Author: Rosemary Lovelace

The Presentation of Jesus at the Temple – George Yandell

40 days after He was born, Luke tells us Jesus was presented in the temple by Mary and Joseph. “Every 1^st born male shall be designated as holy to the Lord.” This event harkened back to the law of Moses in Leviticus (12:6 ff): “When the days after the [ritual] purification are completed, whether for a son or a daughter, [the mother] shall bring to the priest at the entrance of the tent of meeting a lamb in its first year for a burnt offering, and a pigeon or a turtledove for a sin offering. He shall offer it to the Lord and make atonement on her behalf…. If she cannot afford a sheep, she shall take two turtledoves or two pigeons, one for a burnt offering and the other for a sin offering, and the priest shall make atonement for her, and she shall be clean.”   

The rules for purification after birth were different for the mother if a female child was born- then it stretched twice as long- to 74 days- emphasizing that a male child didn’t occasion the lengthier time of separation from the clan before she presented her child. Luke’s point is that Mary and Joseph presented the minimum offering- they couldn’t afford the lamb. 

The real depth of the gospel’s lengthy narrative is the songs and prophecies that Simeon and then Anna spoke. They were both guided by the Holy Spirit- Simeon intercepted the Holy Family, took Jesus in his arms and sang to him- then told Mary the prophecy. The prophet Anna too intercepted the family- she began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Israel. Then the family went to the priest, did all that was required and returned to Nazareth- all in one sentence. Obviously Luke wants his hearers to understand it was not the ritual requirements that were important, but what Simeon and Anna ecstatically told Mary and Joseph, and us, about the child named ‘Yahweh saves.’  

Do you hear the progression? Simeon speaks for the Holy Spirit to the trio, then Anna speaks to all who were looking for Israel to be delivered from oppression– suggesting she didn’t stop until she died. Moving from private converse to public proclamation.  Listen to our collect for tonight- “God, as your Son was this day presented in the temple, so may we be presented to you with pure and clean hearts by Jesus Christ, our Lord. Do you hear the shift? OUR observance is first about Mary and Joseph presenting Jesus, but more importantly about Jesus presenting US, purified with cleansed hearts.  That is Luke’s point- we who are looking for God’s kingdom to spread over all the earth and universe are presented by the resurrected Jesus as whole and well- all of us together. That’s the vision that Luke carries through the entire gospel- uniting people of all different backgrounds- well-to-do and poor, aged and young, of all nations- one people under God’s gracious rule, one with Christ. That’s our point in worshipping God in word, song, and Eucharist this evening.

Epiphany 4 – The Rector’s Annual Report – George Yandell

In my annual reports over the past thirteen years, I have said these words, and I’ll say them again: This is your parish. I serve God with you, guided by the Spirit of Jesus. I want to tell what I perceive God has done, is doing, and what God may be leading us to do together.  

Our parish has done remarkably well considering all the changes we’ve lived through. If the parish is the bridge for us in living into our baptisms in the company of Jesus, you have been resilient and devoted in serving Christ. Where is the parish headed? That’s what the newly reconstituted vestry will continue to discern after they start their work in the meeting after this all-parish meeting.   

We are now into our 38^th year as a parish- the founding parents are almost gone. New members are finding Holy Family and becoming part of the ministering body. The results of our pledge campaign have surprised me and made me most grateful.  

We added new 4 members in 2023. 6 members transferred out. Our total active membership now is 253. There was 1 Marriage, noBaptisms and 6 Burials in 2023. We’ll remember the faithful departed by name in the annual meeting.  Our average Sunday attendance in 2019 was 169. In 2020, our average attendance before we began worshipping outside and online was 146. It was tailing off by early February. In 2021 it was 86. In 2022 average attendance for our Sunday services was 94. Last year it was 120. A number more of us report attending our worship services online- I suspect that’s at least 35 more folk on average. This is against the trend nationwide where congregations are experiencing declines of about 20% per year since covid changed the way people choose to worship or reinvested in other activities.  

For Adult Education last year, about 15 folks regularly participated. Online Evening Prayer, Morning Prayer and Evensong has engaged both parishioners and non-members. I am so grateful to those who’ve continued to lead those services.   

Plus there were over 120 people who participated in some way in the parish but are not members. People are finding Holy Family who might not have been aware of us before. A large part of that trend is our online presence and Holy Family’s ministries in the wider community. Serve Pickens is the newest example over the past two years.  Just to note- it’s not difficult to join the parish. Talk to me if you’re interested in becoming a member.    

In the diocesan council meeting in November, the financial report showed that in 2023, Holy Family had the 26^th largest budget in the diocese of ATL, out of 117 worshipping communities.  

You will hear in the annual meeting about the finances in 2023 and the budget the finance ministry approved for 2024 and forwarded to the vestry- the vestry accepted it unanimously on January 16. Because of your pledge dollars, and with a strong end to last year with good income and less than anticipated expenses, Holy Family is in good condition financially. You are the reason- your pledges have been consistently strong.    

You’ve set the table in supporting our ministries in this new year. 110 pledges totaling $448,800. That total includes pledges from 6 people who did not pledge last year.  

These totals are remarkable. Give yourselves a round of applause.   

After we burned the mortgage last year on Epiphany, a group of us started strategizing to raise funds to accomplish major repairs to the nave and parish hall exteriors, and to repair and re-seal and re-stripe the parking lots. Those initiatives have begun. You’ll hear more about them in the annual meeting.  

