RCL Year C, Palm Sunday

The gospels all tell the story of Jesus, and many of them tell the same stories. But even so, each gospel has its own perspective; each gospel paints a slightly different picture of Jesus for us. So even though each Palm Sunday we remember the same events in the life of Jesus, we hear it just a little bit differently each year, as we cycle through the different gospel accounts. Today we heard from Luke, as we are doing all through this year. It is a remarkable thing to walk the way of the cross with the Jesus we experience in Luke’s gospel. He has a lot to say, as the one who reads Jesus’ part this day can tell you – he talks all the way to the end. But everything he says is for other people – he reaches out to others even on his way to the cross. He gives his love freely, a perfect image of God’s love, and of the way of love we are invited into.

Think of the words Jesus speaks in that long passage we just read together: Share this bread and cup together, and continue to share it even when I am gone. Serve one another just as I have served you. Be ready for what is coming, but know that God is with you through it all. Do not strike with the sword – heal instead. Do not weep for me – I am weeping for you. You will be with me in Paradise. And then finally, ‘Father, into your hands, I commend my spirit.’

Instead of the Jesus of the gospel of Mark, utterly abandoned by everyone at his death, this Jesus has people with him all the way. Peter denies him and turns back, but everyone else seems to come along and stay right through the very end. And Jesus continues to engage with those around him throughout the story. Even while he is struggling along the road with his cross, Jesus calls out to the weeping women around him and talks to them about their pain. Hanging on the cross he talks to the criminal next to him, and assures him of God’s forgiveness. Even as he is dying, this Jesus is reaching out to others in compassion and love. And when he dies, his words are those of gift, giving his life rather than it being taken from him.

It’s not the way most of us go through times of suffering. When hard things come upon us we tend to pull inward to deal with the struggle inside ourselves. I know I do – it is hard for me to stay connected to others when I am struggling myself. In times of high stress, or when I am hurt or angry, I’m far more likely to be like the dog that goes off by itself to lick its wounds. And I’m accustomed to other people doing that – when my sister was diagnosed with cancer she more or less disappeared from the family, holing up and keeping her energy in reserve to deal with what lay ahead. Yet every now and then you hear of someone who struggled with a long illness and yet somehow through it all was a light to everyone around them, or someone who kept up the spirits of others in prison or war when everyone else was falling apart. Those people seem to have something that the rest of us don’t – some way to see beyond themselves even while their own walls are closing in.

Or maybe it’s more accurate to say that they lack something the rest of us have. Namely, fear. Most of us live our lives constrained by fear so much of the time. We’re afraid that when times get tough we won’t make it through. We’re afraid that others will abandon us. We’re afraid of going into uncomfortable places to deal with hard stuff – we’d rather stay where it’s safe and easy. We’re afraid to trust that God will be with us.

Yet this Jesus, in Luke’s gospel, is free from that kind of fear. He is not inhuman – he spends that night in the garden and asks God to take the cup from him. But once he faces into what is coming, he is free. He walks the way of the cross willingly, choosing to do this rather than being forced to by others. He gives his life into God’s hands. And by doing that, he is free to continue to live full, abundant life all the way to the end – in love with and for others, in companionship and relationshi[...]

RCL Year C, 4 Lent

Jesus is hanging around with the wrong people. He’s teaching about the kingdom, and tax collectors and sinners are coming to listen to him, and he’s welcoming them – and even worse, eating with them. The Pharisees and the scribes are upset, again.  Doesn’t he know he should be keeping better company?

So Jesus tells them some stories. He asks them which among them wouldn’t go look for one lost sheep even if all 99 of the rest of them were safe in the fold. He tells about a woman who searches her whole house for one missing silver coin, even though she has nine of the ten accounted for. Nobody likes to lose things. And then he tells them the story we heard today.

It’s a familiar, beloved story. The whole gospel summed up in one parable, some say. Sometimes we call it the story of the Prodigal Son, but it’s not just that – it’s better called the Prodigal Son and his brother, because both brothers have a role in this tale.

