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Let us pray. Ever present God, you who continually call your people to yourself, draw us by the power of your Holy Spirit into such a warm and binding relationship that we may faithfully follow you all the days of our lives, into the deep waters, as you lead.  Amen.

Today our reading present us with 3 call stories.

• Isaiah’s grand vision in the temple and his reluctant response until the angel uses the hot coal to empower him to respond with, Here I am, Send Me.
• Paul’s road to Damascus encounter with the Risen Christ lies behind his words today in the letter to the church in Corinth. The appearance of Christ in a blinding light turned his life around, canceling his prior vision of persecuting the church with new calling, a new vision of preaching to Gentiles about the love of God.
• And the calling of the first disciples to become fishers for people instead. Throughout Peter’s life he continued to need to repent, to learn to follow, to grow in discipline and wisdom.

Throughout the scriptures we find the repeating pattern of call, resistance and acceptance of vocation …

• Abraham and Sarah were called to move, to start a new tribe of faithful people who would depend only on God. 
• Moses was called to set slaves free even though he felt inadequate to the task.
• Nathan and Samuel and Jeremiah and Amos and all the prophets were called to share their understanding of God’s will for the people, to redirect minds to God.
• Esther and Jael and Judith were called to use their skills and contacts as women to shape the future of God’s people. 
• Mary was called to an overwhelming life of faith that must have often seemed more than she could bear.   

Each of those biblical stories is told, not to daunt us by comparison, but to show us that God calls ordinary people, fishermen, shepherds, farmers, misfits, women, young girls and boys. God calls each person in a different way and for a different purpose. In nearly all of those instances, the people resisted their vocation at first. They felt inadequate or needed some sense of empowerment.

We, Samuel, might need someone like Eli to help us hear God’s call. Like Moses we may need to be convinced that we are worthy. We may need to be convinced, as Nathanael was, that Jesus is who he says he was.  But the same God who calls us also empowers us, giving us the abilities and the help we need to live lives of purpose and meaning. 

We may jokingly say to someone who has just done a great job at something that they normally don’t do, “Boy, did you miss your calling.”  But, we don’t often ask retired people “What is your calling?” although perhaps we should.  When we move into this stage, one where we are not defined by our vocation, yet, God is calling us still, to follow. 

Mary Oliver’s poem The Summer Day addresses the vocation question. In that poem I hear the question of purpose in a life of ease like many of us live. She says,

I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

—Mary Oliver

The tasks of the third stage of life include those of purpose and calling, for sure. We may not wind up with a dramatic change in circumstances like Peter, James and John had. It may be that we are called to the task of life review, or reconciliation of broken relationships, it may be philanthropy or the giving of a legacy gift. It may be that it is a push to follow Peter’s example of pushing out from the shore of our safe and comfortable lives, out into the deep water of spiritual growth, of really listening to Christ’s presence in our lives and opening our hearts to the opportunities right in front of us.

Parker Palmer is a writer whose work I’ve read for decades. Recently, he wrote an essay, just before his 78^th birthday called, Withering into the Truth.  The title comes from a poem by William Butler Yeats.

Though leaves are many, the root is one;
Through all the lying days of my youth
I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun,
Now may I wither into the truth.

He says, that actively embracing aging gives us a chance to move beyond “the lying days of my youth” and “wither into the truth” — if we resist the temptation to Botox our withering,” he adds.

It’s not that the youthful “lies” were intentional. We just didn’t know enough about ourselves, the world, and the relation of the two to tell the truth. So, what we said on those subjects earlier came from the ego, a notorious liar.  

“Coming to terms with the soul-truth of who I am — of my complex and often confusing mix of darkness and light — has required my ego to shrivel up. Nothing shrivels a person better than age: that’s what all those wrinkles are about!”

He goes on, “Whatever truthfulness I’ve achieved on this score comes not from a spiritual practice, but from having my ego so broken down and composted by life that eventually I had to yield and say, “OK, I get it. I’m way less than perfect.” I envy folks who come to personal truth via spiritual discipline: I call them “contemplatives by intention.” Me, I’m a contemplative by catastrophe.

To find our wisdom, to age well, involves letting our ego shrivel.  Interesting!  When we talk about our calling, our gifts, our vocation—we can easily move into the territory of the ego.  I can do this! I feel called to that.  The ego is an important driver for us in our working lives—pushing us on to achieve and accomplish. 

Some of you got to know my dad last year. When he lived in Arizona he attended a men’s group at his church called Caring and Sharing. Most of the men in the group had been doctors, lawyers, professors, CEO’s. He called them not VIPS but PIPs, Previously Important People. My dad too, accomplished all kinds of things in his working life. But he came to understand that his legacy would not be his achievements but his spirit, his positive attitude, his supportive and gentle manner, his tender heart full of emotion, and his simple trusting faith.

What really matters in the end but loving others, growing closer to God and meeting the needs around us? St Augustine said we were here to love God and enjoy life.  Kurt Vonnegut believed we are here to be the eyes and conscience of God

It’s so nice to be at a place in life when we don’t have to prove anything to anyone anymore.  We are free to love, to grow close to God and to serve those around us.

We find our purpose by looking around us to identify the greatest needs and how they fit with our skill set and our particular God-given gifts.  Vincent Van Gogh once said Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.”  Even if you’re only here in Mazatlan for a few weeks or a month or two your input can make a difference and bring a better future for others.  It can make a difference in your own life too. 

Annie Dillard said, the way we spend our days is the way we spend our lives. Like Isaiah, Paul, and Peter we are invited out into the deep water to follow where God leads, to claim our identity as God’s chosen ones, strengthened and empowered for service, enriched in every way.  

Whether we are hesitant and afraid of the tasks before us and insecure in our abilities, or confident in God’s leading and power and eager to follow, we are each called, called for a purpose known to God, known in the deep recesses of our hearts, and perhaps also known to the wise people in our lives.

Let us pray–God we long for clarity of vision in our choices. We long to know and do what you want us to.  Open us to your call to each of us.  Guide us so that we may walk in your presence and power.  Amen.

Today’s gospel presents us with Jesus’ first act of public ministry, as described in Luke’s gospel.  It is something like a mission statement.  His words that day set out the course for his ministry, his life, his purpose.  Following his baptism and temptation, Jesus returned to his home country, Galilee. Reports about him had been spreading through the population, probably the result of his healing miracles and his synagogue teaching.

It would have been a big day in the small town of Nazareth, a place of about 500 people. Everybody would have been there, eager to hear the local boy who was making such a name for himself as an eloquent speaker.

Jesus entered the synagogue on that Sabbath morning.  He had been prepared well for life, raised as a faithful Jew, brought to the synagogue every week.  He was asked to read the lesson from the prophets. There was no lectionary to consult to determine this reading; the choice was up to him. Nor was there a book to flip through. Instead, a bulky scroll was brought to him and placed upon the lectern. Jesus, searching for a familiar text, unrolled it to a place near the end of the scroll. He read aloud these words:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Finished with this brief passage, Jesus rolled up the scroll, returned it to the attendant, and took his seat. It was the custom for teachers to sit, rather than to stand, so when Jesus sat, everyone looked at him, expecting some commentary, some explanation of this text, a text well known to many of them. 

In those days there were no professional clergy. The synagogue president could invite any appropriate person to comment on the text. Often these remarks were less than inspiring. While the people were familiar with the key passages of the law and the prophets, commentary on scripture by such speakers was often no more than rote recitation of lessons all of them learned at an early age. So, the congregation usually knew what would be said before it was said.  The only question was whether it would be recited correctly or not.  Not so that day when Jesus sat down. The people were all looking at him. He would have seen familiar faces from his early years, older in appearance than before: his childhood friends, now present with their children; the parents of his friends, now senior citizens.

He started with a zinger, and something much more than a zinger – a sentence that remains fresh and provocative down to our own time. Jesus set free the scripture passage he had just read; he overthrew the ho-hum expectations of the people around him. Here is what he said: Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.

“All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth,” Luke describes the reaction of the hometown crowd. We all know that Jesus was a Middle Eastern Jew even as we proclaim that he was like us, we claim him as in our court. I suppose that’s how we get images of him as a light-skinned, blue-eyed Christian, or how people of all places imagine Jesus to be on their side, would vote they way they do, or help their sports team to win.

That goes way back to the people of Nazareth I suppose. The people in the synagogue that day knew Jesus, the son of Joseph, the guy they grew up with. They assume salvation is coming their way. They were not exclusive, they didn’t wish ill on others. They just did what we all tend to do—believe that these promised, this good news, the miracles are primarily for us, for our side.

