SSJE Sermons

Feast of Fr. Richard Meux Benson: January 14, 2025

1 Kings 19:9-12

“Examine yourself then, as to your love of Jesus upon the throne of his glory. Do not think of that as if it were a world far away. Jesus is very near to you; nearer than he could be when he walked in natural form upon the earth. Seek to live in his love. Look up to him in his glory.”

These are characteristic words of Father Richard Meux Benson, principal founder of the Society of St. John the Evangelist, whom we remember today. This intimate nearness of which Fr. Benson speaks, the nearness of Jesus to each Christian by the power of the divine indwelling surfaces again and again in writing and spirituality.

It is a theme founded entirely on John’s gospel: “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.”

 Yet this nearness which Benson extolled – this consoling, transfiguring, and at times crucifying imminence of Jesus – is always balanced and infused with a lived experience of Christ’s transcendence, as the one seated at the right hand of the Father, to whom we must direct our heart’s gaze if we would live in him. Christ is always more, always a higher height, a deeper depth, inviting us beyond the life we know now into something “greater than we can either ask for or imagine.”

Transcendent experiences are, in many ways, what give our human lives ultimate and enduring value. I’m sure you have known this dimension of life in your encounters with the sacred: moments when you were suddenly, inexplicably lifted up, out, and beyond the predictable confines of everyday life. Perhaps the colors of a sunset flaming above the frozen river pierced your heart and opened it once again to the source of all beauty. The tiny, perfect hand of an infant or the myriad wrinkles in the smile of an elder bring unexpected tears as we know, in our flesh, the fragile, immeasurable gift of being alive. For many of us, there is an existential aloneness to these moments, as perhaps there was for Elijah in the midst of that deafening yet pregnant, divine silence. Any words we may use to translate our encounters with transcendence to another person fall far short of their mysterious, living heartbeat. Yet rather than leaving us lonely, our Creator uses such moments to knit us more deeply into a reality where everything belongs: the transcendent reality of our heavenly home, glimpsed, tasted, and felt.

The effect that Fr. Benson had on the lives of so many, both within and beyond our Society, was to make this transcendent dimension of human experience real – so real that it was worth offering oneself up to it entirely, in soul and body.

To the sleepy, establishment-minded Church of England in the mid-nineteenth century, a life lived with such passionate abandonment to God was unthinkable. The path of consecrated religious life was met with staunch resistance. While the first communities of Anglican sisters had been founded in the 1840’s, consecrated religious life was still enormously controversial in the Church of England by the time he, Fr. Grafton, and Fr. O’Neill quietly made their own vows of poverty, celibacy, and obedience in 1866. Yet the mentors and peers who formed Fr. Benson, the theologians and priests of mid-nineteenth century Oxford, embodied a new spirit flaring to life in the English Church: a Christian discipleship both ancient and scandalously new that risked everything for the sake of a God who risked everything for us.

Rather than making this life of the glorified Christ a remote, ethereal horizon in some distant future, Fr. Benson devoted his whole being to a God who makes heaven real here and now supremely in the person of Jesus. “Do not think of that as if it were a world far away,” Benson urges. In another place, he writes,

“We must lay hold upon the glory of Christ as the basis and life of the eternal kingdom. The triumphant glory of the incarnate Son of God, the Redeemer, is the fundamental principle which sustains the universe he created; permeates it; quickens it; develops it in purposes of expanding power, elevates it as an object of the Father’s love. God’s decree shall make all who enter this eternal kingdom to share the glory of the eternal Son.”

The wisdom and witness of monastic life, at its best, points to the reality of the kingdom present here and now, even as we yearn for the “freedom of the glory of the children of God” in its fullness.  We engage that consoling, transfiguring, and at times crucifying invitation in religious community. But this, we believe, is the common calling of every disciple of Jesus: to practice loving and being loved by forming, and being formed by, communities of love.

 Life in religious community powerfully shaped Fr. Benson’s vivid apprehension of heaven. This is a vision desperately needed in our time because we have lost both the urgency of our desire for heaven and our sense that our ultimate healing and wholeness can only come by participation in community. Benson writes:

“The glory of heaven is the love which rejoices in all the glory of God, as manifested in all that are around. There the saints shall rejoice, each in the glory of all. All that we have, we possess along with the rest as the common gift from Christ to all the members of his body. All that Christ imparts to others is no less our own because it is manifested in them.”

Fr. Richard Meux Benson, principal founder of the Society of St. John the Evangelist, whom we remember today.

Br. Jim Woodrum

The Baptism of Our Lord Jesus Christ

Isaiah 43:1-7

Recently, when doing research for a writing project, I came upon these words of our founder, Richard Meux Benson, from a retreat on the Holy Spirit he gave in 1877. “At His first coming to thee, He regenerated thee.” I was particularly struck by the concept of ‘regeneration.’ The full quote adapted into modern English says: “At His first coming to you, He gave you new life. He did not come to dwell in your corruption. Instead, in the broken and sinful nature He found, He extended the glorified humanity of Jesus Christ so that a new, transformed nature could grow within you as your old, corrupt nature faded away.”[i]

Many of you know I have been away from the monastery for four and a half months. During this time, I began working on a Master of Divinity degree while at Virginia Theological Seminary. One of my more challenging classes this past semester was Religion and Science. The object of this class, in part, was to help those in church leadership be in conversation in the needlessly contentious debate between the two. This class helped me make theological connections, not only in neuroscience—an area of avid interest—but also in regenerative science, which is transforming the lives of people who have faced immense suffering due to disease and other life-changing circumstances.