Consider the younger brother first, since he gets most of the narrative space. He tells his father he wants his share of the inheritance now, not later, and as soon as he gets it, he turns it into cash and takes off. He’s essentially told his father that he wishes he were dead by grabbing his inheritance while dad is still alive, and so he takes off quickly because this is a shameful, dishonorable thing – he rejects his father and family and heads off on his own. Having spent everything, he ends up in the worst possible predicament for a Jew: taking care of a foreigner’s pigs, and longing to eat the food the pigs eat. Thinking to himself that life would be better back at his father’s house, he works out a speech about coming back as a slave, and heads back. I don’t think there’s any sincere repentance in this – he’s simply hungry and at his wits’ end, and he thinks of that famous line of Robert Frost: ‘home is the place where when you get there, they have to take you in.’ He doesn’t expect much of a reception, but he thinks he’ll at least get something to eat.

Meanwhile, think of the father: he has agreed to his son’s demand for his inheritance without any complaint, apparently, even though he is being shown terrible dishonor by his son. Then after all this time, he sees this same son loping back into town. And instead of waiting for him sternly and with Middle Eastern dignity inside his own house, the father races out to him while he is still a long way off, while he’s still on the edges of the village, to walk him back home in front of all the neighbors. He doesn’t even let the son finish his speech about coming back as a slave – he immediately gives orders to clothe him with the best robe, to put the family ring on his finger and sandals on his feet, to give him every badge of honor he possibly can, so that this son will come back home in state and dignity. All the neighbors, who would be watching this whole encounter and making plenty of judgments about propriety and honor, aren’t given the chance to gossip – instead, they’re all invited to a great party.

But then comes another hard hit for the father. The other son comes home, sees the party, demands to know what is happening, and refuses to come in. Again, instead of sternly and with dignity waiting inside for this disobedient son to be dragged before him, the father runs out to him, again in front of everybody, and pleads with him to come inside. And the son delivers his petulant, rude speech and essentially spits in his face. Listen to his complaint: you never even gave me a goat so I could celebrate with my friends – so I won’t celebrate with yours. But instead of reacting, the father speaks tenderly to him, reminds him the other son is his brother, and invites him in to celebrate his return. And there the story ends – we don’t know if the elder son will come in or not.

Now, we could see this as an allegory – the tax collectors and sinners have been welcomed back and Jesus and all his followers are celebrating their return. The P[...]

RCL Year C, 1 Lent

Today we’re stepping into the wilderness, on this first Sunday of Lent. The good news is Lent is optional. If you do nothing at all to observe Lent, you still get to come to Easter on March 31st. But I think it’s worth doing something a little bit different than everyday in this season – I’m biased, of course, but I think good things come of time spent in reflection and prayer. But you should know that if you do decide to go into the wilderness, it may bring you more than you expect.

The wilderness is a wonderful place, a great place to unplug and be away and reflect. But the thing about going off into the wilderness is that out there, especially if you’re on your own, you pretty quickly come face to face with yourself. When you’re busy in ordinary life, living the routines and doing the tasks, it’s much easier to avoid yourself. In the wilderness, you might see all too clearly the habits you’ve fallen into – you might even realize you need to change, and that you need help to do that.

Jesus goes into the wilderness to fast and pray, and all seems to go well till the devil shows up. The devil offers him three bargains: to turn the stones into bread, to claim authority over the kingdoms of the earth, and to throw himself off the temple to be caught by God. Three famous temptations, and scholars have long debated just what these three temptations mean, and whether they are universal temptations for all humankind. The temptation to the quick fix – turning stones into bread. The temptation for worldly power. The temptation to put God to the test to prove himself. Perhaps those are universal. But I wonder if they aren’t simply the things that were already tempting Jesus at that particular point in his ministry, as he sought to understand his mission and identity and what God was calling him to do. So what, exactly, are the things that tempt us?

There are elements in each of these three that strike a chord with me. Take the first one. If Jesus could turn stones into bread, he would be a pretty popular guy among the poor of 1st century Palestine. How many revolutions in world history have turned toward the one who could promise the people bread? If he could do that, he could get them to follow him. He would be what they wanted him to be. He would fill their every expectation.

