Sermon for Fourth Sunday after Epiphany

Preached at Grace and Canadochly on January 28, 2018
Preaching text: Mark 1: 21-28

“What is this, a new teaching? With authority?” That phrase may just make this Gospel story one of the most alien to us in all of the Scriptures. More so by far than the presence of demonic possession. More so by far than Jesus’ miracle to remove said possession. No, the synagogue crowd reacts to Jesus with honor and reverence that he teaches and preaches with “authority.”

Imagine living in a society where knowledge and wisdom and expertise were actually valued? The ancient Jews knew these things made the world better. And the evidence is right before them in this story. A man plagued and tormented by evil is set free by the power of Jesus’ authority.

But we don’t live in a society that reveres these things. Not anymore. No, we’ve traded folly for wisdom, ignorance for knowledge, and just plain stupidity for expertise. And we claim to be the better for it. As Isaac Asimov, the famous sci-fi writer once observed about Americans, “There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti- intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."

Authority is not honored here. If anything, it is feared.

On one level though I understand why. It is people with authority who have discovered climate change, a phenomenon that potentially threatens every society and every living thing on this planet. It is people with authority who tell us to trust our institutions, our government, our businesses, our religious hierarchy. And yet, we’ve been abused by all three on numerous occasions. It is people with authority that cover up the crimes of the wealthy and privileged and then, in turn, brutalize the people of lower estate.

It used to mean something in this country to be a man. It meant that no matter how low on the totem pole you were, you were still better than any woman. And while that’s sadly still somewhat true, it’s changing. And it’s people with authority that’s changing it.

It used to mean something in this country to be white. It meant that no matter how low on the totem pole you were, you were still better than any person of color. And while that’s sadly still somewhat true, it’s changing. And it’s people with authority that’s changing it. It used to mean something in this country to be a Christian. It meant that no matter how low on the totem pole you were, you were still better than any non-Christian, any atheist or Muslim or Jew. And while that’s sadly still somewhat true, it’s changing. And it’s people with authority that’s changing it. And it used to mean something in this country to be straight. It meant that no matter how low on the totem pole you were, you were still better than any LGBT. And while that’s sadly still somewhat true, it’s changing. And it’s people with authority that’s changing it.

People with authority are upending everything, changing it all. Some for good, some for bad, and which is which often depends on who and what you were before things started changing. Personally, I think many of the changes our society has undergone have been positive and long overdue. We should be a more equal and more cosmopolitan society. But not all agree. Some see all this as something akin to the end of the world.

I read an article in The Nation recently that spoke to why people in this country are acting and voting in the way they are in these recent decades. It claimed that there is a growing strain of people who have utterly lost their identity due to these changes in our society, people for whom the only thing that made them matter was that they were white, male, Christian, and straight. Many of these are now so full of despair that they actively long for their deaths and the deaths of everyone else.

Utterly nihilistic, they vote those feelings, voting for people who will accelerate the destruction and devastation of our world. They act on those feelings. These are the opioid addicts and the sort of people that walk into a crowded building, a mall, a business, a theater, a concert, or a school and start shooting. They are the people who actually want President Trump to play with his big shiny button and wipe out every living thing on Earth. They hunger for destruction. And their numbers are growing.

Many of them, if not most, claim to be Christian. Most, I suspect, see that as little more than a tribal identity. The few that darken the doors of the church often do so at churches that only abuse them further with talk of a hateful judgmental God who shows little compassion to those who don’t measure up.

There is rot at the heart of our religion. Something demonic that festers in our very midst. Something that takes people who are wounded and hurting and lost and convinces them that they have no future and no hope. A devilish and fiendish lie that devalues human life and experience, a lie that people are listening to and believing in greater numbers. A lie that is protected by people’s reluctance to trust anyone with “authority.”

But here’s what that authority has taught me. Each and every one of us is a precious child of God, valued beyond price by the God who created all things. So valued and so precious that God came to this world, incarnate from a virgin, and went to a cross to die a horrific death to demonstrate just how far he was willing to go for our sakes. He died and rose again so that we may have life abundant and eternal. I know that, I believe it, I want to share and show it, but those three letters “Rev” in front of my name get in the way. Because I’m one of them. I’m part of the problem. Which mean the real task of reversing this nightmare and exorcising this demon from our midst falls to all of you.