One topic that has particularly fascinated me is microchimerism, the presence of a small number of cells from one individual within the body of another genetically distinct individual. For example, fetal cells can cross the placenta and persist in the mother’s body during and after pregnancy for years, even in the case of miscarriage or stillbirth. Other examples include cells introduced through organ donation and blood transfusion. Amy Boddy, a researcher in Arizona State University’s Department of Psychology, explains: “Fetal cells can act as stem cells and develop into epithelial cells, specialized heart cells, liver cells, and so forth. This shows they are dynamic and play a huge role in the maternal body. They can even migrate to the brain and differentiate into neurons.”[ii] What is your experience of healing through regeneration? Perhaps some of you know first-hand the effects of regenerative medicine. If not, you might ask yourself, “What does it mean to be made anew or regenerated? How might we understand the concept of regeneration spiritually?

Often, we use spiritual language as a metaphor to help make meaning out of scientific truths. However, it is essential to recognize that science can also be used as a metaphor to explain and affirm spiritual and religious truths. When presenting the truth of spiritual regeneration, referring to scientific regeneration as a metaphor is helpful. We know, for instance, that a lizard that loses a tail in confrontation with a predator will grow back the tail in a matter of time. We have already spoken about the concept of microchimerism and regenerative medicine. Spiritual regeneration parallels that of science. For example, a damaged state is repaired or replaced in spiritual regeneration. A new form of life or function is created. An underlying power or mechanism drives the process. I would argue that biology for scientific regeneration is akin to divine grace for spiritual regeneration. The concept of microchimerism used to make meaning of divine grace for spiritual regeneration is what Father Benson is alluding to when he speaks of the Holy Spirit “extending the glorified humanity of Jesus Christ so that a new, transformed nature can grow within you as your old corrupt nature fades away.” Note how this parallels scientific regeneration—just as damaged tissue is restored to health, the Holy Spirit’s work restores our souls to holiness through the divine nature of Jesus Christ working in us.

Our reading from Isaiah supports this notion:

Thus says the Lord,

he who formed you, O Israel:

Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;

when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,

For I am the Lord your God,

This passage highlights God’s redeeming power and promises to call, bless, and protect His people. Through the reference to Jacob, the patriarch who, after Isaac, continued the Abrahamic covenant, and Israel, the name Jacob was given in affirmation of blessing, God calls out to us and reminds us of his blessing as the source of all life. “I have called you by name,” God says through the prophet Isaiah, “you are mine!” What follows is the assurance of God’s provision and protection, the fruits of this blessed connection. We then hear a divine punctuation: “For I am the Lord you God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.”

Psalm 29 further emphasizes this punctuation, using God’s dominion over water to assure us of his provision. We gather from ancient writings, including our Judeo-Christian background, that to the ancients, especially those who lived in desert habitats, the sea was chaos and, therefore, something to be feared.  In it lived monstrous sea creatures that would eat you (think of the story of Jonah and the whale); from the sea arose destructive storms that could alter landscapes (think Noah and the flood); and to be caught in the middle of the sea without protection meant certain death (think Moses and the parting of the Red Sea for the Israelites and its closing in on the Egyptians who were pursuing them). We need not fear the watery chaos, for “the voice of the Lord is upon the mighty waters. The Lord sits enthroned above the flood…forevermore.”

How is this regeneration achieved? What is the spiritual science God uses to enact our healing and salvation? The process is called ‘Baptism.’ Through Baptism, spiritual microchimerism occurs through the power of the Holy Spirit as the image of Jesus Christ is perfected in us. Father Benson continues in his teaching on the Holy Spirit: “Through Baptism, He united us with Christ’s Body and shared with us His resurrected Body. From that moment, Christ’s Body was present within our flawed nature. Every part of our being was made alive by the pure Body of Christ within us, regenerated by the Holy Spirit, who continues to shape us into the image of Jesus Christ.”[iii]

So, what can Baptismal Science teach us? First, I would say that to benefit from spiritual regeneration, we must first recognize our need for healing. What is getting in the way of your intimacy with God? What is the diagnosis of your suffering? For healing to occur, there must be recognition of your need to come to the font of baptismal waters. Jesus himself set for us the example of baptism. In Matthew’s telling of Jesus’s baptism, Jesus goes to John to be baptized. However, John first resists, telling Jesus, “I need to be baptized by you, and you come to me?” But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for it is proper in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John consented. In all the gospel accounts of Jesus’s baptism, the Holy Spirit descends from heaven like a dove and alights on him as he emerges from the water. A voice is then heard proclaiming, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”[iv] In this moment of baptism, Jesus’s identity is affirmed for us, and I would say also to him. In this moment, Jesus discovers who he is and to whom he belongs. And so for us, in baptism, we are joined with Christ’s body, and in this sacrament, we discover who we are and to whom we belong. It is in this action that Christ’s body is grafted onto ours, and our healing through spiritual regeneration begins.