I like filling expectations. I was one of the smart kids in school, and the more people praised me for how well I performed, the more I wanted to perform. The first time I realized this was not all there was to the world was in 5th grade. My teacher, Mr. Harman, assigned us a piece of creative writing. We were to write a description of an ice cream sundae, and to use all the power of our writing to really make that sundae sound wonderful. To show us what he meant, Mr. Harman read an example of such a description, and then set us to work. I wrote and wrote, and turned mine in, sure I had performed well on this as on all other assignments. That certainty was cemented when Mr. Harman began to read my writing aloud to the class…and then that certainty slowly eroded as he proceeded through it, commenting with a sneer on how closely and slavishly I had imitated the example he had read aloud to us. By the end he had the entire class laughing at me. A pretty horrible teaching method, and I was humiliated – I can still feel it – but it brought the point home to me that doing only what I think someone else expects of me isn’t the same as doing what is my authentic best. I have chewed on this for years, and still struggle with it.

And then there is that temptation about gaining power over others. Now, I don’t think I’m alone in this one. When I know I’m right, when I have a really great idea and it would be just the best thing for you to do, and you just don’t do it, oh, how great it would be to make you do it. Not for me, of course, but for you, for your own good – because I am sure I know what that is. Anne Lamott gives a great rewrite of the clas[...]

RCL Year C, Last Epiphany

 

Loving Creator, show us your wisdom, on the mountaintops and in our daily lives. Guide us to accomplish your will here on earth. In the name of your son Jesus. Amen.

I can see James, John, and Peter following Jesus up the mountain—one step at a time, one foot in front of the other—slow, taxing progress upward. What an exhausting effort! James, John, and Peter would be tired when they arrived at the top. Maybe the hike involved some breaks, to look back on the expanse of land rising behind them, as they made their way into the sky. Maybe they were working up a sweat as they plodded their way towards the top.

But, when I think about the disciples’ retreat up the mountain to pray with Jesus, I can’t help but be struck by the timing. Why, just a week after Peter acknowledged Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah, is Jesus taking himself and his disciples away from the crowds of people who need him and his healing power? Wouldn’t Peter’s moment for understanding the magnitude of Jesus’ calling be an occasion for action? For them to move into the needed work of healing a hurting world? For God to make immediate use of Peter’s newfound understanding?

Why is he withdrawing from the needs of the city, taking sanctuary on a rocky crag jutting out of the desert? Why isn’t he devoting all his time to caring for a world that so desperately needs his power?

I wonder if in this story the transfiguration points to the importance of listening and taking the proper time to be with God, even when we’re called to incredibly meaningful and inspired work.

I remember one of my first meetings with Kate in New York. Kate was my supervisor and I was just beginning my work as a Seminarian at St. Michael’s. Among other things, I discussed my love of the outdoors, and my encounters with God there, and how I missed the outdoors as a recent transplant from the woods of New Hampshire to the concrete canyons of New York. Kate talked about her own connection to nature, and her own appreciation for time spent hiking and exploring outdoors. Kate also pointed to the wall behind me. I turned around to find, on the back wall of Kate’s office, a beautiful panorama of Half- dome. I was surprised to realize how, in the midst of the big city, here was a faithful mentor who herself had continued to devote time and energy to her own spiritual nourishment in retreat outside.

Both Kate and this text remind me that that the call to serve with God cannot be a substitute for time well spent with God, knowing from whence we came, and listening for where we are called to go.

So, what does it mean that Jesus called his disciples up to the mountaintop with him to pray that day? Why is it, if God is present everywhere, even in the ugliness and pain of the city, that Jesus chose to take the time, energy, and effort to escape to the mountaintop?

And what exactly, did Jesus plan to do when he took them on such a long journey to pray?

Is this some sort of divine game in which you have to get up to the top of the mountain in order to connect with God? Pay your penance climbing to the top and then maybe the God of Israel will talk to you?

