Christmas Eve 2017 Sermon

The Rev. Joseph Peters-Mathews

St. Joseph-St. John Episcopal Church, Lakewood

December 24, 2017

Christmas Eve

Luke 2.1-14

The grace of our Savior Jesus Christ,

            the love of God,

            and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit

be always with you.

[And also with you.]

Let us pray

“Nature reordered to match God's intent,

nations obeying the call to repent,

all of creation completely restored,

filled with the knowledge and love of the Lord.

“Little child whose bed is straw,

take new lodgings in our hearts.

Bring the dream Isaiah saw:

knowledge, wisdom, worship, awe.”[1]

Merry Christmas!

Tonight Christmas is in full force.

We’re even getting a white Christmas,

            it looks like.

We’ve bid the faithful

come and adore Jesus the Christ Child.

We’ve joined angels in singing Gloria in excelsis deo.

We’ve heard the familiar,

            every-Christmas-Eve story

                        of Mary and Joseph going to Bethlehem,

                                    Mary giving birth to Jesus her first born

                                    wrapping in bands of cloth — swaddling clothes —

                                    and laying him in a manger.

It’s Christmas! Finally!

This year we’re even cut short a week of Advent,

            those four Sundays leading up to Christmas,

                        and yet this year has been a. year.

Let’s just remember some of it:

            Charlottesville.

            Las Vegas.

            The fire in London.

            Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria.

            California wildfires and South American earthquakes.

In the midst of it all we hear again,

            “Do not be afraid; for see—

I am bringing you good news of great joy

for all the people: to you is born this day

in the city of David a Savior,

who is the Messiah, the Lord.”

Throughout Advent,

            St. Joseph-St. John has been

singing a paraphrase of the song Mary sings

            not long after she finds out that she’s pregnant

with Jesus the Messiah, the savior of humanity.

Throughout Advent,

            I’ve been preaching —

because Advent’s Biblical texts make it clear —

            that coming to church isn’t just to feel good.

Worshiping Jesus the Christ

            requires engaging the outside world.

From Mary singing about the filling of the hungry

            while the rich are sent away empty

                        to the angels bidding peace among all humanity

                                    Jesus changes the world.

The primary act of Christian worship

            is coming together to read from holy Scripture

and break bread.

Breaking bread and pouring wine,

knowing Jesus in our hands, in our hearts,

            incarnate of Mary, incarnate in Bread

                        changes the world.

Tonight, tomorrow,

this Feast of the Incarnation

            we celebrate that God changes the world

            not by dominating others

                        but by coming in ultimate vulnerability:

                                    born, with all the associated dangers.

God becomes human

            not by possessing a grown man

                        but by inhabiting a womb

                                    and nursing for early growth.

God becomes human

            the same way we do

                        in the tenderness of a child,

                                    screaming like so many babies.

God becomes human

            and makes his first bed in a manger

            redeeming all of creation

                        by becoming a part of it.

The prayer that I opened this homily with

            are a verse and subsequent refrain from the choral work

                        “The Dream Isaiah Saw.”

Throughout Advent and into tonight

            Isaiah gives a vision of what the world can be like,

                        what the world is like because God reigns

                                    and when God saves all of creation.

“You have multiplied the nation,

you have increased its joy; 

they rejoice before you

as with joy at the harvest, 

as people exult when dividing plunder. 

For the yoke of their burden,

and the bar across their shoulders, 

the rod of their oppressor,

you have broken as on the day of Midian. 

For all the boots of the tramping warriors

and all the garments rolled in blood 

shall be burned as fuel for the fire. 

For a child has been born for us,

a son given to us.”

In a year of the Las Vegas shooting and Hurricane Maria,

            we again remember that a child has been born

                        and God has broken the rod of oppression in that birth.

While coming to church isn’t just to feel good,

            it's pretty comforting to know that God loves all of creation,

                        loves each of us and all of us,

                                    to live as one of us,

                                    to be born as one of us,

                                    to live as one of us the entirety of life,

                                                even death.

When we find comfort in this place or at this table,

            I hope we’ll remember a prayer from the Episcopal tradition,

“Deliver us from the presumption of coming to this Table

for solace only, and not for strength;

for pardon only, and not for renewal.”

That as we eat this bread

            and drink this wine we pray:

Little child whose bed is straw,

take new lodgings in our hearts.

