s; the census, the stable, the shepherds, and angelic choir are Luke’s.   In the three year cycle of Sunday Eucharistic Gospel readings, we focus on Matthew in Year A and Luke in Year C.  John is used in part in all three years. 

But here’s the problem—this year is Year B, when we read Mark.  And neither Mark nor John tell of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem. Mark starts with the preaching of John the Baptist and is explicit in saying that Jesus was from Nazareth.   John starts with “in the beginning was the Word,” and “the Word was made flesh,” but has no infancy narrative.

So this year, as far as our Sunday readings are concerned, we have Christmas, but no nativity.  And how can we see how special Jesus is without the sets and stage props for a nativity play: Matthew’s dreaming Joseph, wise men, star, jealous and murderous king, and flight into Egypt, or Luke’s census, pregnant Mary’s hard donkey ride to the ancestral home, no room in the inn, the stable and manger, the angels, and shepherds?

The Gospel of John does not go for Matthew or Luke’s dramatic trappings.   He actually takes exception to the idea that Jesus’ earthly origins matter.  For John, what matters is Jesus’ heavenly origin.  The Johannine Jesus in chapter 7 says that insisting on Bethlehem, or any earthly place, as the Messiah’s origin is a mistake (John 7:27-29, 41-43).    The Fourth Gospel shows us who Jesus is not by stories of infancy, but of his ministry and signs.   The Prologue continues “Life was in him, and this life was the light of the human race.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”   Then the evangelist interrupts his prologue by having a person serve as witness to Jesus: “There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He was not the light, but came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him.” 

No star of wonder, star of light here, or luminous glory around an angelic choir.  Here, Jesus himself is the light.  And John the Baptist, that mentor of Jesus who ends up being killed for speaking truth to power, is the witness, the martyr, to the Light itself.   Hope and witness to Jesus are here:  “Life was in him, and this life was the light of the human race, and the darkness did not overcome it.”  

Life was in Jesus and is in Jesus still.  He is the light of all humanity.   He shows us the face of God fully, unclouded by the breaking and twisting of God’s intention seemingly found in us all.   But Jesus shines in the darkness and darkness does not overwhelm him.  He is light.  And in him there is no darkness at all.   A lot of religion today, including that styling itself “Christian,” seems to suggest that God has a dark side, is darkness in some ways.   But God revealed in the face of Jesus has no darkness at all.  He is life and not death.

In the Gospel of John, God sends John the Baptist to testify, to witness, to be a martyr, to the light.   This witness here does not baptize Jesus, but proclaims that he saw the Spirit of God descending upon him  So instead of birth legends to introduce Jesus, the Fourth Gospel gives us the witness of John.

No rivalry exists here between Jesus and John: “He himself was not the light, but came to witness to the light.”  John here is not insisting on his own way, his own teaching.  He is not in competition with Jesus.  John bows before the light, and does not resist it, or seek to manipulate it. And this mirrors Jesus’ own bowing before the Father and submission to the Father’s will.  The Gospel of John comes from a community riven with schism, sects, and little cliques—for the flavor of it, just read the three Letters of John from that same community near the end of the New Testament.   Rivalry—always setting ourselves in competition with others—destroys shared life, hopes, and dreams.  It splits community into armed camps.  Rumor, backbiting, and bullying—brutal or quietly polite—kill congregations.   

We are blessed here at Trinity because we see so little of such rivalry.  Most of us have learned the importance of focusing on our shared dreams and hopes, in our faith in a crucified Lord who rose from death itself.     Most follow the spiritual practice of putting other people’s needs and feelings above our own desire to be right and to control things. 

John here does not challenge Jesus and Jesus himself does not challenge his Father.   They are in unity because they share common vision, and seek God’s will before their own preferences.   Later in John’s Gospel, Jesus tells the disciples—and this includes us—that we must be one as he and the Father are one.   We disciples are to find our unity in Jesus:  “I am the vine and you are the branches.  The branches cannot live apart from the vine.” 

