Gone: The Confession of the Passion

The theme of the Good Friday reading of the Passion can be summed up in single word: Gone.  He’s gone.

In his recent hit, country music singer, Montgomery Gentry sings about the certainty of loss with these words:

This ain't no temporary, typical, tearful good-bye,

This ain't no breakin' up and wakin' up and makin' up one more time

This is gone. Gone like a freight-train, gone like yesterday,

gone like a soldier in the civil war, bang, bang,

gone like a '59 Cadillac, like all the good things that ain't never coming back. 

No, no never, no never coming back.

If I were to rewrite Gentry's song to fit the events of today, it'd go something like this:

This ain't no hopin' for the best, hidin' out ‘till the coast is clear then I'll rest day,

This ain't no waitin' for the fall, runnin' down the hall, whew that was a close call.

This is gone. Gone like a ship in the perfect storm, gone like that decision that leaves ya torn, 

Gone like the trust we had in the dollar and the reverence for the collar, 

and all the other things that ain't never coming back.   

There are a lot of things in life that are final; final sales, final deadlines, final exams, and that final chance to finally set things right.  But there is a finality to death that is like no other kind of ending. There is deep lament when in our world every song ends with, "no, no never, no never coming back."   The reality of being gone, and the emptiness it translates, lies at the heart of the Christian confession of faith. Christ died. For three days he was gone. Really gone, no, no never, no never coming back kind of gone. We capture the finality of these dark days when we recite the Nicene creed, or whatever variation of a declaration of faith your tradition tenders.  In Christian unity we confess that we believe that, "For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried."  While we know that the grave was not, in fact, the end; we confess it, nonetheless, as if we did not.  We confess it because to dismiss the finality of Jesus’ death would be to completely undermine the power of the resurrection.  And so, for today, we make our common confession: he suffered death and was buried. On this point we do not disagree. On this point there is no theological deadlock. And it is on this point that the playing ground is level. Jesus, while fully divine, was just as much fully human; he was born as one of us, and he died as one of us, and we confess it without question.  The author of Hebrews directs us to do as much.  

He, or she, as the case may be, speaking of the Passion of Christ writes: Hold fast to your confession. And so we do. Throughout the seasons we confess it; from Advent into Christmas we confess it.  Throughout Lent into Holy Week and especially on Easter day we confess it. And again on Trinity Sunday and the day of Pentecost and all through ordinary time, we confess: "For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried."  

We who are gathered here to witness the crucifixion find ourselves at a loss of words, a loss of halleluias, a loss of all things we have perceived as holy, and are stripped of things religiously consequential. The sanctuary lies empty, without adornment. On this day there is no triumphant cross to lead us. In the sobriety of these days while yet we cannot see beyond the victory of death, we do have a rare and precious opportunity to see what remains. Because as dark and uncertain as it may appear, this time is not without grace. 

Aside from Jesus’ life, something else ended on the cross; Jesus' obedience to the Father reached its final destination. There at Golgotha, Jesus fully met his obligation. He obeyed God to the end and the strength of that obedience stands firm. While Mary and the other women wept at the cross, his obedience survived. While his lifeless body was taken from the cross, his obedience was transferred onto that empty cross. While he was placed in the tomb, his obedience persisted.  While the apostles shrank away from the scene and went into hiding, his obedience remained.   It is the constancy of Jesus’ unwavering obedience that hangs still on the cross; and it is that which today we offer our adoration as we reverence the cross.  

The Latin root word for obedience is oedire, which simply means to listen deeply. This opens a door for us as we contemplate our own obedience to God.  We perceive obedience to mean that we are to act as directed. But to be directed requires listening for a command. And so perhaps a more theologically correct way of thinking about obedience begins with simply listening. Listening deeply for God to speak.  Listening to our own inner voice as it responds to God’s call to and for us.  Listening for the voice of God in those who speak to us, or about us, or with us.  To listen is to obey.

