Author: Rosemary Lovelace

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.  

1st Sunday of Advent – Katharine Armentrout

Asking Questions as We Wait

The lighting of that Advent candle on the wreath creates a light of love and hope that shines into our winter darkness. That light also shines into the beginning of our liturgical year. It lights our way into Advent – the time when we prepare for the coming of the Christ child AND we prepare for the coming of Christ at the end of the age.  

You see Advent carries both meanings. Advent means that we are not just waiting for Mary and Joseph to get to Bethlehem and the birth of the Christ-child, but we are also anticipating that consummation of the promise that Jesus will come at the end of time in Great glory. As one writer said: “[Advent] is a time to reflect on the unexpected nature of Jesus’ humble birth and join in the anticipation of when he will come again to reunite Heaven and Earth once and for all.”  

The very name “Advent” comes from Latin, meaning ‘a coming’ or ‘arrival’; and its concept comes to us from the earliest time of the church, before the gospels were even written. The early church was waiting, waiting for the “parousia”- for the promised second coming of Christ. For His Advent. And it is this waiting that is the focus of our Advent season.  

Now, for those of us old enough to remember, Advent had a definite penitential overtone…a worrying, almost a dread waiting for judgment. In fact, there was a time when fasts were called for during Advent; and until relatively recently, the color for Advent was the color purple – the color we use for the penitential period of Lent.  

But the Church, and we as people of faith, have come to focus on this time as one of hope. It has become less penitential and more about a prayerful time of anticipation and preparation; the hoped-for fulfillment of God’s promises. Advent now is not so much about being penitential, or, worrying about what is to come, as it is a time to prepare, both as individuals and as a community of faith, to be ready for the arrival of Jesus and His transforming call to love and ministry.  

Thus I think we can see this time as a season of hope, a chance for new birth and a renewal of our commitments as people of faith, as we await His coming. As a symbol of that sense of hope and deep spiritual waiting, we now use Sarum blue liturgically, a color that brings us a spirit of hope and inner peace.  

So the question becomes what do we do in Advent? Do we sit and passively wait? I don’t think so. What do you do when you are waiting for someone’s arrival? You prepare. Now I don’t have to tell you that the Big Box stores have been preparing for Christmas since the beginning of October!! And it is not just retailers who are jumping the season. Coming home from the prison last Monday evening, still in the month of November, Terry and I saw many houses that already had their Christmas lights on and their Santa Claus figurines out in the front yard.  

But I think they are not only rushing the season, they are missing the very important parts of preparation – what this season is all about. Preparation is not only decorating the house, buying presents and sending out our Christmas cards. Advent offers us important time to take stock. To take stock of how we are living out our lives of faith. Getting ready for the arrival of our Lord, I think, means that we need to take the time to assess just how He will find us when He arrives. Will he find us as faithful witnesses to His love, find us at work telling His story?  

I think Jesus paints a picture of what we need to be doing while we are waiting in our Gospel this morning – Together, together as a group, we are called to care for His household while we wait. Jesus says, “When the homeowner leaves his house, he puts his servants in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. Keep awake.” I think Jesus is telling us that as we wait, we need to be about the tasks he has given to us as His church, and that we all need to be working together.  

In order to do that we need to look at how we are doing those tasks and how well we are using the gifts for those tasks that we have been given by the Holy Spirit.  

In other words, I think that Advent is the time when we are called to take an inventory of our faith-life. That may sound business-like but spiritual directors from earliest times have encouraged a faith-life inventory. Confession is one way to do such inventory. It is an important assessment for those of us who try to live out our baptismal promises. But confession is normally done individually. We try to look, as a friend likes to say, at “the ways we have fallen short of glory of God”.  

But I think we are also called at this time of Advent to look at ourselves as Holy Family, as Christ’s church in the community. We need to take a look at how we, Holy Family, are living out our call as witnesses to Christ’s never-failing love. I think we are called to examine how we are being “church” to our parishioners, and equally importantly, how we are being church to those in our community.…  

Paul, in most of his letters, was writing to the churches, not to individuals. It was the “church” which was to carry forward the Good News of Christ.  He counseled them on how to be church, how to carry the message of Jesus to others, and, at times, chastising them for the ways they were falling short. In other words, his letters helped the churches take a long look at their life as a community living out God’s love.   