No. God is with us in our deepest, darkest moments of confusion and loss. As a hospital chaplain I see people grieving and questioning every day, and I cannot help but trust that even amid the pain and the suffering, God is there. But, God’s presence with us in times of confusion and darkness is no reason to continue to live in confusion and darkness.

As I think about Jesus’ and the disciples’ experience, I feel that Jesus, in his humanity, is showing us how to engage with the Creator, his own Father, and our Parent, who cares for us as a mother hen cares for her chicks and shelters them under her wings.

Sometimes we can find guidance from God in those “mountaintop experiences” we encounter in our own lives. Some people like to think about these encounters with God in terms of the Celtic idea of a “thin place”—where the[...]

The Reverend Dori Torrey was our guest preacher on January 27, 2013.  Here is her message for ECA.

RCL Year B, 4 Epiphany

Once upon a time, there was a person who tried hard to follow God. One day God spoke to him and said, I have known you since before you were born and I have set you apart from other people, so that you may speak the truth to them as a prophet, as one who speaks my word. And the person said, O, God, don’t make me do that, for I am only a child; God, you know I can’t pronounce big words correctly and besides I stutter; I’m not smart enough or famous enough to do that; they won’t like what I have to say; etc. etc. etc. But God replied, Don’t give me that. I said that I am setting you apart and sending you, and that is what I will do. Don’t be afraid of what people think of you or what they might do to you…just do it. It is my truth that you will speak.

And so the person did as God said, and people didn’t like it one bit.  They laughed at him; they turned away from him in embarrassment; they felt sorry for his poor mother. And some of them even tried to kill him. But through it all, that poor follower of God wasn’t able not to speak out and live differently. He had to speak and live the truth as he understood it. The world was all wrong, and God’s judgment and love had to be spoken.

So which biblical character is this story about? So very many of them. It’s Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah. It’s Jonah and Amos and Hosea. It’s Mary, and it’s Anna the prophetess. And, of course, it’s Jesus. And many more people since then as well.

Today it’s Jesus we hear about. He went back to the place where he grew up, and he took the place of honor in church that day and read the lesson aloud. And they were all so impressed with him – Joe’s kid there, how wonderful he is, this child of our hometown. Our golden boy, come back home to delight us all. They’d heard some of the great things he’d done after he’d grown up and left them, and they wanted to see him do those spectacular, successful things for them, too. To be gracious, to perform, to entertain them.  But instead he kept talking. He told them, those nice people sitting there in church that day, some of whom had known him since he was a kid – he told them that God wasn’t interested in just making them feel good. He read aloud the passage from Isaiah long ago that spoke of everything God would do for the poor and the oppressed, and the people in church that day settled back to see it done for them, like they were the ones who deserved the favor, like all the good things God promised were just for them. Maybe that’s what made Jesus keep talking. And he pushed it all too far. And the people didn’t like it one bit. They threw him out of the synagogue and tried to throw him off a cliff, but he escaped. And eventually, his preaching these kinds of sermons by his words and by his actions really got him in trouble for good. But I guess that’s what being a prophet is like.

Last week I took part in a 5-day community organizing training led by organizers from the Industrial Areas Foundation, IAF, and by faculty from our seminary in Berkeley. It was rich and fantastic and full of great stuff that I will be absorbing for a long time – and that you’ll be hearing about for a long time, too. One of the things they talked about was leadership development, working with people in our congregations to build them up as leaders in the community. They listed the things to look for in a leader, like flexibility, willingness to risk, a sense of humor, curiosity, practical imagination. And then they said, but first of all, look for anger. There was an immediate reaction from all the Berkeley crowd. Anger is negative! Faith leaders shouldn’t be angry! This is all wrong! But there’s a great quote from the theologian Stanley Hauerwas: He said, ‘If Jesus was such a nice guy, what’s he doing up there on the cross?’ Why, indeed.

Jesus didn’t have to push that crowd to fury. They were all perfectly entranced with his reading and his air of authority; he could have just smiled benignly and left in a cloud[...]