You are the ones who need to talk about Christ. You are the ones who need to share him and show him. They won’t listen to me. I’m the “professional Christian,” I’m tainted by my authority. I’m too smart. Too elitist. Too educated. Too distant, despite all my efforts to the contrary. It’s frustrating, but it’s the way things are.

We are God’s children, precious beyond price. And it’s not just that I read it in a book somewhere, it’s also what I’ve experienced throughout my life. I’ve been knocked low more times than I can count and every time, God was there for me. He is always there for me, even when depression and despair have blinded me to his presence. And I know that you here gathered have had the same experience, that he’s been there for you too, even in the midst of your darkest times. That’s why you keep coming back to this place each week. You’ve learned, you’ve experienced, you understand just how much you matter to God.

And that’s what we’re called to do, to tell and to show this to a world that doesn't believe it. It’s what Jesus did for that demoniac. No one else really cared about him. He was a nuisance, an annoyance. But Jesus cared. He loved him and set him free. He loved you and set you free. He loves me and has set me free. Now a world in bondage to despair and hopelessness needs to hear how he sets them free. Go and tell. Amen.

Sermon for the Third Sunday after Epiphany

Preached at Canadochly and Grace on January 21, 2018
Preaching text: Jonah 3:1-10 , Mark 1:14-20

And Jesus said to them, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” You have to wonder what ran through the minds of Peter and Andrew when they first heard those words. Mark implies they did not hesitate, but immediately jumped out of the boat and joined Jesus. As too did James and John, even leaving poor old dad behind to finish up the day’s work. (I’ve always found that particular image amusing, although Mark does blunt the mirth of it by reminding us he’s with the hired help, so he’s not completely alone.)

What did they think? Did they know Jesus was the Messiah? Did they understand who he was and what he was about? Or was this just a moment of whimsy? One of those “Hold my beer, watch this” sort of thing? Hard to say.

Mark, throughout his narrative of Jesus’ life, shows the disciples to be clueless about Jesus. They simply don’t get him. The Gospel of John, on the other hand, shows us that these men were disciples of John the Baptist and had encountered Jesus before through him. Regardless, I think it’s obvious these fishermen knew at least that there was something special about Jesus. Something different. Something worth checking out.

And I think they also understood that saying no wasn’t going to work. When it comes to God, it never does.

If you look back across the Scriptures, you see that many of the people who God calls to his service have all these excuses as to why God has chosen the wrong person. Abraham has no children. Doesn’t matter. Moses is a murderer who can’t talk good. Doesn’t matter. Isaiah is a “man of unclean lips.” Doesn’t matter. Jeremiah is just a boy. Doesn’t matter. Paul was the enemy of the church, a persecutor. It did not matter. Their excuses did not matter. God called them to his service anyway.

And God’s still doing it. Let me tell you a couple of stories that more contemporary. First, let me tell you about Vernon Johns.

Johns was an African-American preacher born at the end of the 19th century. He was a man before his time, brilliant (could speak several languages), hard-working, and very socially minded. He served Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, AL and he preached prophetically and socially, calling his congregation to change the world in which they lived. Of course, in the 1940s and 50s, that world was the Jim Crow South. That made the good folks at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church a little nervous, a little anxious. They knew what the white folk down there might do if their preacher got a little too “uppity,” even though what the world needed at the time was a few uppity folk.

Suffice to say, his relationship with the congregation was a little tumultuous, a little strained. In the mid-1950s, the congregation had decided it had enough. They found a nice young new preacher to replace Johns, thinking here at last was someone who wasn’t going to rock the boat the way Johns had. The name of that new preacher? Martin Luther King Jr.

Try as they might, the people of God at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church could not say no to God’s calling to change their world. They should have known.

And then there’s my own story. Rewind the clock to 1992. I was in college at Virginia Tech, convinced beyond all doubt that I was going to be the next Richard Garriott, the next great video game designer. I was diligent in my computer classes, creative, smart, and doing well. At least at first. Then my grades started slipping. My creative approach to programming was not helping. My inability to understand calculus and other advanced mathematics was beginning to hinder me. I began to fail my classes.

Add to that getting my heart broken by my high school sweetheart and I felt my whole world had come apart. And it was in that moment, when I was picking up the pieces of my life when I first really heard God’s call to me towards ministry. And I’ll be honest, I wanted nothing to do with it.

