This Sunday is the Feast of the Tranfiguration, which gives us a glimpse of Jesus in his glory before we begin the long walk to the Cross on Ash Wednesday.

One of the unfortunate consequences of a shorter Epiphany season is that our sermon series on Mark’s miracles must come to a premature end. So, I’d like to take a little time to highlight what is the climax of the cycle that we have been working through these last weeks, the raising of the paralytic in Mark 2.

 What with all the miracles that have been erupting all around Jesus, the crowds now following him are so large that he can no longer enter a village anonymously. Once ensconced in Peter’s house, the crowds actually prevent anyone from entering or exiting the house.

Some first-century “Holmes on Homes” type men, however, refuse to let the crowds keep them from bringing their paralyzed friend to Jesus. They tear a hole in Peter’s roof (wonder what he thought of that?!?) and lower their friend to Jesus on a mat.

Here, Jesus words are most curious. “My son, your sins are forgiven.” It’s not what we readers would expect to hear and a gaggle of critics actually find it blasphemous. It is Jesus’ response to the critics that is most important. He challenges their assumptions by healing the man and taking the name “Son of Man” for himself.

The Son of Man is an end-time figure from the book of Daniel in the Old Testament. He would be, Daniel says, God’s own king at the time of the end. In taking this title for himself, in healing the man, and most importantly, in forgiving his sins, Jesus makes a startling claim for himself: he is so uniquely God’s agent that he can do things only God can do. This is, of course, the application of his preaching: The Kingdom has drawn near. It is time to repent and believe.

The climax of the miracle cycle, then, is not the miracles. It is that with the coming of Jesus and the preaching the Kingdom, sins are now forgiven and the rift between God and human beings is healed. Not by the strenuous efforts of pious people, but by God’s own Son, who is determined to be gracious.

The question this story poses to us is this: having heard the Good News, will we leave Jesus healed and reconciled to God or will we leave him, as his critics did, still religious yet still unredeemed.

I Will It. Be Clean.

Mark 1:40-45

This is the third of four weeks in which we have been directed by the Gospel lesson to one of Jesus’ miracles. Two weeks ago, it was the healing of the demoniac in the synagogue. Last week, it was the healing of Peter’s mother in law from a fever. This week, Jesus cleanses a leper. Next week, he will raise a paralytic. All along Mark’s dominant image for these miracles is conflict, or warfare. Jesus’ entire ministry is a battle against the powers of evil.

It begins right after Jesus is baptized. As soon as he comes out of the water, he is anointed with the Holy Spirit and commissioned as the Son of God by a heavenly voice. Then the same Spirit drives him into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After this battle, Jesus comes into Galilee preaching, calling disciples and healing. Every sermon, every calling, every healing, we are to understand as the continuation of the battle of the Son of God against the evil one.

But it’s a strange kind of battle. Jesus’ only weapons are his words announcing the coming of the kingdom. And the only casualties—if they can really be called that—are people rescued from demonic domination, people restored to health. War is a strange and arresting metaphor for Mark to have chosen as the dominant description of Jesus’ ministry.

Why Mark has chosen to elaborate those miracle stories he does in this opening description of Jesus’ ministry? We have read about three in some detail: A demoniac, an ill woman, a leper. We will read a fourth next Sunday—the paralytic. But we also know that these are not the only miracles that have occurred. We read last week that all the sick and demonized in the town of Capernaum were brought to Peter’s house as soon as Sabbath was over and Jesus healed and delivered them. So, lots of miracles are happening. Why does Mark choose these four? We’ll talk about the paralytic next week. Let us focus on the three we have read thus far.

In the first two cases, the “enemy” which Jesus defeats is obvious. In the synagogue, it was the devil. At Peter’s house it was disease. The many miracles that followed in are similar kinds. What is it about the leper’s cleansing that makes it worthy of elaboration in the midst of all these other healings and exorcisms? Let us look at it more closely.

“And a leper came to him begging him and kneeling, and he said to him, ‘If you will it, you are able to make me clean.’” That’s a rather wooden translation of v. 40. The leper asks for cleansing. He is unclean; he wishes Jesus to make him clean. The key to the whole story is found in this one little word. Clean. What does it mean?

To get our bearings, we have to go the book of Leviticus, where chapters 13 and 14 prescribe various procedures for dealing with skin diseases lumped together under the word “leprosy.” People with various kinds of skin diseases were to be examined by the priest. And, based on the colour of the sore, whether or not it ran or spread, and so on, the priest would pronounce the patient either “clean” or “unclean.”

In Leviticus, lots of things could make a person unclean. People who touched corpses were unclean for a day. Women who were menstruating or who had just given birth were considered unclean until they were ritually purified. To be pronounced a leper was to be pronounced unclean. And to be unclean was to be outside the community. The first two examples—having to remove a dead body from a home or having just given birth—were regular occurrences. There were time limits to be observed and rituals to be followed, but cleanliness would return without anyone giving it much thought.

Not for a leper. A leper was unclean until the symptoms went away. There was no time limit. Not only was it open ended, but it was also frightfully public. The leper was to have his clothes torn. He was to keep his head bare. He was to cover his moustache and cry “Unclean” so that all would know to steer well clear of him. And worst of all, he would live outside the camp.

This is the Old Testament’s version of quarantine. Cut off from family. Cut off from friends. Cut off from the social ties that enabled him to feed himself, his wife, and his children. To be diagnosed as a leper was to turn a man into an outcast, his wife into a widow, and his children into orphans. It was to fracture a family and reduce its members to beggars or prostitutes. That’s what unclean means.

And that’s a very human response to disease that persists. Many remember when HIV/AIDS first became a headline. I recall parents screaming at each other over whether HIV infected children ought to be going to public schools? I remember arguments about whether it could be caught by sharing a cup or a toothbrush? It took forever not only for the facts about just how hard this terrible disease is to catch came out and even to penetrate the public consciousness. That’s unclean.

And a leper came to him kneeling and begging and saying to him, if you will it you can make me clean. Do you hear this man’s desperation? He has grasped every straw. He has spent every hope, every dream. He has nowhere else to go. Do you hear the heart cry of his question? I haven’t touched my wife in years. I haven’t held my kids since they were little. They don’t recognize me anymore. My brothers shun me. I couldn’t help bury my father and mother. At least I can sleep by their graves. My sisters shoo my nieces and nephews away from me as I sit out here and try to scrape together enough scraps to eat just one more day. But if you will it. . . .

“And being deeply moved,” begins verse 41. The verb is an odd one. It describes a deep pain that could just as easily be translated as “anger” as “compassion.” Jesus was profoundly moved—whether with compassion on the man or anger on the disease that had ravaged him and his family or both, the text doesn’t say.

“And being deeply moved, he put out his hand and touched him.” He touched him. Who was unclean. Jesus touched him. He didn’t have to, you know. Jesus didn’t touch the woman with the hemorrhage, in Mark 5. She touched the fringe of his robes. He didn’t even enter the soldier’s house or even pronounce words of healing in Luke 7. He touched this man. This man who had perhaps years before, bared his head, tore his clothes, left his family to live outside the camp. Jesus touched him and said to him, “I will it. Be clean.”

And what does Mark say next? “And immediately,” in a black church I’d be getting Amens right about now. “And immediately,” only two little words. “And immediately,” do they stir you? “And immediately,” do they quicken your pulse? “And immediately,” is your heart racing? “And immediately,” do you want to know how the story ends? “And immediately, the leprosy left him and he was made clean.” And immediately, he could go to the Temple and be declared clean. And immediately he was back in covenant with God and with God’s people. And immediately he could shave his head. And immediately, he could bathe. And immediately he could put on clean clothes. And immediately he could go home. And immediately, he was clean.

That’s why this miracle is included alongside the demoniac, the fever-stricken woman, and the paralytic. With them, it declares just who exactly Jesus’ enemies are. When he recounted the story of  the demon was expelled from the man in the synagogue, Mark was telling us that Jesus’ invasive mission is marked by enmity against those spiritual powers that hold people hostage. When he described the healing of Peter’s mother in law, Mark told us that Jesus’ invasive ministry is marked by enmity against any disease for disease no less than demons prevents human flourishing.  And now, with the cleansing of the leper, Mark is told us that Jesus’ invasive ministry is marked by enmity against anything that would cut anyone off from taking their place among the people of God.

This Gospel lesson is directed to two different groups of people. The first group might be identified with the disciples who were with Jesus on that first preaching tour around Galilee. What do you suppose Simon and his companions thought when they saw Jesus touch the leper? The text doesn’t say. But human nature hasn’t changed. Put yourself in their position. You are walking beside Jesus as you are just leaving a Galilean village and a dirty, smelly, unkempt, physically deformed, man accosts your Rabbi and kneeling in front of him, begins to make a scene. What is your response?  Are you angry? Are you afraid? Are you desperately trying to just wish the situation away? If you are any of those things, you are likely experiencing exactly the same emotions as the first disciples of Jesus, that day.

