Looking ahead to the First Sunday after Christmas: John 1:1-18

William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury (1942-44)

John the Evangelist (painting by Titian, 1547)   

The title of this should be: "Looking ahead in a busy week (!) to the First Sunday after Christmas."  I am relying on William Temple to share something with you about the prologue to John's Gospel this morning.  I will preach on it twice this upcoming weekend - once on Christmas morning and once on Sunday morning.  It is such a rich and deep passage that I am a bit overwhelmed when it comes to blogging about it.  I hope this excerpt from Temple's commentary on the Gospel of John will be helpful for you.  It takes two verses and makes one good, solid point about them that funds a great deal of reflection.  When I read these verses, and when I read Temple's comments on them, I come away with the sense that Christ is meaning.  Christ is the source of all meaning and meaning exists before time.  Meaning is redemptive. 

From Readings in St. John’s Gospel by William Temple (Morehouse Barlow, 1985):

John 1:1-2: In the beginning was the Word.  And the Word was with God.  And the Word was God.  The same was in the beginning with God. 

I have no doubt that in a general sense St. John is here following the thought of Philo; but this does not mean that he was a student of Philo’s writings.  The term ‘Logos’ was in general use in the Hellenistic world … The Evangelist is not here proclaiming unfamiliar truth; rather he is seeking common ground with his readers … He finds it in this word ‘Logos’, which alike for Jew and Gentile represents the ruling fact of the universe, and represents that fact as the self-expression of God.  The Jew will remember that ‘by the Word of the Lord were the heavens made’; the Greek will think of the rational principle of which all natural laws are particular expressions.  Both will agree that this Logos is the starting point of all things.  It exists as it always did εν άρχή – in the beginning, at the root of the universe.  (4-5)

Notes (from Danielle):

Philo of Alexandria was a first century philosopher who married Greek and Jewish thought.

Logos is a Greek word that means “word.”  In ancient Greek philosophy, it is the idea of a rational, ordering principle in the universe. 

“Hellenistic” refers to Greek culture ca 4^th – 2^nd century BCE.

εν άρχή means “in the beginning.”  These are the first two words of John’s Gospel in Koine Greek: εν άρχή ήν ο λογος (“in the beginning was the word”). 

Sermon preached the Fourth Sunday in Advent

Church of the Advent, Boston

Fourth Sunday in Advent, Year A: Isaiah 7:10-16; Ps. 80:1-7; Romans 1:1-7; Matthew 1:18-25

I wish you a Merry Christmas.

If you are traveling over Christmas, please know all my best wishes for a merry Christmas and a safe return to us.

If you are in Chicago, please know an invitation here to the altar of your church for Christmas – an invitation to come home for Christmas. If you are a visitor with us this Christmas, please be at home here for the holiday.

There are two things in today’s Collect and Scripture readings that I especially love. Yes, yes, I know it is good for a preacher to talk about something that appears uncongenial. But it is also good in life to be able to put into words some things and people we love.

Well, I have a special love, what the French call or used to call anyway, a special devotion, for our collect today. In my home parish, the Church of the Advent in Boston, today’s collect used to be said every Sunday with the clergy and choir and acolytes before entering the church for the eleven o’clock.

The Church of the Advent was the parish that sponsored me for ordination, where I met Eve – the rector presented me for ordination both to the diaconate and priesthood, and preached at my ordination to the priesthood, and officiated at Eve and my wedding. My closest friend in seminary, God rest his soul, also came from that parish.

Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation, that your Son Jesus Christ, at his coming, may find in us a mansion prepared for himself; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

May Jesus at his coming find in us a mansion prepared for himself … St. Teresa of Avila did a holy spin on this, writing of our making an interior castle, Castillo interior for God. St. Paul tells us that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. A mansion – a castle – a temple – this wonderful imagery that God comes to live with us and within us, unseen, in the Holy Spirit.

And when I use words “mansion” and “castle” and “temple” I deeply believe that God comes to every human life by grace, even to the most broken life. Even the most broken human being is of infinite value and dignity in the eyes of God their creator, and they are a dwelling place where God is present.