I was an angry, bitter, broken young man and I lived that out. Crazy parties every weekend. Drinking, debauchery, the whole nine yards. I did it all. I rebelled. I tried to run away from who God was calling me to be.

Me during that time. Magic the Gathering and 80+ proof liquor.

And then I woke up one morning and I didn’t recognize the person I saw in the mirror anymore. That was a sobering moment. And, of course, here I stand as your pastor. Saying no really worked for me.

Of course, we also have our First Lesson today. Probably the most famous story of all about someone who tried very hard to say no to God, one we learned as children. Jonah and the whale. He runs away and ends up right back where God wanted him anyway. It didn’t work for him either.

And that brings up to today and to us. I mentioned last week how being nobodies does immunize us from God’s calling either. Truth is there’s nothing that gets us off the hook, not where we’re born, what we’ve done in life, or how uncomfortable God’s call makes us feel. We are his chosen. His children. He has claimed each of us in baptism and has given us each a purpose in life. He’s called us to fish for people, to make disciples. And we do that through proclamation of his Word, through kindness to strangers and outcasts, through feeding the hungry and caring for the sick, for speaking up for the voiceless, through transforming this world in which we live. A world of despair and hopelessness, fear and anxiety for so many. But there is light in the darkness and we can show that light to those who need it.

Who do you know that needs a bit of light in the darkness of their life? There’s a starting point. The rest is up to you. Stay in the boat or get moving. But if you choose the former, I can guarantee you God will find a way to tip the boat over and get you moving anyway. That’s how it works. Amen.

Sermon for the Second Sunday after Epiphany

Preached at Grace and Canadochly on January 14, 2018
Preaching text: Psalm 139:14, John 1:43-51

“Can anything good come of Nazareth?” Ah, Nathaniel, so predictably human, so utterly snobbish. I’ve dealt with your kind all my life.

Yeah, remember, I was born and grew up in the great state of West Virginia. I’ve heard it all. Yes, we have televisions. No, we’re not a part of Virginia, we are our own state. Yes, I know what shoes are. Yes, I do have more than one tooth. No, I am not married to my sister. I’ve heard them all, all sorts of often mean-spirited jokes about how I should somehow be some sort of inbred backwards barbarian because of where I grew up. Nathaniel, from our Gospel lesson today, would no doubt join the chorus of that so-called humor. It fits his personality. I can also think of someone else who'd jump in, a certain occupant of the White House.

How can anyone speak ill of such a beautiful place? For 11 years, I woke up to this.

Of course, they're not alone. We humans are kind of a sad lot. We’re always trying to prove our own worth. And all too often we do that by trying to tear down other people. And we do it all over the place. Thank God I’m not...finish this sentence however you like. Politically, thank God I’m not a wingnut or a libtard. Nationally, thank God I’m American and not from some "shithole country." Economically, thank God I’m rich and not poor. Pop culturally, thank God I love Star Trek instead of Doctor Who or Harry Potter. Sports, go Eagles and to heck with the Ravens and their fans. We do all over the place, regarding ourselves and things we are and the things we love and the things we are passionate about as innately superior to something else. And we all do it in some way or another.

But here’s the funny thing, the God we come here each Sunday to worship LOVES to tweak our preconceptions about ourselves and other people. Jesus himself is a perfect example. God chooses as part of his grand plan to save the universe to incarnate as a human being. But sort of human being? One high and mighty, of noble birth, rich and powerful? No, he’s born of a family of poor artisans in a backwater of the Roman Empire. His birthplace is a stable and his first crib a feeding troth. His hometown another backwater village in another backwater province. He, by all accounts, should be a nobody and he’s the savior of the world.

This is precisely why Nathaniel reacts the way he does. “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” It’s nowhere, a place of no value. And I’m sure he’s not alone. Although the Gospels don’t detail this, I’m sure more than one of Jesus’ detractors questioned his authority and legitimacy due to his origins.

But they should no better. They all should. Who does God pick to be his judges? Nobodies. Who does he pick to be his prophets? Nobodies. Heck, even King David, the greatest of all rulers over the Chosen People is the least of his brothers, so much so that when the prophet Samuel asks Jesse to gather his sons, he doesn’t even bother to call in David. Surely, the least is also the least worthy of whatever purpose the prophet has. Not so.