RCL Year C, 2 Epiphany

Preached to CCAVUCC on Ecumenical Sunday

What a great chance to be with you all today. As Michele pointed out, this is Ecumenical Sunday, the Sunday that falls within the week of Christian Unity. Which means we’re meant as Christians to reach out to other Christians and find what connects us. When the ecumenical movement was really big in the ‘60s and ‘70s, the recommendation of various councils was that churches should do nothing separately that we could do together. Perhaps if all Christians had followed that, we’d be in better shape now. As a faith, we’ve spent a lot of time bickering with each other over inessentials. We’ve done a lot of pioneering redundant ministries, trying to get all the credit for our new ministry initiatives that the church up the street has also been doing. We poach each other’s people and worry about other churches poaching ours. We’ve forgotten what we could do together. And so little wonder that church attendance is now declining across the board in the Western world – we haven’t made being Christian look very, well, Christian.

Our own tradition, the Anglican Communion, has been going through deep divisions in the last few decades. We have Anglican churches all over the world, everywhere the British made a colony, basically. And for a long time those colonial churches, including us, kept in line and did what the empire wanted us to. But recently we’ve all been disagreeing about things and behaving in ways that don’t accept central control. We don’t agree on issues of human sexuality or who is eligible for ordained ministry. We don’t act nicely to each other in meetings or conventions. But finally, some Anglicans decided enough was enough. Setting aside the things that divide us, some bishops started talking together. American bishops with resources asked African bishops without them, how can we help you? People started to look at what ministries we can do together, even while still disagreeing over other things. Just possibly, we’re starting to do what the gospels have long called us to do: to nurture each other, to raise each other up, and to work together for the common good of our world.

We get a great example of what this could look like in today’s gospel. There’s Jesus and his mother at a party. At first, Jesus doesn’t seem to want to do anything but enjoy the feast – but when trouble arises, Mary his mother pulls him into action. From interactions we see in other gospel stories, everything isn’t always entirely easy between Jesus and his family. There’s the story of Jesus the 12 year old coolly evading his worried parents and staying in Jerusalem after they leave. There are stories of Mary and Jesus’ brothers turning up to bring him home, concerned about his raving lunacy. This time, Mary leans over to Jesus and says, look, son, they’re out of wine. This is a real problem, much as we might joke about it – it’s a terrible disgrace to the hosts of the party. Mary, Jewish mother that she is, is quite clear that her son can solve the problem. Jesus answers, ‘Mom, not now,’ but she turns to the servants and announces, loudly, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’ Jesus, put on the spot, has to act. He hasn’t done anything yet, in John’s gospel. But when his mother puts him on the spot and calls him out, it is as if Jesus hears in this that his time has now come, that he must be who his followers believe he is. The need is apparent, his gifts meet the need; and so he acts – and the party is saved. Mary names the gift in Jesus; Mary helps Jesus see the call and the right time to answer it; and Jesus hears her and responds. Community works the right way.

It’s what Paul is trying to get Paul the Christians in Corinth to do. The Corinthians are a quarrelsome, bickering group if ever there was one. They got the gospel in Corinth and they were so thrilled at it that they all went off the rails a bit. The Lord is coming soon? Fantastic news! They all had a party. Those who were rich br[...]

RCL Year C, Baptism of Our Lord

Today is the feast day of the Baptism of Our Lord, the day we retell the story of Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist in the river Jordan. We’ve had a few weeks of Christmas and Epiphany with Jesus the baby; today is sort of the kickoff day for Jesus the adult, because from this point on he begins his ministry. Jesus is baptized, receives the Holy Spirit, and then goes off into the wilderness to pray and fast. Having prepared himself, he starts out gathering his disciples. Then, with the twelve gathered around him, he begins to travel, preaching and teaching and healing. Today is where that all begins.