Now imagine further. As you are trying to think of a way of rescuing yourself from the situation without being disrespectful of this man’s plight, you see your rabbi, your teacher touch him. Things have gone from bad to worse! Jesus has given a measure of acceptance that the Law forbids and at the cost of making himself unclean. We’ve all been in situations where a serious social faux pas has been committed. Jesus has just committed the worst possible social faux pas. Now what will people think?

Does Jesus judge his disciples, us, for reacting this way? No. He just models a different way. He touched the leper. Saint Francis kissed the sores of a beggar. John Wesley set up Sunday Schools to educate children who were working in almost slave conditions in Eighteenth century English factories and mines. Mother Theresa established a home for the dying in Calcutta, India. Tony Campolo gave a prostitute a birthday cake. Why? To bribe them into listening to a sermon? To salve their own consciences? Cynics can come up with all sorts of reasons. But maybe the reasons are far more simple. Maybe it had to do with imitating Jesus. Maybe it had to do with recognizing, under all the judgments that society had already heaped upon them, that these were human beings made in God’s image. Beloved by God’s Son. And worthy of hospitality.

That brings us to the second group that the Gospel speaks to. Maybe you belong to this group. Maybe you would say that you identify not with the disciples, but with the leper. Maybe you’d say that you don’t need good religious folks coming alongside to remind you just how you don’t fit at this or at any other church. You know you’re on the outside. Unclean, to use the language of the Bible.

If that’s you, then hear the Good News. Jesus is already extending his hand to you. Jesus wants to make you clean, to bring you in, to include you among his people, among God’s people. And if some of God’s people can’t see the grace that Jesus extends to you, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that the Good News of the Gospel is that you can be made clean. What matters is that the Lord of the Gospel has unequivocally declared himself to be on your side.

“I will it. Be clean.”

Proclamation, Prayer and Community–Signs of the Kingdom

Throughout this Epiphany Season, we have asked together just what difference the coming of Jesus makes. When the identity of Jesus as King and as God, as Messiah and as Mediator, whether that disclosure is through the gifts of the magi or the waters of Jesus’ own baptism, what changes? Not simply what changed—i.e., what changed back then. But also what changes—what does it have to do with us? How are our lives different?

We noticed, first of all, that when Jesus is made known, people are called. John the Baptist pointed to Jesus and Andrew and a companion followed him. Andrew told Simon, and Simon became a disciple too. Philip was taken unawares by Jesus and became a disciple and sceptical Nathanael soon met Jesus and was himself enrolled in the school of discipleship. Jesus, we saw, calls people. He is both the subject and the object of proclamation. Like John the Baptist, we point people of Jesus and he does the rest. He does the calling.  Jesus calls all kinds of people—seekers and sitters and sceptics—all are found in the first disciples and that diversity has yet to change. There is no cookie-cutter Christian. And called people point others to Jesus. It’s what we do.

Second, we noticed that when Jesus is made known, when he calls people, “immediately,” things begin to happen. Simon and Andrew leave their nets; James and John leave both their nets and their father. Why? On the word of Jesus alone. His words. His gaze. His call. His grace. They are irresistible.  Jesus will call whom he calls. It is our task to introduce people to Jesus and then, crucially, to get out of the way so that by his Spirit, he might do his work in peoples’ lives.

Last week—and I got to read the sermon if not listen to it—last week Father Derrenbacker led us into Paul’s letter to the Corinthians and asked us what kind of ethic, what kind of common life should identify those of us who have been called to follow Jesus. And while none of us have trouble with idol-meat, the ethic that Paul uses to address that issue—which was a real point of conflict in the Corinthian Church—continues to speak to us. It is an other-centred ethic. An ethic that says not, “What is my right?” but “How might my actions help you in your walk with Jesus?” So, yes idols don’t exist. They can’t hurt me—also true. Food is food—obvious enough. I’m free to eat idol meat—exactly. But—and this is where things get interesting—if my eating idol meat scandalizes you, says Paul, I’ll stick with carrots!

That’s the ethic that Jesus and Paul bequeathed to the Corinthians. And it is the ethic that they give us. And it is that ethic that leads us into our Gospel lesson for today.

The Gospel lesson might not strike us at first as a passage that deals with ethics and action, but a moment’s reflection, I think, will suggest otherwise.

The Gospel opens “and immediately” with Jesus and the disciples returning to Simon’s house, where Simon’s mother-in-law is healed of a fever. This is followed by the entire town of Capernaum showing up, with their sick and demon-possessed to be healed. And Jesus heals them.

A quick word here on the exorcisms. This is the second mention of exorcisms in the ministry of Jesus. And it might be that some of us aren’t quite sure what to do with them. I think we have to say two things about them, since exorcisms are a fundamental factor in the ministry of Jesus as it is recorded for us in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, as well as the one which recounts our Gospel for today, Mark.

The first thing that needs to be said is that exorcisms are a particular kind of healing miracle. And so, in one sense, they should be regarded as no different from other kinds of healing miracles. And Mark’s Gospel abounds in healing miracles—Simon’s mother-in-law is cured, a leper is cleansed, blind Bartimaeus receives his sight, and so on. So, there’s no reason for the first century to exclude exorcisms just to spare us our sensitivities about ghosties and ghoulies and long-leggedy beasties and things that go bump in the night. When Jesus comes proclaiming the good news, people are made whole—in both spirit as well as body.

The second thing that needs to be said is that our own language reveals that we’re not so far away from the language of evil spirits controlling people as we might like to think. Think about the old adage: “First I take a drink. Then the drink takes a drink. Then the drink takes me.” The Bible’s language of the demonic forces us to face the fact that there are times when we are not in control of ourselves or our actions. We are often, in fact, not simply out of control, but actually enslaved to foreign substances that bend us to their will. We use the language of addiction for some of these. But the notion of being controlled by something outside of us is something very real even for us in the moern era. It is far from the trivial red-suited devil on our shoulder manipulating us by whispering in our ear. When Jesus comes, he frees people from this kind of enslavement. That’s what exorcism means.

Fretting about exorcisms, however, does take us away from the thrust of this text, which comes in the final section. There we read that Jesus got up early and went to a deserted place to pray. And when his disciples found him out, and told him people were looking for him, his reply was, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns that I may proclaim themessage there also; for that is why I came out to do.”

It is interesting to me that in a passage that is so centred on miracles, Jesus is spends time praying and then talking about preaching. He has spent the better part of a day healing people. He has spent the better part of the day restoring health to broken bodies and muddled minds. You would think he would want to rise early to get a head start on healing the very next day.

Instead, he takes time to pray. Instead, he insists his mission is a proclamatory one.

The miracles are there. There’s no denying that they’re part of the story. But they’re not the point of the story. In Mark’s mind—and in Jesus’ words—proclamation is the point. The miracles are proof that Jesus is telling the truth: that with his coming, the Kingdom of God had broken into history. That with his coming, the time for dithering had come to an end. That with his coming it was time for people to repent—that is to change the way they acted and to change the way they thought—and believe the Good News—to trust that Jesus was the one who would inaugurate this Kingdom of wholeness, health, and peace. The focus for Mark, as for Jesus, is not on the activity but the proclamation.

Likewise, the prayers are there. All the Gospel writers tell of times when Jesus withdrew from ministry, from even his disciples to pray. But the prayers are not the point of the story. Jesus does not to withdraw to spend his life in prayer and solitude—there’s nothing wrong with that, by the way. He withdraws temporarily to commune with his father. To recharge. With a view to moving on—and doing so quickly, doing so, in Mark’s words, “and immediately.”

Well, what does this have to do with us? We are not Jesus. That might be true, but we have followed his call. Like Simon and Andrew, James and John, we have been called to become fishers of men and women, to announce the coming of the kingdom as Jesus did. Jesus proclaimed the kingdom, was empowered by prayer, and produced a community of healed people. If we would follow in his steps, it seems to me, this understanding of Jesus and his ministry invites us to ask three questions.

How does the proclamation of the Good News of the Kingdom flow into our self-understanding? That’s another way of asking just why we’re here. Is the Epiphany at its core basically a service club? I’m a member of the Rotary Sunrisers. Let me tell you, that compared to them, we are not a very good service club. Our attendance requirements are far too lax! There is a serious point to be made here though, isn’t there. How do our tasks introduce people to Jesus? How might we refocus, retool, reflect on what we already do to make them better vehicles to announce the Good News that God’s Kingdom has come? What practices might need to be retired? What new ones might be enjoined? What might change were we to make the proclamation of the Good News of the Kingdom more central to all the things we do?

How does our prayer-life impact upon our proclaiming work? Are there times when we—both corporately and privately, both leaders and helpers—withdraw to pray, to focus, to reflect, to ask the questions I just posed above not simply of ourselves, but of the God who has committed to us his mission here in downtown Sudbury? This is a question that applies to us both as a community and as individual believers. What might change if more of us did that?

Here’s the third question. It is for me, the hardest one. Would we point to ourselves as a community of healed people as evidence of God’s presence with us? Here’s what I mean: In last week’s Gospel, the people were amazed at the exorcism and asked, “What’s this? A new teaching with authority!” The proof of the proclamation, in other words, lay in the lives transformed by it. The same is true today. The proof of the Gospel lies not in a theory about the perfection of the Church or in the infallibility of Scripture—the theology classroom is the right place for those things to come up. But in the practice of proclamation, the proof of the Gospel simply is the community that grows up around its proclamation.