And he hasn’t stopped. Who is Peter or James or John, the greatest of the disciples? Nobodies. Who is Paul, who wrote most of the New Testament? He’s even more than a nobody, he’s a villain. The enemy who seeks to destroy the infant Church. What on Earth is God doing here?

Surprising us, just like he always does. As God says to Samuel when he’s anointing David. “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

Samuel himself should also have known better. He too was once a nobody, yet God called him to service as we see in our first lesson today. This is God’s MO, his mode of operation, throughout history. Old Testament, New Testament, and even today, he continues to call the least likely to be those that change the world.

It is likely not entirely coincidental that we have this passage and this message on the Sunday before we remember the life and work of Martin Luther King Jr and the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Who were the greatest activists and leaders of that movement? Nobodies. Even beyond the fact that people of color were considered “less than” by many of us white folks back then, they were not even great among their own. Rosa Parks was a “domestic worker.” MLK was just a preacher. And yet God used them to change this nation for the better.

That’s because what the world values little, God values beyond price. Human nature divides into the worthy and unworthy. God cares nothing for such distinctions. Our psalm today contains one of my favorite phrases about humankind, about how God “fearfully and wonderfully made” each one of us. We are precious to him, a treasure beyond all value and worth.

And not only does he adore us beyond words. He has such confidence in our abilities. It was no coincidence that Peter, Paul, David, Samuel, Martin, Rosa, and all these others were called to the tasks he gave them. He knew, far better than even they did, what they were capable of. He knew what they could do if motivated. They could and they did change the world. They made a difference for everyone.

God calls each of us too. Some to grand world-changing schemes, others to smaller more intimate purposes. Only God and ourselves really know what we’re to do in life. I can’t answer for you, only myself, what our purpose in life is to be. But I do know one thing, whatever it is, God didn’t call you to it by accident. He knows you can do and do it very very well. He loves you. He trusts you. Go change the world. For one or for all, no matter where we’re from or what labels the world has put on us, it’s what God is calling you and me to do. Amen.

Sermon for Epiphany 2018

Preached at Canadochly on January 7, 2018
Preaching text: Matthew 2:1-12

It probably is fitting that my baptismal anniversary falls on the festival of Epiphany. From the very beginning, I seem to have had an interesting relationship with the magi of the Christmas story and with the often forgotten tradition of the 12 days of Christmas. In olden days, one began the celebration of the Nativity on Dec 25 with Jesus’ birth, but it did not conclude until Jan 6 with the arrival of the magi.

I’m a Christmas baby, I suppose, baptized in the shadow of the magi, who are some of the most intriguing and important characters in Matthew’s variant of Jesus’ life. They come from the East, bearing kingly gifts, to a child so poor he has only an animal’s feeding troth for a bed. They come following a star, claiming it to be a portend of the divine at work in the world, revealing their profession as diviners and astrologers. The D&D player in me has always been fascinated by the presence of “wizards” in the Christmas story, for that’s what these guys are.

Nothing really about them makes much sense. Even their gifts are nonsensical. Sure, one brings gold in tribute to a king; that one, at least, is logical. But the others are not. Frankincense is used in ritual prayer; mixed with the sacrifices of the temple or alone, its rising smoke symbolizes the elevation of prayer and petition to God above. Myrrh is embalming fluid, or at least the closest thing the ancient world had to it. A gift to a priest and the dead, of which the infant Jesus is neither...yet.

And then one has to consider the ancient world’s traditions behind gift giving. There is quid pro quo in the exchange of gifts. One does not give without expectation of something in return. It is this fact that so terrifies Herod. If these envoys from a foreign power are bringing gifts to his rival, what return are they expecting from him that Herod and his Roman masters are not providing?

An intriguing question and one perhaps at the heart of the whole story. What can Jesus give that worldly leaders cannot?

I prefer the term “magi” because of its connection to the word “magic” and “magician,” but the more commonplace name of “wise men” may be the more accurate. For these travellers are indeed very wise. They have sensed something that the rest of the world has not. Not Herod, not the shepherds, not the disciples, not the crowds. None of them understands who this child really is and what he’s come to do. There are only a handful of exceptions. Mary is one. Simeon, whose story was the lectionary last Sunday, is another. The old man of the temple who prophecies that “this child will be the rising and falling of many in Israel.”