Second, once this healing process is underway, we are responsible for cooperating with the intention of healthy—or, I would say, ‘holy’—living. Most of us, I think, would agree that it would be reckless to smoke cigarettes after a lung transplant. Instead, taking care of our bodies, exercising, and maintaining a proper diet are crucial. We do this spiritually by regularly receiving the body and blood of Jesus in the Eucharist—the holy food and drink of unending life in Him. Father Benson instructs: “As each touch of the artist adds some fresh feature to the painting, so each communion is a touch of Christ, which should develop some fresh feature of his own perfect likeness within us.”[v] Baptism and Eucharist are not sacraments experienced in isolation but form two parts of the whole.

And last, we must appreciate the changes occurring within us as Jesus’s likeness regenerates our brokenness into wholeness. We have the same capacity to mirror Jesus’s light, life, and love to the world. In the chapter of our Rule of Life entitled The Practice of Intercession: “in praying for others, we learn really and truly to love them.  As we approach God on their behalf, we carry the thought of them into the very being of eternal Love, and as we go into the being of him who is eternal Love, so we learn to love whatever we take with us there.”[vi]

This is spiritual microchimerism. This is the regenerative medicine of Baptism. This is how every part of our being is made alive by the pure Body of Christ within us, regenerated by the Holy Spirit, who continues to shape us into the image of Jesus Christ. Amen.

[i] Benson, Richard Meux. The Experience of the Holy Spirit. Cowley Evangelist, October 1919.

[ii] Harth, Richard. “Fetal Cells Influence Mom’s Health during Pregnancy – and Long After.” Fetal cells influence mom’s health during pregnancy – and long after | ASU News, August 28, 2015. https://news.asu.edu/content/fetal-cells-influence-moms-health-during-pregnancy-%E2%80%94-and-long-after#:~:text=%E2%80%9CFetal%20cells%20can%20act%20as,%E2%80%9CWe%20are%20all%20chimeras.%E2%80%9D.

[iii] Benson, Richard Meux. The Experience of the Holy Spirit. Cowley Evangelist, October 1919.

[iv] Matthew 3:13-17

[v] Benson, Richard Meux. The Religious Vocation: Of Communion. 160-161.

[vi] Rule of Life of the Society of Saint John the Evangelist. Chapter 25: The Practice of Intercession.

Br. Luke Ditewig

Luke 17:11-19

Ten lepers called out: “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” When he saw them, Jesus said: “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were made clean.

As they went. Not when Jesus spoke. Not when they met the priests. As they went. As they followed Jesus’ invitation. As they did the next thing asked, as they journeyed. As they went, they were healed. Healing may happen in motion, in process, as we go, as we live, as we follow during a short walk or over a long journey. We receive healing and insight both a particular points and incrementally over time.

Often, it’s the ordinary, daily grist of life with my brothers and guests, such as asking for and receiving help, in falling down and getting up again, that both challenges and changes me. As I go, as I lean into this life, I am being healed.

When one of the lepers recognized his healing, he returned to thank Jesus. Jesus asked: “Where are the nine? Were not ten healed?” Giving thanks seems simple. It can be such a challenge. I wish I could say thanksgiving is my first and primary response, yet often when I glimpse healing, I immediately wanted more,            something bigger, better, or what someone else receives. I also often wish I was further along, fully healed, no longer in need.

Retreat offers time and space to return, renew, and refresh basic prayers like “have mercy” and thank you.” Retreat also offers time to listen deeply. What is Jesus’ response? What the invitation for you today? Retreat may offer perspective. We may get a glimpse of insight into how God is at work in our lives, of how healing has and is happening. Today with Jesus ask for mercy and give thanks.

Br. Luke Ditewig

Mark 6:45-52

I would have been terrified, too, seeing a figure on the waves. Scared amid rowing against the wind. Exhausted from long, unending service. Resenting losing the promised day off. Jesus had to the disciples: “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while,” because they were so busy serving people it was hard for the disciples to eat.

But people saw them head out to a deserted place, and soon thousands surrounded them. With compassion, Jesus taught the crowds. From five loaves and two fish, Jesus fed the crowds. All ate and were filled. That was yesterday’s text, prior to what we just heard: “Immediately he made his disciples get in the boat and go on ahead.” Jesus saw the disciples on the lake straining against a wind. With compassion, Jesus saw and came to be with. I am here. Don’t be afraid.

God sees and comes to be with us as a human including hearts hardened by fear, exhaustion, disaster, tragedy, loss, anger, and grief. God keeps coming including when don’t recognize or understand.