 

Today is also our Annual Meeting, when we retell the stories of our last year here at ECA. We’ll look back at what has happened, what we’ve accomplished and whom we have to thank. We have a lot to proud of. In 2012 I think we really started living into our vision of who we want to be. We started some new ministries, reorganized and reinvigorated other ones, did some long-delayed work on our facilities, and welcomed new people to our community. We’ll spend a little time naming those accomplishments in the meeting after the service, and thanking folks who were instrumental in making all of this happen. We’ll cheer and pat ourselves on the back for it all. But of course today doesn’t finish anything – really, this is a kickoff day for us too, because we start off today on our new year – from this point on we begin our ministry for 2013, and see what new and wonderful things we’ll do next.

 

It’s tempting to tell these stories in a neat, linear way: we set goals, we drew up objectives, we developed teams to accomplish the work, we did the work, and we checked things off our lists. Begin, grow, expand, succeed, check. If today were the shareholders meeting of an American corporation, we might be telling it all this way. But of course things aren’t exactly linear in real life while we’re living it, at least not while the Holy Spirit is around. Sometimes it isn’t clear for a while why something happens, or even whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing. Sometimes things never quite seem to get accomplished – we’re always working on them and never done. Sometimes we do what we’ve set out to do, and then it turns into something else. And sometimes we find we’ve changed directions altogether from where we started.

 

You can see this in Jesus’ story right from the start. In Luke’s gospel, as we’ll hear in a few weeks, Jesus returns from the wilderness full of the Holy Spirit and ready to start his ministry, and he goes back home to Nazareth to do so. He preaches his first sermon, and bam – all the folks from his hometown try to kill him. So he leaves his home turf and sets out, going on to other places instead, and there his preaching is accepted and followers begin to gather around him. Something of the same thing happens for the early church. Jesus’ followers gather in Jerusalem after his ascension and wait, finding strength and comfort just being together. But then the Holy Spirit blows in on Pentecost and gets them started preaching and reaching out beyond themselves. They do that for a while in Jerusalem, new people joining them every day and the whole mission a great success. But then they bog down in arguments between the Jewish believers and the Gentiles. So they try to set up structure for their community with deacons and committees. But then, bam – persecution and the first martyrdom drives them out from their safe place together, and they have to scatter, traveling and preaching to other people outside of Jerusalem. And the Holy Spirit keeps turning up, as we heard in today’s Acts reading: in Samaria of all places, and then in Caesarea among the Gentiles, and on and on. Jesus’ followers keep regrouping and figuring out where they are supposed to go next, getting messages from God in dreams and arguing things out with one another and more or less trying to hold on during t[...]

RCL Year C, 3 Advent

 

This is a Sunday when it is hard to stand here before you and preach good news. The news of the shooting on Friday, of those little kids so like my own, is still so fresh. We are all struggling to find ways to explain what happened, to see it in some kind of context that makes sense. Among other things, it’s another example of the power of evil, of how when evil has easy access to weapons and tools of destruction, it uses them – and innocent people are killed. For many, many families in Newtown, CT, this Christmas will not be one of joy – and every year at this time, they will have this dark anniversary to mark. Our faith tells us that the light shines in the darkness – but the darkness on days like this seems all too great to bear.

There are two things I want to say about this event we’re all grappling with. I want to talk about what this says about God and us, how to understand it as Christians. And I also want to talk about what we can do. The first task is harder than the other. Because every time some senseless, stupid tragedy like this happens, when innocent people, children, suffer because of what one person does, we’re faced with the question, why. Why did this happen? Why does God let something like this happen? We teach that God is just and good and loving; we believe that God has the power to change things. That was all over our readings today, readings that praise God for his saving power, with words like: The Lord is in your midst – you shall fear disaster no more. The Lord is my stronghold and my sure defense. Do not worry about anything. The Lord is near. These are beautiful words from the prophets and from Paul, and if we were sitting here without this story of the killings before us, we could rest in them. But it is harder to see what sense words like this can make in the face of this tragedy.

There is not an easy answer to this one. The less comforting answer – but maybe useful in the long run – is to try to talk about our theology, what we really believe as Christians. When we find ourselves in this place of wondering why didn’t God do something, we have to stop and think about what image of God we’re working with. Does God control human actions? Does God interfere with natural law? Does God act from within creation, limited by our limits, or from outside of it, able to lance in with supernatural miracles? Ultimately, how does this whole system of God and the world work? The problem is, if we believe that we are controlled by God, even if only sometimes, then free will doesn’t count for much. And if we aren’t free, then what we do or don’t do doesn’t really make any difference – it’s all out of our control. Without free will, we can’t choose to love – but with free will, we can also choose to do harm.