May we help bring the dream Isaiah saw:

knowledge, wisdom, worship, awe.

---

[1] “The Dream Isaiah Saw” by Glenn L Rudolph

Sermon on Luke 1.26-38

The Rev. Joseph Peters-Mathews

St. Joseph-St. John Episcopal Church, Lakewood

December 24, 2017

Advent 4, B

Luke 1.26-38

This Advent we have trampolined

            through the gospels.

Jesus told us in Mark

            to keep awake because he would be coming back,

            and it would be the end of the world.

I said we don’t come to church to feel good,

            but to be empowered to change the world.

We come to church because

the world has been changed in Christ’s coming.

Breaking bread and pouring wine

            change the world.

John the Baptizer told us in Mark,

            “Repent!”

I offered us the grace that

            we repent because we can never do enough

                        but we keep trying anyway.

There is grace

            because even though we’ll fail over and over again

            God loves and forgive us

                        and we try to do better next time.

We keep doing the work we’ve been given to do.

We keep breaking bread, pouring wine,

            and trying to change the world.

Last week in John,

            John the Baptizer came to testify to Jesus the Light

                        and to echo Isaiah’s cry,

                                    “Make straight the way of the Lord.”

I told you about a very long text I got

            and why when my preaching involves the outside world,

                        I’m trying to testify to the Light.

Unlike Mark starting with repentance

            or John with the beginning, the Word, and the Light,  

Luke gives us background.

Luke gives us a story.

Luke stirs up our awareness of God’s power

            as God has come among us in the person of Jesus

                        who will come again to judge the living and the dead.

Today in Luke,

            Gabriel tells Mary —

                        a poor girl, likely a teenager,

living in a country controlled by outsiders with a stronger military —

                                    that God has found favor with her

                        and wants her to bear God’s son.

“Hail, Mary! Full of grace!

The Lord is with you!”

I like how the NRSV translates Mary’s reaction:

            being perplexed.

This poor devout Jewish girl

            is shocked at being greeted

1)     by an angel

2)     as favored.

Only when Mary asks

            “How can this be?

How can I mother

the Son of the Most High? …

How can this be, since I’m a virgin?”

Only then does Gabriel tell her

            that the Holy Spirit will come

                        and Jesus, the Son of God,

                                    will be borne of her womb.

That’s when the rubber hits the road.

Throughout Advent

I’ve pointed us toward the necessity

            of our faith impacting the world around us.

I’ve said over and over again

            that breaking bread

and pouring wine

changes the world.

I’m up here to preach the gospel of Jesus the Christ

                        who lived among us as a human,

borne of Mary in all that fleshy, fluid,

            incarnate reality…

Reality changed because of his birth.

After Gabriel explains that that Holy Spirit will come

                        the rubber hits the road when Mary says,

“Here am I, the servant of the Lord;

let it be with me according to your word.”

Here am I, the servant of the Lord;

let it be with me according to your word.

After Mary says yes,    

            says that she will be the mother of Jesus,

God’s anointed, God’s chosen, God’s messiah

            she goes to visit her sister Elizabeth.

Not long after she gets to Elizabeth

            she sings how she envisions

the salvation her to-be-born son will bring.

This poor girl living in an occupied territory

            doesn't envision a military leader

                        coming to over throw the oppressors

with violence or military might.

She expects a messiah who didn’t call a rich Jewish woman

or the wife of a religious leader to be his mother,

            but elevated a poor girl from the sticks.

The savior growing in Mary’s tummy

            lifts up the lowly,

sends the rich away empty

and fills the hungry with good things.

The savior that Mary will nurse

            doesn't change the world

by overthrowing the government with an army.

The savior that causes Mary’s labor pains

            changes the world

by giving up the ultimate power of the divine

            and binding himself with human skin and bones.

Jesus changes the world

            in his ultimate vulnerability:

coming as a child, reliant on someone else.

We’ve been singing a paraphrase of

Mary’s vision, Mary’s prophesy Mary’s song

all advent.

Please reread it  in the silence following the sermon.

My favorite paraphrase of the Magnificat is called

            “The Canticle of the Turning.”

The images of the Mary’s vision

            are punctuated with a refrain

                        sung by a pregnant woman

                                    who will give birth to the savior of creation.

“My heart shall sing of the day you bring,

let the fires of your justice burn.

Wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near,

            and the world is about to turn.”

The world is about to turn.