I am grateful for all of you. You have kept me focused on what’s most important, and you challenge me and one another to love like Jesus. As I prepare to retire, your vestry will be working with the diocese to initiate plans for clergy support in the interim and to start the process for seeking a new rector. You will vote for three new vestry members in the annual meeting following this service.  

You can read about the work the vestry and parish leaders have been engaged in over the past year in the annual meeting booklet.  

We have added new members to our ministries. They’ve brought strength and purpose. You can read about each ministry’s report in the annual meeting booklet.  

Worship: The Worship Ministry is chaired by Ric Sanchez, chief verger. With input from the clergy, vergers, altar guild chair, organist/choirmaster, usher chair, greeters, flower guild and others, we evaluate how services are working, and plan future worship.   

The production team members became primary evangelists for our parish. They always welcome new producers, particularly now for sound production. No prior experience needed.    

Because of our online presence, folks who didn’t know about Holy Family are seeking us out. Some are contributing online. It is evangelism. Thank you everyone engaged in our services for keeping our liturgy dignified, meaningful, and challenging. You can read Ric’s report in the booklet.  

Vestry Initiatives-

Long Range Plan: Last spring the vestry carried out small group input sessions around the question: “What are the most important things Holy Family should be doing?” 67 of us participated in the sessions. Your comments were sorted and weighted by the frequency of the responses. The LRP guides our work and keeps us on task.   

Working with this year’s vestry has been grace-filled. I am most grateful for all they’ve done. See more in Sr. Warden Jeannine Krenson’s report of the vestry. I find it hard as Jeannine, Rosemary Lovelace and Jim Reid rotate off vestry. Rosemary Lovelace has served a longer sequence of years than any other vestry member in Holy Family’s history, as far as I can determine. She filled two members’ unexpired terms after her 3-year term- let’s applaud her for her unstinting service. And applaud Jeannine and Jim for their leadership as we began to emerge from the Covid shut-outs and limited time together as a parish. All of the vestry have done exceptional work over the past year.  Your leadership during the pledge campaign kept folks plugged in and contributing, against the trends in the prevailing Church culture. Jeannine’s leadership has kept us on track, has generated plans for developing the parish, and has kept me accountable for the whole year.  

I’d like to take a census of the parish’s leadership over the past years. How many of you have served as Sr. Warden- please stand. Jr. Warden? How many of you have served on the vestry? How many in the Finance Ministry? As chair of a ministry or working group? What you see around you witnesses to the Holy Spirit’s work in our midst. Give them all a big round of approbation if you will.  

I’m pleased I get to continue to serve a bit longer with those remaining on vestry and those who will join us. We actually have fun together, even when we’re focused on sometimes difficult tasks.   

Enhancing Stewardship of Money: In 2023 the vestry employed the Every Member Canvass program developed in 2021. The response in turning in pledge cards in fall 2023 was strong. The vestry members gave excellent leadership in planning and carrying out the stewardship of money campaign. It was thorough and participatory. The canvass just ended was remarkable after the capital campaign in early fall for the buildings and parking lot. Your pledging has equipped the vestry to meet the levels needed for funding parish ministries. You can hear more about the pledge results and the new year’s budget from Finance Ministry Chair Jim Braley and Treasurer Dan Ciomek in the annual meeting.  

Finance Ministry: Read the report of the Finance Ministry to learn the details of our use of your pledge dollars. I am most grateful for all of your work and especially for the leadership of Jim Braley as chair, and our treasurer Dan Ciomek.  

Clergy Colleagues: Holy Family was blessed with four clergy who volunteer in service to our parish. We all grieved as Katharine Armentrout retired from serving as our deacon. And we celebrated her unstinting service not only in worship, but also in outreach and pastoral care. Her retirement is causing us to reassess how we can maintain those ministries going forward. Ted, Byron and Bill’s ministries for us are grace-filled, generous and essential to our spiritual and emotional health. To have colleagues like these is an asset beyond measure. Not only do they preach, serve at the altar, lead EFM classes, and serve in the Worship Ministry, they do pastoral calls and push outreach efforts, but we also have fun together. I am daily grateful for Byron, Ted and Bill.    

Conclusions: How are we doing in accomplishing the mission of the parish: “Creating Christian Community: Engaging people in vibrant ministry”? Your input gives direction and support as parish leaders plan for stronger ministries. Your volunteering puts the plans into action. During challenging times, your participation is a gift of community we all need more of. You can read about all the ministries’ accomplishments in the annual meeting report.  

Most important question: Are you engaged in vibrant ministry? If not, volunteer. Engage yourself in the work of a ministry or committee. Seek a higher plane of engagement with the Spirit of Christ. Speak with the leader of the ministry. Your ministries through Holy Family help fulfill your baptismal promises. You find colleagues and friends you haven’t known before. Being engaged multiplies your joy as you work with others in company with the Resurrected Lord of Heaven and Earth.  

This is a remarkable community of love, support and nurture, not only for one another, but for the wider community. I have been honored to serve as your rector over the past 13 ½ years. I know you will continue to “live long and prosper” as Spock regularly said on Star Trek.      G. Yandell

Epiphany 3 – George Yandell

We hear today of a succession- a succession of leadership in Galilee. While John the baptizer appears in all four gospels, only Mark and Matthew note his arrest as a catalyst for Jesus’ public ministry. And it’s only in the Markan passage today that Jesus is not specifically singled out by John himself as the one who is to come after him.   