Is the way of life that marks our community a sign of the presence of God’s kingdom? Are people finding healing here? Are people being welcomed here? Would people look at the way we live together and respond as the synagogue congregation did to Jesus’ miracle: these people have something that is true, something that makes a difference! The point here is not perfection. The point is healing. My favourite image of the church—and many of you know this already—is that of a hospital for sinners. So, it’s not a matter of setting moral standards higher. I’m not asking about morality. I am asking whether people are visibly journeying toward healing here as a result of meeting Jesus.

The preaching of the Kingdom was central to Jesus’ self understanding and mission. How does the proclamation of the Good News of the Kingdom flow into ours? Prayer was the precursor to and lifeblood of Jesus’ preaching. What is the place of prayer in our life and mission? A community of the healed was the product of Jesus’ preaching. Are we on the way to becoming healed people? How might we become more the kind of community we can point to when people ask us if the Gospel really works?

Jesus Calls (2)

Mark 1:14-20

Last Sunday, we began our journey with Jesus to the mount of Transfiguration as we read about the calling of Philip and Nathanael. We saw in the story three intersections between the biblical world and our own: Jesus calls; Jesus calls different kinds of people; and called people bring people.

We continue in the same vein this week as we read another call story. It involves some of the same people, but it is reset in terms of its location (from the Jordan, near the Dead Sea, to the sea of Galilee), and it is told differently.

The text falls into two paragraphs. The opening paragraph, vv. 14-15, tells us how Mark understands the beginning of Jesus’ preaching ministry.  There are a number of important observations to make.

First, John, the forerunner according to Mark’s understanding of has had his role come to an end. He has been put into prison. Not only does John’s ministry logically and chronologically precede Jesus  ministry, it also foreshadows it.  Just as John was “handed over” (that is the Greek phrase used), so, at the end of his own ministry, Jesus will also be “handed over” to be killed. Second, Mark makes clear that Galilee will be the center of Jesus ministry. Jesus had come to John from Galilee (1:9). Now, after his temptation in the wilderness, he comes back to Galilee. Third, Jesus’ ministry will focus on the proclamation of the good news of the kingdom. Whatever else happens—whatever miracles, whatever controversies, whatever callings—whatever else happens will serve to illustrate his preaching.

That message itself is then summarized in verse 15. It is condensed into two announcements followed by two commands. First, Jesus says, “The time is fulfilled.” The time, in other words, that the prophets—the last and greatest of which was John himself—looked forward to was now here. The second announcement then elaborates on the first. The time is fulfilled because the Kingdom of God is present. With the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, God’s rule has, in fact, already entered history.

And the response to this announcement is then made plain. Repent, that is, change your ways. And believe in the Gospel—in other words, trust that in me, the kingdom of God has come and is here. As Mark presents it, there is in Jesus’ message a deliberate confusion of the proclaimer—Jesus—and the proclaimed—the Gospel of the Kingdom. Jesus is both the one through whom the Good News is being preached and the one in whom the Kingdom comes.

In the next paragraph, we move to the call of the first four disciples: Simon, Andrew, James and John. Mark’s story opens as Jesus is walking by the sea of Galilee. And Jesus’ eyes fall upon Andrew and Peter, fishing. “Follow me,” he says, “And I will make you fish for people,” And immediately (one of Mark’s favourite phrases) they left their nets and followed him. He then walks just a little further up the beach, I imagine Andrew and Peter racing to catch up from behind, to where he sees James and John. And the scene is repeated. “And immediately” Jesus calls and the brothers leave their nets to follow Jesus (no one knows what Zebedee thought as he saw his RRSPs walking away).

There are three aspects about discipleship in this call story that draw our attention. The first is this: Jesus calls. This intenstifies the theme found in last week’s text. Jesus emerges on the scene. Jesus calls the disciples solely by means of an authoritative summons. The disciples did not choose their master—a fairly common characteristic in other Jewish call stories—the master chose them. And they obeyed.

Second, Jesus’ call has both negative and positive responses. Negatively, the disciples leave. They leave their nets; which is to say, their occupations. They leave the only means of financial security they have ever known. They leave the only means of providing for their families for which they have been trained. Not only do they leave their occupation, but James and John at least leave also their father behind. The call to discipleship for these followers of Jesus meant a radical and immediate severing of social and family ties. The theme introduced here—which will slowly intensify throughout the Gospel—is that of the cost of discipleship.

Positively, Andrew, Peter, James, and John responded by following Jesus. He called; they followed. There is no mention of deliberation. Peter did not stop fishing, call Andrew aside and weight the pros and cons. James and John did not contact an accountant and sit down with Zebedee to make the appropriate financial arrangements for the family business before they left it behind. The immediacy of their response is reinforced and intensified by Mark’s repetition of the phrase, “and immediately.”

Third, Jesus promises that these new disciples will have a new vocation. No longer will they fish for, well, fish. Now, they will fish for men and women. Why does Jesus make such a strange statement? Remember, we’re dealing with a call story. Call stories are not uncommon. They grow up around influential rabbis. Mark’s call story follows the right form, but some of the details are strikingly different. We have already seen one. Where in a typical call story we would find the disciples searching out their master, Mark has Jesus calling Andrew, Peter, James and John. Here we have another striking, if small, change. Instead of the master saying to the new followers that they will, under him, become students of the Law, the Torah, now they will fish for people.

The significance is remarkable. For in these words, Jesus has obliterated any permanent distinction in terms of status between his disciples and himself. The disciples will accompany Jesus. The disciples will learn from Jesus. The disciples will be commissioned by Jesus. All of this is true. But they will not be his inferiors. They will be trained to share in his ministry and eventually to continue it. That he called two pairs of brothers probably foreshadows the further development of this theme when Jesus will in chapter 6 send out the disciples two by two to minister to the people in the same manner as he had.

What does the Gospel have to say to us this morning? First, Jesus calls. I know. It’s a carry-over from last week. But bear with me. Far too often we want to jump to the latter part of the story. To the response of the disciples. To the stories emphasis on the immediacy and cost of discipleship. But that’s premature. Before we focus on the negative response (what we have to give up) and positive response (what we must do) to Jesus call, we must focus on the call itself.

When we do not, it is a short step to the subtle and deadly deception that we have, by our response, actually earned the call. That our response is not a response at all. That we have taken the initiative. That we have found Jesus. That we remain in control of our lives. That we have an occasion to brag. To think ourselves better.

But scripture does not say that. Scripture says that Jesus calls. Without Jesus’ call, Andrew and Peter would have kept on fishing. Without Jesus’ call, James and John would have kept on mending their nets with their Dad. The Scriptures say that God in his grace found them before they were even looking for him.

In every decision that is made, Jesus is in control. It will be our task not orchestrate events but to pray and to work in such a way that any orchestration is left to Jesus. He will call. Our job is first to listen, and then to act.

Second, Jesus calls ordinary people. Andrew and Peter, James and John. Fishermen. Business men. Not aristocracy. Caesar is in Rome, Herod in one of his palaces, Pilate in his administrative offices in Jerusalem. Jesus was in Galillee. Jesus was calling fishermen. Jesus passed over the powerful. Jesus evaded the elite. Jesus went to the weak. Jesus walked among the ordinary and the everyday in a backwater province of the Roman Empire. And when he called, he called ordinary everyday people.

And he still calls ordinary, everyday people. He called a Polish actor and student in the midst of the Nazi reign of terror in the 1930s. “And immediately,” Karol Wojtyla ended a romantic relationship, entered seminary (a capital offense under the Nazi government of Poland), and became a priest. His message to Poles under the Nazis: “Do not be afraid. Christ has triumphed. So will you.” When the Nazis were replaced by the Communists, he became a bishop. His message to Poles under a second foreign occupation was “Do not be afraid. Christ has triumphed. So will you.” When, in 1981, he stood on the balcony outside the papal apartments, his message to Poles and to all under the repressive government of the Soviet empire was “Do not be afraid. Christ has triumphed. So will you.”

How much of the 20^th century was shaped by a Polish actor who heard the call of Jesus and changed the world. The real story of the collapse of Soviet style communism is not the story of power plays and armies and political machinations. It is the story of ordinary people who became convinced of the truth of the Gospel. Who became convinced that because Christ had triumphed they could look death in the eye and not blink because He had gone ahead of them and come out the other side.

Now this morning, you may well be thinking I’m not cut out to be a priest, let alone a Pope. I’m no great leader. I have no profound moral vision. And all of those statements may be perfectly true. But Jesus doesn’t call the great and the powerful. Jesus calls fishermen and actors. These are the people Jesus uses to change the world. Jesus calls ordinary people to do extraordinary things. There is no reason to believe that he will act differently here. The only question will be will we, like Andrew, Peter, James and John, leave all behind when he calls.

UPDATE: Here is a link to the mp3

“After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.”

