Gift after Gift after Gift 12-29-13

God, creator of us all, help us in the afterglow of Christmas see that our work for justice has only begun.  Fill us with the joy of the angels and energize us to seek new ways of being, and new ways of doing your work.  Allow us to hear your sweet call to peace and give us courage to utter the sacred “yes”.  Amen

What a whirlwind the last few days have been.  Services, parties, traveling, it’s hard to remember what day it is or which holiday we’re celebrating this week.  I’m not sure when it all became so complicated.  This is the week when I want to slow everything down and replay Christmas and enjoy it free from the actual stress of doing it.  The Church Calendar obviously agrees with me—this being the First Sunday after Christmas and next Sunday being the Sunday we traditionally celebrate the arrival of the Wise Men.

We finish our Advent/Christmas walk through the first 18 verses of the Gospel of John today.  I hope you remember some of what we have discussed along the way.  On the first Sunday of Advent, we spoke about the power of the spoken word and, in particular, the power of God’s word in our lives.  On the second Sunday of Advent we spoke of the healing and transforming power of God as the Life-Light.  On the third Sunday of Advent, we said that what was the most real thing about Christmas was the gift of becoming children of God.  Finally, through music and song, we spoke and sang of the Advent-time of being the time of the in-breaking of peace for and in the world.  On Christmas Eve our short reflection focused on the reality of the Christ-child in our lives.  Now, here we are, a few days past Christmas, seeking the answer to the question: What impact did the preceding days have on our spiritual lives? 

Along with the First Sunday after Christmas, we also celebrate Kwanzaa, a unique and interesting holiday.  A reflection on the meaning of Kwanzaa also works quite nicely as a summary of all that we have been talking about.  Let me see if I can describe what I mean.  What makes Kwanzaa different from other holidays is that there is no religious or patriotic meaning behind it.  It is a cultural holiday created Dr. Maulana Karenga.  It is a celebration of African values and affirms that African-Americans are part of a culture with shared ancestors and shared traditions.  Kwanzaa is described by Dr. Karenga as a “creative and cultural synthesis” of both Continental African elements and African-American elements.  Established in 1966, it arose as a response to the fight for civil rights and the turmoil of the 60’s in general.  It was an attempt, and a successful one at that, to bring African-Americans together to celebrate what they believe and, more importantly, the importance of their heritage.  Part of our journey to radical hospitality is that we learn about various traditions and, so today, we greet Kwanzaa. 

There are seven guiding principles which are celebrated, one on each day, during Kwanzaa which begins on December 26^th and ends on January 1^st.  The symbols are few—there are the red and green candles with one black in the center placed in a menorah-like candle holder and lit during the days of Kwanzaa.  There is a mat upon which the candles are situated and an ear of corn for each child in the family is added as well.  It is a simple holiday celebrating simple, yet profoundly powerful concepts.  Modest gifts are given on the seven days and consumerism and materialism are heavily discouraged in Kwanzaa celebrations.

The seven guiding principles may well be unknown to most of us as we may have never really explored the meaning of Kwanzaa before.  The first principle is Umoja (OO-MO-JAH).  Meaning Unity, this principle focuses on the importance of the family and community being and acting together.  There is an old African saying that goes like this—“I am because we are.”  Imagine the impact of applying this principle to our beliefs about what a church or community should be.  What if we truly valued Unity over our cultural, theological, and racial differences?  What if our guiding principle of being in the world focused on our interconnectedness and our interdependence upon each other?  When being equal in God’s sight is valued over ‘rightness’ or ‘wrongness’ of a particular doctrine or belief, imagine the power for good and justice that would be released in halls formerly painted in strife and discord.

The second principle is Kujichagulia (KOO-GEE-CHA-GOO-LEE-YAH).  It means self-determination and the understanding that our decisions must be in the best interest of our community or family.  Self-determination means that we have the right to name ourselves.  Think for just a moment about the difference such a principle would have made in the lives of any marginalized people with respect to political or religious power.  What if, what if, lesbians and gay men had been able to name themselves—do you really think we would have called ourselves “Abomination” or “Demon”?  If African-Americans had been able to name themselves, we know they would not have chosen the hateful, odious words chosen for them by some of our great-great-great grandparents.  The importance of naming and of self-determination is crucial in any work for justice and equality.  If we could all speak our own truth, and not have it spoken for us, what changes would we—those of us who live in privilege—have to make?