There’s the story of a group of children rescued in a war. They had lost much and had many reasons to be afraid. They also had trouble going to sleep. An adult caregiver got another loaf of bread from supper, went around tearing off a piece and handing to each child in bed saying: “Hold onto this. We fed you tonight. We’ll feed you tomorrow. Go to sleep.” What have you received? What are you thankful for? And what hurts? What are you not thankful for?[i] Pray them both. Pray pain and gratitude. Hold onto gratitude. As Dennis, Sheila, and Matthew Linn write: This is your “heart-bread.” Hold onto it, and see Jesus who already sees, comes, feeds, and holds you.

[i] The story and these questions are from: Dennis, Sheila and Matthew Linn. (1995) Sleeping With Bread: Holding What Gives You Life. Paulist Press. Their children’s book (2006) Making Heart-Bread is great for teaching kids. Both instruct the Examen, a classic form of prayer from Ignatius, founder of the Jesuits.

Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23

Well good morning and Happy New Year! Thank you for braving the cold and joining us. I know for me, at some point a little after New Year’s, I start to say to myself…I think I’m ready for spring. Even this New England boy has his limits.

Our Gospel this morning featured the Holy Family’s great flight into Egypt. Now I must confess that this is a story I don’t think about too often. During Christmastide, I prefer to think about warm, cozy manger scenes. Yet there is something gripping about this great flight into Egypt. The image of a newborn babe and parents with their firstborn child fleeing for their lives is hard to look away from. There’s just something about a new family being in danger that makes us pay attention.

Part of what makes us pay attention to the flight into Egypt is how stressful it is. It’s a stressful story fueled by an atmosphere of violence. The threat of King Herod murdering baby Jesus is dominating. Now it may be hard for us to imagine the mindset of someone in power not only feeling threatened by a baby, but also willing to kill that baby, but that was the world that Jesus was born into, a world swirling with stress, power, and violence.

Just try to imagine how Jospeh must have felt when the angel told him he had to flee with his family or else his newborn boy would be murdered. I mean after all the drama of Mary’s pregnancy, all the way to her giving birth on the road to a healthy baby boy, ten finger and ten toes, to then being told they had to get up and go right away or else his boy would be killed… the stress of it all must have been unbearable. I don’t know how they slept at night.

I hope no one here has been in the same position that Joseph was in, but I’m sure we can all relate to that feeling of stress. I’m sure we can all relate to that feeling of stressful days leading to sleepless nights. I know I can. Nights that feel like life has you by the throat. Nights that feel like your mind is running marathons. Nights that leave you exhausted in the morning.

We need to remember that level of stress and exhaustion because we all have our own flights into Egypt. We all have our own version of fleeing from something. We all have our own version of fleeing towards an unknown destination that is anywhere but here.

Six years ago this week, I hugged my parents goodbye and became a monk here at SSJE. I remember moving into my cozy cell and thinking to myself that I was home free. I had this belief that everything from that point forward was going to get better and easier in my life. Well, I was right about the first part, things got better but not necessarily easier.

One thing I have learned as a monk is that there is no such thing as an easy life. Certainly, some days are easier than others and certainly some people’s lives appear to be easier than others, yet I think deep down we all know that no one has it easy. We all have our problems, we all have our issues, we all have our demons, we all make mistakes that haunt us.

There may be no such thing as an easy life, but that does not mean that life is not worth living. The challenges we face in our life shape us. These challenges are rough, frustrating, and unrelenting. These challenges come at us faster than we can comprehend them. We will not always have the time or energy to make sense of it all. Yet, somewhere inside of us, there is that voice, that spark of hope, that says yes, this is all worthwhile. In some unbelievable and sometimes annoying way, that voice that whispers this is all good, this is all right, and this is all holy. It’s that same voice that says yes, we are going to get through this.

In our flight into Egypt, we must keep relying on that voice of God that keeps calling us forward. We must rely upon that voice of God not only to get us through the suffering we endure, but to somehow find meaning in the day-to-day circumstances of our life. We need that meaning to fill our lives.

A life filled with meaning through God means that no part of our life is untouched by God. That includes all the nasty parts of our life. Divorces, relapses, layoffs, breakdowns, arguments, confrontations and all the other nasty stuff we’d rather never deal with. That also includes all the good stuff – all the weddings, births, reconciliations, sober anniversaries, new jobs, and tearful expressions of love. We must keep coming back to God again and again with the ever changing circumstances of our life. In good news and bad news, we must form a foundation of faith in our relationship with God.

Now of course in our flight to Egypt there will be times of doubt. Times when we will doubt if we have done the right things, times when we will doubt the quality of our own selves, times when we will doubt our ability to find God in any of it, and times when we will doubt humanity at large. In these times of doubt, look to your fears. Ask yourself what fear is fueling your doubt? Do you fear that you are not good enough? Do you fear that you are not worthy of love? Do you fear that you have not done enough with your life?

These fears can drown in us doubt. These fears can make our lives impossible. These fears can paralyze our days. We need God’s help. We can admit it, we are not strong enough on our own, we need God’s help.