But, Jesus wasn’t always doing nice things that made people feel good. He was a leader who wasn’t afraid to push the truth forward. He wasn’t going to be limited, defined by some small vision. He says, “no prophet is accepted in their hometown,” and then he elaborates.  “Remember Elijah?”  Of course they do, the greatest of the prophets. But who did he feed in time of famine, not anyone from Nazareth, or Capernaum, or even Jerusalem, but a widow in Zarephath, a small town in Lebanon.

Jesus isn’t done yet—“Remember Elisha?” Of course they do, Elijah’s successor and worker of great wonders. But did he heal anyone in Israel? No. Only the leper Naaman the Syrian, an enemy army commander. They don’t like the truth that exposes their privatization of Jesus. They’re ready to through him off a cliff. They wanted their own miracles like Capernaum had! They are furious, one translations says the crowd was filled with rage.

Jesus passes through the middle. He’s not trapped. He’s not pro-Jew and anti-Samaritan, He’s not pro-Capernaum and anti-Nazareth. He’s not Baptist or Anglican. He cannot be contained. He came to be with us, whoever we are. There are so many dividing lines, then and now. Gender, age, race, class, nationality, how we live, who we love, how we vote… it goes on and on. Wherever we draw a line, Jesus steps across to the other side. The Nazarenes wanted to domesticate Jesus. It’s a perennial problem, the tendency to sanitize and sentimentalize Jesus.

Luke is the only Gentile writer in the Bible. He doesn’t call Jesus the son of David or son of Abraham, he calls him the son of Adam—a man not just for the Jews but all of humanity. Throughout the gospel of Luke, Jesus embraces the unclean Gentiles, the Roman centurian, the Canaanite woman and her demon-possessed daughter, the Samaritans. He is dismissive about ritual purity, declaring all foods clean.

Jesus’ words and actions remind us that following him does not mean hunkering down and staying the same, expecting God to hang out with you in our small vision.  God is on the move, doing a new thing, speaking in places not normally recognized as sacred, listening to the outcast and saying things that make our ears burn. God doesn’t belong to us, we belong to God.

Jesus saves his strongest criticism for the self-appointed gatekeepers who wanted to exercise spiritual authority over others and claim insider status. He broke rituals, mocked external piety, violated social taboos to demonstrate that God is lavish with showing love, indiscriminate and never exclusive.

Jesus claimed those ancient prophetic words as his own personal mission statement. God’s Spirit had come crashing down on him at his baptism to empower him to do precisely this: to bring good news to the poor, release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind; let all the oppressed go free; announce the sweet Jubilee Year when God’s justice will reshape society.

This was not just a string of high-sounding words. Everything that followed in his life, as presented to us in Luke’s gospel, amounted to the living out of the prophecy he claimed for himself that Sabbath morning in Nazareth.

He kept doing those things every chance he got, every time he turned around, until finally it got him killed. Some people welcomed what Jesus did, but others did not because it upset their unfair advantage, questioned their complacency, and pushed them to recognize their habitual infidelity to God. They found their discomfort increasingly intolerable and expected that his execution would bring an end to the matter. They were wrong, of course. Jesus’ death didn’t stop anything.  He continues today to do what he talked about that Sabbath morning long ago.

Now the way he works is through his mystical body, the church. Through each of us and all who are baptized into his body, Jesus strives still to live out his mission statement, bringing good news to those who don’t have any, setting free those chained in captivity, opening blind eyes, helping the oppressed and exploited find a life, and unrolling the floor plan that sets out God’s reign where justice and peace prevail.

Jesus still does these things, because his church does them. The poor gain hope, whether it’s their souls or their bodies that are starved. The captives experience freedom, whether they are prisoners in a jail or prisoners in a mansion. The blind receive sight, whether it’s cataract surgery or the scales of prejudice falling off the eyes of a bigot. The oppressed are set free, whether oppression is a political regime or a chemical dependence. When Jesus read that passage in the Nazareth synagogue, he announced a mission statement for himself and for his body, the church.

Jesus read the old words from Isaiah and claimed them for his own. We can do the same.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon us.

The Spirit of the Lord has anointed us to bring good news to the poor.

The Spirit of the Lord has sent us to proclaim release to the captives.

The Spirit of the Lord has sent us to help the blind recover their sight.

The Spirit of the Lord has sent us to free the oppressed.

The Spirit of the Lord has sent us to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

Today, may this scripture has been fulfilled in our hearing and in our living. Amen.

Most of us have been on a school bus at some point in our lives singing, 99 bottles of beer on the wall. Today we could be singing 999 bottles of wine at the feast. The amount of wine transformed from water in our gospel is simply overwhelming! The water for ritual cleansing was stored in amphoras, large clay jars holding between 20 to 30 gallons each. I did the math—6 jars x 30 = 180 gallons, 128 oz x 180 gallons = 23,040 oz, 24.75 oz to a normal wine bottle = 931 bottles.  The jars were filled to the brim so we can round up to 999 bottles of wine!  This extravagant, abundant and transformational wedding feast is a sign that points to what is called the feast of victory for our God, or our feast and celebration, or Eucharist, Holy Communion.

Wedding feasts and wine are both prevalent images throughout Scriptures. They point us to the overflowing plenty of God’s grace for God’s people. God is compared to a bridegroom for the bride—Israel in the Old Testament and the church in the New Testament. In our first reading, God’s love and delight is lavished on the beloved spouse. In Hosea and Joel sweet wine drips and flows down the mountains. Jeremiah and the Song of Songs use the same metaphors. In the book of Revelation God’s Kingdom is compared to the marriage feast of the Lamb. The church triumphant is seen as the bride, adorned for the bridegroom.

On the surface the wedding feast at Cana can seem strange. There’s that exchange between Jesus and his mother. The people are already drunk– what do they need with another 999 bottles of excellent wine? At face value it seems like a kind of frivolous action—Jesus saved the day at a wedding when the wine ran out.

We need to remember that we are in John’s gospel, though.  This gospel is the choice for English majors. I can say that. I majored in English in college. We developed the skill of discovering the deeper, inner, hidden, secret meanings in any poem or novel. John’s gospel is richly layered and dense in deeper, inner, hidden, secret meanings. This gospel is structured in a completely different way from the other 3 gospels. They follow a mostly chronological or geographical order. John…not so much. John is the mystical, symbolic, poetic gospel, an English major’s dream.

John’s gospel is built around groups of 7. There are 7 I Am saying of Jesus. (We’re going to take a deep dive into those during Lent this year—I am the light of the world, the bread of life, the true vine, and so forth.) There are 7 feasts, 7 stories about water, only 7 named disciples. Jesus refers to himself simply as I AM, (echoing the great encounter between Moses and the burning bush where the name of God is given as I AM WHO I AM—Yahweh) guess how many times—you got it, 7!  John’s gospel is like a master puzzle with many, many layered meanings.

Matthew, Mark and Luke include many dramatic events described in detail. John just has 7 events. He doesn’t call them miracles or wonders. He calls them signs, downplaying any miraculous characteristics. The signs function, well, like signs!  They point to Jesus’ hour, his time, his identity. They point to the new relationship, the abundant life offered through Christ.

In chapter 20 verses 30-31 we read this:

“Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life is his name.”

So, the wedding at Cana is the first sign. Let’s put an English major hat on and look at this. Foreshadowing is a writer’s technique that plants a seed early in the text about something that is going to happen later, a sort of hint that will be remembered later when it all makes sense. Our reading for today has a few of those.

It starts off with “On the third day there was a wedding.”  John wrote about 60 years after Jesus rose–on the third day, the day of resurrection. A wedding feast was a tried and true metaphor in the Hebrew Scriptures for a God-given day of fulfilment and joy, a day long awaited by the believers as a time when God would restore all things, transform the ordinary into the extraordinary, a time of whole and good relationships. On the third day there was a wedding.

The next bit of foreshadowing comes with Jesus’ response to his mother. The whole scene is quite underplayed. He says to her, “Woman, what concern is that to me and to you?” It sounds kind of disrespectful to our ears. But Jesus addressed his mother from the cross using the same word. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.” Then he turned to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.

There’s a re-ordering of the relationship between Jesus and Mary in both instances. In Cana, Mary recognizes his authority and ability and tells the servants to do what he says.  She points the attention away from everything else to him. She knows he is not just her son, he is for the whole world. From the cross, Jesus cares for his mother and for the disciple he loved, placing them in each other’s care.