The psalter directs us to, "Be still, and know that I am God.”  It is a call to obedience.  When we are still we can only listen.  Jesus is gone, night has fallen, and everything in the land is standing still. In the stillness, the empty vessel of these three days, listen to the steady beat of your own heart, and in your obedience you will know God.  Listen to your breath, or tend to your breathlessness, and in your obedience you will know God.  Listen, to the birds of spring that do not know and have no concern that Jesus has died, and in your obedience you will know God.  Listen to the wind, which you cannot see, but see how it sways the branches high above you, and how it pushes against you, and in your obedience you will know God. Listen to the overflowing waters of a nearby creek, filled by snow and ice and rain which carries with it the promise of a bountiful harvest, and in your obedience you will know God.  Listen to the warmth of the sun on your face, accept the assurance that surely tomorrow will follow this day, and in your obedience you will know God.  Listen deeply to all the life that surrounds you; let it fill these three empty days as we make our confession, and we wait, and the world groans, and the people cry out for God to act.   

Mary: She who thinks

The following Lenten reflection is based on Luke 2:8-20 

It may seem odd to pull into Lent what Christians now universally hear as a Christmas text.  But keep in mind that the writers of Luke’s Gospel did not write this text so that we might have Christmas plays of the Nativity.  Luke would not have recognized the word “Christmas” because there was no such thing and wouldn’t be so for at least another 300 years.  

It had been an ordinary day into which the most extraordinary events had occurred.  A child was born and shortly thereafter a host of angels had appeared to reassure some very frightened shepherds to put away their fear, for God, God’s own self, had come into the world, born of a woman.  Luke, himself, seems reflective as he writes, “But Mary treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart.”

In the whole of the bible this is somehow a very unique statement.  It tells us that Mary thought long and hard about what had occurred.  She thought about it.  Well, who wouldn’t think about it?  In fact, it is so obvious that a great deal of reflection was done, and not just by Mary, that one wonders why this line was even included in the text.  Or we might wonder, why was the act of thoughtfulness so important here but not included in the events of the crucifixion or in the three days that followed?  Mary is there too, watching from the distance.  But this time there is no host of angels there to quell her fear. Instead she is confronted by the realized potential for human suffering; not the least of which is her own.  

It has been the pondering of her heart that has carried her through the whole of the events of the gospels and into the finality of Good Friday. And it is her pondering of all these things, things seen and unseen, known and unknown, that will sustain her for the rest of her days. It is Mary’s wonderment of the heavenly display of Godly triumph in the threat of deadly evil that sustains us still.

We Protestants have historically rejected the reverence and adoration of Mary given by our Roman brothers and sisters. For many denominations such observances went the way of altars and candles and incense and bells as Christianity shed its skin of anything reminiscent of Roman Catholicism. Even in the Episcopal Church, a Protestant body that retained a strong Catholic identity even while it rejected the papacy and its hierarchal structure, Mary’s role in Christian faith and belief is largely a mystery.  In the last several years, however, there has been an effort among Protestants to reclaim Mary’s rightful and universal place as the mother of God.   A few years ago the leading Christian magazine The Christian Century ran an article on the Protestant reconsideration of Marian theology.  In the article named, What about Mary? Jason Byassee  wrote: “[R]ecently there has been a flurry of publications by Protestants on Mary, works that suggest she could be an ecumenical bridge—or at least that the Protestant aversion to Marian devotion is eroding…. Church historians of all stripes have long granted that Marian teaching and devotion dates from the earliest days of the church. And they grant that devotion to Mary was not discarded even by the leading Reformation figures Luther, Calvin and Zwingli. The fruit of ecumenical labor on this topic can be seen in such balanced and helpful resources as Mary in the Plan of God and in the Communion of the Saints(1999), a product of years of dialogue between French Catholics and Protestants that calls for both Catholic and Protestant 'conversions' on the subject.”