Matthew states that John had been baptizing for repentance because, as he said, “The kingdom of heaven has come near- prepare the way of the Lord!” When Jesus came to be baptized, John said, “I need to be baptized by you, and you come to me?” Jesus replied, “Let it go for now. After all, in this way we are doing what is fitting and right.” Then John deferred to Jesus. [Translation from The Five Gospels by the Jesus Seminar, p. 132.] It’s not clear if anyone if anyone else besides Jesus sees the heavens opened and the hears the voice from above, “This is my beloved Son, listen to him.”  

In Luke’s gospel John’s father Zechariah had a vision in the temple that told him he was to name his son John and that his son would live as a Nazarite, not drinking wine or strong drink, like Samson generations before him. John’s diet of locusts and wild honey might have derived from his Nazarite tradition.  

John doesn’t seem much of an organization builder. When John departs the scene, there’s a major risk his baptizing movement will fall apart. They were likely asking, “Is this really the time for whatever it is that John was foretelling?”  

It became customary in Christian icons to show John pointing toward Jesus, as if John’s role was confined to announcing a person and not calling the masses to a new age of the Messiah’s coming. But in Mark when Jesus starts proclaiming that the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has come near, he’s picking up John’s mantel- the heroic John has fallen and Jesus carries his ministry forward in a new way.  

This makes the launch of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee all the more moving and poignant. Simon, Andrew, John, James and all the rest need hope that the prophetic word and mission of John haven’t failed. [Portions of the above adapted from an article in “The Christian Century”, January 2024 issue, by Benjamin Dueholm, p. 27.]  

And of course it all goes in directions none of them could anticipate. Whatever John has taught the people to hope and work for will be fulfilled in ways they weren’t prepared for. Jesus’ own followers will have to live a new and truly shocking and scandalous future.  The kingdom of God has not only come near, it is being opened to them by God’s own Son.  

The Holy Spirit had driven Jesus into the wilderness just after his baptism. He was tempted by Satan for 40 days. He was with the wild beasts and the angels waited on him. That’s when today’s passage picks up. Jesus started his ministry after John’s arrest proclaiming, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”  

The wilderness links John and Jesus.  I’ve learned of another whose ministry led him into the wilds near us. The Rev. Rufus Morgan was an Episcopal priest who pioneered several Episcopal churches in the mountains. In 1982 he was still ministering to the small St. John’s Episcopal Church near his home in Murphy, NC. His story is remarkable. Rufus Morgan was one of the early pioneers in the founding and development of the Appalachian Trail. He climbed Mount LeConte 172 times (elevation 6,593 feet, a 5 to 6 mile hike to depending on which trail is taken). He celebrated his 88th and 89th birthdays at LeConte lodge. He died in 1983 at 98 years of age.  

His grandmother was born in New York state and was brought up in the Church of England in Canada. She had a half-sister who’d married and moved to Murphy, North Carolina. When his grandmother came to visit her, she met the man who’d become his grandfather and married him.  She stuck to her faith as an Episcopalian. But there wasn’t an Episcopal Church in Murphy. The nearest parish was in Waynesville, 40 miles away. When there were children to be baptized she would take them over there. She let the bishop know that she was in Murphy and wanted to have closer contact with a parish. So the bishop would publish that need to any clergy passing through and they would come to her family and offer communion and sermons to them.  

Rufus Morgan’s parents were both Episcopalians. It wasn’t too long before they started regular services in Murphy. His father was a lay-reader. He started the services in a room above a furniture store with a piano box serving as an altar. His mother was the organist and Sunday school teacher. One Sunday a month a man from Ashville would come and offer communion to the folks.  

Rufus’ family had some black neighbors in their community who’d had no religious instruction at all. When they were working for his family, they asked questions about their congregation, so his mother taught them about the Bible and the faith in Jesus. Finally in 1877 a priest came, the Rev. John Archibald Deal. He and his wife lived with Rufus’ grandparents. John Deal immediately made plans to build a Church. It was the first St. John’s Church in Murphy. Rufus’ mother was one of the chief contributors to building it.  

While the Church was being built, a marker for a double grave for Chief Cuttahostee and his wife was placed on the property. They’d escaped from the Trail of Tears and come to his grandparents’ home. His grandfather visited them, read the Bible, offered prayers and sang hymns to the old man. While the new Church was being built the old chief died. His wife died the next day. He’d asked to be buried with the white man’s burial service. Since his father was giving the land for the new Church, he had them buried there together. They’re the most prominent graves in St. John’s cemetery.   

After St. John’s in Murphy was built the church in Franklin was started, then one in Highlands, one in Cullowhee, because the Rev. Mr. Deal was a ‘very missionary-minded’ man. Of course Rufus was led by the Spirit to become an Episcopal priest. After seminary Rufus returned to North Carolina to start a congregation in Penland and called it the Appalachian Industrial School. After Penland, Rufus went to South Carolina and ministered to three small congregations. Rufus became the business manager for Kanuga, the conference center many of us have enjoyed near Hendersonville. He was homesick for the mountains, he said, so he’d go back to St. John’s in the summers.  

