Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, January 4, 2015:


First Reading: Jeremiah 31:7-14

First Reading (Alt.): Sirach 24:1-12

Psalm: Psalm 147:13-21 (Psalm 147:12-20 NRSV)

Psalm (Alt.): Wisdom of Solomon 10:15-21

Second Reading: Ephesians 1:3-14

Gospel: John 1:[1-9] 10-18

When I was younger, the Gospel of John confounded me. What kind of nativity story did John give us? Does he not know the power of narrative, the importance of a hook in the beginning?

Look at verse 14, which may be familiar: "And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father." As a child, I'd have screamed, "What does that mean? How does word become flesh?"

And then I became a writer, and I learned how the word becomes flesh. I invented characters who took on lives of their own, who woke me up early in the morning because I wanted to see what happened to them. Yes, I know, I was the God of their universe. But as anyone who has had children will know, you make these creations, and they have their own opinions, and they live their lives in ways you couldn't have known they would.

But lately, I've begun to see this first chapter of John in a less-writerly way. Words become flesh every day. We begin to shape our reality by talking about it. We shape our relationships through our words which then might lead to deeds, which is another way of talking about flesh.

Think about your primary relationships. Perhaps this coming year could be the year when we all treat the primary people in our lives with extra care and kindness. If we treat people with patience and care, if we say please and thank you more, we will shape the flesh of our relationships into something different. Alternately, if we're rude and nasty to people, they will respond with rudeness and cruelty--we've shaped the flesh of the world into a place where we don't want to live.

Our words become flesh in other ways, of course. It's not enough to profess we're Christians. Our words should shape our actions. The world is watching, and the world is tired of people who say one thing and act another way.

How can we enflesh our Christian beliefs incarnate in our own lives? That's the question with which we wrestle year after year. It's easy to say we believe things, but it's much harder to make our actions match our words, to live an authentic life.

The good news: it gets easier. You must practice. Our spiritual ancestors would tell us that daily and weekly practices help to align our words to our actions.

I have an atheist friend who says she envies me my ability to believe. I tell her that there's not a class of people who just have faith. We come to it by our actions. We pray, we pay attention, we meet in church, we study, we read the Bible, we help the poor and outcast, we pray some more--and years later, we realize that we are living a life consistent with our values.

It's time to think about the New Year, and some of us will make resolutions. What can you do to make your words and beliefs take flesh?

When Dreams of Angels Are Muddled

I've had angels on the brain--it is Christmas, after all.  Week after week, we have heard texts of angels appearing:  first to Mary, then to Elizabeth and Zachariah, then to Joseph, then to the shepherds.  These are not angels which can be domesticated.

One of my favorite photos that I took at the Mepkin Abbey gift shop is this basket of angels.  Was I looking for angels that I can control?

Last night, I had the kind of dream that makes me wonder if God is speaking to me.  I dreamed that I was in a car with some church officials.  One of them asked, "Have you made any decisions yet?"  "About what?" I stammered. 

"You were thinking about seminary."

Oh yeah, that.  I almost forgot.  The rest of the dream had me wandering around a church camp that looked like the luggage of the campers had exploded:  clothes lined every path.  I walked into a chapel where a men's choir was playing a piece written by my husband, a piece for strings, including a dulcimer.  Everywhere I saw evidence that people I've known spiritually were close, even if I wasn't sure exactly where they were:  for example, I saw food tagged in a refrigerator with names of people I've known from the Create in Me retreat and earlier college days.

Ordinarily, I'd wake up from such a dream and say, 'What interesting ways my subconscious keeps itself amused when I'm asleep!"  But having spent part of yesterday writing about angels and the ways that it must be tough for angels to get the attention of 21st century moderns (see this blog post), I'm perhaps more alert for the messages of angels than usual.

When I think about the angel messages of Christmas, I think about the clarity of the message.  Or is that just how it has been told to us through the ages?

Did Joseph wake up and find himself teasing out the meaning of the strange dreams for days afterwards?  Did some of the shepherds stay behind because even though they'd see angel choirs singing, they didn't necessarily agree that it meant that a journey was in order?

My thoughts turn to the angels themselves.  I also think of all the literature where angels do not look at all like the humans expect them to look, and thus, the message is compromised.  Or, as in "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings," is there even a message?

And then I wonder if these angel stories set us up for disappointment.  We imagine that it was easy for Joseph and Mary and the magi and all those people who get such direct instructions.  We yearn for such a message for ourselves.

