Saturday, December 24, 2016

Come, come, whoever you are: A Christmas homily

In a clergy discussion group the question of the Christmas homily came up. The question was this: How do we talk about a story that has been told again and again, year after year and is so familiar it seems difficult to speak of it in a new way? The question itself reveals that we are products of our culture; especially the Christmas culture. If it is not new or original or catchy, or flashy, or have a spin, or promise to make us feel better in some way we are not terribly interested. We preachers feel as though we must respond to a culture that says, Surprise me.

But the answer to the question does not lie in a grand retelling of Christ birth narrative. The preachers’ work is to transmit the core of the biblical meta-narrative, not tell the story. The story has already been told. And that meta-narrative does not change over time. And it cannot be improve upon. Nor can it be added to or parts of it removed. It is central and stable and unmoving. The meta-narrative is an invitation to return to the source of all things, return to God.  Preachers are much less storytellers as we are the re-issuers of the invitation. And the invitation is sent out again and again. Preachers remind the church and the world of God’s invitation to be open to and in communion with the Godhead because it is not just the uninitiated or unaffiliated but Christians themselves who are not always in communion, even though they may profess to be so. We know well when we have lost our way. And we do so with regularity. And we know when it is time to come home. And so the invitation is sent out repeatedly, week after week, day after day, hour after hour, and minute by minute by an army of preachers bearing the scrolls of stories, and proclamations of good news and forgiveness, and promises of grace and the assurance of the gift of unending, unconditional love. 

That is what the Christmas story is, in the final analysis; a grand invitation, the mother of all invitations (pun intended). This night, through song and word, in the reading of the holy and ancient texts, and in the offering of the sacraments are extended various incarnations of invitation.
This invitation to return was very beautifully put into verse by Rumi the 13th-century Persian, Sunni, Muslim poet, jurist, Islamic scholar, theologian, and Sufi mystic. Rumi's influence transcends national borders and ethnic divisions. When he died in 1273 he was mourned by Christians and Jews, as well as Muslims and Buddhists. Given that it was the Persian wise men, the Mystics from the East that saw the star and followed it to the stable to greet the newborn King lying in a manger, makes them part of the story. The wise men recognized the invitation and they accepted. They came bearing gifts and paid homage to the newborn King.

Rumi’s poem, a fitting reflection for us this night, is this: 
“Come, come, whoever you are. Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving. It doesn't matter. Ours is not a caravan of despair. Come, even if you have broken your vows a thousand times. Come, yet again, come, come.”
Captured here is the eternal call of God to God’s people, Come, come, whoever you are. It includes the wanderer and the worshipper, the lovers of leaving - we are, each one of us, all of those things, wanderers, worshippers (of something) and lovers of leaving. 

When I first read this I was moved to tears. Who among us as not broken our vows. Not the vows that bind us on earth, but the vows between us and our God. The holy texts tell us that we were known intimately by God while we were in our mother’s womb; in the silent world before we knew our mothers we knew only God. There we were formed and shaped and came to have our being. We are wonderfully made. God was with us all the while. But what do we recall of the timeless time before we were born into time? Time alone is counting the seconds and minutes and hours and days and weeks and months and years we have believed ourselves separated from God. The invitation is to return by remembrance. Remember who you are. 

One of the parts of the prayer over the sacraments in preparation of Holy Communion is the prayer of remembrance. We remember the story of the last supper, the institution of the sacraments, and we are invited into the body through that remembrance. Worship has many kinds of invitations. It is a complex dance with many doors through which we enter to remember. 

The stories we tell are not a caravan of despair. That Jesus was born into scandal is not a story of despair. That the Christ child was born into the most humble, if not difficult of circumstances, is not a story of despair. That Jesus was marked for death at birth by the powers and principalities that ruled over the land is not a story of despair. The shadow of the cross that proceeds our telling of the Good News in Jesus the Christ is not born of despair. It is a proclamation of invitation. 

It does not matter how far you have wandered, what trouble you are in, or how deep your despair. It does not matter with whom you have consorted or followed or pledged loyalty. It doesn’t matter who you betrayed or what you have done, or worse still, all the things you failed to do or left undone. The wounds you did not bind. The hungry you did not feed. The angels you dismissed. Not one of us can claim a clean ticket. It does not matter. If it did, the story would be empty of its power; the invitation would be invalid. There can be no exceptions. It does not matter. You are invited to return, you are invited to remember to whom you belong and for what reason. You have only forgotten.


“Come, come, whoever you are. Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving. It doesn't matter. Ours is not a caravan of despair. Come, even if you have broken your vows a thousand times. Come, yet again, come, come.”

Sunday, December 11, 2016

What are you leaving out?

The spiritual life is often driven by the question: What’s missing? The quest to answer that question often leads people back to church or to pick up reading spiritual authors to fill what is perceived as a void. It doesn’t seem to matter if life and the daily calendar are full or if life is less filled with activity. Something just seems to be missing - there is a longing to be a part of the thing that is bigger that we are; that indescribable thing that we can no more grasp then mist or water. There is something that is calling our attention and we both desire to follow to see where it leads and distracted by many things. 