Rufus got to know the man who was conducting services at the Black Church, St. Cyprian’s once a month. Rufus asked if they’d like to have a service every Sunday, so he gave them St. John’s to worship in. In 1941 Rufus was assigned by the bishop to take over the services in Sylva, meeting in the Student Union at Western North Carolina University. [This background from Foxfire 7, pp. 118- 132, Anchor Books, 1982]  

The fulfillment of time in the wilds informed Jesus to emerge and walk his path. His path led his comrades into new life, new ventures. They too were transformed as they walked with Jesus through the countryside, watching how Jesus encountered people, taught, healed and nourished them, then withdrew by himself to pray. Some have called this a ‘theory of alternation’ about Jesus engaging with people, then withdrawing to engage with God in solitude.   

It’s a pattern many of us have fallen into or been led to as our faith matures. It’s what animated Rufus Morgan to minister to anyone God put in his path. I like to think he’d be pleased to know about Holy Family and its ministries. He’d likely be prepared to preach the Good News to us. 

Epiphany I B — George Yandell

The church keeps time differently from the wider culture. The calendar tracks the life of Jesus from his conception, through his birth and the visit of the magi when he was 12 days old. We observed the feast of the Epiphany Last Sunday. And in seven short days, Jesus has gone from being newly born to about 32 years old at his baptism by John.   

In today’s gospel, what does this sentence mean? “The heavens were opened to Jesus and he saw the spirit descending like a dove and alighting on him.” It was Jesus’ Epiphany of Spirit. (An epiphany is a manifesting, a showing forth.) Two big things happened for Jesus. He was baptized by John and his worldview, rather his God-view, changed.  

The Hebrews, like many other eastern religions, knew heaven to be the canopy of the sky which was stretched across the cosmic ocean to prevent its water from overflowing into the envelope of dry ground we live on. In Akkadian and Arabic languages the word for heaven is the root for the words for “rain.” The Greek word for heavens or heavEen is uronos- that’s where the planet Uranus gets its name.   

When leaders of the Hebrews, Moses, Elijah et al wanted to commune with God they went to the highest peaks to do so. And they must have shivered with fear when the heavens did yield their God, because it meant that the seams of reality were near to coming undone, and the floods might wash them away. Listen to the psalm describing God’s voice and authority: “The Lord’s voice is over the waters, The God of glory thunders, the Lord’s voice breaks the cedars, the Lord’s voice hews flames of fire. The Lord’s voice makes the wilderness shake. The Lord was enthroned at the flood and is enthroned as king for all time.”   

The psalm imagines God’s power as in a terrific storm, God riding above it all. This was the Hebrew peoples’ dominant view of God, their worldview. Being fearful of God made sense of their world. But there was a minority report, if you will, about God’s nature, and the nature of God’s Spirit throughout Hebrew scripture.  

Throughout the Bible, God’s spirit comes in different ways. The spirit of God hovered over the waters in Gen 1:2, summoning images of a dove. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters.” (Spirit in Hebrew is also the word for wind.) In the flood story, Noah opened the window of the ark and sent out the dove, and it came back with an olive leaf in its bill, telling Noah’s people the waters were drying up and they were safe.   

Matthew has Jesus sending out his disciples and telling them to be “wise as serpents and innocent as doves.”   

This ritual of water-washing gave Jesus a mystical experience of God’s coming down and entering him- it was so simple, so innocent, so quiet, so private- then all of a sudden, the heavens were opened to Jesus. He probably flinched as he thought the end of the world was at hand, that the fissure opening would flood the world- but the flood had already happened in his baptism. Instead, a spirit like a gentle dove fluttered down and rested on him, entering him, and Hisepiphany had begun. And isn’t it interesting- every time he spoke a parable, a form of presentation he himself developed, he would begin, “The kingdom of heaven is like…..”.   

The prayer he taught his disciples began, “Our father in heaven….” The prayer asked God to provide bread, to forgive them, and point them toward reconciling love. Jesus, wet with baptism water, began radically re-thinking the place beyond the sky, beyond the “firmament of the heavens,” where a loving God lives and from which gentleness and justice proceed, not torrents of drowning floods which threaten every living thing.  

What does this understanding mean for us? In the fourth century, Gregory of Nazianzus, the Bishop of Constantinople, called baptism “the ladle of regeneration”, “the gift of new creation”. (“Oration on Holy Baptism”, parts 3 & 6) He meant that Jesus humbled himself to be baptized as a model for you and me, so that as Jesus experienced God’s Spirit coming to him, so might we. As we recite the Baptismal Covenant in a moment, recall that we all are baptized in the Spirit of Christ. You just might hear the murmur of the dove descending. And if we all are attentive, we might feel the muffled kiss of heavenly wings.

Epiphany – George Yandell

As the story goes, they were very wise, even smart enough to be kings. On top of that, they must have had an unlimited personal line of credit. Surely they spent a bundle on the gifts they brought and then left in hardly the kind of place where they usually stayed overnight.  

Matthew tells us that they are ‘from the East.’ Some traditions suggest they are from different parts of Asia, Africa or even Europe. Indeed, given that Jerusalem can be seen as the intersection of those three great continents, it’s easy to understand how those three wise men could come to represent the three portions of the known world coming together. Coming together to pay homage to the newly born king of the Jews. And indeed, the king of the world. So there is in Epiphany the telling of an extraordinary hope: The peoples of the earth coming together united in recognizing what’s important. All people offering gifts to the ruler of the universe. [Adapted from an article by David Keck in “The Christian Century”, December 5 edition, 2018, p. 22]  

In addition, they read stars well enough to find their way across a perilous desert and all the way back home again. It’s when they got home that makes me wonder what on earth they must have said. That they found the one who made the very star they followed, the Ruler of the Cosmos, helpless on a bed of straw in a manger? When they began telling something like that around the courtyard, being a king and having executive privilege and all must have come in mighty handy. But somehow, the record carefully neglects letting us know how it all came out back in their own precincts, save that history shows that the Orient waited a while before it ever heard and reckoned with the Good News.  