God comes to the interior place where we think and feel, and dream and fear and hope and face choices and make decisions and choices and have vision – are given things to dream and envision.

God speaks to Joseph twice in Matthew’s Christmas story. In today’s Gospel God tells Joseph not to be afraid to take Mary as his wife, for the child is from the Holy Spirit.

And later, God will tell Joseph to take Mary and the newborn baby and go down into Egypt until old King Herod was dead. So they went – the child who would grow up to care so much for people in trouble and on the outs had the experience as a baby of being a refugee in a foreign land.

I believe God gives God’s church vision – vision for the future. A particular manageable vision given this parish this past year was to have a new curate, and to have Danielle come. That vision was given to a whole community, a diversity of people.

God spoke in some of the ways God speaks to God’s people -- through the tradition of the church, by means of the tradition of the church: the ancient tradition of the church that we have ordained priests, and the tradition of having what we would call in Chicago in 2010, a professional educated trained clergy. Those are modern words. In Constantinople in 400 in the historical time of St. John Chrysostom they had a “professional educated trained clergy.” I simply mean that if someone is in Northwestern Hospital there is an expectation one of is priests will go, in a place where lots of people are highly trained and educated people, and know what we are doing and do it.

God gives new vision through the expectations of God’s people and those expectations may be rooted in long practice and development of practice – and may also have elements that are new and startling (neither Ray Webster nor Danielle Thompson approached ordination with any idea of ending up in Chicago, Illinois).

Danielle’s ordination was a dream and vision come true, for us as a parish – as a community of the people of God – and for her, on her journey, on her and Josh’s journey.

May God the Holy Spirit give each one of us vision in Jesus Christ that God’s loves us and is present with us in him. I believe God gives us this Supper of Bread and Wine to be a very tangible visible – something indeed that can be tasted and eaten -- sign of God’s love for us and presence with us in him. God gives us the signs – the sacraments – as visible and tangible vision of what God has to say to us. God gives us Bread and Wine to say that God is present.

Present. That brings me to the second of things in today’s Propers that I especially love. The great statement from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah:

"Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel," which means, "God is with us."

I am using the word “vision” a lot, but the tradition of the church reminds us that we most probably will not see a vision, will not hear a voice. God gives us Jesus and his stories, set in the context of the great library of books which is the Bible, and gives us this Eucharist to speak to us in ways we can hear and see and touch – but when God comes to the mansion within us, God meets us in the silence and darkness. Darkness and blackness is used in two quite different ways in the Bible, the opposition of dark and light, yes, but also the cloud over the presence of God in the Hebrew Bible – the image of the meeting when we do not see and are called to simply trust, even if it is the smallest bit of trust, the size Jesus said of the smallest of seeds, the mustard seed. To trust God is with us, in him. Even if life breaks and then we look up at the cross and see he has been through it before us, and is with us.

And on the threshold of Christmas, here at the altar of God, may I say a word of great thanks to God for my life as priest, and for my life as a priest here at St. Chrysostom’s – for my wife and family, for friends, for colleagues, for fellow clergy. May I say a word of thanks to God, and of love for this parish family.

Merry Christmas, may it be merry in God’s love for each one in Jesus Christ.

Sermon preached by the Rev. Raymond Webster at St. Chrysostom's Episcopal Church in Chicago, IL on Dec. 19, 2010 at 8:00am and 11:00am

Looking ahead to the Fourth Sunday in Advent: Matthew 1:18-25

Flight into Egypt by Giotto di Bondone, 1310's

Sunday, 12/19/10: Fourth Advent – A: Matthew 1:18-25

Each Gospel has its own characteristics. I accept that each Gospel went through a process of being written, most likely beginning with an oral tradition. We have no records of the stages of their being written – it is an educated guess at best. But it seems clear to me, at least, that some very great writers took this material in hand, whether early or late. I believe they were inspired by God. They accent different things, they see things from different angles, although there is a fundamental profound unity in what they write, for instance about the compassionate ministry of Jesus, and about the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Matthew is a fascinating Gospel. Only two of the four Gospels tell the story of the first Christmas, and Matthew is one of the two (the other is Luke). The account in Matthew is very different from that in Luke. The story of the coming of the Magi from the East is followed by a terrible story of old King Herod trying to kill the newborn child, and Mary and Joseph and the child fleeing down into Egypt, as refugees.