We need to bring to God our fears, our doubt, our stress and all the other things that keep us up at night. We need God’s help in our journey into Egypt. There is no shame in praying out of desperation and great need.

When we get to the other side of this thing we will be stronger, we will know ourselves better, and we will be closer to God. Our journey into Egypt may take a long time, but it is worth it. May God help us all, Amen.

Br. Curtis Almquist

John 1:1-18

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was 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 has come into being4in 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 was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world…”  John 1:1-18

Light. Light. Light. Light. Light. Light. Light. The word “light” is repeated seven times in these opening verses from the Gospel according to John. Light! We have here many candles lighted to adorn our crèche and chapel. And when we go outside we see lights strung across the streets, on lamp poles, in shop windows, and on the gables of houses here in Cambridge and in so many places across the States and beyond this time of year. These lights we see most everywhere this time of year actually have a Christmas history, but probably not a Christian origin.

The reason why Christmas came to be celebrated on December 25th is probably because the Roman Empire. The early Christians wanted the date of Christ’s birth to coincide with the festival of the Roman Empire on December 25th: natalis solis invicti, “the birthday of the unconquered sun.” This Roman festival celebrated the winter solstice, when the days again begin to lengthen, and the sun rises higher in the sky: the solstice on December 25th! And so light has figured very importantly to Christians from the beginning. In the Gospel story, we remember how the shepherds and, later, the Magi, found their way to the Christ child by the starry light at night. The Gospel writers remembered the adult Jesus saying of himself, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”[i] The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews remembers Jesus is lighted with a “reflection of God’s glory.”[ii]

So we can string the tradition of lights this time of year back to early centuries that predate the birth of Christ. Whether or not we consciously understand the history and symbolism of this festal light, we do innately crave light. Whether we suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder, or whether we are afraid of “things that go bump in the night,”[iii]or whether we sometimes feel that we are “in the dark” about the mystery of our own life, we crave light and enlightenment, especially some seasons of our lives. The candles and strands of light we see most everywhere this time of year are reminders of how common and how deep this craving for real light actually is, and to the depths of our souls.

Here are some word pictures about the importance of light, from the beginning:

Your own life is a Christmas gift from God, and to God, and to God’s world. Jesus says: “You are the light of the world. …Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”[viii]  If you were to say, there doesn’t seem to be much light in me right now… you might be surprised.  In a dark place, even a little bit of light will have a brilliant effect.

If this Christmastide you are asking the question, maybe desperately, whether God is with you, I suggest you rephrase the question. The question is not whether God is with you, but how God is with you? Because God Emmanuel is with you, and with the rest of us, whether here, or near, or far away, all around this world. Whether the landscape of your soul is brightly illuminated just now, or whether you are temporarily blinded by more light than you can bear, or whether the darkness just seems to loom large, God is with you. You just wait and see.

[i] John 8:12.

[ii] Hebrews 1:3.

[iii] From an anonymous Scottish prayer c. 1800: “From ghoulies and ghosties and long leggety beasties, and things that go bump in the night, Good Lord, deliver us.”

[iv] Genesis 1:14-19.

[v] Psalm 4:6.

[vi] Ephesians 3:14-21.

[vii] Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179), a Doctor of the Church, was a German abbess and active as a writer of poetry and on medical practice, a music composer, a philosopher, and a mystic.

[viii] Matthew 5:14-16.

[ix] “The Dark Night,” in The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, trans. Kieran Kavanaugh, OCD (1991); from bk. 1, ch. 8, #1, p. 375.

Acts 6:8—7:2a, 51c-60

We celebrate today the feast of Saint Stephen, deacon and first martyr. Coming so soon after Christmas, this can feel a bit odd. We’ve just celebrated the birth of God as a human, the miraculous mystery of the divine taking on human flesh as part of a plan for the world’s salvation—and here we are, immediately after, hearing about the martyr’s death of one of Jesus’s first followers.

What are we to make of this juxtaposition?

Two comparisons come to mind.

First, the comparison of Stephen to Jesus, which many commentators have made. I think this tells us something important about God. A genre of painting of the infant Jesus depicts him holding his cross—from his birth he is already on the road to Calvary. God took on mortal flesh because it was in dying that humankind could be redeemed. This is the other side of the joy and glitter of Christmas—the knowledge that Good Friday follows soon.

God taking on human flesh also means that God is with us humans through everything. And so the story of Stephen also tells us something important about us. It tells us about our capacity for courage, our capacity for truth-telling, our capacity for witness-bearing. A capacity that is not wholly our own but constantly available when we recognize that God is with us. Stephen was the first martyr, followed by countless others, known and unknown, whose solace and comfort was that God so loved the world that God became a part of it, that God as Jesus suffered and died to save it, and that God promised to be with us always.

This comparison between Stephen and Jesus is most apparent in Stephen’s death, when he commends his soul to God, as Jesus does on the cross. But I am struck by another part of this episode, his vision of God enthroned in glory and Jesus standing at God’s right hand. Having just celebrated Christmas, having heard all the familiar stories, I am struck by another comparison: that between Stephen and the shepherds, witnesses to the heavenly host praising God: “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors” (Luke 2:14).