It seems like such a trifling detail, doesn’t it. That after eight days, Jesus was circumcised and named. Every Jewish boy was. This was the way of things. No swarthy shepherds shouting in amazement about angelic armies now. Back to life as usual. Jesus, just like every other boy born, was made a child of the covenant. The covenant—the contract that God had made with Abraham and his descendants—was literally cut into him. He was circumcised.

It’s not only trifling, but it’s also kind of gross. Do we really need to hear about that? I know some of you are thinking that. Especially in our day when it is such a controversial procedure. When it has become a debate that has itself become politicized. Do we really need to hear about that? It’s ok to ask that question.

It’s ok to ask that question provided you’re willing to wrestle with Luke’s answer. For Luke, the circumcision of Jesus is neither trifling nor offensive.  It is, on the contrary, absolutely essential to his story.

I say it is absolutely essential because of the way it sticks out in Luke’s telling. It sticks out first because it doesn’t really fit in the nativity story. That story—which we read last week and partially re-read this week—naturally concludes with the shepherds leaving and Mary pondering. Neither does the circumcision of Jesus fit as a beginning to the presentation story—the story of baby Jesus at the Temple, where he is blessed by Simeon and Anna. It just sticks out. That one verse is neither fish nor fowl. It doesn’t belong to the nativity; it doesn’t belong to the presentation. Yet there it is. Sticking out.

It sticks out for another reason. It sticks out because of its sheer ordinariness. In the nativity, there are angelic armies singing the praises of God. There are awestruck shepherds shouting their amazement to all who will listen. In the presentation, Jesus’ identity is disclosed in Simeon’s song of praise, and in his subsequent warning to Mary. That identity is then declared by the prophetess, Anna, to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem. Bookended by the miraculous is this one verse that is, just, boring. After eight days, Jesus was circumcised and named. In its everydayness, it sticks out.

Luke, I am convinced, wants us to notice this one little verse. He does not want us to treat it as trifling. He does not want us to pass over it as everyday. He certainly does not want us to flinch at the nature of the procedure, for the sake of our easily offended scruples. Luke bookends this one verse with the miraculous. Luke makes sure it fits in neither story that surrounds it. Luke wants us to notice it.

Why?

Luke wants us to see God not simply in the miraculous, but in the every day. In the ordinary.

Last Sunday we spoke about John’s four words that turn all our ideas about God upside down—the Word became flesh. If we really stop to think about it, those words are revolutionary. For if they’re true, they mean that God is not trapped in his transcendence unable to communicate with his creatures. If they’re true, they mean that God’s transcendence, his “otherness,” is most fully expressed in his entrance into time and space as the human Jesus of Nazareth. One who is fully human. Ordinarily human.

Luke is making the same point here with this one verse wedged into his accounts of the miraculous. Their may well have been miracles surrounding God’s entry into our world, but that entry point was itself ordinary. He was born. Mary really is his mother. He comes not as a generic human being, but a specific one. He belongs to a specific people—the Jews. And as a Jew, he is circumcised just like every other Jewish boy. And on that eighth day, He is given a name, just like every other Jewish boy.

God comes to us in the ordinariness of human life. He takes all that it is to be human and he makes it his own.

Luke, without denying the miracles—he narrates them after all—wants us to notice the ordinary. Here he is. In so many ways just like everybody else. Undergoing all the same things. And yet, here he is all the same. This one, who is the heir of David, the Son of the Most High, the Lord come among his people. Right there, in Joseph’s arms as the moyle conducts the operation. Right there, as the wound is bandaged and his name is proclaimed. Right there in the ordinariness of everything. There is God.

But we must press further. For Luke’s point is not simply that God has entered into the everyday so that we can see him. It is much more than that. It is that God has entered into the everyday to that he can save it.

His name discloses his identity.

His name discloses his saving work.

This entry into the everyday was not simply some sort of divine experiment. It was God’s radical embrace of all that it means to be human in order to save us from God’s enemies and ours—from sin death and the devil.

God enters into history for us. And that for us is there. In the everydayness of being made a child of the covenant. Of having that covenant cut into his body.

Why did Jesus need to be circumcised?

Probably not a question that has kept you up at night. Me neither. It did vex the early fathers, though. Jesus—if he was indeed God come in the flesh—did not need to become a member of the covenant people. He was already the senior covenant partner. Why then?

He was circumcised, the fathers reasoned—and they are in line with Luke in their thinking—for us. His entry into the covenant people—the Jews—as one of them is part of his saving work. It is part of his taking up of human nature. It is part of his undoing of Adam’s fall. Already, at eight days old, he is taking the way the sin of the world.

He does so as one of us. As the one human being who did keep covenant with God. So that all of us who are united in him in baptism are covered by his faithfulness. We find our disobedience undone by his obedience, our sins forgiven, our estrangement reconciled, our diseased healed.

Most pregnantly, of course, the spilling of his blood at his circumcision was seen by the fathers as a foreshadowing of the spilling of his blood once and for all to seal the covenant made between God and all people. For the blood of the cross opened the covenant that God had made with the Jews to us Gentiles too.

Paul put the same point plainly in our New Testament  lesson:

“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children. And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying ‘Abba! Father!’ So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, though God.”

Because he comes as one of us—born of a woman, born under the law—we might become the adopted children of God. St. Athanasius, in his book On the Incarnation put it this way: “He became human in order that humans might become divine.” To use the Pauline language, he takes on our nature—born of a woman, born under the law—so that we might enjoy by adoption what is his by nature—sharing in the life of God.

He has taken our humanity into God’s very life. And if we have been united to him in baptism, we are already starting to share in that life too. We share in God’s life not by being born into the right family. Not by having the right connections or doing the right things. We are made children of the covenant, we are made God’s heirs, because this one became a child of the Covenant, because this Son was not ashamed to call us his brothers and sisters.

And so on this Naming Day, we celebrate the Descent of God to us. It is a descent heralded by angels and proclaimed by prophets. AND We celebrate the ascent of humanity to God. AND we celebrate Him who is both the descent and the ascent. Who is the ladder who connects heaven and earth, humans and God. Who in his divinity is God come to seek and to save the lost and who is, in his humanity, God’s one faithful covenant partner.

He is the one who, on the eighth day, was circumcised for us. And that is neither trifling nor offensive. That is good news.

She said, “Yes.”

He stood before her. Stock still and silent. He had completed his mission. He had delivered God’s words. Would she answer with unbelief as Zechariah did six months earlier? He didn’t know. So he waited while she wondered.

He wasn’t the only one. All creation paused, waiting for its future would be determined by the words of a 14 year-old girl. Behind him, invisible and near numberless angels strained their heavenly ears praying that God’s plan would not be frustrated yet again. Around him, the birds stopped their song and even the trees seemed to be listening as the spring zephyrs stilled. Everyone and everything was waiting. Anticipating. Worrying. . . .

They all had good reason to be sceptical, he knew. He knew God’s history with God’s people had been one of stops and starts. And, frankly, one of more stops than starts. What was God doing when he chose Abraham? It wasn’t the first time he’d allowed himself to ask the question. But now, here, in front of her, it intruded again in to his consciousness of its own accord. “Why him?” he asked himself. “I mean, he says he believes the promise and then tries to manipulate it into coming to pass on his own terms by sleeping with Hagar and fathering Ishmael.” He knew that God’s ways were beyond him. But his own experience drove him to conclude that humans in general were fickle if nothing else. And Abraham was no exception.

No wonder the people he fathered weren’t any better. It was hard-wired into them. After 400 years of slavery, he thought, they should have been happy that God had delivered them. After seeing the plagues God brought upon hard-hearted Pharaoh and the ruthless Egyptians, after seeing the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob confound the not-gods of the Egyptians, they should have trusted that God would have gotten them across the Sea of Reeds. But no. At the first sign of trouble, they wanted to go back to slavery. Their yes to God was quickly eclipsed by their no.

And still, God stuck with them. He took them across the sea and into the desert. God brought them to Sinai to renew the covenant that he’d made with Abraham. And what did they do? They made a calf and dared to give it his name and made ready to go back to Egypt again, their idol leading them. He remembered God’s conversation with Moses. Moses was the best of a poor bunch, but when God offered to create a new people, to start again with him, Moses declined. Moses had the audacity to remind God of his promises. As if God needed reminding from a human! The messenger smiled to himself. Looking back now, it seemed to him that the conversation had more to do God testing Moses than with God giving up on the people.

No. God, rejected again, didn’t give up. Instead, he brought them to the land of promise. Right to the edge of success. And again, they said no. “There were giants and walled cities and powerful armies and we’ll just stay in the wilderness, thanks very much for all your help.” Ungrateful didn’t begin to describe their attitude. What more would God have to do to get and keep their attention? Their own prophets called them stiff-necked. Hard hearted. And they could only see the span of one lifetime. “I’ve been seeing this stuff for centuries.” He thought.  “And nothing ever changes. It was always more of the same. Always God having to intervene. Always the people starting out with the best of intentions. Always the story ending with one more ‘NO!’ to God’s invitation.”