The third principle we celebrate today is Ujima (OO-GEE-MAH) and reminds us that we are all in this together.  It calls us to rise to whatever role we are to play in our community, society, and the world.  It calls each of us to do our part.  But it is more than just doing.  Think about this—what if every time a decision were made, the decision makers asked themselves if they were being true to all those who came before them; in other words, were they honoring the ancestors and saints who walked before?  And even more radical, imagine the difference in outcomes that would result from decision-makers actually caring about the impact today’s decisions have on the tomorrow’s children.  Would it change our use of limited resources or the way we process our foods?  Would it affect the way we viewed the distribution of money and other valuable assets?

The fourth principle of Kwanzaa is Ujamaa (OO-JAH-MAH), which means seeking an economy that utilizes our collective strengths and reminds us that we best meet our common needs through mutuality and support.  Far different from a zero-sum economics which does nothing more than encourage each one to get “what is coming to him or her” before anyone else can, a cooperative economy focuses on what the community needs—perhaps even the world.  It changes the primary question from “how can I make sure I have what I need?” to “what is in the best interest of the world?”

  Nia (NEE-YAH) is the fifth principle.  Nia means purpose and encourages each one of us to look within ourselves for the good we can contribute to the whole and to set personal goals in such a way as they benefit the community.  The sixth principle can be looked at in conjunction with the fifth.  Kuumba (KOO-OOM-BAH), which means creativity invites us to make use of our creative energies to build and maintain a strong and vital community.  Think about it.  How does your creativity relate to the changes that will make this church a better place in which to worship and the world a better place in which to live?  Can you use those creative energies to improve not just your life, but the life of your neighborhood, church, or world?

Finally, there is the principle of Imani (EE-MAH-NEE) which is translated Faith.  This principle focuses on honoring the best of the community’s traditions and calls upon each person to offer up the best in herself or himself.  This, by its very nature, allows us to strive for a higher level of life for all humankind.  Imani tells us we can do anything in the name of righteous struggle.  It tells us of our power to effect change. 

Just as our Gospel lesson calls us to understand that all gifts—gift after gift after gift—comes from God, Kwanza puts that call into a holiday and celebration for all to see.  Kwanzaa comes from an African word which means “first fruits”.  It is the celebration of the gifts of God.  All that we have explored this season comes from God—all the joy, the excitement, especially the baby come to show us the way—gift after gift after gift.  John tells us that we all live off of God’s generous bounty.  Is it not a right and good thing to celebrate the way the gifts of culture, tradition, and faith impact our world today?  Is it not a right and good thing to learn all we can learn about all people on earth—God’s great earth—God’s great people.  Harambee is an African word which means “let’s pull together” or just “pull together”.  Hear the Harambee and Words of Parting for Kwanzaa:  Peace and Blessings upon each of us, known and unknown, both within and without these walls. Let’s all pull together.  HARAMBEE!  Amen and amen.

Yes, Virginia, There Is a Christ-child! Christmas Eve 2013

God, we feel so close to you tonight.  Our hearts are softly open.  May we use this time—this gentle time—to learn more of you.  Amen

In 1897 eight-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon wrote a letter to the editor of New York’s Sun, and received an anonymous response in the editorial column.  The response was penned by Francis Pharcellus Church, a veteran newsman who was having his own struggles that year because his wife had died; and became the most reprinted newspaper editorial ever.  As far as I could find, no newspaper editorial has surpassed it even to today.

As I thought about Christmas Eve and our own struggles, most of us far, far away from childhood, I found myself thinking of a very different kind of Christmas quest.  It might go something like this—Dear Editor, I am closer to eighty years old than I am to eight, but I have an important question nonetheless.  Some of my friends say they don’t need religion anymore.  Others say that Santa Claus has driven Christ right out of Christmas.  Others just seem confused.  While I don’t think that everything I read is true, I’d still like to know your answer to my question—“Dear Editor, please tell me the truth; is there a Christ-child?”  Signed by a much older Virginia.