If in bearing witness to God’s incarnation the shepherds responded with fear, awe, and joy, Stephen in his response fulfills the angels’ song of praise: “Then he knelt down and cried out in a loud voice, ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them’” (Acts 7:60). Faced with conflict, Stephen showed peace; faced with hatred, forgiveness and goodwill.

Perhaps not our idea of peace and goodwill, but it is, and has been, all too often what is asked of us, in big and small ways, as followers of Jesus. But we can take to heart, we can find courage to bear it, because of the example of witnesses like Stephen, and because of the assurance that God is with us, here and now, always.

Amen.

Luke 2:1-20

The only shepherd I have ever met outside the pages of Scripture is a Navajo elder with a heart on fire for Jesus. I’ll call him Edward.

At the end of six weeks of crosscultural ministry with Navajo Episcopalians last summer, my supervisor invited me to spend several days helping Edward tend the sheep on her family sheep-camp. I spent time in a hogan, a traditional, eight-sided, dirt-floor dwelling reserved for ceremonies. In the sweltering heat of midday and early afternoon, I sat in silence, listened to the creatures around me, prayed, and wrote about what I had learned. The rest of the time, I followed Edward around. I siphoned water for the sheep from a huge tank into long metal troughs twice a day. I accompanied Edward in his ancient Chevy pickup along a circuit of bumpy dirt trails, watching the sheep with binoculars and listening to Dolly Parton on cassette tape. At the hottest times of the day Edward would materialize in my doorway with an orange popsicle, or an ice-cold bottle of water.

And when it grew dark, Edward brought light.

I remember most vividly my first night there. I had prayed Evening Prayer at the top of a ridge overlooking a dry creekbed, and I lingered as the stars came out, followed by swooping owls and bats.

As I made my way back to the camp, I was astonished to see the ramshackle outbuildings and sheep corrals had been utterly transformed: thousands of solar-powered Christmas lights and garden lanterns, invisible by day, now laced the deepening darkness. They were the only lights for miles, as if the stars above each had a twin here below, blinking and dancing amid the chicken-wire fencing, the rusty rain barrels, and the sleeping sheep.

Through tears of unexpected joy I glimpsed Edward by my door, with a handful of electric lanterns, to make sure I could find my way.

What words could the shepherds in Luke’s gospel have used to describe this good news of great joy for all the people conveyed to them by angels? To convey their terror when the glory of the Lord shone around them? To explain the significance of the sign: a human child who is the Messiah, wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger?

We do not know what they said, but we know what they did

They made known what had been told them and then the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen.

They returned to the long hours of the daily rhythm; the darkness of night and the relief of dawn; the water trough and the sheep-corral; the ancient Chevy pickup and the Dolly Parton cassette tapes. But none of it was the same: the stars above now each had a twin here below that burned in their hearts. The shepherds of heaven had appointed them as angels here on earth, ordinary people with good news of great joy.

Joy is God’s purpose for us, and the enjoyment of God our highest calling.

Do you remember the last time you ate a popsicle in the suffocating heat of late July, in the sure and certain knowledge that it came to you fresh from the hand of God, whose only desire was that you enjoy it?

It seems too straightforward, too humble, too outrageous, that the primary thing God would ask of the shepherds in coming to Bethlehem would be simply to enjoy God’s presence, made flesh in the birth of Jesus. But that is precisely what we believe was made possible in a whole new way that night, and every Christmas night: that in straightforward, humble, and outrageous infant flesh, the Creator of heaven and earth would and does become enjoyable to us.

One could get the mistaken impression that Christians are concerned with anything but the enjoyment of God. Followers of Jesus can be very anxious to do all manner of other things: to serve him; to obey him; to follow him; to proclaim him; to repent and return to his teachings. In the midst of it all, we are often moved by the question: What more can I do for him?

In Christmastide, a different question serves as our guide: How can I be available to receive and to enjoy him, in the certain knowledge that this receptive joy fulfills the deepest longing of God’s heart?

But in fact, this is the question at the heart of the Christian life at all times of the year. It is at Christmas that God gives us the opportunity to return to this basic, child-like posture.

A heart filled with that receptive joy cannot keep it secret. It does not proclaim the Messiah as a duty, but spills over with the joy of knowing him, the way heat radiates from fire.

This night, we pray: O God, you have caused this holy night to shine with the brightness of the true Light: Grant that we, who have known the mystery of that Light here on earth, may also enjoy him perfectly in heaven.

If heaven brings perfect enjoyment of the Light eternal, earth is surely then our training ground for enjoying the Word made flesh here in the manger.

When we enjoy the good things of this earth as constantly unfolding gifts of a God who desires our joy, those good things teach us something real and substantial about the goodness of heaven.

Adoring Jesus here in the lowliest human form centers our senses in preparation to enjoy him face to face forever.