There’s one kind of answer. And yet somehow, of course, we long for God to stop people before they do something like this. But we don’t know what God does or doesn’t do with people’s hearts and souls. We don’t know what God was up to with the shooter, Adam Lanza – what even worse thing could have happened than the horror that did perhaps. Or how God was acting in the midst of the chaos that day, with those who struggled to protect the children. And we’ll never know – all we can do is cry out to God, where were you? And perhaps the only real answer there is in God’s own child, God’s Son, on the cross – that God has been and always will be with us in our suffering and pain. And that God is angered, deeply angered, at the triumphs of evil in destroying God’s children.

We also must remember that the scriptures, words of hope and trust in God, were not written in easy times of peace and comfort. Isaiah prophesied during the fall of the northern kingdom of Israel to the Assyrians, when the leaders of the people were taken away into exile, never to return, while horrible social injustices were being perpetrated, the poor and the vulnerable being oppressed by the wealthy and powerful. Z[...]

RCL Year C, 2 Advent

That gospel reading from Luke starts off so big and important. Let’s hear it again: ‘In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness.’ This is the way Luke likes to write – all the beginnings in the gospel of Luke are written of this same way, set up in the context of all the great names and politics of the time. But to us it sounds like, well, Bible talk, familiar and stirring language – because we’re used to it in the language of the Christmas story itself: ‘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. All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went…’

But in our context, this is what it would have sounded like to people of the time: ‘In the year that Barack Obama was reelected to the presidency of the United States, in the second year of the Arab Spring uprisings and the year of the revolution in Syria, in the fifty-first year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain and the thirteenth year of the reign of Vladimir Putin of Russia, 3 year old Benjamin got up and had his breakfast.’ In other words, all this set-up is really for something quite small and insignificant, something completely unimportant to all the big names and movements just mentioned. Yet Luke dares to put it side by side with them. And that, Luke is saying, is how the kingdom of God appears.

We forget how unnoticed and unnoticeable it was when it happened: a baby born to poor people without money for proper shelter, in a backwater colony of the Roman Empire. A wild-eyed man dressing like the prophets of hundreds of years ago, preaching to a few hundred people on the banks of a muddy river. A wandering teacher and healer attracting ragtags and misfits and then dying a shameful death on a cross, like thousands of others at the time. Compared with the emperor Tiberius and Herod king of Galilee and the high priests of the Temple, all of these people are small potatoes indeed.

But of course, Luke’s point is also that all those big important people didn’t last. We’re not reading their stories and writings 2000 years later. It’s the baby, the prophet, the healer that we’re hearing about still. And it’s the crucified one who rose again who has changed everything.

I talked last week about doing Advent differently than the world around us. Some of you mostly heard me to say you shouldn’t have your Christmas trees up, which wasn’t really what I was trying to say. Instead, I was trying to remind us all to keep our hearts clear and ready to see the signs of God’s kingdom around us. This week gives us a clue as to why we have to be so ready. The signs of God’s kingdom aren’t always huge and obvious. Seen next to the signs of disorder and chaos, of worldly power and politics, they can be very hard to notice indeed. It’s like trying to see in the dark, trying to make out details of a picture or read a book when the lights are off. The world can look all dark when we’re not used to looking for the light. It’s like our eyes need time to adjust to the darkness in order to see the glimmers of light. Because we’re accustomed to valuing the big things over the little things. Fiscal cliffs and wars loom larger than small acts of kindness. The dark things in our own lives can as well – yet another cancer diagnosis in our family or friends, uncertain employment, struggles over the budget.

And yet like the early beginnings of the gospels, the seemingly small signs of God’s kingdom are brighter than we might at first realize – we need to focus ever more carefully to see the light. Doing so takes intention and[...]