Such efforts of reconciliation are not isolated to the pages of publications.  A couple of years ago an unusual thing happened at St. James (Episcopal Church); a large portrait of Mary appeared in the back of the sanctuary. Some say it had been in the under-croft for years. Others couldn’t remember ever seeing it before and were stymied as to how she came to suddenly appear, resting on the floor, leaning against the wall, half hidden by the end of a pew.  She went largely unnoticed for months.  No doubt many thought it likely I had brought her in.  But for the record, I am as mystified as the rest.  Over time a small group devoted an area of the sanctuary as a Mary Chapel.  Her portrait now hangs high on the wall surrounded by items of prayer and devotion.  Quite honestly, I’ve been amazed at how warmly she has been received. Each week at worship many pause to light the devotional candles set just below her portrait. The collective lights from those candles and their prayers rise up to her in reverence and with great respect for her place in our life of faith, even if we, Protestants cannot articulate the fullness of her role there.  Each week as I look out into the congregation from my place at the altar, I am greeted by Mary there at the back of the church looking at me.  For me there is a sense of completeness with her presence. She reminds me each week as she looks out over all of us that it was she who bore the savior to whom we owe our redeemed lives.  She is not the center of attention but rather an onlooker; gazing upon our weekly celebrations of her son’s life and his place within the mystery of the triune God.  She is for me a firm foundation upon which to build a thoughtful and reflective faith.  She is not one who acts but one who thinks.  

Mary is the one who gives us permission to ponder the depths of our beliefs.  In some circles the encouragement of the faithful to think about what they are asked to believe is not permissible.  Many of the faithful, on their own accord, chose not to reflect too long or too hard about the holy mysteries, fearing that too much pondering will somehow lead to doubt and faithlessness.  Others still treasure their beliefs as if they were pieces of a museum exhibit, leaving them undisturbed and unchallenged even while the trials of life call out for deeper reflection.  I do not think Mary had such a luxury.  I believe that as her son was arrested and tried, tortured and crucified, she held up before her the words of the angels and wondered if those words still rang true.  It is one thing to be reassured not to fear, it is quite another not be afraid.  Perhaps she wondered, Where is the angelic host now? or even, Where is the Lord God now?  Mary paves the way for us to ask such difficult questions.  She invites us to think and to question and to test so that we might not bear our conclusions lightly but that they might be borne not out of ease but out of struggle, not out of the casual assurances of others but out of God’s own promises.  A thinking faith is a living faith.

For our purposes this day in Lent, the message of the angels that Mary ponders so deeply is especially instructive as we approach the events of the crucifixion. It is good for us to remember that we can’t get to the resurrection but by way of the manger.  It is good to remember that this story begins with a humble birth and an angelic host revealed to lowly shepherds.  In a time of great fear and anxiety the Lord proclaimed an end to fear.  It stands firm.  So that if you listen very closely, even at the cross you can hear the angels’ proclaim:  “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people.”

John's Cosmic Prologue: A Grander Design

This week I watched the first part of Stephen Hawking’s documentary, The Universe: The Grand Design.  In the documentary we travel from the wide expanse of the universe with its infinite possibilities to the reasoned elimination of nearly all random events in life. Within the span of just 45 minutes, with the rules of cosmic physics setting the parameters, we are led to conclude that all of life is simply influenced by a set of predictable variables and that everything we perceive about reality is based solely on our own individual interpretation of those variables. Even the decisions we make are predetermined by a catalog of past events stored in our memory which effectively creates the illusion of free will. We are left with what amounts to being a single-planed matrix.  But because this is not a perfect system we can only see a partial picture of how reality appears at any one time, and so our minds fill in the blanks.  It is a if we are all fish in a our own small fishbowl, completely dependent on the set of variables we have access to and are at the mercy of the constantly firing synopses in our brains that supply our minds with the missing information so seamlessly that we do not even notice.  For instance, we see color because our eye and brain functions work together as part of our excellent machinery. We do not see color because objects actually have color, it is only how we are hardwired to perceive and interpret our surroundings. This is hardly new science. It first began with Descartes who first made the clear distinction between what constitutes the mind and what constitutes the body; and made a distinction between the two; an idea not disputed to this day.  If you are not up on your Descartes, does the phrase, “I think, therefore I am, ” ring a bell?  Hawkins and a whole body of other scientists have been building on this theory over many decades. But Hawkins goes on to ask that if all human life can be reduced to cosmic physics, is there meaning to life?

If you haven’t guessed, I’m not a big Stephen Hawkins fan. But I am hardly the first religious advocate to clash with such grand schemes that seem so offhandedly eliminate God by way of scientific reasoning. In fact, by scientific reason alone, God does not even merit a mention. God is not even on the radar or a part of the equation.  On the other end of the spectrum, it is the popular tendency to associate Christianity with anti-intellectualism and opposition to scientific knowledge. Given the Episcopal Church’s encouragement of critical thought I do not find our little corner on the religious market guilty of such charges.  But given today Gospel reading: John’s reasoned treatise on the God, the Word, and Jesus’ part in this universally grand theological statement regarding all of creation, the passage of time and the roles of light and darkness, it seems only fair that a thinking faith community should find its voice in such discussions.