Today is the third Sunday of Advent, Gaudete or “Rejoice” Sunday.  That's why the chasuble I'm wearing and the candle of the Advent Wreath today are rose.  We call it “stir up Sunday” not, contrary to many of our mothers’ explanations, as a reminder to mix and cook the Christmas puddings that need to rest and be fed brandy before the holiday.  No, it is because of the collect, “Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us; and, because we are sorely hindered by our sins, let your bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and deliver us.”

Hope is what gets us through the rough bits.  And Jesus on our hearts gives us hope beyond all else.  Centuries of Christian practice of spirituality and experience with rules of life have taught us again and again:  you do not generally make real headway against a besetting sin through force of will or head-on efforts at rejection and control.  You gain traction against really intractable sin only sideways, not head on.  Relapse is too great a risk: a high probability in deeply held habits and default ways of handling things, and almost a surety in compulsive or obsessive issues.  So instead of focusing on what’s wrong, we encourage an overall change of heart and mind through building other habits: ones of prayer, meditation, talking through matters with a group of supporters or a spiritual director, and active service and placing others before self.   We focus on Jesus, his example, and we gain hope and confidence.  The besetting sins simply wither and die in the warm  brightness of Jesus’ light.  We focus on day-to-day practices that give life and confidence in the gentle love of having others have their way.  We see all things in our life by the light in whom there is no darkness.  We nourish ourselves in the vine from whom our life and joy springs. 

Surrendering to our loving Lord, submerging ourselves in Jesus’ light and life, this brings joy, hope, and power.  It brings the Year of Jubilee, of release from debts and worries, described by Isaiah.  It makes us, in the words of Thessalonians, rejoice in the Lord always.  Those who have sown in sorrow come back from the fields in joy bearing ripe sheaves.  We follow Jesus, and no one else.  He is our center; he is our common life, our common prayer. It is Christ who gives us unity, and when we lose sight of him, we we fall apart and our shared life suffers.  

It is not a question of understanding how everything fits in, or where things are going.  It is simply a question of having that hope and vision of Jesus give us the wherewithal to be present in our lives, our real lives, with all their ambiguities and fears.  Thomas Merton, the great contemplative who died 49 years ago last week, writes, "You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope."

God stirs up his power, Jesus, and comes mightily to save.  Joy comes in the morning.  In joy, we open ourselves to thankfulness and kindness.  We shake of the stupor of the night. 

When we let ourselves, like John, be witnesses to the light, all becomes clear.   Jesus takes us by the hand and guides us.  He heals our wounds and helps keep us from wounding others.  In his light, we see light, and know that the day is breaking and the shadows are fleeing away.   This is because God is love, as Jesus revealed, and in the presence of this love, all that is broken will mend, and all that is darkness will pass.

Thanks be to God.

St. Lucy's Day (Mid-week Message)

Fr. Tony’s Mid-week Message

December 13, 2017

St. Lucy’s Day

Today, December 13, is the Feast Day of Saint Lucy, a martyr during the persecution of Christians under the Emperor Diocletian (304 C.E.).    She is associated with light in darkness, since her Latin name Lucia is very close to the Latin word for light, lucis. 

Twelve days before Christmas, St. Lucy’s Day is a mirror and foretaste of January 6’s great festival of light, Epiphany, twelve days after Christmas Day.     Before the Gregorian Calendar was introduced in 1582, December 13 was the day of the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year.   St. Lucy is one of the few saints celebrated in reformation Scandinavia, and her day is marked by a procession of a young woman representing the saint.  She wears a crown of lit candles and is followed by young women (and now also young men) bearing candles.

Lucy refused a pagan marriage and gave her dowry to the poor.  Her jilted pagan bridegroom reported her to the authorities, who demanded that she sacrifice to the image of the Emperor.  When she refused, she was sentenced to spend the rest of her life in a brothel.   She replied by saying that God judges the intentions of our heart and not our actions when forced against our will.  When the soldiers came to take her away, they found that they could not move her from her house despite increasing heroic efforts on their part, and her death resulted.  In some retellings, St. Lucy dies by having her eyes gouged out before being beheaded, though the late medieval iconic image of St. Lucy bearing a pair of eyeballs in her hand probably results from her being, associated as she is with light, the patron saint of those suffering from blindness and eye diseases, rather than the means of her execution. 