Jesus addresses this quest when he addresses the crowd remembering to them their time with John in the wilderness. He asks them What did you think you would find there? In three different ways he asks them this question: What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? What then did you go out to see? and again, What then did you go out to see? When we are seeking something that we think is missing or to put something back that has been lost we are paying close attention. That is the task of the spiritual life - to pay close attention. 

There was once a Buddhist student who had been living in a monastery praying and studying to become enlightened for many years. The time came that he was done with his work there and was preparing to leave. When he came to meet with the master on the day of his departure it was raining. He left his umbrella outside the door and went in. In the course of their talk the master asks the man, What side of the door did you put your umbrella the right or the left? The man did not know.  He returned to his studies and to the life of prayer for another ten years. 

The necessity of giving each moment in life our full attention cannot be understated. It is because we do not yet know the value of this attentiveness and that the kingdom of God is with us, yet hidden from us that we go on spiritual journeys and seek to find what is with us and has never not been available to us. Our searching gives us away. Jesus speaks from that in-between place, whispering to us: What have you come to see?

John Shea speaks of our lack of attention to the things that call to us in the spiritual realm through the metaphor of the parable of the seed that is scattered on the ground: 
The seed that falls by the side of the road and is devoured by the birds means we do not have the time or inclination to entertain the teachings of Jesus. The side of the road is not the middle of the road, the place where we normally walk. If we would consider the seeds, we would have to alter our routine, step outside the way we work But this does not happen because the devouring birds do not allow it. The devouring birds are symbols of our inattention to the seed, our failure to heed and consider what we have heard. The seed of the word is given no chance. As soon as it lands, it is taken away. The Gospel interpretation is that these birds are like the devil. The devil, diabolos, does what his name signifies. He breaks things apart. When we are this first soil, there is a brief contact with the Word, but no real coming together at all. The seed and the soil are quickly separated. The seed may be a wake-up call, but we turn away and go back to sleep. (Shea, On earth as it is in heaven, 16.)

But sometimes we are roused from our sleep unexpectedly. We are called to attention from some supernatural event in places where the veil is very thin - if we are open to being in that place. 
In Tales of a Magic Monastery, Theophany the Monk tells a story. He is in the House of God and late at night he hears a voice. 
“What are you leaving out?
I looked around. I heard it again.
“WHAT ARE YOU LEAVING OUT?”
Was it my imagination? Soon it was all around me, whispering, roaring, “What are you leaving out? What are you leaving out?” 
Was I cracking up? I managed to get to my feet and head for the door. I wanted the comfort of a human face or a human voice. Nearby was the corridor where some of the monks live I knocked on once cell. 
“What do you want/“ came a sleepy voice.
“What am I leaving out?”
“Me,” he answered. 
I went to the next door. 
“What do you want?”
“What am I leaving out?”
“Me.”
A third cell, a fourth, all the same.
I thought, “They’re all stuck on themselves.” I left the building in disgust. Just then the sun was coming up. I had never spoken to the sun before but I heard myself pleading, “What am I leaving out?” The sun too answered, “Me.” That finished me.
I threw myself on the ground. And the earth said, “Me.”

When we are attentive we see the world as God sees it. Not the world we have created, with all its glitter and bling and the poverty and despair it creates. That is the world of our making. God sees the world that was created in which God finds expression. And it is not the anthropocentric world in which we seat ourselves at the head of the table. The work of the spiritual life is to see the world, the created world through the eyes of God. We cannot see what we are leaving out because, like the monk, we don’t have eyes to see it. We are like children who have built an imaginary world out of Legos. The little blocks and all their various shapes and sizes and the amazement of how they were made and all the possibilities for creating new things drawn us in an away from the ground we are sitting on. God did not create Legos but rather dirt. Dirt does not seem that interesting. But a thoughtful and curious person who turns their attention away from plastic toys might find the microcosm of dirt and all the life held within in and the knowledge that it necessary for all life and that its state of health bears a direct correlation to our own state of health might find it is infinitely more interesting after all. There is more to contemplate in a single dried leaf that has fallen and a single snowflake or a feather found on the ground or an odd shaped rock with shiny flecks or a flock of birds restlessly changing configuration over a dew covered field then all the books that have ever been written. 

Chaim Potak, in The Gift of Asher Lev, wrote: 
My father of blessed memory once said to me, on the verse in Genesis, “And He saw all the He had made and behold it was good.” - my father once said that the seeing of God is not like the seeing of man. Man sees only between the blinks of his eyes. He does not know what the world is like during the blinks. He sees the world in pieces, in fragments. But the master of the universe sees the world whole, unbroken. That world is good. Our seeing is broken, Asher Lev. Can we make it like the seeing of God? Is it possible? 


The quest to see as God sees begins with attentiveness. Of seeing what is there. What did you go out there to see? Jesus asks them. What have you come here to see? I ask you. What is it you hope to find? or to feel? or to realize? or to grab a hold of? or experience? or to take home with you? What is it you are leaving out?