He was going to get angry if he continued to reminisce. And not just angry. He was beginning to wonder if his own obedience had been futile. Why exactly did God send me here? Why exactly did God send me to her? He was beginning to doubt.

But so what? There was good reason to doubt. When they finally made it into the land, they did what was right in their own eyes. No matter how many enemies they faced, no matter how many judges God raised up to deliver them, their obedience was half-hearted and their word was worthless. They even thought the Ark was a weapon of war, as though the Creator of heaven and earth was just like those not-gods of the nations. And they lost it. What would it take for them to learn that God was not theirs to control? What would it take for them to learn that in the relationship he established with them, he made and kept promises, but was not and never would be manipulated by their piety?

The kings? They were no better. David couldn’t keep his family in line let alone the people. Solomon? God blessed him beyond any other ruler and how did he thank God? He built God’s temple and then filled it with idols. But the worst thing of all—he gave the Ark away. And the people lost the Law. Josiah tried to reform the people, but it was too late. These people didn’t care a whit about the God who had made a covenant with them. They thought their ethnicity and their land were badges of honor. They thought that because they were God’s, nothing would ever happen to them.

But even God’s patience has its limits. At least that’s what he thought at the time. After sending armies of prophets with words of warning, God finally sued for divorce. “About time,” he could remember thinking. First the Assyrians took the ten Northern tribes and scattered them. Then the Babylonians conquered the 2 southern tribes and destroyed the Temple. No Law. No Temple. No Land. The Covenant was broken. God’s people, God’s bride, had finally succeeded in driving away their divine lover. Time for God to start over.

At least that’s what the messenger wanted to see. “And if I were in charge, that’s what would have happened.” The voice was smooth and sweet. The messenger looked up. Standing just behind her left shoulder, another, apparently, also awaited her word.

“You know you won’t get anywhere with that old argument. We’ve had this conversation before. You chose your fate. I chose mine.” The messenger said.

“Admit it. You don’t get God’s plans either. And in your deepest thoughts, you’re not even sure God has one. Failure after failure after failure. Don’t you think he could have managed one success by now if he knew what he was doing?” There was a strange logic to his old friend’s words. But the messenger didn’t bite. “I rule this world now. And I rule it by fear and by force. Oh, it won’t be that way always. Just until I get it under my control. Once it is, I’ll give it back to him. And when God sees what I’ve been able to accomplish with it, he’ll let all of us come home. Remember, I did what I did because I loved him. I still do.”

“I don’t know what’s sadder,” the messenger really was angry now. “The fact that you can’t open your mind to me without lying, or the fact that you seem to believe your own lies. I don’t know what God’s up to. I confess to you and to him that I’ve got my doubts. But I trust him. I trust him to know what he’s doing. I trust that he has known all the way along.”

“Fool!” any pretence of civility was gone now. “You’re not trying to convince me. You’re trying to convince yourself.” Then, as quickly as the old anger flared, it was gone. “We’re not all that different, you and me. We think the same things. I have the courage to act on my thoughts. I will make this world come to order. I will bring it to rights. I will present a perfect world to him and then he’ll have to admit that I WAS RIGHT!”

The messenger smiled. “You need to work on keeping your mask on. What makes us different is not your courage. What makes us different is your pride.”

He was alone again.

She looked up, startled. Had she heard? The messenger knew that this conversation was not for human ears. He knew she didn’t physically hear it. But every once in a while, humans could read and hear things. Sometimes the veil between his world and hers was so thin—it certainly was so now—that otherwise hidden thoughts would penetrate the barrier. Perhaps that had just happened. She turned and looked just at the spot where he had been standing. Then back at him. She more puzzled now than before. And fearful. His shoulders sagged with relief when, a second later, she bowed her head and continued to think.

As he waited, he tried to put himself in her position. She knew so little—even less than he did—about what was going on. She was being asked to commit her entire life, to relinquish any hopes for herself she may have had, in order to be a servant. No, wait. That’s not right. Not a servant. The servant. God had called other people. He had even called younger people. But never to such a role. No one would ever be closer to Him. How could God lay this responsibility on a child?

No sooner had the question entered his mind than she caught his eye. Her gaze was soft and piercing at the same time. And the messenger knew that she knew who he was. She wasn’t just a girl anymore. She was regal, robed in the royalty of self-understanding and confidence, and a child’s simple trust in God. Cold as moonlight. Hard as diamonds. Soft as daisies in the spring. And as happy as any girl could ever be. All at the same time.

“I am God’s slave,” she said. “Let it be to me as you have spoken.”

The messenger was as dumbstruck as that old priest was six months ago. She said yes. He couldn’t quite believe the thought. She said yes. She said yes. This girl with no lineage. With no experience. With no remarkable piety. She said yes. Her voice. Her words. Her decision. She said yes. She agreed to the proposal. The messenger didn’t understand the ins and outs of all of it. How could she? And how could she agree to what she did not understand?

“She can because she trusts me, Gabriel. And you should, too.” He knew the Voice. And he smiled. “Why, you might even think that I had planned this all along. Now, watch.”

Her hands fluttered over her belly. She looked down. “Ooh!” She looked for the messenger, but she was alone. And she smiled. “Already?” she asked. “Nothing is impossible with God.”

We’ll soon have audio files of the sermons available here. Please comment to let me know if you prefer the text, too or just the audio. TP

Here is the mp3

There is One Among Us

Well, last week we waded into Jordan’s muddy waters to hear Mark’s account of the story of John the Baptist. Today, we are still standing there, only this time, we are taking our cues from John’s Gospel.

The setting is the same—we are still standing in the river—and many of the words are the same. We have, for example, the allusion to the prophet Isaiah, this time, placed in the mouth of John the Baptist himself rather than quoted by the narrator. And we have John’s deferential declaration that he is not worthy to untie the thong of the sandal of the one whom he heralds.

But there are significant differences, too. First of all, last week, John was presented as announcing the coming of the Messiah. It was simply part of his preaching in the Jordan. It was, as we said last week, an announcement. Today, however, it is not announcement.

It is testimony. It is a response to questions.

Jewish leaders in Jerusalem had sent people to check out this end-time preacher who was causing such a ruckus just outside the small village of Bethany. There are two or perhaps three groups come to question John. The first are Priests and Levites—those associated with the Temple. Who are you? They ask.

And John’s answer is most curious: “I am not the Messiah.” It’s curious because John himself was from a priestly line. He could have said, positively and truthfully, I am John, Son of Zechariah the priest. But he didn’t.  Instead, he defined himself negatively. I am not the Messiah. He defined himself by pointing to someone else.

Unsatisfied with that answer, the first group of questioners push further. Are you Elijah? They ask.

Did they believe in reincarnation? No. They knew that Elijah was taken alive into heaven. That he never died. And they believed that Elijah would come again from heaven to announce the end of the world. And John said he wasn’t Elijah.

“Are you the prophet?” The prophet was a curious figure first mentioned in the Book of Deuteronomy. One whose coming was foretold by Moses himself. Are you the prophet? Again, John answers no.

By now, his questioners are, understandably exasperated. Look, they say in effect. Give us something to take back to our bosses. Don’t hang us out to dry.

John answers. This time, positively, but again mysteriously. He quotes the prophet Isaiah. I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness. The questioners would have known well from where these words came. They would have known their messianic thrust and intent. They knew John was alluding to someone else.

No doubt unsatisfied with John’s answers, the first group retreats. And a second group—this one sent by the Pharisees—comes forward.  If you are not the Messiah, Elijah or the prophet, why are you baptizing?

If the first question was one of identity (Who are you?), this second one is a question of authority (Why are you doing this?). But John’s answer is still the same. It is to defer. To deflect. To point to someone else.

But—and here is a second key difference from last week—whereas Mark presents the announcement of John as pointing to one who was to come, here John is pointing to one who has come. “Among you stands one whom you do not know,” says John.

That is no metaphor. That is not a picturesque way of saying, from your people or from your group. He means, Jesus is there, standing on the bank, too. You don’t recognize him. But he’s here. I am not worthy to untie his shoes.

So it is that we are left with a very paradoxical picture. John is clearly a pivotal character. His questioners recognize his significance. And yet, when he is asked to define himself or establish his authority, he refuses. He declares who he is not: he is not the Messiah. He is not Elijah. He is not the prophet.  He is merely a voice in the wilderness. His authority is not his. It does not rest in any title he claims for himself. It does not lie in his past, but in the one toward whom he points. The one who is now here. The one who is standing on the banks of muddy Jordan with John’s questioners and the crowds. The one who is about to be revealed.

Well, let’s leave John for a moment, shall we?

And let’s climb out of the river and away from the first century and reflect for a few moments on the Epiphany. And I want to tell you that now, almost six months in to my time here that I am grateful to God, to the Bishop and to the concurrence committee for how things have worked out for us. I don’t know that you know just how much these last months have been for Rachel and me a time of rest and renewal. We have rested in your generosity and appreciated your care for us and our children.

And over the last months, I have come to understand that this is simply business as usual for you folk. And I think that is great.