The majority of our Christian forebears could not have fathomed such diversity of thought, much less a stand-off between scientific intellectuals and religious fundamentalists, which leaves both parties the poorer for it.   Far more broadly, our theological forebears left us with a way of thinking about the human capacity to reason; as opposed to reason itself being the topic of debate. They referred to reason in three ways: created reason, fallen reason and regenerative reason. Created reason is the human mind working for good, as was intended – in the beginning, as it were.  Some literalist would liken this to the Garden of Eden experience.  Others would simply say, having the capacity to reason made us human, it separates us from all other animals on this planet. But to reason alone was good enough for only a time. Eventually, some would say as we evolved, our ability to reason was fashioned into a tool for pushing us to extend beyond our means; coaxing us to believe that if we can dream it, we can do it, independent of either the help of, or the advice of, our creator. Another word for this is sin.  Which leads us to fallen reason, which is corrupt and corrupting, a distortion of a created good; but not a criticism of reason itself.  And finally there is regenerative reason, or reason reborn.  This is where a thinking person can find some refuge in the scientific/religious standoff.  It is regenerative reason that gives John such a powerful voice; a voice that has propelled the Gospel of Jesus Christ in to every nation on earth, and found a home in millions of hearts of soundly reasoned, faithful people, including scientists and intellectuals.  When reason is reborn, the boundaries of what is and what is not real or possible become impossible to declare, much less define.   

But to go where John wants us to go, "to go where no man has gone before", as it were, it will be of some use to us to revisit Stephen Hawkins.  Among his theorems, based in physics and cosmic science, is the idea that there are limits to what we are able to perceive.  Hawkins suggests that even as complex as human beings are we are only able to process a fraction of what actually makes up the world in which we exists.  Our version of reality is only defined by that single plane matrix after all.  Hawkins points out that this is one of the basic constants of the universe; the limits of each system’s ability to relate to another system; regardless of how interconnected it might be.  Imagine, if you can, the end of this universe, and the one it merges into and where that one ends.  We cannot imagine it; that’s the point. It’s not that an ever-expanding universe doesn’t exists, it’s just that we humans are limited as to what knowledge we will ever be able to acquire; it is far beyond us.  Our creator, the one we call God, or who John refers to as The Word, is in that category; the more than we can fathom category.   

We think and therefore we are, in fact does not make us rulers of the universe, or lords of our own creations (as Hawkins suggests), but very clearly points out that we are subjects bent to the will of forces far greater that even our wildest imaginings. It is in that place, the place beyond our wildest imaginings of a super complex matrix that is not single-planed but of multiple dimensions, it is there that God resides.  It is from that place that God spoke the Word, the Word that was with God. “He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What came into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” There is a undeniably cosmic element to John’s reasoning.  This cosmic understanding of the divine and the world as part of that otherworldly reality is expressed similarly in Isaiah 55, “so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose.”   

 It is within the expansive understanding that religious people have of the world we live in that we find meaning for life.  I do not dispute this science nor do I think it the church’s place to do so, but I cannot find meaning in life so narrowly defined by single-planed matrices; free will that is predetermined by predictable variables, and a reality that has been largely filled in by a data bank of memories and prior experiences.  For me, for the church, for all religious people, it is God’s purpose that gives our life meaning. God’s purpose that intends for us to have life and have it abundantly. 