The juxtaposition in Matthew of Jesus’ joyful nativity in Luke and in Matthew 1.18-25 and Herod’s violent response in Matthew 2 reminds us of the purpose of the Advent of Christ, the incarnation of God in Jesus. Our world is fraught with violence, conflict, and immoral, unethical deeds. All the earth longs for reconciliation with God and longs to re-turn (the Greek word for “conversion,” metanoia, means “to turn”) to its created purposes. In Christ, God has accomplished this reconciliation, re-turn, and reorientation toward all that is life-giving and good. Jesus’ birth is the beginning of his life on earth, a life in which he came head to head with powerful people and powerful institutions. Matthew’s birth narrative highlights this important facet of Jesus’ story.

(Ray Webster)

Sermon preached on the Third Sunday in Advent

Third Sunday in Advent, Year A:

Isaiah 35:1-10; Magnificat; James 5:7-10; Matthew11:2-11

We’ve had this picture of John the Baptist in our dressing room, behind the church, all week.  It’s one I used with the kids last Sunday because it does a good job of showing the otherness of John: his unruly hair, his clothes made out of camel, the wilderness all around him.  In the New Testament, John is such a strange figure, and that makes him a compelling person to imaginative little children.  But what about us, the grown-ups in the room?  This is an icon, so it’s meant to appear un-true-to-life.  But John is one of these characters who seems beyond real life to begin with. 

Many of the disciples are very personable: they wander along, doing their best, making big mistakes every once in a while.  Like the rest of us, they don’t always understand what Jesus is talking about.  John, however, is different.  He’s not a part of our regular group of “Bible story pals” – he doesn’t join the gang.  He’s off in the wilderness, doing his own thing.  But he’s also so unshakably certain.  And so harsh, so judging in his certainty.  When we met him last week, he was this fiery character who called out the people around him for their sins, and for their hypocrisy, and looked forward to the fire that the Savior would be, expecting him to come down vengeance, and terrible recompense, just as the prophet Isaiah says today.

Not only is John certain about his mission, and his message, but he’s certain about who the Messiah is.  He knows that Jesus is the one who the world has been waiting for, and he announces it for all the world to hear, when he’s preaching and baptizing in the wilderness.  Without doubt, John points to Jesus.  I think if John had a favorite part of the liturgy, it would be the Creed: a straightforward, no bones about it, certain recitation of who God is and what people who believe in God believe.

But something happens to John this week.  We see something in his story that is less like the Creed, and more like the Confession.  John doubts.  John doesn’t know.  John needs reassurance.  I’ve said it just now, and it is said all the time of him, especially in Advent: John points to Jesus.  But today we see that finger wavering a bit.  We see John sit down, put his hands in his lap, and wonder.  He doesn’t know if Jesus is the Savior, and he has to ask him.

Now it’s not that John can’t believe, or hasn’t ever believed – we’ve seen that’s not true.  What’s happened to him is actually something that you and I can understand better than anyone: John is separated from Jesus.  There’s a distance between them – in time and space, a real physical distance.  Before, John was out in the world, seeing the same people as Jesus, living through the same events, drinking from the same rivers.  But John was arrested, and he’s been in prison for a while when we read about him today.  Jesus’ ministry has taken off in unimaginable ways during that time.  John hears about it, but he can’t see it with his own eyes.  He can’t experience it in real time.  John doesn’t have the person of Christ before him and the voice of Christ in his ears.  All he has – and this is the part that we get – all he has are stories about Jesus.  All he has are people who tell him stories about Jesus.  It’s as if all he can see is a light flickering under his door.  And all he can depend on is his imagination. 

But even the stories that he hears don’t always fit his imagination.  John was a firebrand, and Jesus’ ministry doesn’t seem to fit his idea of a fiery, severe Messiah.  Instead, Jesus is fulfilling the other part of Isaiah’s prophecy: “the eyes of the blind are opened and the ears of the deaf are unstopped; the lame leap like deer, the speechless sing for joy.”  And when John asks Jesus, “is it really you?” these are the things that Jesus points to. 