Here is John Donne's poem for St. Lucy's Day when it was still the Winter Solstice, with my bracketed notes trying to bring his sense into modern English:  

A NOCTURNAL UPON ST. LUCY'S DAY,
BEING THE SHORTEST DAY.
by John Donne

'TIS the year's midnight, and it is the day's,
Lucy's, who scarce seven hours herself unmasks ;
    The sun is spent, and now his flasks
    Send forth light squibs, no constant rays ;
            The world's whole sap is sunk ;
The general balm th' hydroptic earth hath drunk,
Whither, as to the bed's-feet, life is shrunk,
Dead and interr'd ; yet all these seem to laugh,
Compared with me, who am their epitaph.

[It is the end of the year, St. Lucy’s day, with scarcely any light. The sun is exhausted and its rays are like mere firecrackers that fizzle briefly and go out.   The world’s life force seems to have drained into the ground; the thirsty earth has drunk it and is now waterlogged like a person with edema-swollen feet.   Life itself seems shrunken, dead and buried. Still, all these things seem positively cheerful in comparison to me, reduced to feeling like the words engraved on a tombstone.]

Study me then, you who shall lovers be
At the next world, that is, at the next spring ;
    For I am every dead thing,
    In whom Love wrought new alchemy.
            For his art did express
A quintessence even from nothingness,
From dull privations, and lean emptiness ;
He ruin'd me, and I am re-begot
Of absence, darkness, death—things which are not.

[So look carefully at me, all of you who will be lovers next spring — as far away as another world — because I have become like death itself, though love with its magic once distilled out of my nothingness the concentrated essence of myself.  But Love also ruined me. He has now re-made me out of absence, darkness and death, almost as if I had been born out of nonexistent things.]

All others, from all things, draw all that's good,
Life, soul, form, spirit, whence they being have ;
    I, by Love's limbec, am the grave
    Of all, that's nothing. Oft a flood
            Have we two wept, and so
Drown'd the whole world, us two ; oft did we grow,
To be two chaoses, when we did show
Care to aught else ; and often absences
Withdrew our souls, and made us carcasses.

[Everyone around me seems to have the best of all good things. They are made of life, soul, form, body, spirit — they are real.  But I, through the distillation process that is love, have been reduced to a mere grave where emptiness is buried.  Many times in the past we two wept a flood of tears that drowned everything. Many times we became chaotic messes when we had to pay attention to anything besides each other.  Many times when we were apart, we became lifeless as corpses.]

But I am by her death—which word wrongs her—
Of the first nothing the elixir grown ;
    Were I a man, that I were one
    I needs must know ; I should prefer,
            If I were any beast,
Some ends, some means ; yea plants, yea stones detest,
And love; all, all some properties invest.
If I an ordinary nothing were,
As shadow, a light, and body must be here.
But I am none; nor will my Sun renew.

[But she  (the loved one)  died, if that word can be used in talking about her, and that turned me into something like a potion distilled from the primordial chaos before creation.  If I were a real human being (and I should know what that is like because I used to be one) I would think myself better off if I were an animal.  Even plants and stones have feelings, and they are more real and alive than I am.  They are capable of loving and hating. Even if I were a nothing, a mere object, I would have the capacity to cast a shadow when light shone on me. But I am truly nothing, and the sun will never shine for me again.]

You lovers, for whose sake the lesser sun
    At this time to the Goat is run
    To fetch new lust, and give it you,
            Enjoy your summer all,
Since she enjoys her long night's festival.
Let me prepare towards her, and let me call
This hour her vigil, and her eve, since this
Both the year's and the day's deep midnight is.

[All you lovers—on account of whom the sun in the sky (not the true sun) now arrives in the constellation Capricorn (the goat), to borrow for the new summer new life-drive (like a goat’s lust)—all of you go and enjoy your summer.  Since she (St. Lucy) is enjoying and celebrating this long night, let me get ready for her, and let me call this hour her (the dead loved one's) vigil, and her evening (or Eve), since it is the midnight of both the year and this day.]