As we travel through this life, and we have explored for ourselves the consequences of creative and fallen reason within our own lives, we purposely redirect our energy toward regenerative reason; that is, employing our God-given ability to think through the complex issues that face humanity for the common good.   In this way our purpose may more closely align itself with God’s purpose. We do this with the three tools of Christian thought passed down to us by the aforementioned theological forebears; also known in the Anglican world as the three legged stool: scripture, tradition and reason.  We appreciate and greatly benefit daily for the strides made by science that have transformed our lives of toil into lives of ease; and we reason that there has been a great cost in doing so. We go to Holy Scripture not for comfort and solace but for strength and resolve to align our purpose with God’s purpose; to make right our common wrongs; to admit the damage we inflict on one another and resolve to cease in doing it.  And we look to a long tradition, about 4000 years of religious communities who centered their lives on the single purpose of knowing and obeying God and making God known in the world. And in doing these things we are not shaken by the stark theorems of cosmic physicists but we embrace them as part of the greater mystery of life. It is after all our most complex scientific attempts to explain life that ultimately reveal how severely limited is our understanding of things truly cosmic and fantastic.

Christmas Homily 2013

As I was preparing this sermon, I could not help but be reminded of one I delivered some 10 years ago on the occasion of Mother’s Day while serving a large, very affluent congregation on Hilton Head Island.  I had based the sermon on the historical relevance of the holiday. Mother’s Day began  in 1872, when Boston poet, pacifist and women's suffragist Julia Ward Howe established a special day for mothers --and for peace-- not long after the bloody Franco-Prussian War. That fact, when combined with a politically charged gospel reading that weighs in heavily on the estachological hope of peace, well, you can imagine that this was no sweet Hallmark Card Mother’s Day homily.  The next day I received a message on my office phone from a very angry mother, who I’m guessing had never lost a child to war, who complained between curses that I had ruined her Mother’s Day. She let me know, in crystal clear terms that she had come to church to hear a lovely sermon on the virtues and blessings of motherhood and that my sermon was a complete disappointment.  Being a new preacher and hoping to please everyone at all times, I was truly devastated.  The senior pastor had heard the phone message as well and said something to the effect of this:  On holiday homiletical occasions, a choice must be made: One must either preach the gospel or preach what people want to hear, and rarely do those two things coexist within the same sermon. 

You may now be clued in to the problem we have this evening.  The way forward for us then is for me to trust that you value truth more than sentimentality; and for you to trust that the purpose of the Gospel is to proclaim Good News and it is the work of the preacher to deliver upon that proclamation.

As I’ve said the Gospels are politically charged. Because we are not trained as biblical scholars, it is sometimes difficult to see the venom, the irony, the play on words, the insults, and the passive aggressive undertones that co-exist with the metaphorically peaceable passages of the lamb, the shepherd, the vine, the light, and the bread of life.  There was a war brewing when Jesus came into the world.  And that long-simmering aggression would explode into full-scale warfare at the time the gospels were written, some thirty – fifty years after Jesus’ death.  The Jews had mounted a war against Rome, the greatest empire the world has ever known and they were going to lose, badly.  So anyone who believes that the Gospels would be sterilized of the cataclysmic political circumstances of the times clearly did not learn about the Jewish Revolt of 66 in their Sunday School classes. Yes, I’m being trite; but the point is this. You and I did not learn about the Jewish Revolt. No one ever said to us, as we were learning about the Gospels:  The truth is, we don’t know who Matthew, Mark, Luke and John actually were or even if those were their real names.  It is very possible they used pen names as to not be discovered because what they were writing were wartime documents.  Just listen to how our Gospel reading begins on this Christmas Eve:  “In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria.”  From the very outset, the entrance of Jesus into the world is linked with the political realities on the ground.  His gospel is intended for all those Christians who lived in hiding, in isolation and in fear for their lives. Those frightened families and small bands of Christians gathered secretly in house churches scattered across the Middle Eastern wilderness sang psalms and praised Almighty God for strength of his right arm, for his righteousness and mercy.  And they read from scrolls secretly delivered to them from writers such as Luke.

By the time Luke is writing his Gospel there has been so much bloodshed, and so much loss; not one woman, child or animal was spared in the Roman slaughter.  Jerusalem had been burned so severely as to leave no evidence that it had ever existed.  If we are to truly  to hear the Good News proclaimed, then we must begin by imagining we are there. It is only when we realize that all is lost, that nothing has been saved, and that the enemy has taken their victory with spectacular ferocity that we can hear the profound meaning of the angel’s words.  We must imagine the words of the angel of the Lord rising up from thick smoke that keeps the day as night for months and the unrelenting smell of war; it is from this place the angel proclaims: “Do not be afraid; for see - I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people…… And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth peace among those whom God favors.” 