John and Jesus working together here – John’s question and Jesus’ answer, John’s doubt and Jesus’ reassurance – give us a pattern for what it is to believe.  Of all the people in the Bible, this eccentric wilderness prophet mirrors for us the life of faith.  After all, there is distance between us and this historical person, Jesus, who is the object of our devotion; we are surrounded by words about him, but even these don’t always match up with our ideas about him.  Jesus tells John and Jesus tells us, ‘don’t look too hard at me.  Don’t pin all of your dreams, all of your belief, on statements about me and descriptions of me.”  Jesus doesn’t say, “Yes, John, I am the Messiah.”  Jesus says, “Look around.  What do you see?  What do you hear?  Can you make out God’s presence in the world?  Can you point to places of healing and light, of bright overcoming dark and health overcoming disease?  Can you point to people who hope, despite the crush of hopelessness and a world that survives despite the crush of death?  Do you see families outliving loss?  Do you see nations outliving cruel leaders?  Do you see people with money giving it to people who are poor, and people with time using it to help others?”  Jesus asks, “Do you see a church gathering every week, coming to the table to be with me – and at the table, do you see the distance between us, all of the time and space that separates us, outlived in this meal?  Do you discern my body in the body of the person sitting next to you?” 

This last piece is one of the most important.  John was alone, but we have each other.  Together, we make the body of Christ and we make Christ present to one another.  We cover the distance.  Inevitably, with John, we will ask Jesus, “Is it really you?”  And Jesus will answer us, “the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk, the speechless sing, and I am alive in you.” 

Sermon preached  by the Rev. Danielle Thompson at St. Chrysostom's Episcopal Church in Chicago, IL on Dec. 12, 2010 at 8:00am and 5:15pm

Matthew 11:2-11: Looking ahead to the Third Sunday in Advent

Icon of St. John the Baptist (Greece, 1993).

Sunday, 12/12/10: Third Advent – A: Matthew11:2-11


This upcoming Sunday’s Gospel reading continues the story of John the Baptist; however, things have taken a darker turn.  John, who last week was baptizing people in the wilderness outside of Judea, is now in prison.  He sends a message to Jesus, asking “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”

A helpful approach this week might be to fill in the gaps of our story up until this point, setting a context for Jesus and John’s exchange.

Who was John anyway?  Ray introduced John last week, noting that he was Jesus’ cousin; that he preached a message of repentance; that he lived like an ancient wilderness prophet; and that he is associated with Isaiah’s prophecy about “the voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Prepare ye the way of the Lord, Make straight in the desert a highway for our God’” (Isa. 40:3).  John was, in fact …

-         Jesus’ cousin: John’s mother, Elizabeth, was Mary’s “relative” (Luke 1:36).  Tradition has it that the two women were cousins, which makes for a wonderfully intimate connection between Jesus and John.  Mary visited Elizabeth when both of the women were pregnant and John, upon hearing Mary’s voice, “leaped” in Elizabeth’s womb (Luke 1:41). 

-         A prophet:  John was destined to be a prophet.  The angel who visited his father to announce John’s birth declared, “With the spirit and power of Elijah, he will go before [God]” (Luke 1:17).  Like Elijah, John lived in the wilderness, which highlights the sense in which he was set apart to see the truth about people and events, and to pronounce God’s judgment. 

Who does Jesus say that John is? The verses of Scripture that we read today have Jesus describing John to a crowd of people.  He indicates that John …

-         is not “a reed shaken by the wind”

or

-         a man dressed in soft robes:  The whole Gospel of Matthew plays on the idea of two kingdoms.  One is represented by the Roman Empire and the people who colluded with it, while the other is God’s kingdom of justice and peace.  The reed was a symbol of Herod, the puppet king in Jesus and John’s time, and “soft robes” would have brought to mind rich rulers.  In making the above statements, Jesus reminds people of the forces that they are up against, and shows that John is not weak and bending, but is strong.  He might wish to suggest that John will endure his imprisonment.