You and I go to the manger every year and don’t seem to find it all that hard to locate. Just now, we’ve been once again. We’ve seen the star and borne the gifts, even if we do have a way of giving them to everybody but the one whose birthday we claim to be celebrating.  

We’ve made a lot of the usual fuss, often with considerable inconvenience and at great distances, and, heaven knows, we’ve spent a wad ourselves. Like the three kings, we’re back on familiar turf, settling down pretty much back to normal.  

Yet if we will, we, too, have a whale of a story to tell all about what we found in a manger. But unlike those royal magicians, we don’t have executive privilege. We can’t expect people to believe what we say just because we say it. We learned long ago—or should have—that nobody believes much of anything until they are shown.  

We’ve found the King of the Universe at Christmas, we tell them, and by the way, he’s that baby in the cow stall. He’s the Word, the Prince of Peace, and he became flesh and moved into the only overnight place he could find. But nobody much listens. Nobody pays attention. Nobody, that is, until all our talk and song and tinsel and light itself becomes flesh. That’s when God’s peace and justice and good will and joy to the world come alive in our time … in us. [Paragraphs 1, 3-5 adapted from Lane Denson’s sermon in Synthesis Jan 2013]  

In him is our peace. For it is in the Holy Child of Bethlehem that all the claims of the earlier prophets are combined and fulfilled. It is now for us to whom the light has come to present our own gifts. Our pilgrimage need not be as long as that of the Magi, for we can find him in any location now— especially in our neighbors in need.  

The gifts we bring may not be material gold and its like. The light that has come shines through us as we give our time, our care, our understanding. We’re like stained glass windows, lots of different colors and shapes, much like the earliest friends of Jesus. Of course, if we possess worldly treasures, we give them too. But our best gift to Christ, whether in church ministries or toward the least of those who belong to him, is in the offering of ourselves, our souls and bodies, as a sacrifice to him who gave all in sacrifice for us. [The above 2 paragraphs adapted From King Oehmig in Synthesis Jan 2013]

Christmas 1B – George Yandell

John’s gospel: The Word was God. The scholar’s version translates the first portion of the gospel this way: “In the beginning was the divine word and wisdom. The divine word and wisdom was there with God and it was what God was. Everything came to be by means of it; nothing that exists came to be without its agency. In it was life, and this life was the light of humanity. Light was shining in the darkness, and darkness did not master it.” [The Five Gospels: What Did Jesus Really Say? Harper Collins, 1997, p. 401] This mystical language sets Jesus in an entirely different light than the other 3 gospels.  

Tradition has it that John, the disciple Jesus loved, wrote this gospel. Many scholars think it was put in its final form in Ephesus just before the end of the 1^st century. Maybe it found its shape over a life-time of John’s preaching. A man who was a youth at the time of the Crucifixion could well have published the gospel in the nineties, when he himself was an old man, perhaps the last survivor of those who had known the Son of God and seen him resurrected. [Adapted from Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, vol. 2, p. 945]   

The church historian Eusebius tells that the disciple John was expelled from Jerusalem around 40 CE. The young evangelist supposedly took Mary the mother of Jesus under his care, and took her to Ephesus with him. After Paul’s execution, it is thought that John took over the leadership of the church in Ephesus, and there wrote his gospel. After his death he was buried, according to his wishes, in the spot that now forms the center of the Church of St. John, a site of pilgrimage since the fourth century. I stood in the ruins of that magnificent nave on the brow of the hill in April of 2006. The centuries between John and me seemed to collapse and I felt awe at how he knew Jesus and made him known, known in that moment for ME.   

What John tells us is truly unique in ancient religions- that the God beyond history had a co-eternal son who was God’s agent. The Son caused all creation to spring into being. John calls him the ‘logos’, the Word. We think of the Word of God as the Bible, we also think of the Word of God being delivered by the prophets. The Word is also the good news Jesus preached. But John expands this title to make us sure we realize that Christ was a fully divine being, who was also fully Jesus, the man from Galilee.  

What do we make of such a claim? Do we ever really get it? I’m not sure we can. That’s what John drives us to do- to wonder at Jesus, to enter the mystery of his life, death, and resurrection/ and then to realize this Jesus truly was the Son of God.  

The Church realized John’s gospel was entirely different from the gospels already in circulation. Some balked and said it wasn’t authentic. Why? Because the figure of Jesus is more sublime, less approachable. Yet the tradition of the church holds that John’s gospel firmly established that God was fully present in Jesus- Jesus was God on earth.  

Don’t you think it’s strange that Christmas is such a home-oriented holiday when Jesus himself was such a homeless person? The paradox of the Incarnation is that by the Word becoming flesh and dwelling among us, it enabled us to be at home with God wherever we are. Jesus, the Light of the World, broke through the barriers of the human family and incorporated us all into God’s family. When we gather to worship God become flesh, we are not strangers. We are brothers and sisters in the family of God, this is home. …  

A new community emerges when the Light of the World shines on the family of God. Surrounded by the darkness, we suddenly see friends. We find our night horizon dotted with the light of neighbors. We are no longer alone in the dark of night. The power of evil is broken by the strength of this loving community. Look around you now at the community gathered here… Welcome home! [Adapted from Deborah Cronin in Can Your DogHunt? Lima, Ohio: Fairway Press, 1995, pp. 30-31].  