Jesus takes the empty jars for ritual purification, has them filled to the brim, and transforms them into something brand new: an extravagant and abundant blessing, the best possible wine. Remember this is the poetic, symbolic gospel. By the time John was written, the early church had set aside the old rituals of Judaism- the ritual purity laws and the need for 30 gallon jars of water for example. They had created a new ritual involving bread and wine.

What is described in the other gospels as the last supper complete with the words of institution of holy communion, is quite different in John. That night of betrayal, what we have come to call Maundy Thursday, is all about the foot-washing in John. There is no mention of a cup or bread.

To find the roots of Holy Communion in John’s gospel we consider two passages. The first is today’s reading, where the empty jars of ritual washing are replaced with the best possible and most abundant wine. The ancient practices were transformed into new patterns. It’s another little hint that gets explained a few chapters later.

The second place we find the roots of communion is in Chapter 6, another one of the 7 signs, the feeding of the five thousand. Again, the themes of abundance and transformation take center stage. After the five loaves and two fish are multiplied to feed the multitudes John writes this: “When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.”

The next Jesus says, “I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever, and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. … Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day, for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.” Again, the old story of manna is transformed and given new meaning in the new ritual.

The 999 bottles of wine at the feast is anything but trivial. John crafted a many layered gospel and paired the Wedding at Cana with the Feeding of the 5000. Both are signs of the community of believers. Both carry the themes of joy, new relationships shaped by the love of Christ, abundant life, and extravagant love.

Here in this community of faith we come from a range of different denominations and life experiences. Some of us were taught that the bread and cup of communion become the true body and blood of Christ. Some learned that the body and blood are present in, with, and under the bread and wine. Some see this meal as a symbolic memorial to Christ. For some people here Communion is a new thing or something only rarely experienced before.   

There are at least 6 different viewpoints depicted in the New Testament. Paul and Jude both write about difficulties experienced in the early church over the practice. Today’s second lesson comes from Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth where in the preceding chapter he addressed the difficulties that arose because of their exclusive and divisive ways about their practice of the Lord’s Supper. They didn’t always get it right and neither do we.

We practice what is called an Open Table here. Anyone who wants to draw near to Christ is welcome at this table. There’s something quite wonderful about this community of faith. We don’t all believe the same things, exactly. And that’s ok. There are varieties of gifts but the same Spirit, and varieties of services, but the same Lord, there are varieties of activities but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

The most important thing to remember is that this meal is a sign—a sign of the abundant, extravagant transformation Jesus offers. The church offers grace upon grace, points like a sign to the love and joy of Christ that can overflow our cups, transforming all of life and our very beings. This is the Wedding Feast of the Risen Christ, not a solemn event but a joyous feast where Christ is host and guest and the very food itself. It is given not for ritual purification or outward cleansing but to fill us with abundant life. 

Let us pray.  O Christ, through signs of grace you reveal your glory to all the world. Open our eyes to your hidden and surprising wonders that we may believe with our minds and trust in our hearts that your love pours over all of life. Amen.

John said, “I baptize you with water, … but one who is more powerful than I is coming who will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with Fire.”

Isaiah’s words include these, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you. When you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not hurt you, for I am the Lord your God, your Savior.”

Fire and water—elemental forces needed for life, symbols of the power of the divine.

Let’s start with fire. At bible study last Monday, I was surprised to learn that it was the fire in our texts today that really grabbed people’s attention. Fire is frightening. Burning the chaff with unquenchable fire is a pretty vivid image, it reminds us of fire and brimstone images of hell. It conjures up Los Angelos burning. Many of you from the Rockies or the Pacific Northwest have seen the destructive power of fire up close.

So, let’s put that fear to rest. Winnowing or threshing wheat involved separating the husk from the grain so that it could be used. The chaff was the waste product, the unusable portion. It’s not like some of us are the grain and some of us are chaff. To understand the metaphor, we need to see that we are the whole thing. We all have some useless aspects, some chaff, in us. When those parts are stripped away, we become more valuable, more usable, purified by fire.

On of the movements of Handle’s Messiah draws on Malachi 3:2, comparing God to a refiner’s fire and fullers’ soap: “But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap. He will sit as a smelter and purifier of silver, and He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver”. 

After the sermon we’re going to sing one of my favorite songs, How Firm a Foundation. The fourth verse goes like this: “When through fire-y trials your pathway shall lie, my grace all sufficient shall be your supply. The flames will not hurt you for I have designed, your soul to make pure and your gold to refine.”

About 35 years ago I heard a woman preach on this idea of the refining fire of God. She handed out little slips of paper to us and invited us to imagine written on that paper were all the hurt places in us, the sins that continued to burden us, the broken relationships that plague us, the lies we’ve believed about ourselves.  She held a little paper herself and told us a message about her lack of worth that she had internalized since childhood that she wanted to be free from. She took the paper toward the lit candle on the altar and touched the paper to the flame.  It flashed and was gone.  It was so dramatic—the secret was something called flash paper that she got at a magic store. Even after I learned the trick it has stayed with me as an image of that purifying fire of the Holy Spirit as something that could refine and strengthen us like gold or silver. Fire, like most powerful forces, can be destructive—but some things, like waste, should be destroyed.   

What do you carry that is not useful?  What are your worthless by-products?  Is it anger over an injustice, or a grudge held and nursed like a sore tooth, is it an inflated ego that serves as a wall between you and others, or an addiction. Maybe it’s self-centeredness or a lack of self-esteem. If you pause to look at yourself with brutal honesty you will know your own answer, what you would have cleansed from you. 

This morning, we prayed a prayer of confession and heard the words of forgiveness. The keys to that ritual action are honesty and the trust that forgiveness is real, that we can begin again, cleansed of sin.

Ok, let’s move on to water. How many of you washed before you came today? Even if you didn’t shower this morning, you washed your hands and face. What about a drink of water? I daresay we’ve all consumed water this day. We cannot live without it. It’s wonderful that one of our central rituals contains such an essential element.

Two years ago Steve and I went to Israel. One day the tour bus took us through Galilee including a stop at the Jordan river. It was lush and green and also quite commercialized with every imaginable trinket and souvenir possible. One of the women on our bus had made arrangements to be baptized. She purchased her baptismal kit, went into the changing area and donned her white gown over her swimsuit and got in line. There were several big groups there, from various backgrounds with their own pastor or priest. She joined the line for single non-affiliated candidates. We watched from the upper terrace. Then we made our way to the water ourselves and remembered our baptism there in the Jordan River. (show photos)

Wherever it happens, baptism unites us. Here in this community of faith we come from all different denominational backgrounds, traditions and locations. Most of you have primary membership in a congregation in the USA or Canada.  Some of you were baptized as infants, some as teens or adults.  There may be some of you here today who have never been baptized—if that’s the case I’d love to talk with you. Our various doctrines could divide us but the scriptures about Baptism point to the unifying aspect of baptism. No matter the age, the setting, or the method—the waters of baptism claim us, hold us, call us to live in God’s love, to love others with God’s love, to know that we are loved with an immeasurable grace.

Jesus went to the Jordan river where John was baptizing. In Judaism, baptism is a ritual of cleansing and purification called tevilah that usually involves immersing oneself in a pool of water called a mikveh. The practice is a sign of repentance and a desire to start fresh with God. Ritual cleansing in a mikveh represented a change in status, restoring the person to a state of purity and making it possible to fully participate in the community. It continues to be used after childbirth or menstruation and at other times. Since the 6^th Cent BCE it was also used to mark the conversion of a person from another faith or no faith to Judaism. Although Jewish practices allowed for baptism in cisterns or fountains, the Jordan River was a common setting.

At our Monday bible study this past week we were talking about baptism’s roots in Jewish practices and the use of a mikveh when Art and Cynthia started chuckling. You see, they have a mikveh in their house. Their house must have been built by a Jewish family. Here’s a photo of it.  (show photo)

The early Christian church adopted a Jewish practice as their initiation rite into the community of faith. Paul says in 1 Cor 12: 13 “for we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.”  We could add, whether Baptists or Lutherans, Evangelicals or Progressives… we are one body in Christ.  And in Galatians 3: 27 Paul wrote, “for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves in Christ.” It is traditional to wear white for baptism, symbolizing the cleansing of our sins and emphasizing that we put on Christ.  In Ephesians 4: 4-6 Paul reiterates again, “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all in all.” 