-          is great among the prophets:  John represents a turn in biblical prophecy.  He is the only prophet to be prophesied about (see Isaiah 40); but more than this, he is the only prophet to encounter (in Jesus) the person about whom he prophesies.  From this point on, prophecy is portrayed as a gift that some people in the early Christian communities possess for the benefit of those around them.  There are no more stories about eccentric, dramatic figures like Jeremiah or Ezekiel recorded for us in the New Testament.

Why was John baptizing?  Baptism has its roots in Jewish practice.  A mikvah was a purification rite, or ceremonial bath, that cleansed one of ritual impurity.  It was a temporary measure that might be repeated each time one prepared a body for burial, ate unclean food, or committed any of a certain number of offenses contained in the Law.  Nobody knows for sure how John’s baptism was understood, but it was likely something that resembled a mikvah.  Christian baptism is unique in that it is a once-and-for-all purification rite that not only cleanses us from sin, but strengthens us for goodness by giving us the Holy Spirit. 

Who were John’s disciples? Like other prophets and teachers of the time, John acquired a group of followers who studied his words and lived according to his habits.  There is no indication in the Bible whether John’s followers turned to Jesus after John died. 

Why is John in prison?  Last week we read from the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel, where John points to Jesus as the fulfillment of the people’s hopes.  We’ve skipped over a lot of events to get to where we are this Sunday.  In between John’s pointing to Jesus and John’s message to Jesus from prison, Jesus has begun a ministry of preaching, teaching, and healing that is inspiring strong reactions – positive and negative – around Israel.  Meanwhile, John continued his own prophetic ministry, and ran up against the wrong people: he publicly chastised the king for marrying his deceased brother’s wife.  John remained in prison for what appears to have been several months before he was executed at the request of the king’s stepdaughter (see Matt. 14:1-12).  Other ancient sources say that the king simply feared John’s influence. 

Why do we read about John again this Sunday?  John prepares the way for Jesus.  This is his life’s mission.  In Advent, we enjoy a season of preparation for Jesus’ coming into the world and into our hearts as God’s incarnate son.  But there’s a very human piece of John’s story today that helps us to connect with him in this time of intentional reflection:

-         First, John is uncertain.  He has already pronounced Jesus to be “the one who is coming,” but after months in isolation, he has to ask, “Is it really you?”  John needs Jesus to remind him about what he believes, and to help him have faith.

-         Jesus points to his actions in order to remind John of who he is.  Part of having faith, and of growing in faith, is to discern where God is at work in the world and to meditate on it.  (Which includes asking hard questions in community when we can’t be sure of where God is.)

-         John’s ministry and faith led him into difficult circumstances.  Preparing for and welcoming Jesus into our lives means that we face challenges and encounter situations that we never anticipated.  John represents how passionate, confusing, and costly discipleship can be.

(Danielle Thompson)

Sermon preached on the Second Sunday in Advent

THE SEVEN GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

Ordination to the diaconate of the Rev. Danielle Thompson (kneeling on the left), Christ Church Cathedral, Nashville, Tennessee, June 2010 – The Bishop of Tennessee is officiating. During the ordination the hymn “Come, Holy Ghost” was sung, which will be quoted below. 

Second Sunday in Advent, Year A:

Isaiah 11:1-10; Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19; Romans 15:4-13; Matthew 3:1-12

Our blog is focusing on reading Matthew’s Gospel. From time to time, however, there are other passages appointed to be read on which the preacher will focus.  The first reading this Sunday from Isaiah (11:1-10) is of unusual importance in Christian history. 

The passage opens with the reference to Jesse. Jesse was King David’s father, and Matthew emphasizes Jesus is a descendant of David. A Jesse Tree (which you may find in some stained glass windows in England) is Jesus’ genealogical chart, his family tree. 

And the passage ends with the wonderful verses – the wolf living with the lamb – which are a vision of peace. I think of the American Quaker painter Edward Hicks’ Peaceable Kingdom.

Isaiah 11:2-3 is the source of the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit: 

The spirit of the LORD shall rest on him,

the spirit of wisdom and understanding,

the spirit of counsel and might,

the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD. 