Dear Virginia, your friends are struggling just like you, but they are wrong.  They have been affected by doubt in a doubting age.  They only believe what they can see.  They think that if it can’t be verified by scientific inquiry or explained by complex algorithms, then it can’t be true.  What they don’t understand is that all of our minds, whether they belong to children or adults are limited by our humanity.  Why in this very universe in which we live we are tiny, like little bugs, when we are compared to the vastness we now know exists in the cosmos.  We cannot begin to comprehend because our minds are incapable of that much truth and knowledge.  It is not exactly clear to me how this belief that all things must be understood in order to be accepted as truth got such a stronghold over many minds.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Christ-child.  Whether he is called the Christ or not, he exists wherever love and generosity and beauty exist.  And it is in this love, generosity and beauty that we find our higher meanings as human beings.  Alas!  How dreary and hopeless the world would be if there was no Christ-child, if there were no higher meanings.  It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias, or men or women, or stars or seas.  If there were no Christ-child, there would be no one to show many of us our own child-like faith.  There would be no way for many of us to understand the higher truth and bring it into our lives to fill our lives with meaning.  Our enjoyment of life would be limited to what we could see and touch.  The eternal light of childhood and new birth would be extinguished leaving us as people walking in darkness once more.  The ‘silence’ of the great Silent Night has been replaced with cynicism and territorialism. 

Not believe in the Christ-child!  You might as well believe all those folks who believe that consumerism is big enough and strong enough to make the Christ-child disappear.  To all those people with bumper stickers pleading with us to “keep Christ in Christmas” I want to say, “No, take Christ beyond Christmas and into the world”.  Is it not the loss of Christ and Christ-like love moving in the world that has us doubting the existence of the Christ-child in the first place?  The most real things in the world are those things which we cannot regiment or document, we can only feel.  And the love that God showed to us through this Christ-child cannot be doubted when our heart is open to feeling.  Feeling does not require believing; feeling requires that we stop our human trying and just let the wonder of love happen.  Did you ever see the love of one for another?  Love, itself, is meaningful—it resides in the portions of our hearts and spirits that connect us to the sacred in all of creation.  And the tangible expression of that love is lying in a manger waiting to be born again in our hearts tonight. 

No one can conceive of all the wonders in the universe.  You may take apart an intricate flower, or gaze at magnified images of a million different snowflakes, but you cannot see what “makes” the flower a flower or a snowflake a snowflake.  An unseen veil covers the world beyond our knowing and only love can see through that curtain.  This is a veil so fixed that all the strength of all the strongest men and women in the world cannot break through it.  But, perfect love can push it aside with no effort at all. Perfect love, oh, perfect love.  And, yet, you ask “is perfect love real?” Oh, Virginia, on this night, once again, perfect love is made plain for us in the life of Jesus the Christ-child.

No Christ-child!  Thank God!  He lives and he lives forever.  Every time we bring our quest back to the quiet stable where love on earth was born, he lives.  Every time we fight for justice born of this love, he lives.  Every time, we, ourselves, reach beyond our encapsulated lives and touch a sick and dying world, he lives.   A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, the Christ-child will continue to make glad the hearts of all those who seek with childlike purity and wholeness of heart.  Merry Christmas, Virginia, Merry Christmas to all.  Amen and amen.

December 22, 2013

There was no sermon because of the musical program that was presented. 

The Real Thing 12-15-13

God, author and creator of the ‘real’, cause our minds to open, our hearts to soften and our ears to hear this day.  We thank you for all that is pure and good and holy.  Amen

            If you are somewhere in my generation or one after or one before you probably make an instant connection to the phrase “It’s the real thing”.  We could all hum a few bars of that commercial where, yes, you guessed it, coca cola, brought singers from all over the world to a hilltop in Italy and had them singing “I’d like to buy the world a coke”.  It’s on you-tube if you’d like a trip down memory lane and I definitely did.  There they were—nice young people from the United States and England; one bonny red-haired, freckled lass from Ireland; numerous people of color, some with native dress; people from India, and Asia, all over the world.  The message was simple—if we all would just drink coke, the world would be a wonderful place to live and it seems that we bought it—that ad generating hundreds and thousands of revenue for coca cola.  It’s an interesting use of the phrase—the real thing—of course, and indicates that, in the world of soft drinks, only coke is real, the rest are poor substitutes.