Grace and Peace,

Fr. Tony+ 

Comfort, Comfort My People (Advent 2A)

St. Paul's Cathedral, Munster, Germany, 1946

Comfort, Comfort My People

Second Sunday of Advent (Year B)

 Isaiah 40:1-11; Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13; 2 Peter 3:8-15a; Mark 1:1-8
Homily delivered at the Trinity Parish Church

Ashland, Oregon

The Rev. Fr. Tony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D.
10th December 2017: 8:00 am Said and 10:00 am Sung Mass

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

In 587 BCE, a great catastrophe befell the people of the kingdom of Judah.  One of the world’s first trans-national Empires, Babylon, after, as they saw things, a decade of dealing patiently with the fanatic and ultra-nationalistic people of Judah, came down hard. After killing all insurgent combatants, they deported the entire ruling class of the nation, letting them off with their lives but transporting them en masse to Mesopotamia far from their homeland where they might stir up more trouble. They deposed and blinded the king they had put on the throne of Judah only ten years before.  They placed another puppet, this time non-royal and hopefully more compliant, in the role of governor of the now newly-named province of Judah.  They burned Jerusalem and leveled to its foundation the center of its obstinate, uncompromising national religion, the Temple of Yahweh.  No stone was left standing on another stone. 

This disaster was overwhelming and unfathomable.  Yahweh had promised to protect his people and the line of the kings descended from David.  But now all that was gone.  The Hebrew way of worship had ceased; the Temple was a mere memory.  Almost all families had lost members; many were wiped out entirely.  The nation simply no longer existed.  God had broken the covenant with his people.  Indeed, they were no more even a people.  And he was no more their God.  How could one understand these events any other way? 

Among the exiles in Babylon was a prophet who wrote in the tradition of Isaiah, and whose oracles have been preserved in the latter part of that book.  In the midst of that national disaster, he wrote: 

Nahumu, nahamu 'ommi, “comfort, comfort my people.”

The Hebrew is a soft, lilting, lullaby.  It is a plural command: “you all go out and comfort them, comfort them, for they are still my people. I am still their God.” 

The words are achingly beautiful and full of love.  “Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and call out to her.   She has served her time in prison; her penalty is paid.  Her suffering is so great that it cannot be the mere punishment for past sins—it is at least twice as worse as that.”  

This prophet then sings three separate oracles, different voices of comfort. 

The first proclaims that as low as things have gotten, Yahweh is about to perform the ultimate turning of the tables.  He will wondrously bring about the impossible by returning the exiles from Babylon to Judah and removing any obstacles in their way.  He will level the mountain and canyon filled desert where Jordan, Syria, and western Iraq currently lie, and put in its place a smooth highway speeding the exiles’ return.  And this will be a sign of God’s love not just for his people, but for all of humanity:

A voice cries out:

‘In the wilderness prepare Yahweh’s road,

make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

Every valley shall be lifted up,

and every mountain and hill be made low;

the uneven ground shall become level,

and the rough places a plain.

Then Yahweh’s glory shall be revealed,

and all people shall see it together,

for the mouth of Yahweh has said it.’

 

A second oracle takes up the theme: 

‘All people are grass,

their constancy is like the flower of the field.

The grass withers, the flower fades,

when the breath of the LORD blows upon it;

surely people are grass.

The grass withers, the flower fades;

but the word of our God will stand forever.’

Note that Second Isaiah’s message is NOT: “The national disaster was God’s just punishment on us and now he will restore us to our former state.  We will be his people and he will be our God, and all our enemies will now get their just deserts and it will be a great thing to be a Jew.”   

Rather, Second Isaiah’s message is: “Our suffering was beyond anything just.  It is a mystery, just as God is a mystery.  But our suffering is part of what it means to be human.  All of humanity suffers.  We are grass.  We are impermanent.  But God’s promise remains, and that for all people.” 

It has always struck me as odd that Second Isaiah here thinks that a voice of joyful news would cry out, “All people are grass.  They wither in a day, and fade.”  What good news is there in such a saying? 