As a way of life, this kind of enjoyment is anything but passive. As the Anglican theologian Evelyn Underhill wrote, this is not “basking like a pious tabby cat in the beams of the Uncreated Light.” Enjoying God for the sake of God is a costly calling, because it slowly dispossesses us of the many lesser joys we confuse with God. The enjoyment of God calls us, in the words of poet T.S. Eliot, to “a condition of complete simplicity, costing not less than everything.”

God is simple; we prefer a complexity that matches our own. God is love; we struggle to accept being known and loved so deeply. God arrives by night; we are fast asleep. God comes as a child; we expected a capable adult who could solve the problems we created.

But knowing surrender to the enjoyment for which we were made, for even a moment, can change everything. It enables us able to act and to serve in his name with greater freedom, love, and joy. This capacity is his joy in us.

Christmas brings a kaleidoscope of emotions, and joy may not be one you are feeling tonight if you have brought your own burden of pain or sorrow or anxiety. You may want to believe this joy is for you, but the best you can do is let the joy of others bear you along.

Others would object that the enjoyment of God we celebrate tonight is a distraction. How dare we contemplate the enjoyment of God in this warm chapel on Memorial Drive when others taste only misery?

In John’s gospel Jesus assures the disciples on the night before his death, “I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.” If there was ever a moment to deny that God’s primary purpose for our life is the enjoyment of him, it would be the day he died in the flesh and was taken from us. Yet on the eve of that moment, Jesus is quite clear: if we abide in him, come what may, his joy will make our joy complete.

I have witnessed this enjoyment of God more than once in those who are strangers to success and power as the world defines them – who have learned the secret of the enjoyment of God in the midst of unrelenting suffering.

One of them is Edward: a man who is poor; who is alone most of the time; who suffers from several chronic illnesses; who has almost no surviving family members; who has suffered the generational trauma that is the shared inheritance of Native people in a land that was stolen from them; and whose daily bread is earned by physical labor from dawn until nightfall. This same man adorns sheep corrals and barbed-wire fences and his own tiny cinderblock house with an extravagant multitude of tiny electric lights dancing and blinking in what most people would call “the middle of nowhere.”

Why?

All I can say is that, in the center of that sheep camp, there stands a ten-foot, white wooden cross. It casts a long-shadow in the burning glare of late afternoon. But because Edward’s hope is founded in the cross of God’s longsuffering love, he adorns the corner of creation entrusted to him with Christmas lights. Those lights make known the joy he has found in Jesus, even when no one else is there to see it but the sheep and the angels.

In spite of all human attempts to ignore, suppress, or destroy it – joy is God’s purpose, for us, and for all that is made. This Christmas, may our hearts burn with this good news of great joy for all people that it may spill over from our lips and from our lives, to the ends of the earth.

Amen.

Br. Geoffrey Tristram

‘My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely from now on, all generations will call me blessed.’  The great song of praise which Mary poured forth to God, which we know as the Magnificat. Mary says all generations will call me blessed, and so today, on this last Sunday before Christmas, we too honor the Virgin Mary, and we call her blessed.

Four miles outside the city of Jerusalem, there is a small village called Ein Karem. Those of you who have made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land may know it. In the village, set high up above a lovely, wooded valley stands the ancient church which was built over the traditional site of the home of Zechariah and Elizabeth. And that is where Mary went as fast as she could, as our gospel reading tells us today, right after that extraordinary encounter she had with the Angel Gabriel.  Gabriel came to with a message of good news; ‘Mary, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son and you will name him Jesus. He will be holy and will be called of God’. She must have been terrified and amazed. Can this be true? She needed to tell her older cousin about the angel’s message, the utterly stupendous news that she had been chosen to be the mother of God’s Son. So ‘She arose, and went with haste’, Luke tells us, and then we have one of the most beautiful and poignant passages in all of Scripture. After a long journey Mary arrives at Elizabeth’s house, and she greets Elizabeth. ‘And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary,’  Luke tells us, ‘the babe leapt in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb”.’

Elizabeth’s prophetic insight is amazing. She knows that Mary has been specially chosen by God, and that her child is special. She knows, without being told, that Mary is pregnant, and that her child will have a significance even greater than that of her own son John. But then comes Elizabeth’s most dramatic statement, dropped almost casually. ‘Why is this granted me that the mother of my Lord comes to me?’  The mother of my Lord!  This was a breathtaking thing to say, because the word ‘Lord’ was only used among the Jewish people and in the Hebrew scriptures, when referring to God.  It is the same as if she said, ‘Why is this granted me that the mother of my God comes to me.’ Mary’s very presence in her house causes Elizabeth to be filled with the Holy Spirit, the child in her womb leaps for joy, and Elizabeth cries out aloud.  This is no cozy domestic scene. Elizabeth’s cry is an ecstatic response to the presence of the divine in her midst. The moment is for Elizabeth a full-blown divine revelation, a theophany. And for Mary, it is also a confirmation from her cousin that the message from Gabriel was true; that she would indeed give birth to the Son of God. And so she too, in a similar ecstatic response, breaks out into a great song of praise to God, ‘My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my Spirit rejoices in God my Savior…the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.’