Now let that last phrase settle on you for a moment…. On earth peace among those whom God favors…. Which begs the question, whom does God favor?  Certainly not the Romans, that seems obvious.  But what about now?  For whom is this proclamation intended?  And have I in my arrogance assumed all along it was intended for me?  Martin Luther noted in one of his sermons, “[The angel] does not simply say: ‘Christ is born,’ but ‘for you he is born.’ What good would it do me, if he were born a thousand times and if this were sung to me every day with the loveliest airs, if I should not hear that there was something in it for me and that it should be my own?” 

Quite simply, if we follow the text, then it is clear that the message was intended for the shepherds.  But even this might not be as it appears.  Remember this is a wartime document.  The Good News announces that there is another conflict in play far beyond the temporal realm; a war between the hostile world that seeks to destroy the things of God, and the divine who has promised peace to those whom God favors.  A child has come into the world, and he is the messiah, the anointed one. Let this be a sign for you.  To who? To the shepherds. We have a coded message in these shepherds with three possibilities.  Because shepherds were known to be at the very bottom of the social and economic ladder, the Good News proclamation might have been intended for the very poor.  But because poverty is not accidental, nor is it a natural state of being but is rather the result of deliberate social policy, this might be a message for those who profit from the impoverished, or whose gains are the direct cause of poverty.  For these, this is not Good News; it warns those who deal in greed and human misery to beware because Almighty God has entered into the world to do battle the forces of evil. And God will not be defeated.

But these shepherds appear to be the owners of the sheep and not hired hands, which does not make them poor but of a very different circumstance. In that case they may be meant to represent the rulers of Israel – a sad history in itself; which points us to the rulers of today’s nations; again delivering a warning that should not be ignored.  For as much as we long for peace, we put our hope in a God that is still waging war against injustice.   

Or perhaps we are simply meant to think of another shepherd, David, King David, that is; to consider that God is always doing a new thing, and that God’s most daring promises are fulfilled in the most unexpected  of circumstances.  Like the promise of peace yet to be fulfilled by a child born in a stable, in the presence of shepherds, with unwed parents wholly blessed by the intervening of the Holy Spirit; parents who will very shortly flee to save the life of their son under threat from a King foolish enough to wage his own war against God.  

But in as much as the message was not delivered with us, or the state of the world 2000 years and many wars later in mind, it is undeniably meant for us to whole heartedly receive.  This Good News, this proclamation, this promise of peace is our inheritance.  It is ours to fully claim.  It is for us to ponder the depth and breadth and the beauty of it, even as we still long for the complete fulfillment of it.  Now the peace of which the angel spoke, was, within the context of Luke’s wartime document, clearly intended to deliver the promise of the ceasing of hostilities; an end to war, a very real and terrible war between the Roman Empire and Jews and the Christians who were associated with them.  To give those first generation, founding Christians hope that one day they would no longer be hunted down, tortured and killed for their love of Christ – to strengthen them as they spoke out to those with no hope – for converting Gentiles and Jews alike to practice a faith that for the first time ever, did not promote war and aggression, but insisted on peace.

But for many of us today, the peace God offers, and the peace we need, is much closer to home. It is the hope of peace for those who are fighting wars of illness, sorrow, anger, injustice, oppression, discord between family members, estranged spouses and children, regret, shame, imperfection, incarceration, addiction, incest, adultery, and all manner of things done and left undone.  It is the peace that rests in one’s heart that surpasses all human understanding.  It is the peace that comes from surrendering oneself and one’s battles into the hands of God.  It is comes from seeing the child in the manager as a sign – a sign meant for you.   For you Christ was born.  That you might find peace of mind, and rest for your soul. That you might cease whatever private war you are waging. That you might surrender your will to God’s will. That you might receive the peace of God, and that you might, one day, pass that peace on to another.

Perhaps it was this peacetime pondering that led a German pastor to set down a poem in the dark days of late December. At Christmas the church’s organ unexpected failed and the organist offered his guitar to take its place.  The humble pastor then offered his simple poem that it might be paired with the guitar for the Christmas Eve mass.  [Organ begins to softly play Silent Night] And so it was that in 1818, in St. Nicholas Church, the world heard for the first time, “Silent Night.”  In appreciation of our peaceable time and in honor of those for whom peace has not yet come, let us join our voices….