Baptism is God’s embrace, welcoming us into the fellowship of the church.  We are united with Christ in baptism into the life, death and resurrection of our Lord. 

John the Baptist may have been one of the members of the community of the Essenes, an ascetic group of Jews from that time period who practiced a strict adherence to Jewish law. They had a special concern for purity, and a belief in the imminent coming of Messiah. John’s baptism for forgiveness and repentance may have been an adaptation of the Jewish patterns of ritual cleansing. John was doing something new that day when Jesus and the other people were baptized.

Luke tells us that the heaven was opened and God spoke directly to Jesus. It’s a moving and dramatic scene – Jesus emerging from the waters of baptism as the Spirit alights upon him. What power and symbolism there is in that scene, an Epiphany—a shining revelation of God’s presence encountering Jesus – and, through Jesus, all of us. God removes all that separates us from God and meets us where we are.

This is the mystery and the power that Baptism offers– that God comes to meet us where we are and as we are, with water and the word that we might know that we, too, are beloved children of God and that God is well pleased also with us.

We don’t all have a built in mikveh, but we can practice the awareness of God’s cleansing forgiveness in our lives just the same. This week, as you swim, or wash the dishes, or drink your first glass of water each day, or as you bathe or wash your hands, even as you gaze at the waves or the sunset over the ocean, I invite you to make the sign of the cross on your foreheads in memory of God’s claim on you. 

I’ve made little signs for you to post on your mirror over your bathroom sink with these words.  “Lord, as I use this water to cleanse myself, I remember my baptism. Wash me by your grace. Fill me with your Spirit. Renew my soul. I pray that I might live as your child today, and honor you in all that I do.”   

The Holy Spirit and Fire, and the water of baptism speak to us in vivid images and physical signs of the cleaning power of forgiveness. May we trust the renewing, purifying power of God to claim us and free us to follow Christ. Amen.

How many of you like to read or write poetry?  Eugene Peterson, who wrote the biblical paraphrase called The Message, points out that about 60% of the bible is poetry. He says, “poets tell us what our eyes, blurred by too much gawking and our ears, dulled by too much chatter, miss around and within us. Poets use words to drag us into the depth of reality itself. They do it not by reporting on how life is, but by pushing-pulling us into the middle of it. Poetry grabs for the jugular. Far from being cosmetic language it is intestinal. It is root language. Poetry doesn’t so much tell us something we never knew as bring into recognition what is latent, overlooked, or suppressed. Poetry forces us to slow down.”

We’re going to slow down into today’s readings. Both John 1 and Ephesians 1 are dense poetry, written with exquisite artistry and care, each word carefully chosen to convey the overwhelming love of God for all creation. Both texts announce the same message, that Christ is the very pattern or plan of existence. Christ was with God, was God before the cosmos began. Christ was fully revealed in Jesus and continues to be revealed in the us, the children of God who live in Christ. One day all the fullness of God’s grace in Christ will be our inheritance.

Three years ago, when these texts came around, I slowed way down to study them in their original Greek. This week I picked up where I left off. I could spend years studying these texts and never exhaust the depth. I’m going to try to share some of that fascination with you today in a manageable way.

Biblical poetry is different from what we normally think of as poetry today. I printed the gospel for you in a different format. Let’s read it responsively.  This side is going to read the regular print, and this side is going to read bold print. Watch for parallelism, a thought presented once and then repeated a little differently for emphasis and deeper meaning.  Look for how Christ is portrayed, as one with God, and one with us from before time began, as the pattern of life and light.

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 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

He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him.  He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.

But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, And we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

Passages like John 1 are not doctrine so much as they are doxology, songs of praise, exclamations of the greatness of God’s plan. In the last few years, I’ve been fascinated by these New Testament hymns to Christ. They distill the beliefs of the early church, proclaiming the incarnation as the very goal of creation itself. Another one of these hymns is found in Colossians chapter 1:

“Christ is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities – all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him, all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.”

These texts express that deep mystery of the interconnected web of all existence: God in Christ, Christ in us, us in Christ, and God revealed throughout the whole cosmos. In these hymns to Christ, we hear echoes of the poetry of Genesis chapter 1, when God spoke the world into being. They tell us that the Incarnation of Christ in Jesus is not a fall-back plan made necessary by sin, but is, actually, the very purpose of creation. 

These hymns proclaim that God laid the foundation of existence so that it reveals God’s own love and goodness. God is within all that God has made, wooing us, whispering to us to choose, in our freedom, the most beautiful future intended by God’s own self.  Jesus called that future the kingdom of God, a world in which love, justice and equality would reign.  There’s a line in the Talmud, the rabbinical teaching of Judaism, that says, “Every blade of grass has its angel that bends over it and whispers: “Grow, grow!” That’s the way God relates to us, always alluring us to grow in the direction of love.

Jesus is our guide for life. It is to be lived in the image of God. The Word, the Logos, the mind or plan or will of God- is what the Old Testament referred to as Wisdom.  That Word works through all creation, in the tides and the crashing waves, in every act of love, in the power of electricity, the migration of butterflies, the birth of a child, or even the death of a faithful believer.

Dr. Ilia Delio is a Franciscan Sister living in Washington DC, an American theologian specializing in the area of science and religion, with interests in evolution, physics, and neuroscience and the import of these for theology. She puts it this way:

“The Incarnation represents not a divine response to a human need for salvation but instead the divine intention from all eternity to raise human nature to the highest point of glory by uniting it with divine nature.” 

God is perfect love and wills according to the perfection of that love. Since perfect love cannot will anything less than the perfection of love, Christ would have come in the highest glory in creation even if there was no sin and thus no need for redemption.

Jesus said, “anyone who sees me has seen the Father.” If we want to see what the divine looks like when fully aligned with the human form, we just need to look to Jesus. Paul says in Romans 11, “for from him and through him and to him are all things.”

Salvation is not just deliverance from sin but the very fulfilment of who God is, in Christ, for us, and for all creation. If we reduce Jesus to just helping us get rid of sin, we lose the fulfilment of God’s purposes for all of creation in Christ and in the church as a continuation of the incarnation. Certainly, salvation is the overcoming of sin, but the fullness of redemption involves the completion of creation’s purpose, to manifest the praise of the grace of God’s glory. The outworking of the love we see in Jesus is the very essence of God. The whole point of who God is and what God does is summed up in the incarnate Christ.  That’s what we find expressed in our reading from Ephesians.

The 11 verses of our text from Ephesians today have been called the most monstrous sentence conglomeration ever seen in the Greek language.  When it is translated as prose it becomes a 200-word mess of subordinate clauses and phrases. It starts to become clear when we realize that it follows a Greek poetic form of lyric poetry called an Ode. Odes were intended to stir the listener’s emotive response through rhythm and musical accompaniment.  So, I examined it as if it were a song, looking for recurrent phrases and patterns. 

I’ve tried to make it sound like poetry in English. Follow along on your insert and look for the ideas I’ve just told you about:  how in Christ, the blessing of God is carried out, how we and all believers are included in that gracious belonging.  Note the refrain that God’s plan is for us to live to the praise of God’s grace and glory.  Note that nearly every line includes the idea of “us–in him.”

In Him, (based on Eph 1: 3-14)  by Rebecca Ellenson

Blessed be God, The Father of Christ

Blessed be the one, Who Blesses us all

Blessings, all the blessings, of the heavens in Christ

God chose us in him

Before the world was made

Holy and pure, us in Him

Chosen in him, adopted through Christ

Children in him, us in Him.

For the praise of the glory of the grace of Him.

God’s plan, the will of God

God’s plan, the pleasure of God

In whom, in Him, the lavish grace of Christ

In whom, in Him, the forgiveness of sin

God’s plan, the riches of grace in Him

God’s plan, lavish wisdom, insight

God’s plan, the mystery, the will of Him

God’s plan, the good pleasure of Him

God’s plan, a purpose for all time, gathered up in Him

All heaven and earth in Him

In whom, we were chosen as heirs in Him

God’s plan and purpose in Him

Completing all things in Him

God’s purpose and will

God’s pleasure and plan

For the praise of the Glory of Him

We who have trusted in Christ

In whom, you too,

Hearing the word, the word of truth

In whom, you too,

Believing the gospel, the gospel of life

In whom, you too,

Were sealed in the Spirit of Grace

Given a deposit, a guarantee

The inheritance of us all

Until we all receive it all

For the praise of the glory of him.