So imagine with me for a moment. John and Mary, telling and re-telling the stories of Jesus from their most intimate perspectives.  They had made their home in the congregation at Ephesus.  Why then is this prologue of John in such mystical, cosmic language? Because the faith in the hearts of Mary and John and their fellow Ephesians could not be contained in simple stories- their faith drove them to record in mystic poetry the truth behind the stories of Jesus in his earthly ministry- that’s the faith they bequeath to us today. In the quiet of this nave, consider Mary and John, living out their lives far from Galilee, but ever so close to the man they loved so dearly, whom they knew to be the Son of God. 2028 years ago, the Son of God was born. They knew him in his childhood, in his ministry, after his resurrection and in their hearts continuously. The Word is made flesh and dwells among us.  

Christmas Day – George Yandell

C. S. Lewis always liked to say that God has a way of making straight paths into crooked lines.   

Sometimes when meeting folks who are unfamiliar with the life of the church or its ministry, it might help us to repeat this mantra: “You know—most of us are just not able to schedule a crisis.” That seems so true of our lives, whatever ‘crisis’ we might face- a crisis of illness and death, or the crisis of unexpected joy and good fortune; we simply cannot schedule what eventually shapes a great deal of our lives. Our life of faith is about seeking and accepting the unseen hand of God when it moves, and accepting the uncertainty of where it may lead us.   

I imagine ‘crisis’ was very much on the minds of Joseph and Mary as they fulfilled their state obligations of census and taxes on the road to Bethlehem. Has it ever been easy to schedule the birth of a child? (Unless you plan an induced delivery).

In those weeks that would become our first Advent, on that night that would become our first Christmas, I’d guess that Joseph and Mary might have thought or uttered the word “crisis,” either under their breath or in the depth of their hearts. “What in God’s name is going to happen next?”   

The unseen hand of heaven was moving through their lives, all the tables turning, and they had no way of knowing how or where things might end. No way to make a market forecast. No real plan B or C, except to hang on for dear life, and bed down where the Lord might make a place for them– a stable, a manger, unknown surroundings filled with nothing but God’s promise, and ultimately God’s love.   

One of the most powerful insights C. S. Lewis ever shared is that all of Western history—all of its wars, its art, its music, its literature; the great cathedrals of Europe, the Sistine Chapel, the discovery of America, the rise and fall of kings, tyrants, and governments—all have hinged on the simple beauty of a girl saying her prayers.   

A young woman at prayer has shaped the world we have inherited, the world we share, and the world we give to our children. That young woman is Mary, and the prayer she offers is one of faith, courage, and hope in the face of what for her, and for Joseph, must have been a “crisis.”   

In what “best of all possible worlds” would a young woman ever desire to have her child born on the road, in the back of a garage, in the presence of a man who was not actually the father of her child? And yet, it is Mary’s crisis, it is her faithfulness, that opens another doorway to how we live our lives and the history that we build and share on our journey.  

Mary holding her baby in a stable, in a garage, is one of the reasons that we know God has compassion on those who suffer uncertainty and tragedy in life; because that is how Christ himself enters the world—in the midst of the worst of all possible circumstances. The baby who arrives in Bethlehem is not on the world’s schedule; He is the unexpected guest. This baby is the crisis none could foresee, but whom everyone ultimately will desire and need.  

If we are traveling the crooked lines hoping to make a straight journey, God travels with us. God comes to guide, encourage, laugh with us. God comes to weep with us, and dry our tears. God knows, from the inside-out of a crisis, what it means to take the detours as we make our way home. 

Be at peace, my friends, the King of Peace was born into our uncertainties so that we might know the certainty of his love. God is with us.   

(Adapted frm the Very Rev. Alston B. Johnson, St. Mark’s, Shreveport, LA, as reprinted in the Anglican Digest, Autumn 2013.)

Christmas Eve – George Yandell

I saw this logo in Advent a few years ago, on the sign at Grace Presbyterian Church in Dawsonville- I think it most appropriate for the season: “A long, long time ago in a Galilee far, far away…”  

Have you ever had any disruptions at Christmas? Any family mistakes? I can remember when I was 10, my uncle Larry came up missing just as 14 of our family members sat down around the festive dinner table. He always cut the turkey while it was still hot, standing at the head of the table. My aunt said, “Where’s Larry?” My cousin Nancy said, “He’s taking a shower.” Turns out my uncle had had a libation or two, and lost track of time. We all laughed while the turkey got cold and we waited for his shower to end. Any of you have any other mistakes or disruptions at Christmas?  

You just heard the story in Luke of how Mary and Joseph had major hurdles and disruptions in getting to Bethlehem. They had to obey the decree of the Roman Emperor to go to the husband’s hometown to be registered in the census. It is @ 70 miles from Nazareth to Bethlehem, through mountainous territory, and around or through Jerusalem, the major city. Nazareth was up in the hill country, away from culture and high living. We’d call it the sticks, the backwoods.  Sort of like Jasper is to Atlanta. Mary was very close to giving birth. When they got to the little suburb of Bethlehem after difficult travel, they had to bed down in a lean-to manger. Mary gave birth in a hay-bed and laid Jesus in a feed trough. Joseph must have been incredibly anxious.   