But history shows us that even when humans get such messages, it's rare that we follow.  We spend a lot of time watching for messages, even when we have plenty of directives all around us.  We spend much less time figuring out how to respond to God, when God calls.

Poetry Monday: The Voices of Angels, "Rendered Mute"

We've spent much of the Christmas season hearing the voices of angels, notably the angel Gabriel.  We've read the texts as part of Advent meditations.  We've had our church choirs sing in a variety of voices to mimic the angel choirs that appeared to shepherds.  We've had people take on the voice of Gabriel and other angels as we've watched Christmas pageants and heard the Christmas Eve readings and other church services, like Lessons and Carols, where the angels speak.

For me, the presentation of the angel that affected me most happened on Christmas Eve.  Our 7:30 p.m. service had children reading most of the parts of the story.  When the angel Gabriel appeared to Joseph, a very young reader took the microphone.  She was new to reading, and I suspect even newer to reading out loud.

She read slowly and deliberately, giving every word an equal weight.  Each word took on an eerie importance.  With this very different reading style, the angel Gabriel got my attention again.

That moment made me think, as I often do, about angels appearing in modern life.  What would it take to get our attention?  Would we even notice if angels appeared?

I've written about this topic in a poem, which I've posted here before, but in this Christmas season it makes sense to post it again. 

It was first published in the online journal Referential.


Rendered Mute

His angels return, abject in failure.
Lately, an angel makes an appearance,
and the human makes an appointment
with the doctor. Anti-psychotic
medications render his angels mute.

He used to be able to appear in visions,
back in the days when humans remembered
their dreams and dissected them over breakfast.
But his humans, ever more efficient, have banished
sleep from their daily to-do lists. They drop
into dreamless heaps and sleepwalk through the day.

Even the night skies defeat
his purposes. His industrious
humans, so smart, have lit
the planet with electricity and cloaked
the skies with smog. No one can see
the celestial signs he sends.

He even tries the personal touch, the old tried and true,
but decides to leave the shrubbery
alone after that woman yelled
at him. “I just planted that bush.
I don’t think Home Depot will take it back
in this condition. Have you priced plants lately?”

He considers withdrawal, the passive-
aggressive game of pretending not to care,
pretending there’s no pain.

He decides to mute his majesty.
From now on, he will not be the first
to speak. Instead, he decides to create spectacular
sunsets, and new colors, and a new species here or there.
He attends to the routine miracles: tumors that shrink,
lucidity repaired, relationships resurrected.
He sketches recipes for miracle drugs
in the laboratory dust of the pharmaceutical companies
and moves the iron clad hearts
of dictators who free the jailed opposition leaders.

Remembering All the Innocents Slaughtered

Today we remember the slaughter of the innocent boys of Bethlehem, killed by Herod as he tries to get rid of any possible competition, even if that competition is newly born and not likely to challenge him for decades.

Will your church be taking part in this somber feast day?  I doubt it.  Your church may be like mine, where we are reprising parts of the Christmas Eve service, so that all the hard work of the choir gets new appreciation.  After all, most of our members came to the 7:30 service, not the 11:00 service where the choir sang.  They should get the chance to hear the Cantata, to sing the songs, to stay in the land of Christmas just a little bit longer.

Part of me understands.  There will be time enough for the darkness later.  Let us linger in the land of light just a bit longer.

Part of me rebels.  Our Gospel writers and early Church leaders put this feast day here for a reason.  I think one of the problems of modern Christianity is that we focus too much on the light, and we neglect to fight the darkness as much as we need to do.

Let us take a minute to think about the modern Herods in our world.  We see no shortage of evil dictators who slaughter whole swaths of the population for a variety of reasons.

Let us take a minute to think about the Holy Family, transformed into refugees, fleeing for their lives with just the clothes on their backs.  Here in our modern world, we see no shortage of people transformed from regular citizens to refugees in just a matter of hours.

Maybe we don't want to think on a huge, global scale.  The human brain was not meant for such horror.  Some of us become immobilized.  But we could help refugees on a smaller scale.

There's always money that we could donate, but maybe we want a more hands-on project.  I stumbled across this blog post about a mom who homeschools and the Christmas project of making Christmas bags for foster children, many of whom leave abusive homes with just the clothes on their backs.