Christ is more than just a person who walked this earth for 33 years, though he is that. He is more than a great teacher, marvelous miracle-worker, and extraordinary moral-exemplar, though he is that too. Indeed, Christ is even more than a God-man who died for our sins and rose from the dead, though that is a crucial part of the doctrines of Christ. The scriptures tell us in Christ we find the very structure of the cosmos itself, the pattern on which the universe was conceived, is built, and is still developing.

In addition to the great scriptural hymns to Christ, there are also a few other texts from the earliest days of the church that outline this idea.  In the second century there was a man named Irenaeus who left us some amazing writing. He was born in Smyrna (modern day Turkey) and studied under another writer, Polycarp. Polycarp was a disciple of the apostle John.

That’s amazing isn’t it, that we have these messages that endure across the ages. Irenaeus became the Bishop of Lyon, in what is now Southern France. In about the year 185 he wrote the first systematic exposition of the Christian faith, called “Against Heresies.”  In it he says something that seems to be based on these hymns we’ve been looking at, I quoted this passage last week too.  He said,

“The glory of God is a human being fully alive. The life of humanity is the vision of God.”

When we are fully alive, we display the glory of God. As we follow Christ, we become more alive. We live for the praise the glory of the grace of Christ!  Now, that’s poetry! 

Last week, my daughter posted a video of our 7-month-old granddaughter opening a present we left for her before we came to Mazatlan this year. I’ve watched it dozens of times. She changes so much each day it seems.  Before you know it she’ll be 12 years old like Jesus was in our gospel reading for today. Maybe some of you have grandchildren about that age.

We were all 12 once. What were you like then? I was in 5^th grade, I had braces and glasses and was scrawny.  My grandmother died that year. I was asking all kinds of questions about faith and life, death and meaning. Twelve is an in-between time. Cognitively most 12-year-olds can do some abstract thinking and are beginning to separate from their families in terms of identity. At that age we are engaged in the important work of growing up.

When Jesus was 12, he and his parent went to Jerusalem as they did each year for the festival of the Passover. It’s strange to think about Jesus as an adolescent. Luke is the only gospel writer to give us any information about that stage of Jesus’ life.  Like pencil marks on the door frame Luke measures Jesus’ life by ritual scenes.  Earlier in this chapter Jesus was dedicated in the temple. In the next chapter he is baptized in the Jordan and then in the following one he faces temptations in the wilderness.  We learn how Jesus was shaped by his parents and by the rhythms and rituals of Jewish life. It was about the time for his bar-mitzva.  The words mean the “son of the law”.  It was a coming of age rite where adults would no longer speak for him. He spoke for himself there in the temple and the others listened. 

In our text today we see Jesus growing up, establishing his identity.  That task involves creating relationships, setting priorities, making decisions. It’s a process we all engage in.  We choose values and beliefs that structure our lives. Along the way we make mistakes, get lost, backtrack, and sometimes just need to start over. Ultimately, growing up means moving out and finding a new home. This may be a geographical move, but most certainly it involves psychological and spiritual moves.

It is no surprise that Mary would be in a panic when she discovers that Jesus is not with the group of travelers. With great anxiety she and Joseph search for him. Three days later the one who was lost was found. Mary’s first words are, “Child, why have you treated us like this?” What I really hear is, “Where have you been young man? Your father and I did not survive angel visits, birth in a manger, and living like refugees in Egypt only to have you get lost in Jerusalem.” But Jesus isn’t the one who is lost. He knows who he is and where he belongs. Mary and Joseph are the ones who are learning the most.  This gospel may be about growing up but not just about Jesus’ growing up. It is about Mary and Joseph and you and me growing up too.

On some level Jesus is the one who pushes Mary and Joseph to grow. Children have a way of doing that to their parents. They challenge us to look at our world, our lives, and ourselves in new, different, and sometimes painful ways. That is exactly what Jesus’ question to Mary does. She had put herself and Joseph at the center of Jesus’ world. His question was about to undo that.

“Why were you searching for me?” he asks. “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” Jesus has put the Father at the center of his world and asks Mary and us to do the same, to move to the Father’s home.

Authentic growth almost always involves letting go and stepping forward into something new.  Carl Jung said we live our lives in too small shoes.  We resist the change required by growth. How true.  Part of Mary’s pondering in her heart must have been about letting go of her “boy Jesus” image. Jesus was born of Mary but his identity becomes so much more. He is with her but does not belong to her. She can give him love but not her thoughts or ways. He is growing into his own soul’s purpose. 

This movement of Jesus is not a rejection of his earthly parents but a re-prioritizing of relationships. It is what he would ask of Simon and Andrew, James and John. “Follow me” would be the invitation for them to leave their homes, their nets, their fathers and move to a different place, live a different life, see with different eyes. It is today what he asks of you and me.

Given the demographics of this congregation, it’s safe to say that on one level we’re all grown up.  But on another level, we’re never really done moving into deeper and more authentic relationships with God, our world, each other, and ourselves. We move through stages all our lives, from one pair of small shoes into the next size, from one level of awareness to the next.

Maybe you’ve heard the joke about the Rabbi, the Priest and the Lutheran Minister debating when life begins.  That’s easy says the priest, life begins at conception.  No, life begins when the baby takes its first breath and starts to cry says the minister.  Oh, you’ve got it wrong says the Rabbi, Life begins when the last child moves out and the cat dies.  Certainly, there is some truth to that joke.  Life begins again and again offering opportunities for joy and sorrow, for growth and learning as we go along. One of the early church fathers, Irenaeus, described this truth when he said The Glory of God is a fully alive human being. 

Our text from Colossians today describes the growth pattern set before us.  It involves letting go of what is safe and familiar, a necessary process if we are to grow in the love and likeness of Christ.  It means letting go of an identity that is limited to our biological family, job, community reputation, ethnic group, or political party and trusting that who we are is who we are in God. It means that we stop relating to one another by comparison, competition, and judgment and begin relating through love, self-surrender, and vulnerability. It means that we let go of fear about the future and discover that God is here in the present and that all shall be well. We stop ruminating on past guilt, regrets, and sins and accept the mercy and forgiveness of God and each other. We see our life not in opposition to others but as intimately related to and dependent upon others.

Our Colossians text puts it out there for us.  We are to put on Christ, to let the word of Christ dwell in us richly, and to live in the name of our Lord Jesus.

Do you remember the tv show, What Not to Wear?  Two stylists, Stacy and Clinton would do a makeover on someone who typically wore ill-fitting, worn-out, or items that were inappropriate for their body or their age. They would help people mature their wardrobes to fit their life. The old clothes that they had from other stages of life were tossed and they adjusted to a new look. Well, this part of Paul’s letter to the Colossians is a sort of What Not To Wear for Christians.  He says,

When Christ, who is your life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory. Put to death the base things: fornication, impurity, evil desire and greed. …You must get rid of the old ways of anger, wrath, malice, slander, abusive language and lying. STRIP off the old self and clothe yourselves with the new self which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. Put on compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience. Bear with one another and forgive as God has forgiven you.  And above all put on love which pulls it all together.

What if we put a note on our mirrors, or in our clothes closets—put on Christ!  Wear compassion and love, kindness and humility, patience and forgiveness! I think it’s a sort of mental discipline that’s called for—when the anger, malice and lies creep into our minds and hearts and actions—we practice a new look—we change those clothes, strip those nasty old things off and put on Christ. It’s not about not-feeling those things—we will. It’s about acting differently. Recognizing a thought or feeling that is not Christ-like for what it is—and choosing to be kind instead.

A few years ago Steve and I adopted a saying by Henri-Frederic Amiel, a Swiss philosopher and poet from the 1800s as our table grace. I think it fits with today’s theme of maturity in Christ.  It goes like this:  Life is short, and there’s not much time to gladden the hearts of those who travel the way with us. So be quick to love and make haste to be kind. Say it with me: 

Life is short           and there’s not much time          to gladden the hearts          of those who travel the way with us.    So be quick to love          and make haste to be kind.  Amen.

Year after year we make our way to the manger, to see mystery, to remember reality, to know again the Word Made Flesh.  The holy Word informs and fills all of life, not just by the manger 

but all through the messy world we live in. We dare not forget that it is there, in the fleshy world, where Christ most mysteriously and fully dwells.  God set that pattern on Christmas: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we have seen his glory… full of grace and truth.” 

Just as God is known in flesh, not hidden in heaven, just as Christ showed God’s own heart as he touched the leper, the bleeding woman, the rich young ruler, the little children, just as he showed his love in the garden, on the cross, showing us God in flesh, we can trust that God fills every space and time, every corner and crevice of creation.