As I have visited with you, I have heard many of you look back fondly at Bishop Tom’s time here, at Fr. Peter’s, Archdeacon Eric’s. A couple of you have even reminisced about Rev. Nock.

Not only do you have a tradition of solid leadership, you have a strong sense of your history. Both of those are good things.

But there is a danger that accompanies those strengths. And that danger is that they will turn into nostalgia. A longing for “the good old days.” This is a natural temptation in many ways, and one that grows when we face significant challenges.

And if we yield to that temptation—if we turn our appreciation for our history into a pining for the past—we will do so at great cost. For with nostalgia comes a fear for the future. Wasn’t it great back then? Can too quickly be transformed into, How will we ever continue now?

Now, let me be clear—I am not saying for one second that we have given in to the temptation of nostalgia and succumbed to the fear of the future.

What I am saying is this: the testimony of John in our Gospel today provides us with an example which, if we take it, will strengthen us against the temptation and provide us with hope for our future.

Who are you? What do you say about yourself? Why do you baptize?

These are the questions John faced when we waded into the Jordan and began to call people to repentance. And John answered not by reciting his pedigree—though he could have. He answered not by claiming his own prophetic call—though he could have. Instead, he deflected. He deferred. He pointed to another. He pointed to Jesus. He pointed to the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Just so, as we engage in our mission, we will be asked just who we are and why we act. And, perhaps, we might be tempted to point to ourselves.

Corporately, we might be tempted to point to the rich tradition of ministry that rests in this parish. A tradition of which, as I have said, is worthy of memory and does indeed help give us a trajectory as we face questions about the future.

Individually, we might be tempted to point to our own piety, our own gifts and skills, our own family heritage. And none of those things are wrong or to be despised.

But—whether corporately or individually—when we stand in the place of John the Baptist, when we stand in the place of one giving testimony, we are wise if we follow his example.

We are wise if we point not to ourselves, but to whom who has come and is coming again. We are wise if we say like John that we are mere voices in the wilderness. That there is one, whom many do not yet know, who drives to speak and act as we do, who is the source of our life, who leads us into the future.

In this way, we are armed against the temptations of nostalgia. In this way we are freed from fear to face the future as the place from which God reigns. In this way, we really do point to the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

But John, you might be thinking, really could point to Jesus. He was right there. Standing in the crowd. Mingling with the questioners and the onlookers, the fans and the critics. When John pointed and said, “Look! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” he could really point to someone. What can we do?

Well, if you are wondering that, you do have a point. Jesus has ascended into heaven. He is, in his humanity, fully present to God his Father and absent from us. That’s a fancy theological way of saying that Jesus does not have a cell phone. He will not be on Anderson Cooper later this week. There will not be a 60 Minutes expose of Jesus’ bank accounts next month. We cannot point to him as John did.

But that is not the same as saying we cannot point to him. For we can. When we gather in his name he is present. He is here. And not in some mystical, ghostly way, either. He is present in tangible material signs. The Gospel of Luke reminds of this when he recounts the story of the Emmaus Road, the story of the two disciples whose hearts burned within them as the Risen Lord opened the Scriptures, whose eyes were finally opened when the Risen Lord took bread, gave thanks, broke it and gave it to them.

If we cannot point as John did, we can point as the Emmaus disciples did. How do we point to Jesus? We point to Jesus when we point to Word and Sacrament. When we say in response to the Scripture readings, this is the world of the Lord or Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ, we are reminding ourselves and announcing to all that Christ is present in and through these words. Giving the Living Word—his very self—to us through those words. And our hearts burn within us.

How do we point to Jesus? We will also point here, to the table. For here is where we gather to meet with Him, week in and week out. Here is where we join with Angels and Archangels and all the company of heaven in a foretaste of the heavenly banquet where, one day, we will be fully present in our humanity to God even as Jesus is now. Here is where Jesus is present, still. Still the Lamb of God once offered. Still taking away the sins of the world.

What a daring thing to say! But we do. We say—or sing it—it every week.  He is, by his Spirit, among us. And with John, we continue to point to him. With John, we continue to defer to him. With John, we continue to deflect away from ourselves to him. He is the source of our life. He is the source of our action. He is who drives us into his future. Who enables us to face it without fear.

He is here in Word and Sacrament.

Faithful Waiting

Last week, we reflected on the prophet’s prayer that began, “O that You would tear open the heavens and come down!” Today, as our Gospel lesson opens, the time of that tearing has come. It has come in a way unexpected and, although foretold, in a way unforeseen. But  not unannounced. Our Gospel lesson is a both a story about announcement and an announcement itself. It is both the story of the preaching of John and the announcement of St Mark the evangelist—both proclaiming the single message that the one who would baptise with the Holy Spirit has come.

John and Mark. Both bringing the Good News. Both with a message for us who stand in their place; those of us who have been  charged by the same Lord to do the same thing—to announce the Good News .

And as we enter the story this morning, we are met by the herald of the of the first Advent. We are met by the one sent ahead. The one whom our Lord would call the last and the greatest, has come marching out of the wilderness, wearing the mantle (and the clothes!) of the prophet Elijah, and waded into the Jordan River, there to preach and to baptise.

John. John whose ministry was announced to his dumbstruck father Zechariah by no less than God’s messenger, the angel Gabriel. John, whose ministry began whilst still in utero. Before he was born, he leapt within his mother’s womb, thereby identifying the identity of the unborn baby borne by the Blessed Virgin and prompting Elizabeth’s announcement of blessing, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed if the fruit of your womb.”

John. Who from that point falls off the pages of sacred text until we meet him again knee deep in the muddy Jordan. John, who from his wet pulpit announced the judgment of God on those who harmed God’s people and the mercy of God freely given to all who would repent and wash themselves and turn away from their sins.

What is John’s message? His message, like any herald, is to announce the coming of someone else. He comes not in his own name and for his own sake. He comes not exalting the prophetic calling that was legitimately his. He comes to point to another. He comes, ironically, to decrease. He comes to increase another. He comes to point—as he does in the fourth Gospel—to the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

The sixteenth century artist, Matthias Grünewald powerfully depicted the ministry of John the Baptist in his altarpiece painted for the monastery chapel at Eisenheim. There, John is portrayed as holding in his left hand an open book—symbolizing his vocation as prophet to declare the will of God—and pointing to the Crucified Lord. The index finger on his right hand is elongated—symbolizing the prophetic message he was sent to proclaim: this One is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And beneath John is written in Latin, “He must increase and I must decrease.”

And John does decrease. Shortly after Jesus begins his own ministry, John is arrested on the whim of a king who didn’t want to hear that sleeping with his brother’s wife was a sin. John continued to preach—it was a fire shut up in his bones. He could not be silent, even if his audience  consisted only of his jailers and the conscience-pricked king who threw him in jail.

Perhaps when John entered into prison, he thought the Messiah would soon deliver his herald. Perhaps he thought that the end of the world was at hand (that was certainly what he preached). Perhaps he thought his time in prison would be brief and that he would soon be vindicated. Perhaps. But it did not happen. Days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months. And months, in the back of John’s mind turned into doubts.

Doubt s that grew until he could keep them silent no longer. His last recorded words come in a message conveyed to Jesus by some of John’s disciples: “Are you the one who was to come or should we wait for another?”

Were the doubts still in his mind when Salome, prompted by her mother, made her horrific request? When John laid his head on the block, was he still wondering whether it had all been in vain? The text does not say. All we know is that Salome delivered to Herod the head of John on a plate.

So much for the story of John.

Now to him who tells the story. John Mark.

John Mark was probably born in what is today, Libya. He was a part of the Jewish dispersion that saw Jewish people, under Alexander and continuing as Greece gave way to Rome, spread throughout the Mediterranean world. Mark was an African. African Christianity has for many centuries remembered Mark’s story in this way.

Early in his life, however, he moved with his family back to Jerusalem, to be closer to family—his father’s cousins were Galilean fishermen named Simon and Andrew. And with his cousins and probably his parents, Mark became a follower of Jesus. Their home became a center of early Christian activity. It was at Mark’s family home that the disciples waited for the promise of the Holy Spirit. It was at Mark’s family home that the first followers of Jesus met to pray for the deliverance of Peter from prison. It was the door to Mark’s home that was slammed in Peter’s face by a terrified girl when he arrived in response to their intercessions.

It seems, in fact, that family connections were the main reason for Mark’s discipleship. Tradition tells us that it was his mother that sent him straight from bed in the dead of night to the garden of Gethsemane to warn Jesus and the 12 that the soldiers were coming to arrest them. The same tradition also tells us that it was because the early Christian missionary Barnabas was his uncle that Mark played tag-along to the missionary journey of Barnabas and Saint Paul.

In fact, it seems that only family connections could account for Mark’s discipleship. For, we know that Mark—upon seeing the soldiers come to the garden, fled. He fled so quickly, in fact, he ran out of his clothes. Tradition tells us that when Mark himself writes about the one disciple who fled the garden naked, he was talking about himself. We know from the book of Acts that Mark’s journey with Paul did not go well. It went so badly, in fact, that Mark left the journey early to go back home, but not without splitting up the missionary partnership of Barnabas and Paul.

