“One of the big differences between us and our ancestors is that they lived

in an enchanted world, and we do not. That is to say, they believed in gods

and fairies; that the river had its own divinity; that relics and the bones

of martyrs were charged with divine energy. The divine and human realms

were permeable, always flowing and interrupting the other. Our world isn’t

like that. Our world is disenchanted, un-magicked.”

“When we finally turned out the lights and went to bed, I discovered that

there were glow-in-the-dark stars stuck all over their ceiling. I’d never

noticed them all afternoon, but they’d been slowly getting charged up by

the light around them, and now they were shining. Of course, I guess they’d

been glowing all along. You just couldn’t notice it because of the bright

lights, so it was only in the darkness that I’d realized they were there.

The message, this first Sunday after Christmas, is simple: we are, all of

us, glow-in-the-dark stars.”

“My generation invented the word, or acronym, ‘FOMO’ – fear of missing out,

of being left out, say, of that group text planning a party. There is also,

so I’ve learned, ‘FOJI,’ fear of joining in: “I would totally join in

karaoking but I’m busy tonight”…Christmas allows us to dream dreams and

risk and dare. Because, this evening, the Christ-child enters the defenses

of our world, defenseless, and thereby disarms us. He disarms us of our

fear of judgment. And his presence frees us up for what theologian James

Alison called the ‘joy of being wrong.’ The Joy of Being Wrong: JOBW.”

“Some of you know that in my previous life before I was ordained I coached

girls basketball. I would often stay up late and watch my favorite college

and NBA teams play, and I’d record their plays in a notebook, and I’d use

it with my team. The problem was that all the players I was watching on TV

were very tall, very good, and could dunk. My JV Lady Eagles were not so

gifted. And many a time I’d draw something up, telling which player would

be Lebron, or who would be Kobe, and when it came time to execute, I’d be

mystified, and I’d have the thought – that is not what I drew up. John is

in a slightly more serious situation, but I imagine a similar thought

coming to him now – Jesus, did you not see the play?”

“The Bible is not just one self-contained episode after another. It’s a

huge narrative arc, told in different genres and languages across a

millennium, a library of a thousand little stories that together tell one

big story. And in Jesus, Paul claims in today’s reading from the letter to

the Romans, God is writing us into the story.”

“When we talk about what we love about church—this church—we talk about our

music program, we talk about Catechesis of the Good Shepherd for our

children, or maybe about the simple elegance of the worship space and the

way the light comes in. Each of these things might stick out to us, but of

course it’s not these things we are drawn to, but what comes through them,

what meets us in this space. We come here in search of peace, and we often

find it. We come to church in search of Isaiah 2. We do not, it turns out,

come to church in search of Matthew 24. That’s a weird gospel. ‘Keep awake,

therefore; for you do not know what day your Lord is coming.’ I know it’s

your favorite doctrine: the Second Coming of Christ.”

“The feast of Christ the King was established at a time when authoritarian

regimes were on the rise and more and more people were accepting the idea

that a strongman wielding violence and technology could bend morality and

truth to his will. When we claim that Christ is King, we are claiming that

even the most savvy dictator cannot define the truth; that the most

powerful forces of this world, ‘whether thrones or dominions or rulers or

authorities,’ are not the highest power; that however turbulent our times

may be, the domain of darkness will never triumph over the kingdom of God.“

“A few years ago I served at a church with a weekly free community dinner.

These dinners really brought the community together: we had suburban

churches and synagogues serving food, we had our parishioners helping set

up and clean up, and some of the folks who came regularly to dinner on

Tuesdays also started attending worship on Sundays. And hanging on a banner

above the doors into the parish hall were the Biblical words from today’s

reading that had inspired it all: ‘Anyone unwilling to work should not

eat.’ …NOT.”

“Over the time that I was here watching out my office window, I saw the

most amazing thing happen over those four years. A change took place. And

it’s because of beavers.” We were delighted to welcome back the Rev. Noah

Evans to preach at Garrett’s institution as our new Rector—check out his

sermon here!

“A pastor from South Africa, I once heard, says to all of us who seek to follow Jesus: ‘Never forget that everyone you meet sits by a pool of tears.’ The Book of Job—one of my favorite books of the Bible—is chock full of tears.” Garrett preaches on the Book of Job on the twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost.

Lectionary Readings: Job 19:23-27a; Psalm 17:1-9; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17; Luke 20:27-38