In this humble home, in this tiny village, Elizabeth becomes the first to witness the great mystery of the Incarnation, which lies at the heart of our faith, that, ‘For our salvation, our Lord came down from heaven; by the power of the Holy Spirit, he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary and was made man.’  Theologians through the centuries have tried to fully understand and explain the mystery of the Incarnation, yet it remains a mystery. Sometimes, before a mystery, it is better to remain silent and to simply gaze in awe and wonder. One of my favorite icons, and one which I have gazed at over many years, is the icon here of Mary and her child Jesus. I find it extraordinarily beautiful, with unfathomable depth. It is a 12th century Byzantine icon known as ‘Our Lady of Vladimir’.  After our worship you would be welcome to come up and have a closer look. The child Jesus is being held in the arms of his mother Mary. They embrace cheek to cheek. Jesus gazes towards his mother, whilst Mary looks out toward the viewer. Her gaze I find quite compelling. Her eyes are filled with maternal tenderness, but there is also a poignant sense of sorrow, as if already anticipating Calvary; ‘for a sword will pierce your own soul too.’

But what I find most moving about the icon is something which it is easy to miss. But for me it speaks most eloquently, both emotionally and theologically about the mystery of the incarnation. Just below Mary’s left ear there is a tiny hand. Jesus has his arm right around Mary’s neck and his hand is holding her tight. Here is the Son of God, but now vulnerable, trusting and clinging tightly to his human mother, Mary. How extraordinary that God, in order to save us, should take on human form and entrust his Son to a human mother. Why did the omnipotent God risk choosing to involve Mary in the great plan of redemption, and even wait on her consent?

It’s a mystery, but some words of St. Augustine have been important for me over the years. He said, ‘Without God we cannot: Without us, God will not.’

Without God, without God’s power, God’s strength we can do nothing; there would be no creation. But without us, without our willing cooperation, without our saying ‘yes’ like Mary, to God’s call, God will never force his way into our affairs. God calls us, invites us, and longs for us to say ‘yes.’ Without us, God will not.’ The thought that God actually needs me to share in God’s work of healing and mending a broken world is truly humbling. The thought that God trusts me and you enough to call each one of us to be co-creators with God in the work of the Kingdom. That is pretty wondrous. All through our lives God calls us to share in this holy work of building God’s Kingdom. I wonder how God might be calling you now.  At this point in your life, how is God inviting you to share in mending our broken world? What is stirring in your heart? It’s not so much what we do for God, but what we allow God to do through us. However unskilled or inadequate, or whatever failures we feel in the spiritual life, however poor we feel our offering to be, it is our openness and willingness to be used that God honors. ‘Here am I, weak, anxious, but send me.’ ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord, let it be to me according to your word.’ We rarely see how God uses us. It would probably do our pride no good if we did! We sometimes wish we had more to offer than these few loaves and fishes. But it is precisely the offering which is important, and God will do the rest!

On this last Sunday before Christmas, we offer simple gifts of bread and wine to God that they may become for us the Body and Blood of Christ. As you come up to receive these gifts, offer the gift of yourself to God, just as you are, and with Mary say yes to God’s call:  ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word.’

Luke 1:26-38

Our reading this morning is familiar, and not just because the Annunciation is such a beloved story. It’s familiar, because we heard a lot of the same story beats, and even words, yesterday, in Gabriel’s announcement to Zechariah, which directly precedes it in Luke’s gospel. We are meant to hold the details, and differences, of these two stories in mind.

I am struck, this morning, by how differently Gabriel responds to questions about his revelations.

Gabriel renders Zechariah mute for questioning God’s power. A miraculous, late-in-life pregnancy? You should know God can do this; Scripture shows that God has done it before. Why wouldn’t you just believe?

Meanwhile, Gabriel explains to Mary how God is acting through her. With Jesus’s conception, God is doing something new, something that may require at least a bit of an explanation. An act of trust.

God comes down to meet us on our human plane, taking on human flesh. But on this human plane, that begins with an act of trust. Gabriel’s explanation to Mary is an expression of God’s trust that, in Mary, God has found someone who will participate in God’s plan of salvation. And Mary’s yes, Mary’s consent to bear God to the world, is an expression of her trust in God, her trust that God will be with her through it all—through pregnancy and childbirth, potential shame and ridicule, fear and anxiety, suffering and grief. Trust that God will be with her every step of the way, as God is with her now.

The story of the Annunciation invites us, like Mary, to participate through our own trust in God.

But I am aware, especially this morning, of the other participant in this dialogue. I am aware of Gabriel, the angel of annunciation, who bears wonderful messages of God’s saving acts in the world, all bundled up into a simple expression of trust that his message will be heard, pondered, and consented to.

If in the figure of Mary we are invited to trust in God, in the figure of Gabriel we are invited to notice in what ways we too might be angels of annunciation. To notice how we too may bear messages of comfort and courage, of peace and reconciliation, of all the ways that God is at work in our world and in our lives. And, in it all, how we too may announce God’s trust in us to be participants in God’s purposes, co-workers in God’s ongoing creation.

Amen.