The presence and mystery of God is there in the joy of every baby’s birth, in the relationships marked by conflict and stress, in the lonely nights and days after the death of a loved one, in locker rooms and libraries, workrooms and offices, in labs and the construction sites, the stores and restaurants.  Christmas is the sign, the touching reminder of mystery, of reality, of the Word made flesh.

Last February, Steve and my dad and I made a trip to Mexico City. We wandered into the Iturbida Palace, a gallery space in a historic building. There was an exhibit of Nacimientos Navideñas, Nativity Scenes from all around Mexico. We saw so many different types, clay, wood, textiles, straw and other natural materials, metal, glass, porcelain, paper, paper mâché, you name it.  The signs said there were over 2500 pieces. They were spectacular—so intricate and detailed, creative. One aspect that impressed me was the inclusion of so many ordinary parts of life—traditional Mexican scenes with Mexican blankets, dress, and sombreros; musical bands, mariachi, banda, and string bands; one scene included a car and electric poles and wires behind the stable. We saw not only donkeys and camels and sheep but amadillos and iguanas. Some were in the style of an Arbol de la Vida, Tree of Life.

More than the traditional nativity scenes, these Mexican representations bring the current reality into the creche. We see the incarnational nature of truth, that the Word Made Flesh is life’s pattern, God fills and inhabits every corner of life, draws all things together.

The mystery of the incarnation, the birth of Christ, stretches through all of life. I remember learning that lesson one hot June day in my first parich. I had entered the courtyard of a nursing home in Albert Lea and saw the 95-year-old woman I had come to visit.  The sunlight reflected off the chrome wheels of her chair as she sat soaking in the warmth, the rays on her skin.  She asked my help to remove her other shoe so all her toes could feel the sunny heat.  After I knelt at her feet we sat together and gloried in the moment.

She told me she didn’t like the belt they used to keep her from falling from her chair.  She didn’t think it was necessary.  “I’ll keep trying to get them to take it off.  But, if I can’t, well, I’ll bear it,” she said.  “This is the life we have.  We have to live it.” 

We went back to listening to the birds until the sun got too warm and I moved her to a shady spot under a blooming Mountain Ash tree.  “Oh, that’s better,” her gentle voice said.  Then, “What’s this?” as petals dropped onto her lap.  She breathed deeply.  “Oh, my…” is all she said, with a look of contentment.  She began to speak of the veins in her bony arms that pulsed so prominently under her paper-thin skin. 

I had come to bring her communion, blood for blood.  As I prepared the little kit with silver plate and glass cup, I considered the blood of life that coursed so strongly through her veins.  I knew that she had been priest to me that day.  I was not really bringing the Holy to her, she lived in Holy space already, aware of God’s grace and beauty present through ordinary elements of nature and peaceful quiet sharing.

Where is the home of God?  The words of scripture echo in my mind.  “See, the home of God is among mortals.  God will dwell with them.”  (Rev 21: 3)   God is with us, Emmanuel.  What makes space holy?  It is more than the bread and wine, more even than the birth of Christ that hallow this space, that hallows this night. The incarnation that hallows all creation.  “The Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory…full of grace and truth.”  (John 1: 14)

I remember another crisp, early winter day when I stood next to the steel rail of a farrowing stall.  A phone call had come, inviting me and my young child to watch the baby pigs being born.  We were city folk, relatively new to the countryside.  Standing by the gigantic mother pig, many times as big as my young child, I realized that this visit was not about the birth of piglets or my raptly attentive child.

An awareness of human frailty was palpable in the small tight-knit farming community.  Over the previous weekend a neighbor had been admitted on a 72-hour hold to a regional hospital’s stress unit.  As farmers will, they gathered by the dozen to divide the man’s chores and complete long-neglected tasks. 

“I should have been there for him earlier… I should have recognized the signs,” the farmer softly said as we watched the tiny pigs nuzzle and suckle. 

“It took us all by surprise,” I answered.  We were both remembering a day, months past, when he and I sat with his wife at their kitchen table making phone calls to the same stress unit, arranging treatment for her. 

“She’s doing really well now,” he almost whispered.

“I know,” I nodded and squeezed his arm. 

It was there, in the ripe carnal world, steam rising from the straw, in his world, where that farmer could speak of the holy matters he couldn’t utter inside the hallowed walls of church.  As I stood in muddy boots I heard the ring of Luke’s words, “And she gave birth to her first born son and wrapped him in bands of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the Inn.  (Luke 2: 7)

Christ, the Incarnate One, shows us that no matter where we are, we are standing on holy ground.  As Athanasius wrote in his essay, “On the Incarnation of the Word” in the 4^th century, “No part of Creation is left void of Him.  He has filled all things everywhere.” 

Merry Christmas.

NBC Mazatlan, Pastor Rebecca Ellenson

Today we get to look in on two unlikely pregnancies.  Our gospel gives us the story from two mothers’ perspectives.  Elizabeth was a woman “advanced in years” as the Bible says, she may not have been quite as old as I am.  She had been married without children for many years, which meant that she had lived with very little status or power in her culture.  But now, she is unexpectedly pregnant.  Zechariah, her husband, didn’t believe the angel who came to announce what would happen and he lost his speech for the entire pregnancy. In contrast, Elizabeth’s response is grateful joy that the disgrace she had felt for being childless would end. 

Mary was a young, engaged woman.  Like Elizabeth she was a person of low status, a simple person from an out of the way place.  Engagement meant something other than it does nowadays.  It was a 9-month waiting period–obviously intended to make sure she wasn’t pregnant, but she was.  The law allowed Joseph to break off the engagement.  The charge would have been adultery; the penalty—stoning.  Mary had no power in the traditional sense.  She was an engaged pregnant teenager.  Yet she was singing about it, traveling with haste to a safe place, to her cousin, where she could share her blessing and be blessed among women.

The a Roman Catholic prayer called the Hail Mary that includes the words of Elizabeth’s song.  When I first heard those words, blessed are you among women, I thought it meant, blessed are you – compared to all the women, as if it meant, not bad for a girl.  There is a 6^th Century prayer from the Coptic Church in Egypt that says it this way, blessed are you above all other women.   But it can also mean Blessed are you AMONG women. 

Zechariah doubted, questioned.  Elizabeth rejoiced.  Joseph is absent from the story, as Luke tells it, until the journey to Bethlehem.  Mary, unsupported by any male power structure, went to a female cousin who was also pregnant, where she could share the blessing and be blessed AMONG women.

Mary’s song speaks of power in clear terms. She knew that society was weighted in favor of the powerful, the wealthy, those with physical might, or positions of authority.  She knew what it was to be powerless.  Yet, she also knew what God promised, that those who open themselves to God’s power get to participate in something stronger than anything else.  She had a special view.  She knew, or at least she would soon learn, that God would enter this world through a dependent, weak, helpless infant in need of care, in need of love, in need of parents who would trust and believe.  God comes with a totally counter-cultural kind of power, not the power of wealth or position, not the strength of the arm.  God’s choice of power involves willing participation and gentle trust.

There’s a saying I first read on the office door of my academic advisor in seminary, Ralph Smith.

There is nothings as strong as gentleness, nothing as gentle as true strength.

Ralph was a poet, a writer of hymns, and a marvelous teacher.  He was also a wicked racquetball player and a weightlifter.  But, most of all, he was a mentor and a pastor to me. 

My son, Peter, was born in late November of my second year in seminary.  In December of that year Peter’s father was diagnosed with cancer.  I was 25 years old and quite unprepared to deal with all of that.  Ralph visited us, cared for us.  Then when I was a senior, we faced another medical crisis related to the cancer.  Ralph was there again for us with just the right support.

Five years later, at the beginning of the Advent season, Ralph and his first grandchild were killed in a car accident. I’ve been remembering Ralph this week. The year he died I was a young, fresh new pastor at a great big church in Duluth, MN. During Advent as an opening song we sang Marty Haugen’s arrangement of the Magnificat—my soul proclaims your greatness O God, and my spirit rejoices in you.  You have looked with love on your servant here, and  blessed me all my life through.  Great and mighty are you, O holy One, strong is your kindness, strong your love.  How you favor the weak and lowly one, humbling the proud of heart…

I remember standing up front, grieving for Ralph, standing between two male pastors who also worked on staff there, as we started to sing. My son had just turned 8, my daughter was 2 and a half.  I stood there as a young mother and wanted to turn to the men on either side of me and say,

S.s.s.h.h.h.h…! This is a mother’s song.  It’s about participating in creation, maternity style. It belongs to altos and sopranos, not tenors and basses. 