            This, of course, my mind running amuck as it is wont to do, got me to thinking about other ways we use the word ‘real’.  If it is before dinnertime, and I’m in a restaurant and the server asks me which kind of coffee I want, I could respond “give me the real thing” and everyone would know that I wanted coffee with caffeine; decaf, of course, not being ‘real’.   We throw the word ‘real’ around a lot.  If I’m walking down the streets of New York City and a guy on the street offers me a Rolex watch for the unbelievable price of 50 bucks—my first question ought to be, “Is it real?”  Real—genuine, authentic, factual, true, original, bonafide, sincere, honest, heartfelt, unaffected—all these words can be summed up in the word ‘real’.  Today, our passage from John’s gospel tells us that Jesus—this Life-Light—is the real thing.  And, just as importantly, his interaction with people, when they believe, enables them to find the ‘real’ thing in themselves—John describes this as, “their true selves, their child-of-God selves.”

            On Wednesday nights, we have been “Living the Questions” with each other—a small group of you who want to explore the questions that we ask and live out every day.  One of the sessions we participated in recently had to do with the question of ‘why did Jesus come to earth?’  In that session we talked about how the notion that God piled all the worlds’ peoples’ sins on Jesus and caused him to be killed for us just doesn’t match up with the loving, compassionate, creative God we know in our lives.  But this is a scary place to be because the church has told us for over two thousand years that Jesus, child of God, died for our sins and the sins of everyone in the world.  Scary or not, we bring that question with us to our scripture today.  Advent is a time of preparation, a time of waiting, and even a time of questioning. 

            John, of course, in the beginning of his Gospel story, does not support this theory either.  No, John tells us that Jesus came to earth as this Life-Light to show us what it looks like to be just that—a  Life-Light ourselves—a child-of-God.  Those who ‘got it’ and still ‘get it’ would live into their true nature of their ‘child-of-God’ selves.  There are glimpses of this long before Jesus arrives on the scene.  Prophets tried to get the people to understand.  David, Shepherd, King, and Poet, wrote many psalms with hints about being this child-of-God self, but the people couldn’t understand.  So, God, the source of Divine Love, did the divinely loving thing.  God sent us an example so that we might have a concrete, flesh and blood, model of a child-of-God.  In sending Jesus, God said, “all these other attempts have been mere forerunners of Jesus.  Jesus is the ‘real thing’—the real child-of-God.  Watch him, learn of him, model your lives after his, allow him to show and teach you what it means to be my child.  That’s it—that’s all.  All of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection makes sense in this one ‘real’ thing—that we understand what it looks like, and feels like, and hurts like, and loves like, when we are truly one with God.

            How does it feel to be a child-of-God?  This is not a rhetorical question.  It is the question where we find ourselves in the midst of here, right smack dab in the middle of Advent.  The parties have begun, the presents are on the dining room table awaiting their wrapping and distribution, and we are coming closer and closer to the night, when we remember the baby in a manger; the night when our eyes mist over as sing Silent Night in the light of a small candle; closer and closer to the night when God reveals to us yet again, what it looks and feels and acts like to be the child of the Source of all love.  Can we say, with the shepherds, “let us go, now, even to Bethlehem”?  John tells us that not all will want what Jesus is—there will be those who reject this Life-Light; and, sadly, we know all too well that this is true.  But what of those of us who do not reject our calling as Children-of-God.  What does this season say to us—those of us who, by default or choice, find ourselves understanding the nature of God through the lens of the life and love of Jesus?  I believe that it calls us to first understand that we are birthed from God, just as Jesus was; that we are loved by God, just as Jesus was; and we are sent by God to share the Life-Light just as Jesus was. 

