God's Christmas Word: A Sermon for the First Sunday after Christmas

Isaiah 61:10-62:3
Psalm 147:13-21
Galatians 3:23-25; 4:4-7
John 1:1-18

St. Christopher's Episcopal Church
Kailua, HI

+In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

So far it appears that we have survived Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and we have arrived on the First Sunday after Christmas, more or less.  Over Advent, we heard the stories and prophecies of the coming of the Lord, and on Christmas Eve and Day, we heard the story of the Nativity of our Lord, Jesus Christ.  It would therefore be logical to assume that we might now hear one of the stories of Jesus’ childhood on the Sunday following Christmas such as his dedication at the Temple, the visitation of the Magi, the flight to Egypt by the Holy Family, the slaughter of the innocents by King Herod, or his wandering and being found in the Temple of Jerusalem by his parents, Mary and Joseph.  And those stories do indeed come up on such feasts like Holy Name Day on January 1, the Epiphany on January 6, and Candlemas on February 2.  Also, the lectionaries in the Church of England and Anglican Church of Canada’s respective Books of Common Prayer have stories like this for the First Sunday after Christmas.  However, the architects of our own lectionary have placed this seemingly unusual passage from the Gospel of S. John as the Gospel reading for the Sunday after Christmas. 

A card with The Last Gospel

These first few verses of the first chapter of the Gospel of S. John are filled with metaphors, poetry, allegories, and symbolism, and contains rich philosophy and theology throughout its words.  Even if one does not understand the message present within this text, one cannot help but appreciate its beautiful poetry and wordplay present in this passage.  It speaks of the incarnation of the Word, the Son of God taking flesh; it contains the whole of the Divine Plan for creation and redemption.  Much has been written about it over the course of two millennia.  It’s potency was so significant, that in the eleventh century, at the end of the Eucharistic liturgy of the Western Church, the priest would read this passage in what was called “The Last Gospel,” as a reminder of the incarnation, first as a private devotion on the way back to the sacristy, and then audibly for the whole congregation to hear.  This practice however overtime came to an end.  Thomas Cranmer did not include The Last Gospel in the first Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England in 1549.  It was also removed from the Roman Catholic Mass as one of the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council.  For us Anglicans and for our Roman Catholics brothers and sisters, I believe the decision to remove The Last Gospel was a mistake because it diminishes the significance of the Incarnation in the history of our redemption.

When we juxtapose this passage from the Gospel of John with our Christmas nativity scene, it seemingly does not make sense: how can such a humble scene coincide with this abstract scene from John’s Gospel.  Whereas the nativity scene can be easily made into Christmas decorations, this cannot.  Yet both realities are true, and two sides of the same coin.  And though we might consciously say, “yeah we hear this all, Son of God, divine and human, we say it in the Creed every week,” I find that we shy away from what John has to say in favor of the amalgamated accounts from the Gospels of Ss. Luke and Matthew.  We can conceptualize that scene better, we can package that scene better, we can present that scene better, we can market that scene better, and we can control that scene better because that scene has a baby in it--a precious child that we can put precious ornamentation and pageantry around whilst ignoring the bigger picture. 

This is not to say this is a bad scene or that it is bad to have pageants and such, these pageants are important to highlight and to teach people of the humility to be found in the birth of Christ, but we cannot isolate this event from the deep, cosmic reality of the incarnation.  John’s scene is weird, it is difficult to explain, and it takes the power to control the narrative away from us and places it in God’s hands.  For 21st century Americans, that is terrifying, because we are accustomed to defining things on our own terms and placing ourselves or what we want at the center of the story rather than what is there.  Yet we must dive into this deep place to understand the mysteries of the incarnation.  Listen to Christmas carols that are still playing on the radio, and read the carols in our hymnal, and you will see God’s majesty in the midst of such humility.  In this, we find in John’s account of the Nativity more understanding about what this Christmas season is than anything else we can imagine. 

When we listen to the Greek of this passage, we hear the beauty of this mystery:

Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος.

In the Beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word—before time, if you can conceptualize that; before space, if you can conceptualize that, before creation itself, there was the Logos, the Word.  Greek philosophers often would use Logos, or Word, as an abstract term for a principle source of knowledge, or the principle source of knowledge; often contrasted with Sophia as a particular or the principle source of wisdom.  Christians however took to the term Logos not as an abstract term, but personified it as the Second Person of the Trinity, the Son of God.  From here, the author of the Gospel of John borrows from the Greek version of the Book of Genesis to shed light on the relationship between God the Father and the Word:

Εν ἀρχῇ ἐποίησεν ὁ Θεὸς τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν.

In the Beginning, God made the Heavens and the Earth.  Εν ἀρχῇ, “In the Beginning” John brings us back to this primordial place and time.  When God makes the Heavens and the Earth, God speaks.  God is not alone in this creation, the Logos, the Word is present with God the Father, and is God himself as God the Son.  What comes forth from God the Father’s spoken Word or Logos is all that is and ever will be.  At the end of that creation, God, through his Spoken Word and with the Power of the Holy Spirit forms humanity in his image and likeness, and we too are gifted with words. 

Words have power, the power to create, shape, mold, form, reform, and destroy.  We see that power in the midst of creation as God creates with and through the Word.  As we too are made in the image and likeness of God, so too do our words contain creative and destructive power.  That power is greater than anything else that we can wield, because words manifest into thought, which manifest into action.  We see how a kind and joyful word can transform a space around us, and we see how a word can destroy others and ourselves.  The first sins of humanity were done through words—through lying and deception, and through our words the creation was marred. 