The magnificat comes up every three years on the fourth Sunday in Advent. The previous time I’d preached on it was when I was 6 months pregnant with Cora.  I felt like I owned those words.  As I heard my male colleagues singing this pregnant-mother-of-God song I thought my exclusive thoughts—those, “what do you guys know?” thoughts. I remembered my seminary advisor and the plaque on his door about gentleness and strength.  I remembered Ralph’s modeling of how to be someone through whom God works.  I knew that surely the magnificat would have fit his rich tenor voice.

I reconsidered the proud thoughts that filled the heart of me, as a mother, and heard the rest of Mary’s song with new ears.

God has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.

The power of God does not belong to women or men exclusively, nor does gentleness belong only to some.  God’s power is inextricably linked to gentleness and is needed by all of us. 

Mary gave birth to the Lord, because she was willing and trusting and ready to let God direct her life.  That is how God comes, not by grandly appearing with dominating force to destroy evil in the world, not with power and grandeur.  God chooses to come in a weak and tiny way, as a baby without power, to an unwed mother with no status, celebrated by an old woman surprisingly also with child.  If it were not for those faithful women, the plan wouldn’t work.  God relies on cooperation and on our open hearts and minds to receive him.

God continues to work in the same way today.  No matter how much we might want God to come directly, fixing all the problems of the world in a flash, God still chooses to come in a way that surprises us.  God chooses to need us to work in the world.  It is only when we say to God as Mary did, I am the servant of the Lord, I live to do your will… that God can act in this world.  Our challenge is to listen and watch for ways to serve, to be both strong and gentle, to make safe places of blessing for the powerless, to love, to bear God into the world, and to remember the promise that Elizabeth spoke:

Blessed is she (or he) who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her  (or him) by the Lord.

God will come, to us and through us, to others. 

Repenting, rejoicing, and giving are the themes for this Sunday. Zephaniah did speak words of comfort, but the people were in exile, refugees of an Old Testament kind. He said peace and modest prosperity would return but only after the proud and arrogant who flaunted their accomplishments and self-sufficiency against God were removed. The words of rejoicing were spoken to the poor. 

And Paul wrote his letter to the Philippians from prison, encouraging them to rejoice and to be generous to all.  Joy and generosity. Opening our hearts and lives to the peace of God which passes all understanding leaves no room for pettiness about possessions, control, and status which are the basis for most of our worries and tensions. 

And then we get John the Baptist blasting away out there in the stubble-covered desert, surrounded by tinder-dry brushwood and rocks calling the people a brood of vipers, where if a spark started a desert fire, the snakes would slither out of their crannies and hiding spots and flee in fear of the flames. 

The Jews thought of themselves as safe from judgment because of their status as the God’s chosen.  But John said no!  We hear strong images:  fire chasing the snakes from their hiding holes; axes chopping down trees; and a flat, wooden, shovel-like tool tossing grain and grain dust into the air, sifting and separating the useless from the worthy.  Once again, we reminded that the love and the judgment of God go together.  God doesn’t allow us to be worthless but will instead purify us. For love’s sake God is relentlessly stern with everything in us that is self-centered. 

Rejoicing might be easier if John the Baptist’s words were not so very concrete.  Most of us, after all, have a lot of shirts, and money in the bank to buy more. Years ago, I preached on this text in another congregation.  I asked the people what would happen if those of us who had two cars rushed out to give one of them to family who needed one. I asked, “What would happen if those who have a second home were motivated by the Baptist’s words to find a homeless family who might be settled there?  Let your imaginations go wild…” I challenged.  “What would it be like to give away the clothes from our closets, the food in our cupboards and our freezers?  Would we find a peaceful simplicity and a full and true rejoicing?  According to John the Baptist, then we would be ready for the day of the Lord.”

I can’t tell you how stunned I was when the next week when a woman shared with me, privately, what she and her husband had done.  They owned a vacantvrental house in a small Minnesota town.  A friend of her sister’s had lost her job and was living in a shelter in Minneapolis.  So, that week they moved her into their vacant house for the winter. And there was a different kind of joy that season.  It was a tempered joy—because the homeless woman’s challenges continued and the solutions were not easy—but there was joy. 

I read a story in the Christian Century Magazine by Austin Crenshaw Shelley. He wrote about growing up with his grandparents in a 500 square foot home in South Carolina. His grandpa reviewed all expenditures, except the grocery shopping which was entirely up to his grandma. Though they never went hungry, there was good reason to be frugal.

Every Saturday Austin went with his grandma into town and pushed their cart up and down the aisles while she carefully selected food in duplicate—two boxes of cereal, two jars of peanut butter, two bags of flour—until as he said, “our cart looked like an abstract rendering of Noah’s ark with its produce and nonperishable food items arranged two by two.”

Afterwards they drove straight to the town’s food bank, where his grandmother would donate exactly half of everything she’d just purchased. She bought his silence each week with a small candy bar, which was not immune to her rule: one chocolate treat for him, one for the food bank.

He remembered on one of these grocery trips, when he was eight or nine years old, he asked for a name-brand cereal he’d seen advertised. “We can’t afford that one,” she replied without looking up from her list. “We can if we don’t buy two of them,” he grumbled. Grandma met his eyes, put her list down so she could place her  hands firmly on his shoulders. She measured her words carefully: “If we can’t afford two, we can’t afford one.”

Was their weekly grocery run a direct response to John the Baptist’s words? “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none, whoever has food must do likewise.” Austin reflects: “Given my grandmother’s tendency to interpret scripture more literally than I, the odds are favorable that John’s exhortations laid an unavoidable claim on her heart—a claim that required her obedience through concrete action.”

It’s all too easy to rationalize the claim of the gospel on our lives. Like John the Baptist’s hearers who relied on God’s covenant with Abraham, we lean heavily on Jesus’ promises of forgiveness and grace, often ignoring our responsibility to love our neighbors. “What shall we do?” ask the crowds, tax collectors, and soldiers in this passage.  We try to wiggle our way out of those demands for ethical living by claiming a figurative reading of the text. Or we abstract the prophet’s words from the reality of our lives and the lives of others. We talk a good game. But most of us, myself included, buy the single box of the more expensive cereal without a thought.

The question at the heart of this text is not “What shall we believe?” It’s– “What shall we do?”  John’s response is clear. Repentance has to do with ethics, with action, with the Holy Spirit’s compelling us to be God’s hands and feet in the world—with attention to the needs of others rather than preoccupation with our own salvation.

Austin Crenshaw Shelly concludes his article with these words:  By the world’s measure, my understanding of John’s preaching is more nuanced than my grandmother’s. But no advanced degree in theology will ever come close to her faith. “What shall we do?” the people ask the prophet. Sometimes we like to pretend the answer is complicated. Sometimes it really is. But buying two bags of flour is a good start.

I think he’s right.  God asks us to share what we have been given, not to share more than we have been given. It is the same with ministry. God asks us to do what we can; God doesn’t expect us to do what we can’t. After all God is the one who does the miracles. This is something I know I need to relearn again and again.
 
I was moved by another story this week about another grandmother told by her granddaughter.  At the time of her grandfather’s death, at 90 years of age, her grandparents had been married for over 60 years. Grandma felt the loss deeply and retreated from the world, entering into a deep time of mourning for nearly five years. 
 
One day the granddaughter visited, expecting to find Grandma in her usual withdrawn state. Instead, she found her sitting in her wheelchair beaming. When the granddaughter didn’t comment quickly enough about the obvious change, Grandma asked her “Don’t you want to know why I’m so happy? Aren’t you even curious?”

She explained her new understanding: “Last night figured out why I’ve been left to live without my husband. Your grandfather knew that the secret of life is love, and he lived it every day. I have known about unconditional love, but I haven’t fully lived it. … All this time I thought I was being punished for something, but last night I realized that I have a chance to turn my life into love, too.”  Although age inevitably continued on its course, her life was renewed. She became a force for reconciliation and good relationships in her family. In the last days of her life, the granddaughter visited her grandma in the hospital often. As she walked toward her room one day, the nurse on duty looked into her eyes and said, “Your grandmother is a very special lady, you know…she’s a light.” Yes, love and joy lit up her life and she became a light for others until the end.
 