John is clear that being a child of God is not about physical things—he says, ‘not blood-begotten, not flesh-begotten, not sex-begotten”.  This child of God thing is not about flesh and blood or procreation, according to John it is about Jesus himself as God incarnate bringing us into the knowledge of what we already are—children of God.  The Gospel is this and this only that God loved humankind—that same humankind who kept straying and failing—God loved humankind so much that in the midst of all the chaos of the world, God, Incarnate, came in the form of a baby who would grow up to be the walking, living, and dying description of God’s love—the same love we embody when we allow this “real thing”, God’s love, to be expressed in and through our lives.  The focus of this passage is not eternal life as some of John’s later passages are.  In these, primary, first, before the rest of the story, verses, John is longing for us to ‘get it’—to open to and become aware of this ‘real thing’ in our own lives.  And what if, during this Advent Season, we did?  The first thing we would notice, I believe, is that we would become quiet.  When we allow the awe of wonder at the knowledge that we and God are one, there are no words—there are no words necessary and there are no words to use anyway.  It is at this point, that we begin to notice changes in how we are in the world.  We become more present—noticing all the times that God shows us the love, courage, and strength that is available to us as children of God.  Being present means we are alive to the beauty of the world and the season.  We become more present to and listen for the voice of God in other people as well.  We begin to see God in all there is and we look for the Sacred Spirit suddenly springing up everywhere.

What, then, do we know as we walk in the ever-present knowledge that we are God’s children now and long after this Christmastide?  First and foremost we know that it is God’s will for us—you and me—to believe and understand this.  Why else would God have become one of us, become a baby like one of us, struggled through growing up and establishing his place in the world if God had not wanted us to know this one thing.  God came to earth, God incarnate, Emmanuel, for one reason only—to introduce us to our God-selves—to introduce us to who we already were—God-selves living in God-abundance.  This is the gift of Christmastime—that we live, and move, and have our being in God—that we and God are one—one peace, one hope, one love.  Amen and amen. 

             

           

           

The Life-Light Blazes

 Holy Father and Mother God, fill us with the Life Light that blazes for all to see.  Cause us to hear what you know we need to hear.  Give us courage to journey into places we have not been before and humility to gratefully experience your grace.  Amen

            Let’s face it.  Now that we have begun to talk about God in different ways, we must, also begin to talk about Jesus and even the Holy Spirit in different ways.  And, believe it or not, we don’t have to leave the Bible to see those different ways unfold in front of us.  In this Advent season, bold, mystical poet, John, leads us into the realm of deeper understanding of things spiritual.  So, let’s start there.  Our Gospel Lesson today is short—just three brief verses, but the paths they illuminate are many and wonderful, varied and cosmic. 

            Let us begin at the beginning of verse 3:  “Everything was created through God; nothing—not one thing—came into being without Yahweh”.  John is specific—‘everything’ is created through God, ‘nothing’ came into being without God.  This simple verse turns most of our talking about good and evil on its head. John also has an interesting way with prepositions.  In the Genesis account of creation, the writer says that God did the creating.  John’s prepositions are through and with.  In other words, God is no longer a unique divine individual who works to make something happen; God is part of the process itself.  So, God then is the creative power itself, not just the doer of creation. 

            In the next verse, John is specific again—‘what came into existence was Life’—he leaves no doubt on the extent and expansiveness of this creation; it was Life.  This Life, John describes as the ‘Light to live by’.  Let’s review these first two verses because an understanding of them is crucial to beginning to understand verse 5.  To do that, let’s take a look at another, more common process that is known to us all.  It’s called photosynthesis.  Now, my research told me that the chemical equation for photosynthesis is 6CO2 + 12H2O + Light → C6H12O6 + 6O2+ 6H2O.  If Noreen or one of our other chemists want to challenge me on that—go right ahead—I have absolutely no idea what all that means, or at least I would really have to slow down and take it all apart, and hope that my 11^th grade memorization of the periodic chart would not fail me.  You might be feeling a similar feeling about these verses in John.  Why in the world did he have to make it so difficult to understand?

In my example of photosynthesis, and I pray this metaphor doesn’t break down somewhere along the way, let’s say that the production of oxygen—the process by which oxygen is produced is God.  Though we do not understand exactly how it happened, we know that plants and trees came into being and that there were portions of the earth covered in water.  In the process of photosynthesis, carbon dioxide enters the plant’s leaf.  At a similar time, water enters through the plant’s roots.  Sunlight falls on the leaves that are now nourished by the water.  Using the energy from the sun, hydrogen and oxygen are created in that process.  Hydrogen is used by the plant to nourish itself and, fortunately for all us oxygen-dependent people, oxygen, and lots of it, is also produced.  There are, in fact, other processes involved, such as the water cycle, but what is primarily needed is that tiny process that takes place inside the created leaves and produces what we most need for life.  Now you could state that God is the force that put this process into place; and, I wouldn’t argue with you about that.  But, unless we understand that God’s creative vitality is part of the process itself, we miss the centrality of God in all of life. In other words, in simple terms, God—this divine ingenious force, created carbon dioxide, trees, dirt, and rain, but unless that same divine force is in the process itself, you and I breathing just isn’t going to happen.