The magi know that too. The gifts and the very giving of them reflect that. Here is one who is truly going to change the world. Here is one who “will bring down rulers from their thrones but will  lift up the humble! He will fill the hungry with good things but will send the rich away empty” Here is the one who will proclaim the day of the Lord’s favor by bringing release to the captives and good news to the poor. This is the one who will change EVERYTHING.

And he will do it by being both priest and sacrifice for the sake of the world. “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” John the Baptizer says of his cousin. He’s another that gets it. But there are very few.

We tend to forget that. Most of the people who lived these stories did not know or understand who Jesus was. They guessed, often wrongly. He was to be king in the same sense as Herod or David. He was Messiah like Cyrus of old, a conqueror. But there are some that did know. Some who knew he was born to die on a cross for the salvation of the world. And these magi were among them. The gifts they bring, as extravagant as they are by worldly standards, are but a pittance to the debt these men will owe to the one who will bring them life eternal and they know it. But bring them they do. Here, child of God, accept what we offer in exchange for what you will do for us and the whole world.

Every day of our lives, we do as the magi did. We bring our gifts to the Christ, paltry as they are, in gratitude for what God has done for us. We give our time, our skills, our money, our very lives for the sake of the one who gave everything for us and for the world we live in. To the one who changed and is changing everything.

We call this festival Epiphany for a reason. An epiphany is a unveiling, a discovery, a realization of a previously hidden truth. That is what the magi, staring into the sky, had when the star blazed into the night. God was at work. God was changing the world. Well, let us be as the magi were, for God is still at work and God is changing the world through Christ. Let’s bring all that we are to the manger. Let us be a part of that change. It’s 2018, a new year. Good time for change. Amen.

Sermon for Christmas 2017

Preached at Canadochly and Grace on December 24, 2017
Preaching text: None

People may find this a bit ironic, but I’ve always had a bit of an ambivalent relationship with the Christmas holiday. As a teenager, I was surrounded by family on Christmas, but it always felt like the loneliest day of the year. Most of that back then was just your typical teenage angst, but as I’ve grown older, those feelings of ambivalence haven’t gone away; they’ve just changed in form. For me now, as a pastor, as a person called to proclaim the Gospel of Christ living, dead, and risen again, I continue to struggle. Because one of the worst impediments to that calling, I’ve found over the years, is that baby in the manger.

Yes, you heard me right. Baby Jesus as an impediment to the Gospel. Not because it’s supposed to be that way, but because for far too many Christians, that’s all Jesus ever is. He’s a bit like Peter Pan, the boy who never grows up. The baby who sits there silently, who never cries, who never says or really does anything at all. And as a result, he’s a tabula rasa, a blank slate, ready and able to take on whatever characteristics we choose to give him.

And therein lies the problem? The Christianity of Baby Jesus can be whatever we want it to be. There’s no challenge. No accountability. No standard of morality outside any that we choose to provide. No salvation outside of what we say it is. It’s a Gospel of our own making, one that agrees with everything we agree with, that demands no change or transformation or repentance from us. The most comfortable of religions. Probably too comfortable.

And you see the consequences of it at play all throughout history and throughout our society.

Rewind a thousand years. Muslim Turks and Arabs have occupied the Holy Land. And how does the Church respond? We will have a Crusade. God wills it. Deus vult! Death and destruction to thousands of people. Blood will flow. Baby Jesus says nothing about this. He makes no objection, which is just the way we like it. Adult Jesus, on the other hand, says much about this. He reminds us of the commandment not to murder. He says to instead love our enemies, to pray for our persecutors. He says to do good even to those who do evil. How inconvenient.

Move back to today and what do you find. Christians who will loudly and forcefully condemn anyone LGBT and yet often give a pass to those who harass women, who are divorced multiple times, and even abuse children. Baby Jesus doesn’t say anything about that. He doesn’t object. Adult Jesus does. He honors women and children. He gives them special teaching and honors them and makes them the first witnesses of his resurrection. He reminds us that we are to honor and respect our spouses. How inconvenient.