Accepting our common humanity and our facing square-on our limitations is actually a very liberating thing.  It is the start of all authentic spiritual growth and health.  It is aporeia, the thing that makes Socrates a wise man and the sophists around him foolish—he at least knows and accepts that he is ignorant while they go about in self-delusion.  It is what Buddhists call accepting impermanence and giving up desire, abandoning the expectations that enslave us, and the start of the process of enlightenment.  It is the start of what Muhammad called Islam, “submission” to God.  It is what the wisdom tradition in the Hebrew scripture calls the “beginning of all wisdom,” “awe or fear of the Lord.”   For those following Twelve-Step spirituality, it is the First Step, “we admitted we were powerless and that our lives had become unmanageable.”  It is what Jesus is describing when he says we must first lose our lives in order to find them. 

Acceptance of our condition as imperfect, limited, and impermanent people living in an imperfect and sometimes horrifying world is needed to break down the barriers between us and other people.  It is at the heart of the process of repentance, of regretting and turning from our misdoings, and working amendment of life. 

I think that is why St. Mark in today’s Gospel says that John the Baptist’s preaching of repentance was the “Beginning of the Joyful Proclamation” of Jesus Christ.  Mark sees John as the “messenger sent before the Lord’s Day,” borrowing from Malachi, and as, borrowing from today’s reading from Second Isaiah, the voice crying “in wilderness prepare the way.”   John, as dour and unsparing as we usually like to think him, is still a bringer of Good News, because he urges us to accept that we are helpless and hopeless, and this universally so, since all people for him needed his baptism, regardless of their heritage, religion, or family background. 

But acceptance is only the start.  In order to find the hope and help we lack, we need to turn our lives over to this God who breaks down barriers, smoothes down the barriers and fills up the gaps, makes the rough places plain, recreates the broken nation, and raises the dead to life. 

The third oracle in today’s Isaiah passage fairly sings in joy of what it means when we recognize God’s hand in these loving acts of restoring the exiles.  Second Isaiah personifies the City about to be rebuilt by the returning exiles, Jerusalem built high on Mount Zion, itself as a herald of joyful news, the joyful news of God’s love:   

Get you up to a high mountain,

O Zion, herald of good tidings;

lift up your voice with strength,

O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings,

lift it up, do not fear;

say to the cities of Judah,

"Here is your God!"

See, Yahweh God comes with might,

and his arm rules for him;

his reward is with him,

and his recompense before him.

He will feed his flock like a shepherd;

he will gather the lambs in his arms,

and carry them in his bosom,

and gently lead the mother sheep.

Note how this changes the commonplace used by the Hebrew prophets, the coming day when Yahweh will reward the righteous and punish evil-doers.  No longer is this a day that burns.  No longer is it a great day of military conquest.  It is a day of gentle love.  It is a day that God as a loving shepherd feeds his flock, and carries the little lambs tenderly in his arms.  “Here is your God,” he says, implicitly saying “and not in those images of blood and fire.”  For Second Isaiah, God is a loving shepherd, not a warrior or executioner.

The season of Advent is a season of preparation and waiting.  We await and prepare for the in-breaking of God, for the coming of Christ, whether once long ago in Bethlehem, now in our hearts, or at the end of time in glory.  

As we prepare, let us remember Second Isaiah’s message: we are all grass, and quickly fade.  But God loves us.  The coming of God to set things right is a moment of comfort, a moment of joyful news, that must be for all.  It is a moment when God as a mother sings lullabies to us, her children, and when God, as a gentle shepherd, carries us in love, his lambs.

Sisters and brothers: many of us are hurting: some go about angry and upset with the hardness of our lives and the bitterness of events in this last year, this annus horribilis.  We sometimes are hard on others, and on ourselves.  But listen here to God’s word:  Take comfort, my people, and give comfort.  Accept this life, bitter and sweet, but all the sweeter because it is so short.  I am still your God, and will surely save you. I will surely save you.  Get to that high and holy mountain, and look down on the glorious impossible as I smooth your paths and quicken your pace, bring the dead to life, and gather up the wounded and lost in my arms.  Comfort, comfort, my people.

In the name of God, Amen