The attentive reader will note that there are six gifts on this list. When St. Jerome translated the Bible into Latin a seventh appeared on the list: pietas, piety. Anyone who knows translators know they sometimes use more than one word to translate something. Pietas is the faithful living out of one’s duties and responsibilities – for us who are disciples of Jesus, faithfully living out our discipleship. Faithfully living out our baptismal promise to follow Jesus. 

In the Middle Ages the church loved to make lists of seven, a good Biblical number. There were the Seven Deadly Sins, and the Seven Works of Mercy – also taking a Biblical list, from Jesus’ words in Matthew 25, to feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, clothe the naked, visit the sick and the prisoner, welcome the stranger – to which was added giving a respectful burial to the dead.

God the Holy Spirit, who is God present us, unseen, who gives us gifts to give. In Thomas Aquinas and indeed in the list in Isaiah, the first gift of the seven is wisdom – the gift of knowing we are loved by God, and knowing how to love. 

The Rev. Danielle Thompson will be ordained a priest here in St. Chrysostom’s Church on Monday, December 13, at 6:00 PM by the Bishop of Tennessee. 

At every ordination of every Episcopal priest, and deacon, and bishop, the Book of Common Prayer has the person being ordained say: 

… I solemnly declare that I do believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God, and to contain all things necessary to
salvation;

(Book of Common Prayer, page 526) 

And there is silence while the person signs this oath.

And then just before the ordination by the bishop (or, in the case of a bishop, by the bishops) the whole congregation sings the ancient hymn Veni, Creator Spiritus. The Prayer Book directs: The hymn, Veni Creator Spiritus, or the hymn, Veni Sancte Spiritus, is sung.

At Danielle’s ordination Richard Hoskins has chosen that we use the words and music at Hymn 504. There are several translations authorized today. Hymn 504 uses the words translated by John Cosin (1594-1672).

John Cosin was a Cambridge don – head of one of the colleges, Peterhouse (a current fellow of Peterhouse was a regular attender at our nine o’clock with his daughter during a sabbatical year). John Cosin went into exile in France with the Royal Family after the defeat and execution of Charles I by Cromwell. He came back at the Restoration of Charles II in 1660 and these words we will sing were printed in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. The only hymn – the only words to a hymn – to appear in the Prayer Book. 

This hymn (or another translation of this hymn) was sung before the ordination of every Episcopal bishop, priest and deacon you know or have ever known:

Come Holy Ghost, our souls inspire,

And lighten with celestial fire.

Thou the anointing spirit art,.

Who dost thy seven-fold gifts impart. 

“thy seven-fold gifts” refers of course to the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit. 

In my home parish in Boston, the Church of the Advent – the parish that sponsored me for ordination, and where I met Eve – there are seven brass lamps that hang in front of the High Altar, each with a candle burning in it – symbolizing these Seven Gifts of the Holy

Spirit. 

Church of the Advent, Boston -- the seven lamps in front of the high altar

When I first came to St. Chrysostom’s, Chicago in 1993. the Rt. Rev. John M. Burgess, then retired Bishop of Massachusetts wrote me a letter. Bishop Burgess ordained me both as a deacon and a priest. He wrote that I would “need every gift of the Holy Spirit” for ministry in this great city. 

The Holy Spirit is given to each one of us. God comes to dwell within us, making our innermost place in our bodies God’s temple. “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit?” wrote Paul. May God give each one of us – may we realize God does give each one of us – the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and first and last the gift of the wisdom to know and trust God’s love and to love one another, and those in need at the heart of a great city. 

Sermon preached by the Rev. Raymond Webster at St. Chrysostom's Episcopal Church in Chicago, IL on Dec. 5, 2010 at 5:15pm

Matthew 3:1-12: Looking ahead to the Second Sunday in Advent

Sunday, 12/5/10: Second Advent – A: Matthew 3.1-12

The name of this season, “Advent” means “coming.” During Advent the Bible readings and collects look for

• the coming of Christ again at the End, and we remember the one who will come to be our Judge is the Savior who died for us on the cross;
• the coming of Christ to be born in Bethlehem of Judea;
• and today, in the story of John the Baptist, we look for the coming of Jesus at the beginning of his earthly ministry, as an adult, in Galilee.