We don’t stop there. The last time I checked, the Bible is not subtitled “All the ways I am better than everyone else because I’m Christian.” But that’s how Baby Jesus Christians often behave. We lord in our sense of superiority over others. We made the saying of the perfectly-festive phrase “Happy Holidays” into a sin of the highest order. We snarl out “Merry Christmas” as if we’re saying “F___ you” to all those who celebrate this season in a different way, all because we believe we deserve special treatment. We stand in judgment over the poor and the sick. According to our version of Baby Jesus, people who suffer so deserve it. They’re lazy and worthless. What goes around comes around and all that. Why should we dare help? Adult Jesus has much to say about that. Saying as you do to the least of these, you do to him. Saying love your neighbor as yourself. How inconvenient.

At the heart of this Baby Jesus Christianity is the love of money and power. In many ways, these critiques I’ve just mentioned are really, at their core, about that. It’s why we give a pass to so many who align with themselves with us on matters of race, economics, or political policy. It’s why they believe salvation only comes to us based on their devotion and loyalty to the same. The best gift you could give to a Baby Jesus Christian on this festive holiday is not a cross or even a manger; the true symbols of faith. No, give instead a mirror because what we really worship: ourselves. Our virtues. Our money.  Our politics. Our race. Our nationality. Our social privilege.It’s all about us. And Baby Jesus lets us get away with it or so we’d like to think. Truth is, Baby Jesus is Adult Jesus. They are one and the same, whether we like it or not.

Yeah, “we.” I use that pronoun intentionally. How many of us are BJCs from time to time? How many of us would rather all this God stuff align with what we already believe about ourselves and the world? How many of us would rather glare at others in judgment while giving ourselves and those like us a pass? How many of us are just so blasted annoyed at all the things Adult Jesus teaches, because it’s not what we want to hear?

Now do you see why I am so often ambivalent about this holiday? We worship ourselves, not the true Christ. For far too many of us Christians, faith is something we wear when it’s convenient. We love only those that love us back. We show compassion only upon those who are like us in some way. We go on throughout our lives as if that baby in the manger never grows up.

That, my friends, is sin. It’s at the heart of each and every one of us. From the very beginning, we’ve wanted to make it all about us. Those early stories in Genesis, from eating the apple in the garden to Noah’s Ark to the Tower of Babel, whether you take them as literal fact or not, they all have the same theme. Us trying to throw God off his throne and put ourselves in his place. And we’re still doing it. Now we just mask it in Christmas cheer and Christian piety.

It is however a path that leads to death and suffering. Countless lives destroyed, nations crumbled, societies decimated because we Christians put ourselves in charge instead of the real Jesus. The Holocaust, the Crusades, slavery, the witch trials of Salem, many of the nightmares of history happened because we refused to listen to the Adult Jesus. The world is so screwed up today because we’ve turned our back on him so often. And this is what we’ve accomplished in this world with our own efforts and hubris, what about the next? Do we honestly think we’ll get that any less wrong?

We won’t. The truth is, for all of us, a religion of self is not enough. It cannot do what we need most. What we need instead is a savior who can save us from our own worst impulses. What we need instead is a savior who can overcome what we cannot. What we need instead is a savior that can save us from what we don’t even realize or want to acknowledge about ourselves. And that baby in the manger becomes that Savior. He’s the beginning of what God intends to bring us all out of darkness. The darkness of this world and the darkness of our own egos and delusions of self-superiority.

Because that baby does grow up. He grows up and teaches us a new way of life. A way of love instead of hate. Generosity instead of selfishness. Sacrifice instead of arrogance. Life instead of death. And that adult Jesus goes to the cross to demonstrate all that, giving his own life for the sake of you and me, people who so often have taken him for granted. He didn’t have to do that. He could have left us to our own miserable fates, but he didn’t. He loves us and when you love something or someone, who want what’s best for it.

That’s who that baby really is. The birth of hope, a real hope, for a lost human race that seems hellbent on destroying itself. Sure, it’s tempting and even easy to make that baby into whatever we want. But that’s not a savior. The real Jesus is. He’s the one who’s come to save the world and to save us. And that is far better. Amen.

Sermon for Fourth Advent 2017

Preached at Canadochly on December 24, 2017
Preaching text: Luke 1:46-55

A few years ago, I preached about Mary on 4th Advent, claiming that she was not this dainty little flower, quiet and submissive, dressed all pretty in blue. While she is often depicted as such, the truth is far different. No, she was a fierce fiery woman of conviction, a person of passion who was thrilled that God was on the move at last to put right all that was wrong in the world. I called her a “punk,” in all the best ways that word can mean; a rebel who was determined to tear down an unfair system to replace it with something equitable and fair. And if you doubt that assessment of her, I suggest you read very closely the Song of Mary, the Magnificat.