Everything we have is a gift from God, even the gift of life. And these gifts have been given to us to use and then to give away. That’s how we rejoice. John says that those who have two coats or more food than they need should give to those who have none. When that grandma did not give away her life to others in love, when she was focused only on herself, she was not happy, she had no reason to live. But as soon as she came to the realization of another way, things changed. 
 

Rejoice in the great goodness of our God, who uses peace and joy and love to win us. Let’s live in the light of joy. ‘Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.

Once there was a man who joined a Cistercian monastery and began his 3-year path to becoming a monk. When he arrived, the monk in charge of novices gave him a tour. He showed him the gardens, the barn, the kitchens—all the places where daily work took place. He showed him the refectory where meals were eaten, the chapel of course, and the rooms where each brother lived. The rooms were spare, just a bed, a chair, and a desk with a bible and the rule of the order on it. At the end of the orientation tour the monk reminded the novice about the Cistercian order’s vow of silence.

A regular pattern of work and prayer continued for a year at which point the novice met with the Abbot for his first review. He was allowed to speak two words. He said, “bed hard!”  The abbot raised his eyebrows. The next year went by and he came in for his review. At the end of the meeting his two words were, “food bad.”  Well, the abbot didn’t look very pleased by that comment either. The next year went by and at his review the novice said, “I quit.”  “I’m not surprised,” the abbot said, “all you’ve done since you arrived is complain!”

Silence is a rare thing, especially here in Mazatlan. Zechariah found himself silent for nine-months, while Elizabeth, his wife, was pregnant with their one and only son, John the Baptist. What do you suppose Zechariah discovered in the quiet? What if we could get inside his story. How would he tell it? He might start by saying:

It has been hundreds of years since Israel has heard from a prophet. The nation is a mess with its series of weak and corrupt kings, dominated by one Empire after another, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Greeks and finally the ruthless Romans. We have been hoping for a deliverer – a Messiah – who will set us free from our oppressors and be a King like David, establishing a kingdom of righteousness and justice.  

We know the words of Isaiah, unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given… and the government will be upon his shoulders and his kingdom will never end. We hold to the covenant God made with Abraham – I will bless you and make you a blessing… and through your seed, all the world will be blessed.

But there’s been a lot of waiting and hoping and not much change though– except more injustice and oppression – which seems to know no bounds.

He might ask:

Do you like your government?  Do you ever wish things could be better? In Israel, we have had enough… we want a good government!  But I’m an old man. If I’m honest, I doubted that I would see it in my lifetime, that the prophecies of our prophets would ever be fulfilled?  I’m an old Jewish priest. All my life I’ve known only foreign rule. Oppression.  The Romans – I despise them.

I wasn’t always old. I’ve just slowly gotten older and older and now here I am. I’m old. Maybe even ancient. My wife is named Elizabeth. She, is not old. Oh no! Elizabeth is most definitely not old. She is, let me get this just right – I learned this in marriage class…“well along in years.” That means she getting better and better as the years go by.

All my life I’ve been waiting and praying for three things: first to serve in the temple as Priest, next– to be a father, and finally– to see the Messiah. 

As I said, I am a priest. My father I was a priest. Let me tell you about that. Serving at the Temple in Jerusalem is the highest honor a priest can have. Eash priest serves at the temple for one week each year. I am a member of one of 24 divisions in the priesthood, one of approximately 18,000 priests. Each priest only officiates at the sacrifice once in his lifetime. And we are selected by lottery. In other words, you could be a priest all your life and never be called to serve in the Temple.

Finally, my name was called! My first prayer was answered. So, there I was in the temple – it’s our most holy place in all the world. I was feeling very excited, hoping I wouldn’t make a mistake. My job was to burn incense – symbolizing the prayers of God’s people rising toward heaven.

The altar of incense is made of acacia wood with a veneer of gold. Acacia is a beautiful hardwood that is almost indestructible. The altar is thirty-six inches high and eighteen inches square. It serves as a place for the daily burning of incense, both morning and evening. This twice daily exercise consists of a priest taking burning coals from the bronze altar in the temple court, to the altar of incense, and placing the coals upon the incense. The incense is a mixture of five spices. When the hot coals hit the incense a burst of smoke and smells float up to heaven.

Well, that day, my day, in that moment, as I placed the coals on the incense – symbolizing prayer – I got a message. You could say an angel appeared and said… “your prayer has been heard.”  When I saw him, I was startled, afraid. It’s not every day that you get a message from God. The message was: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son.

If I’m honest, I’d given up on that after all the years. I thought it was too late.  The message  continued. His name would be John. Of course he would be a joy and a delight for us, but the angel said that many would rejoice because of his birth, and he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born. He will bring many people to God. And he will go before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah.

Of course I recognized his words … from Isaiah – and Malachi. I was startled and shaken… and without thinking I blurted out…, “How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years.”

I thought it was a fair question. I was not expecting all that when I woke up that morning – and besides – I was already excited to serve in the Temple…. So, I over-reacted! That did not go well at all!  The angel looked at me with astonishment,

“I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their appointed time.”

Then I realized – this is no low-level angel – this is Gabriel!  Before I had time to apologize… Boom. Immediately, I lost my speech. Talk about bad timing. You see, when the priest comes out of the temple – after burning incense- he gives a blessing to the people…But I couldn’t speak…all I could do was use sign language. The people gathered at the temple that day knew something unusual had occurred.

I’m sure they were wondering what took so long? What happened? And of course, I couldn’t say a word. Like I said before If you want to talk when an angel is around – well, just don’t.  Keep your mouth shut! So, I just made motions with my hands… I think I looked shaken and I may have staggered a little. People seemed to figure it out… “he’s seen a vision” … I think something happened in there!”

I just wanted to go home and be with Elizabeth. But I couldn’t even talk to her! Two prayers answered in one day!  …and after all these years of waiting… and waiting. Those words are still ringing in my ears – “your prayer has been heard.” Except… I lost my tongue. Nothing was coming out. Not a sound. I discovered something about angels – they like to have the last word! 

Maybe it was God’s way of saying – stop talking and just watch… I’ll take it from here. And then – not long after this temple “experience” – Elizabeth announces that she’s pregnant.

I was filled with anticipation.  I had time to think. And read. I remembered our patriarch, Abraham, and his wife, Sarah. They also had no children. They also were old. They also had a visit from an angel to talk about a baby. Their baby – baby Isaac – was a fulfillment of the covenant God made to Abraham.

Is our baby going to have significance on the scale of Isaac? Is this the beginning of the new covenant? The one Jeremiah prophesied about 500 years ago? The implications are amazing and overwhelming.

Six months into the pregnancy another piece of the puzzle appears. Elizabeth’s cousin, Mary, arrives for a visit. You won’t believe this but it turns out she also had a visit from the same angel – Gabriel.  But that’s another story—a long story.

Sure enough, Elizabeth gave birth to our son. Our neighbors and relatives came and shared our joy. On the eighth day we came to circumcise our baby. Everyone thought we were going to name him after me – Zechariah, that’s the Jewish way. But, Elizabeth spoke up and said, “No! He is to be called John.”  People questioned her and asked me what I would like to name the child. I asked for a writing tablet, and to everyone’s astonishment wrote, “His name is John.”

I wanted no part of a run in with Gabriel again. My mouth was opened and my tongue set free, and I began to speak. Everybody was filled with awe, and throughout the hill country people were talking about all these things, wondering, “What is this child going to become?”

You know, I’d had a long time to prepare my words. Maybe all expectant parents should be struck silent for 9 months, long enough to realize the child is not just an extension of its parents but has its own God-given life and role and dreams to fulfil. Until then I thought a child would make me proud, give Elizabeth the honor she deserved. But God has so much more in mind for my son, I suppose for every child. It’s like Jeremiah said about God, “For surely I know the plans I have for you, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.”  I was thrilled to finally sing the song I had been composing over my silent months, to praise God’s actions in the past, and to look forward to the good things God has planned for us.

Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel,
who has come to his people and set them free.
The Lord has raised up for us a mighty Savior,
born of the house of his servant David.
Through the holy prophets God promised of old to
save us from our enemies,
from the hands of all who hate us,
to show mercy to our forbears,
and to remember his holy covenant.
This was the oath God swore to our father Abraham:
to set us free from the hands of our enemies,
free to worship him without fear,
holy and righteous before him, all the days of our life.
In the tender compassion of our God
the dawn from on high shall break up on us,
to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death,
and to guide our feet into the way of peace.

Amen.