But something happened. Something after that disastrous missionary trip transformed Mark. For when we meet him later in the New Testament, he is a valued companion of Paul when Paul is finally imprisoned in Rome and a leader, with Peter, in the Church that is found in the coded city of Babylon.

Something happened that turned Mark into a missionary in his own right—an apostle to Africa, where he planted churches in both Libya and Alexandria. Something happened that allowed his leadership and calling to be recognized as became Alexandria’s first bishop and the founder of African Christianity. He became the apostle who recorded the preaching of Peter so that the church would have the living memories of the Lord on the page when they gathered for worship. Living memories that began with the words, “The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God.” Something happened that, when faced with his own coming martyrdom, he did not cower anymore, but appointed a successor—Anianus—and went on to die for his faith.

No longer a coward, looking to run home, the Church remembers Mark as her first evangelist, a great missionary, and early bishop.

What happened? What happened, I can only surmise, was that at some point, Mark stopped being a follower of his cousins and his parents. He stopped running errands for his mother and tagging along with his uncle. He started being a follower of Jesus in his own right. Like John the Baptist, to whom he introduces us this morning, he became a witness, a herald. Someone called to point to the Christ, whose coming was indeed, the very best news of all.

So we have in front of us today a story about a witness by a witness, a story of an announcement that is itself an announcement. What does it have to do with us on the Second Sunday of Advent?

First of all their stories tell us that witnesses are real people with real doubts. John the Baptist’s faith was not impervious to circumstance. Close to the end, he wondered whether his message was proclaimed in vain. We have no record in the text of whether his doubts were resolved. Similarly, Mark’s journey was marked by nothing like a stellar beginning—fleeing the soldiers in Gethsemane, fleeing home mid-missionary trip.

So, having doubts, it seems, is not incompatible with being a follower of Jesus. Having doubts does not conflict with being one called to point to the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

What are your doubts today? Are they big? Are they as big as John the Baptist’s as he sat in his cell? Doubts don’t disqualify you. Doubts, indeed, can sharpen and strengthen your faith. They certainly seem to have done that for Mark.

So, this Advent, let us in our prayers give voice to our doubts and ask the heavenly Father so to take and use them that they might be the spur into a deeper, more vital trust in his Son. A push into a fuller life in the Holy Spirit. A better life of witness.

Second, their stories tell us that witness is always incomplete. For John, Christ had yet to come. For Mark, he had. Both were faithful in their witness. Both had to wait—and still do wait—for their final vindication. To use the language of the book of Hebrews, Mark and John died without having received what was promised. Both died waiting for the coming of the kingdom. Their witness was vital and it was true and it was costly and it was incomplete.

So it is that John and Mark both are examples of the waiting we spoke of last week. The waiting that his to define our lives, not just in Advent, but throughout the year and every day. Waiting that is impatient for the coming of the Lord, finally to right all that is wrong. Waiting that is repentant for the sins our times and of ourselves. Waiting that is expectant for an end that could come at any time.

Do you want to know what such waiting looks like? IN real life? Look at John. Look at Mark. It is a waiting that is real. A waiting that is honest. A waiting that is faithful.

And so today, we join our prayers with Mark and John, with Angels and Archangels and all the company of heaven: “Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus.”

How To Wait

Our neighbours to the south have—so it seems—survived another Black Friday. I read that in some places, people began camping out days before so that they would be in the front of the line when the stores opened in the wee hours, this past Friday morning. Have you ever wondered why Black Friday is called Black Friday?

It’s not because of the swarms of people and the incredible amount of stress they put retail sales staff through. Those workers may indeed feel like it’s a black day, but that’s not what Black Friday means. Nor is it because the stores open while it is still dark outside. It is now taken to an extreme where. One store in Detroit closed at 9 for three hours in order to restock so that they could re-open at midnight to take full advantage of the 24 hrs that Friday would provide. Not to be outdone, many Walmarts never closed Thursday and simply started bringing in Black Friday inventory Thursday night at 9.

No. Black Friday is black because that’s the day that many businesses hope to move from operating in the red to operating in the black. From Black Friday until the end of the year, it’s all profit. The payroll, the rent, the utilities, the inventory—all the costs have been met. Now it’s time to reap the rewards.

In that sense, Black Friday is the fully secular equivalent to Christmas Eve. It represents the end of waiting and the beginning of celebration. The kingdom really has come—it comes every year. Then, come January 2, it’s time to start all over again. You’re back in the red and you start the climb to the next Black Friday.

An awful orgy of mass consumption in front of the idols and altars of false gods might be how the prophet Isaiah would describe it.

Come on, Rector. Do we really need all this religious language? After all, it’s just shopping. Consider these words: “Christmas is all about money. With money, we buy stuff to pour into that great sucking hole in us and it’s never full.” The words could easily come from a fundamentalist preacher or an Occupy Wall Street protester. That’s a strange set of bedfellows, isn’t it? But either could have said it. In fact, it comes from the character, Max Black, one of the leads in the sit-com “2 broke girls.” Here we have a frank acknowledgement from mainstream culture that the Black Friday version of Christmas is indeed about metaphysics. For on Black Friday, like no other time of year, we are confronted with the fact that money is being used to satisfy not needs for food, clothing, and shelter, but a hole inside of us; a hole that is never full.

St Augustine, who wrote, “You have made us for yourself O Lord and our hearts will not rest until they rest in you,” could not have said it better. Of course, where Augustine would point us to what Christians believe is the true satisfaction of ultimate desire—the most Glorious and Blessed Trinity—Max and her roommate Caroline  confront the fact that they can’t do any better than money. The episode from this past week ends with them committing to tap-dancing at the edge of the abyss because the Black Friday version of Christmas is all they have. They’ll keep throwing money down the hole. They’ll keep watching “Miracle on 34^th Street.” They’ll keep embracing what I can only describe as sexual anarchy. And they’ll keep hoping for better because that’s all they have. And this was supposed to be a happy ending. I think it’s sad.

What on earth does this have to do with Advent? Advent is a time of waiting. Of waiting not so much for Christmas as for the coming of Jesus. And as we followers of Jesus attune ourselves to him and turn our heads and hearts to his coming, we might just begin to see ourselves and the spaces our lives occupy in a different way. I hope that Advent gives us opportunity for distance from all the noise that surrounds us, noise that seems deliberately to distract us from the deep sadness and cynicism that undergirds our much of our Monday-Saturday lives.

Advent—consciously adopting a frame of waiting for the coming of Jesus forces me to face the stark psychological and spiritual emptiness at the core of our culture. Whatever the kingdom of God is, this—this that bombards me whether I’m walking down Larch or watching Monday Night Football—is not it. This is not the Kingdom.

And it puts impatience into my prayers. We hear a similar impatience in the opening words of the Old Testament lesson. “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence!” Do you ever feel that sense of holy impatience? I felt it when I watched 2 Broke Girls this past week. Not because I found the humour crass—though I did. But because, as I said above, the humour seemed designed to paper over a deep sadness and it couldn’t quite pull it off. And the truth lay in that sadness. The truth lay in not simply in the realization that all the means and gadgets and conveniences the modern world provides—and they are good in their proper place—become an insatiable idol when we try to fill our need for the transcendent with them, The sad truth lay in the fact that there was nothing they could do about it—except look the other way and laugh.

“O that you would rend the heavens and come down!” It is the same kind of impatience that is to underlie our prayer, “Your kingdom come, your will be done.” So much of this world is not Christ’s kingdom; so much is not Christ’s will.

As we begin yet another Advent, let us as God to instill in us a holy impatience for the coming of the promised kingdom. Not, however, so that we can look down our noses at our fellow human beings. Not so that we can be like Jonah and take out our beach chairs just outside the city walls and wait for the coming judgment! Not at all.

For the prophet’s prayer continues with these words:  “There is no one who calls on your name, or attempts to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity.” Interesting that the prophet both despairs at the state of the people and identifies fully with them. Advent is a time for us to begin to cultivate, it seems to me, a similar disposition—not simply an impatient waiting, but also a repentant waiting.

Our culture is awash in a mass of overconsumption in which money has become a god who demands more and more sacrifice for fewer and fewer rewards. And we are implicated in it. It is not the problem of someone else over there. It is our problem. And so we pray with the prophet, “Do not be exceedingly angry, O Lord, and do not remember iniquity forever.” Have mercy, in other words, on us.

It is very easy for us to pray “have mercy on them.” It’s very easy to draw a line between good and evil so long as we are on the good side of the line. We’ve been doing that since Eden. Remember the words of Adam at the Fall? “The woman you gave me, she tempted me.” Adam would place himself on the good side of the moral divide even if it meant that his wife and God himself had to be reckoned on the other.

But the prophet does not pray, “have mercy on them.” What does he say? Remember his words when he was called by God to be a prophet? “I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips.” The same sentiment is expressed here: “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth.” The prophet draws a line and—honest with himself and with his God—stands with the sinners. And he repents. “Do not be exceedingly angry, O Lord, and do not remember iniquity forever.” Rather than call the judgment of God down, the prophet begs for God to have mercy on himself and his people.