This piece of beautiful poetry that we often sort of “ooh” and “aww” at could very well be the first punk rock song. These words are revolutionary. They are not the thoughts of someone who is content with their lot in life. This is someone who wants to watch the world burn so that something new may emerge from the ashes of the old. “He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.”

If you are someone who benefits greatly from the status quo, those worlds should very much so give you pause. The god this woman believes in is about to change everything. And she’s hungry for it. She wants it badly.

No wonder we prefer to depict her so meekly. The real Mary scares the daylights out of us.

It’s funny though, because the one piece of American culture we really get right is our fondness for rebels. Last Saturday, I watched the latest installment of the Star Wars saga, a series of movies that as much as any is a modern American myth or fairy tale. And who are the heroes of that story? “Rebel scum” according to more than a few characters throughout the saga, people who are putting their lives on the line to fight tyranny and bring freedom. And they’re not alone. Many of our pop culture heroes are cut from similar cloth. Heck, we sometimes even admire those who rebel just for the sake of rebelling. James Dean made a whole movie in the 1950s with himself as the titular “Rebel Without a Cause.”

We come to that pedigree honestly. Our nation was, of course, founded in revolution by rebels like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, people who likewise put their lives on the line to fight tyranny and bring freedom. And even today, we still pine a bit for that rebellion. We will often claim, usually without much evidence, that our government is tyrannical and we want to believe ourselves rebels against it.

But that’s usually just as much a fiction as Star Wars. It’s all pretend. We don’t really mean it. Despite all our bellyaching to the contrary, we generally benefit from what happens in Harrisburg or Washington and we like what they do or, at the very least, we don’t care. As a result we’re not all that inclined to really change things. Certainly not to the point of actually risking life and limb as did our Founding Fathers.

And that’s why Mary scares us. We don’t have that distance. The stories we read about or see on the silver screen are fictions, harmless make-believe. The adventures of our Founding Fathers are long in the past. But what Mary prays for in the Magnificat is right here and right now in the midst of every generation. God, come and put things right.

And we know darn well who God is going to recruit to help him do that: You and me, the disciples of his and Mary’s son Jesus.

Mary understands exactly what is happening here. She knows what it means to bear God’s Messiah (Popular Christmas songs that wonder to the contrary notwithstanding.) She knows her son is not interested in maintaining a status quo that benefits only a few at the expense of the many. As Jesus himself claims many years later in his conversations with the Pharisee Nicodemus, he came to save the whole world, not just a small portion of it. And we who follow Jesus, who claim through baptism and practice that we are Christians and disciples, are called into that same revolution, that same mission to transform the world.

We too are rebel scum of the best sort. Called to work to replace what is with what Christ says will be. And how do we do that? By making other disciples, and not merely those who are like us in race, language, or economics. We make disciples of all the world, the poor, the alien, the stranger, the rich, our families, our friends. And we don’t just do by talking to them, although that’s a good start. But we work by tearing down unjust systems and reforming society so that it helps a greater portion. That’s what good rebels do.

It’s what Jesus did. He healed the sick, ministered to the poor, welcomed the outcast and stranger. He gave his all to those the powers-that-be had long rejected. And it got him in trouble. His conflicts with the Pharisees and the scribes and other religious and political figures of his day were no accident. They knew what he was up to and it’s why they killed him. In doing so, they inadvertently gave us God’s most revolutionary act of all, the resurrection of Easter, rebellion against death itself. Talk about changing everything. Even the one thing that we mortals cannot overcome is flipped on its head by Christ.

Many others have followed Jesus to similar ends. As Bonhoeffer once said, “Grace is free, but discipleship will cost you your life,” many have discovered the powers-that-be are still as hostile to Jesus as ever. And that may be us too. But it’s hard to kill someone who trusts that God will bring them to resurrection on the last day. And it’s hard to stop a rebellion when the threat of death loses its sting.

Mary’s call for revolution comes to us. And what are we going to do with it? We live in a world that is profoundly unfair for many. We live in a world were the peace and grace of Christ are unknown to many. What are we going to do about that? Christmas is about a new world, about a hope, about light in the midst of darkness. We have our part to play in that. Are we going to play it? Amen.