A few things come clear in the story- Mary and Joseph were poor, and they were law-abiding, observant Jews.  Roman legions occupied their homeland. They had to camp out where Jesus was born. They had no helpers, no attendants at the birth.   

And then shepherds were led to the manger by angels. Shepherds, of all people- looked down on by everyone as ragged, uncouth, and dirty. The angels terrified the shepherds. But they followed the angels’ instructions. They made it to the hay-bed stall and were the first to find Mary, Joseph and Jesus. They babbled to Mary and Joseph what the angels had told them, that Jesus was the Messiah, the long-awaited savior for the world. Their disruption from guarding the sheep and finding their way to Bethlehem made public the news of Jesus. Mary treasured all they’d said, and pondered them.   

This is not a story about smooth sailing. It tells us of barely making it, of getting by with nothing. With other poor, cast-off people bearing the incredible news of Jesus’ birth. The days were fulfilled, the gospel says. “To perfect, complete, finish- to reach a goal, be fulfilled, be completed, made perfect.” [From Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance]  

There’s more in the story than initially seems. The word fulfilled doesn’t just mean Mary’s time had come to deliver Jesus. It means this event is the perfection of God’s intent. Out of disruption and chaos comes completion- the goal is reached.  

I know of another Christmas with disruptions and upset. Maybe you’ve heard the story. It appears that a newly established parish of St. Nicholas-in-Oberndorf, Germany faced having Christmas without music in 1818. The organ had broken down. On December 24, the assistant priest Joseph Mohr brought a text he’d written to Franz Gruber, the acting organist. Mohr asked Gruber to set the text to a tune to be sung as a duet with guitar accompaniment and a chorus of girl’s voices. The new song was sung at the Christmas Eve service that night with the priest playing the guitar. When the repairman came to fix the organ shortly after Christmas, the song was sung to him and he spread the song through the region in the following years.   

The song was introduced to the U.S. by the Renner family, a group of folksingers who toured the country in 1827. Silent Night now appears in many languages throughout the world. It has become an essential part of Christmas celebrations everywhere. [Adapted from the Hymnal 1982 Companion, Vol. 3 A, pp. 110-112, Raymond Glover, Editor, 1994, The Church Hymnal Corporation.]   

We will sing it at the end of the service, with candles lighted, and recall how Silent Night has become a universal song for Christmas observers.   

The mystery of the birth of Jesus, captured in a disrupted moment, with a simple priest and church musician, working to fulfill the worshipers’ needs without their normal resources. Sounds like Mary and Joseph with the shepherds, doesn’t it? Maybe that’s the message for us- Christmas is a disruptive time, in the best sense. From difficulty comes fulfillment.  From a hay-bed perfection is born. That might be our prayer this Christmas, mightn’t it? And as we pray it, we can realize we are part of the holy family- we’re witnesses to Jesus’ birth and we’re in his kinship group. Don’t you know that’s why Bp. Judson Child wanted to name our parish Holy Family? Not just to recall Mary, Joseph and Jesus, but to include us as part of that family.   

I want to close with a poem: “A Prayer for Christmas Morning”  

The day of joy returns, Father in Heaven, and crowns another year with peace and good will.  

Help us rightly to remember the birth of Jesus, that we may share in the song of the angels, the gladness of the shepherds, and the worship of the wise men.  

Close the doors of hate and open the doors of love all over the world.  

Let kindness come with every gift and good desires with every greeting.  

Deliver us from evil, by the blessing that Christ brings, and teach us to be merry with clean hearts.  

May Christmas morning make us happy to be thy children, and Christmas evening bring us to our bed with grateful thoughts, forgiving and forgiven, for Jesus’ sake.  

By Robert Louis Stevenson

Advent IV – George Yandell

As you heard the gospel reading, it sounded and felt most familiar, didn’t it? Nothing new here- Luke’s story has been adapted into millions of Christmas pageants over the centuries. Many of us have been in those pageants. Boys wearing bathrobes, girls with scarves draped over their heads. Baby Jesus in a straw-filled imitation manger.  

Reading Luke’s birth narrative beside Matthew’s, a number of differences and features become clear:

Luke barely mentions Joseph- he is almost invisible. Mary is the central character. Women play much more prominent roles.  

Elizabeth and her husband Zechariah are childless. She conceives a child late in life, John the Baptizer. As wonderful as her conception is, her role when she sees her relative Mary is that of a prophetess. She understands and celebrates Mary’s secret. She praises Mary, blessing her because of her child to come and because Mary responded with faith to the angel’s message. [Adapted from the New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, volume 2.]  

Divine conceptions in the ancient world were fairly common- great figures were often spoken of this way- Caesar Augustus was called the son of the Divine Julius Caesar, thus Son of a God.  

Gabriel was sent by God the Creator to Nazareth- a small Jewish settlement of @ 200-400 residents. It was atop an upward climb on winding footpaths. The slopes approaching Nazareth were ideal for growing grapes and olives. The dwellings were made of stacked fieldstones with thatched roofs. [This description from Excavating Jesus, Crossan and Reed, 2001, HarperCollins, pp. 32-34.] All of the other divine births were of people with wealth, stature. The birth of Jesus was not. His family was living under Roman occupation, way off the grid, in poverty.  