Today’s Gospel introduces us to the fascinating figure of Jesus’ cousin, John the Baptist, who preached and baptized in the wilderness in Israel. In his preaching, he called the people to repent – to turn to God and ask God’s forgiveness.

The writer of Matthew tells us that John the Baptist is the one referred to in Isaiah. This is one of the quotations I always think of as set to music by Handel in his Messiah:

The voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Prepare ye the way of the Lord, Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.’ (Matthew 3:3 quoting Isaiah 40:3)

Jesus would come and be baptized in the river Jordan by his cousin, giving us baptism as the great way to enter the new life with Jesus, as his disciple and follower and friend.

Matthew describes John as dressed like one of the ancient prophets of Israel, eating desert food, locusts and wild honey -- which I suspect seemed just as odd to the people then, as it does to us!

In this passage we are told that Pharisees and Sadducees came to be baptized. They did not meet with a warm welcome from the Baptizer. I want to reflect on that for a moment. Of course, in our time, those of us who are honored to welcome people to baptism in the church (and it is a great honor) should be careful to be precisely that – welcoming.

In the historical time of today’s story, there were various groups or parties within Judaism. The Pharisees and Sadducees were two.

My own personal view is that there was a crisis in authority in the Israel of that time. The traditional sources of authority were the priests and prophets and kings. The kings were the family of old King Herod – only semi-Jewish puppets of the Romans. The priests were hereditary and it is hard to say what authority they had as religious leaders among the people. Both the priests and kings would disappear from history with the destruction of Jerusalem and Israel by the Romans in 70 AD.

Meanwhile there was a fluid situation among what we in modern times would call voluntary associations or parties of people – which is how I would describe the Pharisees and Sadducees. There was also a fascinating community called the Essenes – mentioned in the historian Josephus. We do not know if John the Baptist was associated with them or part of them. Curiously, while the Sadducees and Pharisees play a large role in the Gospel stories, the Essenes are never mentioned.

Into this fluid situation, under Roman occupation, Jesus came to carry out his ministry.

John movingly says that he looks to the coming of one greater than he is, who will baptize us with the Holy Spirit and with the fire of God’s love. May that fire burn in us.

Raymond Webster

Sermon preached on the First Sunday in Advent

First Sunday in Advent, Year A:

Isaiah 2.1-5; Psalm 122; Romans 13.11-14; Matthew 24.36-44

It’s hard not to be affected by this time of the year, for good or for ill.  You’ve probably all heard it said around Halloween and All Saints that “the veil is thin,” and I think that same thinness persists throughout Advent. 

At Halloween the idea of the veil being thin suggests that we’re in touch with numinous things: that all around us we perceive the presence of a world beyond us.  But we put away Halloween and All Saints, and set our faces toward Thanksgiving, when “the holidays” truly begin.  Our world is still full of a world beyond us – a world of yesterdays, of recollection and longing and interpretation –  and a world of tomorrows – of dreams and prayers and anticipation.  The veil is still thin here, but not only the veil.  We actually become thinner people, more aware of everything that is happening around us. 

Because when you come so close to numinous things, when all of the scaffolding you move around in falls away, you find yourself living side by side with memories and deep wishes and high hopes.  That also means that you share space with regret and disappointment.  We all walk around with a great sense of anticipation throughout November and December because this season brings to light the most important things: family, friendship, and generosity.  But this season also casts high beams on brokenness, loneliness, and the cruel disparities between people that we see all around.  A thin veil hides very little, least of all what is stirring in our hearts.  The world revealed to us in the light of Advent is a world full of time: of the past and of the future, of waiting and of watching.  As Advent begins, it becomes clear that what the last month has been about, and what will be cast into bold relief from this point forward, is nothing less than our greatest desires.  Advent is about the veil effacing, whispering away, and us seeing clearly things as they really are; and, by extension, feeling acutely the press of everything that we want most.