And Advent, as a time of waiting, is a time for us to embrace repentance as well.

Advent is a time to wait impatiently and repentantly. And as we cultivate holy impatience and honest repentance, Advent is also a time to wait expectantly. Which brings us to our Gospel lesson, and Our Lord’s exhortation to, “Beware, keep alert for you do not know when the time will come.” What time?

In the context of the Gospel lesson, the “time” has multiple meanings. The time refers, most immediately, to the destruction of the Temple. In the run up to our Gospel lesson, Jesus predicted that the Temple would be destroyed. His disciples asked when, and our Gospel is the conclusion of Jesus answer.

Jesus longer answer to them is not to give them a date, but to tell them to observe the signs. When you see false Messiahs come, when you hear of strife at home and abroad, when you are persecuted—the time will be at hand. So be alert, he says. But at verse 24—where our Gospel begins—Jesus stops talking about local immediate events and begins to speak apocalyptically and eschatologically. He begins to speak, in other words, about the end of the world, about the wrapping up of history and the full manifestation of his reign, the full coming of his kingdom.

Jesus can bring the two events—the local and the cosmic—together because, in the disciples minds, the two were one and the same. Their world revolved in some way or other around the Temple and, were it to be destroyed, the only world they had ever known would come to an end.

My point is not to launch into a speculation about the end of the world. Far from it. It is to remind us that, just as for Jesus in Mark 13, the notion of “the time” or “the end” has at least several meanings.

Christians, for example, have seen the world “end” several times in our history. We have seen the end of the world defined by pagan Rome. We have seen the end of the world defined by Christian Rome. We have seen the end of the world defined by Christendom. We may well be living through yet another “end of the world”—only this time, it is the world defined by 20^th century geo-politics.

Of course, the time or the end need not be so dramatic as all that. All of us are heading in some way or other toward an end. Despite all the advancements of medical science, after all, the human mortality rate remains constant at 100%. We are, all of us, born toward dying. And that means that for all of us, there will be an end.

And then, last, there is THE END. The final drawing of the curtain on the entire human story when all things are reconciled to God in Christ at his return. All that is wrong is set right. All that is evil is wiped away. Even death will die.

So, whether the Lord comes for us in terms of the passing of our culture or the passing of our lives or he returns, we are all, in Advent, charged to wait for the end expectantly. The end could come at any time. And this, in turn, is to infuse and energize how we live in the present.

Expectant waiting is active waiting—remember the parables of the bridesmaids and the talents and the story of the final judgment that we read last week—but it is also realistic waiting. Realistic waiting in the sense that, in the midst of all our activities, we are aware that our own efforts are not going to inaugurate God’s kingdom. It will come—and Christ will come—at a time known only to the Father.

Pope John XXIII was once asked what he would tell people were he to find out that Jesus was returning tomorrow. His answer was, “Look busy.” Yes. Exactly. Activity is to be a hallmark of Advent waiting. Of those of us waiting expectantly for the coming of the Lord.

When we pray—when we really  pray—what drives our prayers? Or, perhaps better, who drives our prayers? Advent is the time to ask that question. Will we, this Advent, like Max and Caroline, pray to the god of Black Friday who demands so much, promises the world and cannot deliver? Or will we learn again to wait with the ancient church for the coming of the Lord? Impatient. Repentant. Expectant. These are the adjectives that Advent invites us to append to waiting. “O that you would rend the heavens and come down!” was the prayer of the prophet. The prayer of the ancient church, “Even so, come quickly Lord Jesus.” How shall we pray?

Giving, Receiving, and Giving Again.

As I indicated three weeks back, when we concluded our sermon series on mission, we are going to hear from members of the finance committee at the conclusion of today’s service. They will update on our budget. This is done annually as part of the preparations of the budget for 2012. I will not steal their thunder here. I will say that the situation is serious.

Serious enough, in fact, that I would rather not have this Gospel as the Gospel for today. It can lead to so many misunderstandings—of Christ, who is the Master in the story, of his disciples, who are the three servants, and most of all, of wealth and its use.

But—and this is a good thing—this is the Gospel that we have been given. We have been given it, I believe, in God’s providence for it gives us the biblical and theological foundation on which we can set the remarks of the finance committee in a few moments. So, to the story.

The story begins with the words “For it is as if. . . .” They tie this parable to the previous one, the parable of the ten bridesmaids and its theme of preparedness. Since the bridesmaids do not know when the bridegroom will come for them, they are wise to prepare for a long wait and be watchful for a short one. This theme is then continued in the second story.

In this second story, a Master goes away for a long time, but first he gives out ridiculously large amounts of money to three of his servants. A talent, you will remember from a few weeks ago that 1 talent was worth 15 years’ wages for a common person.  This Master is both generous and trusting with his wealth.

He distributes his wealth unequally—each servant receives according to his ability. We are left with the notion that, with all the talents being the Master’s to begin with, he may dispose of them as he sees fit.

So the first servant receives 5, the second, 2 and the third, 1. And having made his disbursements, the Master goes away.

The first two servants put the wealth to work—investing and trading—and soon double their Master’s money. The third buries his and keeps it secret.

After a long time, the Master returns and expects a reckoning. The first two servants are rewarded. The third harshly rebuked. Stripped of his talent, he is thrown outside—into the “outer darkness.”

Well, where to begin? I think it wise to begin with what this parable does not say.

First, it has nothing to do with our own natural gifts and abilities. I confess here that this was a theme in my house. If I did not want to sing in church, I could expect to hear some variation of, “You know what happened to the servant who hid his talent.”

Second, while it does force us to ask just what Jesus has invested in and with us, his modern day disciples, there is no easy connection to modern money, either.

So let’s set those two aside.

Most importantly, this is not a story about reward for hard work—as though all that talk about grace being God’s unmerited favour was finally false.

Well then, if the disciples and we are the servants and Jesus is the Master, what on earth are the talents? There are some things we can say—they belong to Jesus. They are not naturally ours. They are given by Jesus according to our own gifts and abilities. They are given to be invested. And finally, they are invested not for our own sake, but for his. But what are the talents?

I think we are wise to understand the talents of the story both in the light of the overall theme of preparedness and watchfulness and in the light of the conclusion of Matthew’s Gospel, in which he commissions his disciples to make yet more disciples, through teaching and baptism.

The talents, it seems to me, have to do with Gospel itself and its spread. Like the Master in the parable, Jesus has generously entrusted us with his life-giving Gospel and commissioned us to “invest it,” so to speak in the lives of others. He calls us, in other words, to emulate his own generosity to us as we interact with other people.

Does that mean we are all firebrand preachers or evangelists, or—after all, we are Anglicans, priests or deacons or social workers or doctors? No. Each servant is still given according to his or her abilities. There is no ability that is excused; all abilities are called into the Son’s mission of reconciliation. Some of us will be called to do more; some of us less; all of us, differently. Each according to his or her ability.

Christ commissions all of us to put our abilities to use as vehicles to  give to all the transforming Gospel of grace, the Good News that while we were sinners, Christ died for our sins and rose again for our justification. We are to be generous with ourselves—to use the theme from a few weeks ago, with our time, talent and treasure. In so doing, we are emulating the Master who has been so generous with us.

Why then is the last servant judged so harshly? Why is he named wicked and lazy and worthless? Why does the parable end with the words “For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have in abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away,”?

Those are harsh words, to be sure.

It is hard to read them and see that the speaker is our Lord Jesus who gave himself for the sake of the salvation of the world. Some of us might even want to sympathize with the third servant. We want to stick up for him. “Give him a break, Jesus!” We might want to say. After all, he returned to you just what was yours in the end, didn’t he?

But we need to be clear about this servant’s problem is. At bottom, this parable is about abundance and generosity. Jesus generously gives to us his abundant life. This parable suggests that he expects his disciples to imitate him in that generosity. We are to put our abitilities to work for the sake of the Gospel so that others can come to encounter the Savior and share in his life and love.

This servant’s problem was not that he was too poor to engage in investment. Rather, his problem was that he kept for himself what was meant to be given away and in so doing, he lost what he had.

If you have ever seen the TV programme Hoarders, you will easily grastp the dynamic that’s going on here. Here are people desperate to hang on to love, to life, to things. They are so fearful of loss that they let nothing go. And in the end, they lose the very things they wish to keep. For they alienate family, friends, and flee from the help they so desperately need.

In a similar way, the third servant  out of fear of loss clings too tightly to what is not his. And in the end, his very effort to keep the talent safe causes great pain.

Finally, what does this story have to do with us—on this Sunday of all Sundays?

Well, I do think it is a timely and important reminder about how to think about the challenges that lie ahead of us.

Jesus has been generous with us. We celebrate that generosity, we give thanks for it, and we are drawn into it, every time we come to the Lord’s Table. Eucharist means “thanksgiving.” We are sent from that Table to emulate that generosity in the power of the Holy Spirit.

We are not sent away in fear to hoard what little we have. We are sure to lose the very thing we wish to keep if we act in that way!

We come to the Table in thanks and we go away rejoicing. Freely we have received; freely, we will give.