It’s in the process where the sacred appears; and, if we are to be in touch with the sacred in our own lives it is in this same sort of life-giving process that we must be found seeking. I do not for a moment believe that (stretching my metaphor a bit) the plant ‘thinks’ about making oxygen.  The plant simply houses the process.  We have many verses throughout both the Old and New Testaments that suggest, as French philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, notes “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”  When we, you and I, begin to look for a spiritual experience to happen to us as if spirituality will somehow invade our human hearts and minds, I think we miss the boat.  John would agree with me, I think, that the spiritual is already happening every moment of every day—the Life Light is here.  We need merely to tune in to that process that is existing alongside of our day to day experiences.  This is why we stop, quiet the world, and go within to find God faithful in the process of turning the Light into Life—the carbon dioxide into oxygen, if you will.  God, the process, goes right on whether we are aware of it or not.  It is this awareness of the process that we seek in new ways as God prepares our hearts for the coming of the Holy Infant once more

            Finally, the fifth verse of the first chapter of John says this, and, oh, I love this!  “The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness; the darkness couldn’t put it out.”  John is telling us, assuring us, really, that once we have entered into the sacred process of living Life by the Light, that the Life-Light itself will come blazing out of us, our spirits, and our hearts.  This is an incredible assurance that John gives us, but give it to us, he did and the rest of his Gospel shows the many ways that Jesus, about whose birth he was speaking, lived out the Life-Light. 

As I was typing the readings earlier this week, I accidently replaced the ‘z’ in blaze with an ‘s’.   It occurred to me what a difference one letter can make.  Just by replacing that one letter, I went from a blazing Life-Light to a Life-Light that was blasé.  Believing that nothing happens by accident when I am working on the sermon, I investigated further.  The full definition of blaze is 1—intense direct light often accompanied by heat like the blaze of lights on a football field, or an active burning of a flame.  2—a dazzling display such as a blaze of color, or a sudden outburst such as a blaze of fury.   Pretty powerful words.  Blasé, on the other hand—not so much.  Blasé can mean : having or showing a lack of excitement or interest in something especially because it is very familiar; i.e. no longer exciting or apathetic to pleasure or excitement as a result of excessive indulgence or enjoyment or weary of the world.  We are ablaze with the Divine Life-Light when we seek ways to learn and to serve; we are blasé when we bumble along waiting, I suppose, for God to hit us over the head with the blessing planned for all of us.  I’m afraid that too many of us, as we continue in this Advent Season, have grown blasé about our spiritual life—either we’ve let other things crowd out our commitment to ourselves and to our relationship with the Sacred, or we’ve grown tired of looking for that ‘thing’, you know, that ‘thing’, we just keep missing. 

Advent, of course, means “coming” and waiting and hoping.  It means that our lives are not set in some blasé, meaningless mode.  Advent means that God is welcoming us again to become aware of the sacred process within.  John doesn’t talk about a baby.  He talks about God being born in us—about the opportunity to live our lives ablaze with the Life-Light which is both God and Jesus.  John wants us to know that the shepherds, and angels, and astrologers, and sheep in the hay are not what is most to be sought this Christmas.  John urges us to seek for that special place in our spirits where water and sun and carbon dioxide come together and oxygen—the thing most necessary for us to live is produced.  And, in that place, our lives will produce that which others need to live—a sense of meaning and belonging, kindness, compassion, and gentleness.  As we live our lives ablaze with the Life-Light to which John is introducing us, the darkness cannot stop us from living and serving and being that Life-Light to others.

And, so, this Christmas, while I may not know if angels really sang or if the shepherds really did come on the night Jesus was born; I don’t think that matters all that much.  Because what I do know is that God leads me to a place where the Sacred Light, the Source and Sustainer of all Life, can make me new.  The Life-Light that is stronger than darkness can heal, inspire, and move me forward in my commitment to myself, to God, and to the Creation.  Amen and amen.