We start celebrating the turning tonight.

As we know the world’s turning, the world’s changing

I hope we’ll be brave

enough to be like Mary and say

            “Here am I, the servant of the Lord;

let it be with me according to your word.”

Then break bread,

            pour wine,

                        and change the world. 

Sermon on John 1.6-8, 19-28

The Rev. Joseph Peters-Mathews

St. Joseph-St. John Episcopal Church, Lakewood

December 20, 2017

Advent 3, B

John 1.6-8,19-28

Y’all.

The church knows what it’s doing.

At least in the northern hemisphere.

The sun is setting earlier and earlier

            and rising later and later

                        and we have a man in the wilderness

                        testifying about the light.

If this text sounds

            ridiculously familiar, that’s okay.

We heard Mark’s version last week.

The introduction of John the Baptizer,

            coming to testify about the light.

While Mark’s text is likely a transcription

            of a one-person performance,

                        writing down the script

                        storytellers would recite

            John’s text has no accidents.

Every word in John,

            every theme,

every story arc

            was carefully chosen to tell the story

            John the Evangelist wanted to communicate.

In today’s passage

            the themes of light and dark —

                        the themes of John —

                        make their first appearance.

Jesus is the light

            that the darkness does not defeat.

John is preparing the occupied Israelites

            for the arrival of Jesus in his public ministry.

The church is preparing us

            for both Jesus’ birth

            and the end of the world,

                        when all things are made right.

John comes to testify to the Light,

            and Jewish leaders come from Jerusalem

to ask him who he is.

First he’s full of negatives:

“I’m not the Messiah.

I’m not Elijah.

I’m not the prophet.”

The frustration of those sent to question John

            is no accident in this passage either.

“Let us have an answer for those who sent us.

What do you say about yourself?”

John is in the first chapter

            setting up a tension, a friction,

                        between Jewish leaders

                                    and those following Jesus as the Christ.

“I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness,

‘Make straight the way of the Lord.’”

“Make straight the way of the Lord.”

Last week I preached about

            how no matter how much we do

            no matter how hard we try

to make straight the way of the Lord

                                    we can’t do enough.

Rather than that being frustrating,

            it should be a relief.

It doesn’t mean we shirk our responsibilities,

            it means we embrace the gift of grace that God has given us.

No matter how hard we try

            we can’t make God love us.

Because God loves us anyway.

There is nothing we can do,

            to make God like us more

                        or to set ourselves up to be better in God’s eyes

            because God loves us.

Full stop.

It’s not to attempt to earn that love

            but rather in response to that love

                        that we should heed John the Baptizer’s cry

            Prepare the way of the Lord!

Get ready for Jesus —

            for his birth and his reign.

The passage we have from John today

            about John the Baptizer

                        says nothing of repentance.

This text is about John

            calling for preparation

                        and John himself

testifying about the light.

Shortly after I was called to be your vicar,

            but before I had started,

                        I received a very, very long text —

                        longer than most of my sermons.

This acquaintance of mine wrote,

“I don’t mind that you see things differently than me,

but I just don’t understand why

 you have to bring all that to the pulpit.

That’s the part that confuses, discourages,

and ultimately hurts me so much.

I will never understand why you or [my local priest]

or any countless numbers of SBC preachers

waste such an awesome opportunity

on trying to advance a political and social agenda.”

Over the course of years,

            this friend has failed to understand

                        that when I preach on contemporary social issues

                        as they relate to the Gospel

                                    I’m doing my best to testify to the Light.

When I spoke about the tax bill last week

            (which is out of reconciliation

and will still be devastating for the poor)

            it was because my faith in Jesus

                        moves me to speak.

What my friend saw as using the pulpit

            to push a political agenda

                        I see as using our political system

                        to push a Gospel agenda.

Today in the beginning of John’s gospel

            we have a witness and model for how to live

                        as we prepare the way of the Lord.

John the Baptizer comes to testify to the light

            to tell people that Jesus is coming

                        and then that Jesus has begun his ministry.

In our baptisms we promise

            to do the same thing.

We promise to proclaim by word and example

            the Good News of God in Christ.

John was not the Messiah,

            and neither are we.

We can never make the paths straight enough

            for God to love us

                        but we have to make them

as straight as we can

            because of how much God does love us.

How are you,

            how are we

                        preparing the way of the Lord

                                    so that all people know the salvation of our God?