It's also a good day to consider the ways we are Herod.  How do we lash out to protect ourselves?  We may not literally slaughter a whole town of babies, but most of us could do better at nourishing the next generations:  the kids in our churches, the students in our schools, the younger folks in the work force.

Today on this feast day where we remember the slaughter of the Holy Innocents, let us recommit ourselves to love.   We can resolve to let love rule our actions, not fear. We can also resolve to help those who are harmed by the Herods of our world.

The older I get, the more I appreciate the actions of the early church.  These days that honor martyrs coming so close to Christmas--it makes more sense now.  But I also pray for the time that we will not have to remember the horrors that humanity can inflict.  I hold fast to that Christmas vision of light shining in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.
 

The Feast Day of Saint John

Today, we celebrate the life of the only one of the original 12 disciples die of natural causes in old age. Tradition tells us that John was first a disciple of John the Baptist, and then a disciple of Christ, the one who came to be known as the beloved disciple, the one tasked with looking after Mary, the mother of Jesus.

There is much debate over how much of the Bible was actually written by this disciple. If we had lived 80 years ago, we'd have firmly believed that the disciple wrote the Gospel of John, the letters of John, and the book of Revelation. Twentieth century scholars came to dispute this belief, and if you do scholarly comparison, you would have to conclude that the same author could not have written all of those books.

Regardless, most of us remember St. John as the disciple who spent a long life writing and preaching. He's the patron saint of authors, theologians, publishers, and editors. He's also the patron saint of painters.

Today, as many of us may be facing a bit of depression or cabin fever, perhaps we can celebrate the feast of St. John with a creative act. Write a poem about what it means to be the beloved disciple. Write a letter to your descendents to tell them what your faith has meant to you. Paint a picture--even if you can't do realistic art, you could have fun with colors as you depict the joy that Jesus brings to you.

Here's a prayer for the day, from Phyllis Tickle's The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime: "Shed upon your Church, O Lord, the brightness of your light, that we, being illumined by the teaching of your apostle and evangelist John, may walk in the light of your truth, that at length we may attain to the fullness of eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen."

Don't Leave Jesus in the Manger

On Christmas Eve, I noticed this juxtaposition, cradle and crucifix:

I thought of a Christmastide sermon preached by my pastor in a past year.  He reminded us that if we leave the baby Jesus in the manger that we've missed the important point.

I have added to that thought as we moved through the liturgical year.  If we leave the savior on the cross, we've missed the point too.

But then I take it one step further:  if we focus on the empty tomb, we continue to miss the point.  And if we focus on Heaven, we miss the point.

I've had more than one friend snort when I say that.  "If it's not about Heaven, then what is the point of religious faith?" one friend asked in a mix of disgust and disbelief.

I would argue that it's about our life right here and now.  Christmas reminds us that God breaks through into our regular lives in amazing ways.

God wants to walk beside us not so that we'll get a ticket to Heaven.  God wants to walk with us so that we can be part of the redemption of creation.

Artists everywhere know that when we create together, we're likely to go in directions we wouldn't have anticipated. 

God knows it too.

The Darkness Has Not Overcome the Light

Each year at the Christmas Eve services, I am alert for which parts of the story and the service speak most to me.  After all, the basics of the story and the service don't really change much from year to year.

Some years I'm humbled by the idea that God would come to earth to be held in human hands.  God as baby born to some of the most vulnerable youngsters in the empire--what a radical concept.

Some years the weariness speaks to me.  Other years it's the shepherds who have their regular lives disrupted by angel choirs--how do you go back to the flocks after that?

Last night, the verse from John about the light not being overcome by the darkness moved me to tears--and I heard it numerous times, since I went to all three Christmas Eve services.

At the last service, I stood at the front, reading the last part of the liturgy, looking out at the candlelit faces.  I thought about the time I stood at the front looking at ash-smudged foreheads and how different it was to stand at the front at the end of a Christmas Eve service.  The lights were low, but I could distinguish faces.  The candles cast such a warm light.

I thought about the light that illuminates much of our lives now:  the fluorescent lights from our energy efficient bulbs, the blue hues reflecting from our various screens.  But to see the faces lit by candles--what a treat!

This year has felt particularly dark, although this article explains why so many of us are actually much safer in 2014 than we have been throughout much of human history.  In this year of many cancers, none of them mine, and other diseases that seem so resistant to cures that plague my friends, I needed that reminder that even in the darkest times, the light stubbornly breaks through.