All sing Silent Night

Sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Advent, 2013

Once or twice a year, my son, Ian, and I, go on a puzzle spree.  The coffee table in our living room has two finished puzzles lying on it.  This week the oldest of the two was broken up into its separate parts for someone else to reconstruct.  And we began a new puzzle.  So far we’ve gotten the outside edge done and are working our way from those outer edges to the center.  When I think of how to explain the events surrounding Jesus birth, if only to myself, I begin in the same way.  

I practice pastoral theology. That is to say, I need my theological constructs to be rooted in something other than uneducated speculation or the mythological ideologies of a bygone era.  I need theology to actually make sense, because if it just doesn’t make sense, or if it asks people to believe in something that really is not quite believable then it becomes inauthentic.  We Christians are not unreasonable people, but we do require a solid theological base on which we can entrust our lives. It must be authentic; it must be real; it must be believable.  I’m not discounting mystery and its role in the least; but even mystery must function within an authentic construct. 

The most frustrating part of doing a puzzle is coming across that piece that should fit, except it doesn’t.  It’s so close, but it is shaped in such a way that makes clear it’s meant for another place. I confess that this is how I have sometimes felt about the biblical account of the virgin birth.  It seems it should fit perfectly, and yet the way we have been told the story, and the way we keep retelling it, well it seems a forced fit. 

So I was particularly happy when I came across the work of Czeck theologian Jan Milic Lochman. He died in 2004, but left us with a theologically sound and equally bold assertion regarding the virgin birth. It has aided me is framing in the edges of this puzzle of the charming Nativity scene that is repeated across the world in children’s pageants and as lawn statuettes.  It is a lovely scene, but it often reduced to the stuff of legend. It is a lovely scene, but when we try on our own to unpack it theologically we’re left with is an incomplete puzzle that cannot be finished because none of the pieces seem to really fit. And we can never get past that struggle, that frustration of trying to find the right piece in a pile of 500 or 1000 pieces. It is just too big a task for us, and so we are left with a partially complete Nativity scene, a one dimensional image of a coffee table puzzle, and no idea of how to complete it.  

One of the keys of puzzle-construction is that you work on it only for as long as you are making progress. When you’re stuck, its best to leave it for the other person to have a go. So in this case, I had gone as far with the Virgin Birth puzzle as I could. So I took a break from trying to work it out, to make sense of it.  Fortunately, Lockman (and a host of other capable theologians) have been working on the same puzzle. After reading of his work, I found a workable frame to put around this story that is foundational to the Christian ethos.  I would like to share a bit of it with you.

Charles Wood, a commentator for Feasting on the Word, which is an indispensible collection of commentaries on every lesson of every week for the entire three year lectionary cycle has offered the following remarks regarding today’s gospel reading on the topic of the virgin birth.

Modern, Czech theologian Jan Milic Lochman, “frequently noted the way both the communist East and capitalist West fostered ‘one-dimensional’ views of reality.  Truth is reduced to fact, and fact denotes what fits into the reigning economy, with its ideals of production and consumption and its corresponding ways of measuring and controlling reality.  For Lockman, Christian faith involves a deliverance from that sort of impoverished perception- or rather, lack of perception… Lochman’s treatment of the relevant passages in the Apostles’s Creed – [that being,] “conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary” – can be of substantial help to us as we consider Matthew’s account of the virgin birth. Lochman observed how the meaning of the Gospel text is lost when subjected to the kind of reductive reading our [modern] one-dimensional worldviews seem to force upon us. 

Many Christians, to say nothing of the wider population, seem agreed that the intent of this passage is to assert a factual claim, a biological/historical claim, about the parentage of Jesus.  That claim is as follows:  Jesus had a human mother, Mary, but no human father.  Mary was somehow impregnated (supernaturally) by God, so that the child was both divine and human. The question, then, is whether this affirmation is properly part of the Christian faith – perhaps an essential part – or rather a legend that somehow became part of the early tradition and is at best harmless. To deny the claim seems to amount to a denial of the incarnation. To deny the claim is to say that Jesus is just an ordinary human being, with two ordinary human parents . But to affirm the claim may be equally problematic.” What we end up with on the other end of the spectrum is a demigod – that is the product of the union between a human and a divine entity.