So does Holy Family do something like that? Is there a way to take our spiritual inventory? Yes, at year’s end all the committees submit their Annual reports for the work that they have been given to do. Just a look at our Touchstone for this week tells you that we have many committees hard at work here, and there will be a new one that will work to incorporate new members. All of this is important to our functioning as “church”.  

But, and you knew that I would have a “but”, while the facts reported out by the committees in our Annual Report are one aspect of our life together and are very important, they don’t comprise all that we are called to be as “church”. As Church, we are called to be “the Body of Christ” in the world. To do that we need to worship together, learn together, to seek and serve Christ in all people. I think we need to be in conversation about what might the Holy Spirit have in mind for us? And how are we doing spiritually? Conversations are needed.  

The Holy Spirit is here to stir us up, to goad us into study, into asking questions and wrestling with what other things we, as Holy Family, need to be doing as “church” in this place. You might wonder what are some of the questions that might be asked when doing a spiritual inventory of our church. Some of the questions could be:   How close are we to living out our Mission statement? How are we following up with the ideas for “church” generated by our Small Group Input sessions? To enrich our spiritual lives, do we need to be more attentive to study and learning? Are there different ways we can do worship and prayer? Do we need to find ways to be more present to our older folks? Do we need to be connecting with other churches to help the needs in Jasper? In other words, what might the Spirit be calling us to do in the New Year as God’s people that might not be captured in a committee report?  

And I think our church teachings make it clear that each person here today should be involved in this inventory-taking. Certainly the Vestry and George, the Committee chairs, should be involved, but also each of us should participate. Just like our gospel today makes clear –  many are needed to take care of the Master’s house. You might ask: “Why should I be involved? I am not on a committee or on the Vestry”  

Yet each person here this morning is a minister of the church by virtue of his or her baptism. Did you know that? You are each a minister. Under the teachings of the church, found on page 855 of the Prayer Book, Lay people are listed first in answer to the question: “Who are the ministers of the church?” The answer reads “The ministers of the Church are lay persons, bishops, priests and deacons.” While George and Ted, and other priests and deacons, are called to serve at the table, it is you, “all you all”, who are also ministers of this church. With the privileges and also the responsibilities of that role.  

This comes from our teachings as the church. Look at page 855 of the prayerbook and you will see that I am not making this up: “The ministry of lay persons is to represent Christ and his Church; to bear witness to him wherever they may be; and, according to the gifts given them, to carry on Christ’s work of reconciliation in the world; and to take their place in the life, worship, and governance of the Church.” “To take their place in the life, worship and governance of the church”.  

I think Holy Family needs each of you faithful souls to be part of this inventory of how we are doing as the Church of the Holy Family and where God might be calling the church.    

And so, as we wait in this season of Advent for the coming of Christ, the season lighted by the Advent lights of love and hope, my prayer is that this time of waiting for the arrival of our Lord will be a time of intentional and prayerful waiting – a time of questions, a time of reflection, a time of wondering what God is calling each of us to do, and a time of dreaming about how Holy Family could be even more a beacon of Christ’s presence in our world. Amen

Proper 29A – Christ the King – George Yandell

Christ the King – an odd title for a peasant Galilean prophet, a sage. Messiah, yes, but king? Jesus pushed against the kings of his day because he saw they were corrupt, were extorting punishing taxes from the poor. Those kings had even turned the priests of the temple into pawns for working the program to oppress God’s people. So Christ as King must mean something more and different from worldly kings.  

Today’s collect invites us to entertain the future God intends for humanity: to restore all things in Jesus, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. We pray that we all may be brought together under his most gracious rule. It marks the end of the Church year. Next Sunday is Advent Sunday. It begins the brief season when we prepare for the observance of Jesus’s birth. Today culminates and yet prepares us for what’s coming.  