Conception by human-divine interaction was accepted by most everyone in the 1st century- it was a cultural given. It was a mysterious affair. And it was the destiny of those born from those mysterious interactions to be world-shakers. So the songs and prophecies that developed after Jesus birth, death and resurrection told the truth.  

As we now move into Christmastide, this is my prayer for us and all those across the globe who are now witnesses of Jesus’ birth: Let us be Elizabeths to our world- praise Mary, who said ‘yes’ to God’s angel- and let it be to us according to the Word of God.  

Advent 3B – George Yandell

“Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us.” This is the beginning of the collect for the third Sunday of Advent in our prayer book. It dates from the late 8^th century. John the Baptist is the great stirrer, the great agitator in the gospel reading today.  

There were two movements in Galilee in the 3^rd decade of the 1^st century. Both were intensifications of Jewish belief and practice. First came the baptizing movement of John the Baptist, then came the Kingdom movement of Jesus. Some would say they together make up the hinge point in the history of salvation.   

John was possessed. Possessed by God’s wild urging to say it all before time ran out. He knew in his core that God was coming. He felt deep empathy with God and rage at everyone’s insensitivity to God’s prophetic word.  As he stood knee-deep in the Jordan, he railed out, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord’ as the prophet Isaiah said.” People came from far and wide, heard and believed John. Some scholars state that it was through John’s ministry that Jesus perceived the nearness of the kingdom of God and Jesus’ own relation to it. For Jesus, John is the beginning of the Good News, the Gospel.    

John’s legacy of powerful confrontation is dimmed now by our hearing and re-hearing his call to repent. Every Sunday we acknowledge before God and one another that we are unworthy followers of John and Jesus. Yet we elude the conversion to which John points. In the 3^rd century, St. Theognostos spoke these words: ‘We shall not be punished or condemned because we have sinned. But we shall be punished if, after sinning, we did not repent and turn from our evil ways to the Lord; for we have been given power to repent, as well as the time in which to do so.”  

I think though, you and I are insulated Christians. We can stay warm and separate from threats like John’s. But we better look closely- our insulation is keeping not only the poor and wretched at arm’s length, but the Messiah as well.  

That’s the real message John brought. But I have a hunch- I doubt John really knew who he was preparing for. John answered the authorities when they questioned him, “I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.”  

This is the season of imagination and curiosity. It is like a group of people standing on a street corner looking up for an object that is not yet seen or identified, but nevertheless intuited, longer for, somehow expected to arrive. Like the people in the beginning of the old Superman serial on TV- “Look, in the sky, it’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s…….” In other words, we are in a season of hope, a season when faith is turned toward the future- God’s future- where finally grace reigns supreme.   

John harkened to Isaiah- the Spirit of God was propelling the coming of the Messiah in his own time and place- “Isaiah is talking about heaven come to earth!” It was not just a messenger God sent, it was God who would come to God’s own world. “Good news to the oppressed, binding up the brokenhearted, liberty coming to captives, prisoners set free…” John was on fire, looking for the coming one.  

Advent is for the disillusioned, the beat-up ones who look beyond their present way of life.  They know there is no health in them, nor is there any hope for a future without more of the same. Their way, their agenda has turned into a ‘house of cards.’ Advent IS for everyone, but only the people who want to change, and who turn to Christ for that change to happen- they’re the ones for whom the promise of newness of life comes true.    

When Gandhi was once asked by a reporter what was the secret to his happiness, the holy man replied, “Three words. Renounce and enjoy.” Renounce control and embrace grace. Breathe a little easier. Take yourself less seriously. Soar, and leave the results to God.   

For you and me, that’s the difference. Unlike John, we look back and see John through the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus. But to stand with John and look forward to a coming One of God’s own qualities, that’s what renews us. Because Jesus didn’t come once for all, and then leave- Christ comes now, again, to seek us and turn us toward God, to turn our hearts from isolated, insulated detachment. The world needs the hope for transformation that Christ’s coming begins.  

We are John. We have been commissioned for human transformation. The mission is clear- cooperate with God, stir up the world, starting right here, where we are. Stir things up so kingdom life pulses with attraction. As John so anticipated the Coming One, so must we.   

For 17 years, there is one in our midst who has reminded us again and again to minister to the disillusioned, the beat-up ones who look beyond their present way of life. Katharine is retiring today, as you know. She has been a witness beyond peer for Holy Family. We will not only miss her but will need to recall ourselves again and again to the ministries in which Katharine has led us. Katharine, my hope and prayer is that as you enter this new phase of life, you will pray for us, as I bid us pray for you. And Scott, don’t let her sneak back into serving as she has- maybe help her to learn to flyfish, cook new recipes, play more with your grandchildren. And maybe even to sleep in on Sundays. Katharine, I pray for you that like Gandhi you will renounce control and embrace grace. That you’ll breathe a little easier.  

Like John, Katharine has kept us focused on the promise that God repeatedly made- redemption happens now, especially for those on the margins, those in distress. Jesus built on John’s channeling of the great prophets before him. In a real sense, Jesus lived his ministry as deacon to the oppressed people of Galilee and Judea. Diakonia is a noun used 32 times in the New Testament and variously translated as “ministry,” “service,” “relief,” or “support.” Following Jesus and living his love is Katharine’s signature method of serving.   

At the peace [in the 10:30 service], we’ll have a simple service of recognition and appreciation for Katharine’s ministry among us and for us. It’s going to be hard to let her go.