Fortunately for us, in about the fourth century, the early church worked out a solid Christology that has withstood the test of many centuries, and it did not include either of these possibilities.  Since the Council of Chalcedon, the church and its creeds has confessed Jesus to be “one person in two nature, ‘complete in his deity and complete – the very same – in his humanity.”  It is a grand statement, that makes perfect sense, but it does not tell us how to reconcile our creedal confession with the modern understanding of virgin birth narrative. We know who Jesus and what we believe about him. We’re just a bit fuzzy on how, exactly, he came into being.

So how do we post-modern Christians, who have been very much influenced by the North American Modernist-fundamentalist of a century ago, explain the mysterious circumstances surrounding Jesus’ birth?  Perhaps we should go back to the text.  Wood goes on to say, “When our Gospel text speaks of God’s involvement in the conception and birth of Jesus, it speaks of God not as Father but as Spirit.  Mary ‘was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.” Here is our opportunity to break free of a one dimensional reading of this text and open ourselves to a fuller appreciation of Matthew’s birth narrative “by bringing the story out of the realm of Hellenistic mythology and relating is decisively to the history of God’s involvement with Israel.  Throughout that history, God’s spirit is the catalyst of the new; the Spirit is the Lord, the giver of life. [So] to say that Mary’s child is ‘from the Holy Spirit’ is to say that God is creating a radically new beginning. These reflections have followed the suggestion of Lochman that we think of the virgin birth as an ‘interpretative dogma.’ It is not an ‘article of faith’ in itself…. It is best construed as a pointer to a more central… affirmation, namely, that in Jesus, God has assumed our humanity” not through some supernatural human and divine union – rather as an act of the Holy Spirit, which is itself mysterious, but not beyond the scope of believability.  

This gives you and I something to say to people who confess to us that they are really struggling with reciting a creed they don’t believe. And the main struggle happens to be with the one part upon which all our faith hangs: the incarnation. This is because it is the incarnation that gives the resurrection its power. We cannot simply look at them and say “Where is your faith?”  Quite honestly, I need a reasoned faith too. I do not need proof positive, but certainly not something so fantastic that it too should seem to reside in the North Pole. 

 

Here’s what I can and do believe.  I believe in God, the Truine God, who is the Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer of the world. I believe that Jesus is the son of God, but was conceived by the Holy Spirit. I believe that having been conceived by the Holy Spirit, he was made man, fully human, and at the same time fully divine. I believe that Jesus lived as one of us and experienced the fullness of the being human.   I believe that this was done so that through him we might learn to trust, perhaps even love God.  People believe, I mean really believe, lock, stock and barrel, in all kinds of things they can’t explain:  UFO sightings, telethopy, clairvoyance, Tarot cards, horoscopes, myths and old wives tales.  I happen to think the workings of the Holy Spirit are more believable then any of those things.  So, if you happen to be struggling with the virgin birth, and it seems your puzzle is always only partially complete because you can’t get past the piece that seems to fit but actually doesn’t then reduce the story to its basic elements:  Mary and Joseph were engaged.  The Holy Spirit was present with Mary. Through the Holy Spirit God broke into the world in a way that would change history and positively affect the lives of millions upon millions of people over a span of 2000 years.  The Holy Spirit rested on Joseph as well and he accepted his role as husband to Mary and father to Jesus. 

As believers in the incarnation, that is, that God came into the world in the person of Jesus Christ, and through our baptism into the body of Christ the Holy Spirit rest upon each of us.  That is a mystery. A good mystery. The mystery to which I have committed my life.  A mystery that brings good news to the oppressed, widows, and orphans.  A mystery that has the power to set captives and prisoners free.  A mystery that provides all Christians with a worldview that is not narrow or one-dimensional, but full of promise and possibilities; that allows for a lot of gray area in a very black and white world.  It is a mystery that delivers on its promise of hope.  As Christians we speak in the language of hope and light and transformation; all of which are based in the mysterious workings of the blessed Holy Spirit. Most of which cannot be explained rationally.  I can live with that.