The observance of Christ the King Sunday is a recent addition to the church calendar in western Christendom as Ted noted in his sermon last Sunday. It was instituted by Pope Pius XI in 1925, when the world had been ravaged by the First World War. Pope Pius envisioned a dominion ruled by a King of Peace who came to reconcile all things, who came not to be served, but to serve. [This paragraph adapted from an article by Libby Howe in “Christian Century”, Nov. 4 2020.] The Episcopal Church began to observe it with the “new” 1976 prayer book.   These events took place in 1925:

• Benito Mussolini dissolved the Italian parliament and became a dictator.
• US president Calvin Coolidge proposed phasing out the inheritance tax.
• In Munich, Aldolf Hitler resurrected his political party and published Mein Kampf.
• Teacher John Scopes was arrested for teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution in TN.
• As many as 40,000 members of the Ku Klux Klan paraded in Washington, DC. The Klan had 5 million members, making it the largest fraternal organization in the US.
• Immigration to the US from Italy dropped by nearly 90% and from Britain it dropped by 53%.
• The Spanish flu pandemic had ended just 7 years prior.

  Given those events, their context seems to have demanded the Pope’s innovation. But seeing the world then and now almost a century later, it didn’t work as he had hoped.  

The work of Jesus the Christ has been called “sanctifying life, time and space.” Begun in his ministry of ushering in the domain of God, continuing into his death and resurrection, the cosmic Christ reveals the nature of the invisible God. Everything was created and redeemed through him. He reigns supreme over all creation, and is also head of the Church, its origin, its source of power, its purpose. [This adapted from “Synthesis, a Weekly Resource for Preaching”, November 2004 issue.]  

Matthew’s gospel calls humanity to ‘decenter’ ourselves in the interest of meeting those in need with relief, compassion, comfort and dignity. Augustine and Martin Luther preached discipleship as renouncing sin. Sin was defined by them as ‘to be turned or curved inward on oneself.’ [ibid] Becoming centered on others in the outer world is the major thrust of our ministry in Jesus’ name. Centering on others renounces sin.  

It’s significant to note in the gospel lesson that the sheep and the goats are clueless. It surprised them to know that when they encountered the hungry, the thirsty, naked, stranger, sick and imprisoned, they in fact had encountered Jesus.   

Jesus taught his friends to pray to God “thy kingdom come, thy will be done.” God’s kingdom is not a place, but a condition. Kingship might be a better word- “thy kingship come.” Insofar as all the odd ways we do God’s will are at best half-baked and half-hearted, the kingship of God is still a long way off. As Frederick Buechner puts it, the kingdom of God is “a hell of a long way off, to be more precise and theological.” [Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC, Harper and Row, 1973, p.50] We proclaim that the kingship of Jesus fulfills God’s dream for the world.  

Everything Jesus taught was a new creation. “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, he will sit on the throne of his glory, and all the nations will be gathered before him.” What does Jesus mean? The “glory” is the envelope of brilliant light that surrounds the deity in Hebrew scripture. In Hebrew, the glory is God’s ‘ka-vode’. Jesus intends that all the people will be bathed in the light of God’s presence. That all will be created anew as one people.  

The glory of God surrounds us and encompasses us when we turn ourselves as a people toward loving and serving those in distress. People reconciling with their enemies and those who’ve been cast off. This is the vision for the end of the age Jesus saw.  

As one curves outward, decenters oneself and practices self-sacrifice, the reward is encountering Jesus. Matthew promises that it’s inevitable. This is the gospel of Immanuel, God with us. He is not an abstract, distant king as the title today suggests. Jesus is the ultimate, living presence within our daily places, in our circles of contacts. Giving to God through the Church in our pledges moves us to be self-sacrificing in all aspects of our lives.  

Jesus is maybe at his best in describing kingship itself – the king made official at last and all the world observes his coronation. It’s like finding a million dollars in a field, Jesus says, or a jewel worth a king’s ransom. It’s like finding something you hated to lose and thought you’d never find again- an old keepsake, a stray sheep, a missing child. When the kingdom and its king really come, it’s as if the thing you lost and thought you’d never find again is you, your own true self. [ibid, adapted]