That sense of intense longing and heightened anticipation is so present in our reading from Romans this morning.  The apostle Paul writes to a group of Christians living in first-century Rome, who are coping with problems common to many of the people Paul knew: Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians are trying to live together in peace, and are trying to learn how to be something new in an old world.  The Roman church does not know what to do about civil authority; it does not know what to do about the Jewish Law; its members, frankly, do not know what to do about one another.  But they have heard about a man named Jesus who was believed to be the Son of God, and who was executed as a criminal, and something about the telling of his story – something about how it sounds to them, how they can imagine it, how they see it manifest in the lives of those who bring it to them – has made them fall in love.  The more they pray, the more they hear Scripture read and expounded upon, the more they come together to bless bread and eat, bless wine and drink, the more they can see: the more light they are given to recognize things for what they truly are.  When they see good, they know it for good; and when they see evil, they know it for evil.  They can’t reject one another because they see in each other the presence of Christ and they know it to be good.  This is hard.  But too, they are increasingly uncomfortable in the city that has been home to them: the arena, the slave markets, the wars, sometimes their own families … and this is devastating.  They are suddenly on foreign territory.  What they want, more than anything, is to know how to make sense of where they have been and of where they are going; to make sense of who they are and of who they want to be.  The Romans want to know how to find some peace.

 And Paul is so inspired.  He sees so clearly and he is so passionate, you can imagine him leaning forward and clasping his hands together as he dictates this letter to his scribe, saying, “wake up!  You know what time it is!  Salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone and the day is near!”  Now, if you know that the early Christians thought that Jesus might come again in their own lifetime, it’s easy to hear in his words a message about patience: “Just hang in there – you know what time it is!  It’s almost time for Jesus to come back, to save you by taking you away, and to grant you peace-by-escape.”

But Paul is actually taking a page from Jesus when he encourages the Romans to wake up and live in the daylight.  We have just heard a part of the Gospel of Matthew where Jesus talks about the temple falling down, about his disciples facing persecution, and about his return to earth.  And no matter what we might make of this, Jesus is ultimately fuzzy on the details.  “About the day and the hour, no one knows,” he says of what we call his second coming.  He compares its advent to being alive at the time of Noah.  The point, though, is not that people then were so evil that they couldn’t see that large cumulonimbus cloud about to break open; the point is that nobody could have known about the flood if they wanted to.  It came as a surprise.  Jesus is telling his disciples, “don’t sit around and speculate about what this is going to look like or when it is going to happen.  I have given you a mission and a ministry.  Keep awake, therefore, and go about your business.  Be disciples and not soothsayers.  Quiet yourselves about the future, and put your energy into what it means to walk with me in the present.” 

Paul has his own way of describing that walk: “put on Christ.”  Wear Christ like your clothes, like “armor of light.”  And he, too, is pushing his friends to live now.  To be courageous despite the fact that they are seeing and feeling so much, and to rely on Jesus for their strength.  Jesus spoke about a second coming, another Advent, and Paul would have agreed that such an event could happen at any time, but both of them knew that God’s kingdom was already happening.  What was revealed to the Romans as they grew closer and closer to God, as they put on Christ in prayer, and worship, and in community with one another was that Jesus never left.  That God is here now, and that God’s Spirit cries out in each one of us, louder and louder as the veil gets thinner and thinner.  The more we see the world for what it is, the more we feel the powerful and sometimes disturbing presence of God.  When we long for damaged relationships to be healed, for all people to be loved, to be full, to be safe; when we long for all that lives to share a season of unbroken joy, we feel the pain of seeing too clearly.  We may wish to draw back from what is real, to whisk the veil back across our faces and to snuff out the light.  But when we see, with Paul, how present grace is to us – how salvation, healing, wholeness is poised to break into all the world and overcome what is dark with all that is light – we know that it is grace enough just to see.  And all that we could ever want to see, more and more fully, at this time and all others, is the peace of Christ, all in all. 

Sermon preached by the Rev. Danielle Thompson at St. Chrysostom's Episcopal Church in Chicago, IL on Nov. 28, 2010 at 8:00am and 11:00am