This is why we have the Christmas Season, and this is why we celebrate such a humble birth, because God the Son, the Divine Word of God, present at Creation, empties himself of all power and magnificence save his love, for it is in love that all of this occurs, and enshrouds his divine nature in flesh.  His Divine Nature never overtakes his human nature, and his human nature never corrupts his Divine Nature.  The Divine Splendors of the Heavenly realm manifest themselves in simple images—a stable or a cave as a royal palace, a manger as a king’s bed, a mother’s lap as a throne, animals and shepherds as a royal court—here, paradise is on Earth, God is among his people, and the creation made by a word, distorted by a word, is now restored by the Word.

Jesus Christ, by sharing in our human nature, allows for us to share in his Divine Nature.  S. John Chrysostom, a fourth century bishop of Constantinople wrote on the Nativity:

“For this He assumed my body, that I may become capable of His Word; taking my flesh, He gives me His spirit; and so He bestowing and I receiving, He prepares for me the treasure of Life. He takes my flesh, to sanctify me; He gives me His Spirit that He may save me.” 

By taking on flesh, Jesus becomes a bridge for us to walk upon to restore us into the fullness of the image and likeness of God.  We walk that bridge by being in relationship with him: through Baptism and the Eucharist we share in his Life, Death, and Resurrection, becoming a part of his Divine and Human Body.  We become more like him through acts of charity and justice.  A kind word to someone in pain, visiting someone in the hospital or in prison, and even giving some money to the person begging on the street when possible.  Anyone can do these small actions, but we find that sometimes in the smallness, in the person-to-person interactions, we find Christ, inviting us into the heavenly realm.  In these exchanges, Heaven is on Earth.  We do not need to wait for the bureaucrats in Honolulu or Washington to make grand sweeping gestures to make Heaven manifest on Earth.  We cannot let God’s mission of justice and evangelism fall on the shoulders of the leadership of the Episcopal Church alone.  We might have a great presiding bishop, and we might have a great rector here, but evangelism does not fall on them alone—that is our job.  Our own actions, as small as they may seem, is where that heavenly and cosmic realm manifest around us.

Altar of the Nativity in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, Palestine

This is why the Nativity from the Gospel of John is so important, and why we need it in our lives and in our Christmas story.  The Christmas story is a lynchpin of history.  It is one of those moments where nothing changes, and yet everything changes.  A Divine Mystery is enshrouded by humble events, and yet those humble events behold a Beauty far surpassing human understanding.  The beginning, the middle, and the end are linked; God is present in and amongst us in our beginning, in the middle, and the end.  And now, because humanity and Divinity are linked in the person of Jesus Christ, we too are at the beginning, the middle, and the end of creation.  We now participate in a new creation through being as Christ to others.  This story reminds us of the very paradox of what Emmanuel means—God is with us, he will now always be with us, now and until the very end of time itself.

Yea, Lord, we greet thee, born this happy morning;

Jesus, to thee be glory given!

Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing!

O Come let us adore him

Venite Adoremus

O Come let us adore him

Christ the Lord.

Amen.

Love your Enemies: Thoughts in the Aftermath of the Terrorist Attack in Paris

The Republican Party’s presidential candidates have started to promote policies against Muslims that resemble what Nazi Germany did to Jews during World War II.  In the US and Canada, there have been violent attacks, including physical, emotional, and rhetorical attacks, against Arab people, Muslims, and people presumed to be Arab or Muslim.  I have read stories of white-supremacist groups, neo-Nazi groups, TEA party groups, and government officials protesting near Mosques, oftentimes armed, and spreading racist vitriol and hate over the Internet.  Various US states, and the Republican controlled US Congress, with Democratic votes, have sought to limit and close off the process of resettling refugees from Syria seeking to escape the ongoing civil war; never mind that the process of gaining asylum in the US for refugees is very difficult.  Since the terrorist attacks in Paris, people have given into their fears.  Not only the fear that fighters from the Islamic State will follow the refugees coming from Syria, but the same fear that has been gripping the US since the September 11 terrorist attacks, the fear that somehow Muslims are seeking to destroy the US in one form or another; bearing in mind that the majority of terrorist attacks in the US since 2001 have been by white American men.

These are my initial thoughts.  Those fears are ridiculous.  The racist, xenophobic, and fascist attitudes people and politicians have been spewing since the Paris attacks are reprehensible and need to stop, now. 

Most importantly, and I think it needs to be said above all else, and though it applies to the refugees trying to get out of harms way or those living in North America and Europe seeking a peaceful life, it also applies even more so for the people who have chosen to fight for or have no choice other than to live under the Islamic State.  They are human.  They are not monsters, they are not robots, and they are no more evil than the rest of us.  Yes, some within the Islamic State have chosen to do evil, either by choice or because of fear, but that does not make them any less human than you or I.  Should those who have caused harm in the Syrian civil war be held responsible for their crimes?  Yes, but we should remember that those who have caused harm are not only to be found in the Islamic State, but in every nation that has chosen to take an active role in exacerbating the violence in the Middle East, but even those military and governmental leaders are human, no better, and no worse than the rest of us. 

As I Christian, I believe that every PERSON bears the image of God, regardless of who they are, what they look like, or what they believe.  Every act of violence, no matter if it is physical, emotional, or rhetorical, distorts and injures that image.  Whether it is done face-to-face, or through pushing a button a thousand miles away; whether it is one person being harmed, or a million, it is all the same.  It is easy to say that God loves us, and that God blesses us; but God loves the people who live under the Islamic State too.  In every land, in every nation, when someone is harmed, whether in the Syrian civil war or elsewhere, I cannot help but believe that God weeps, and we are all diminished as a people when a single life is lost to such mindless bloodshed. 

People have to break the cycle of violence against people.  It is for this reason that I believe that the people living in the Islamic State are human beings just as I am, and no matter what, God too loves them.        

What is in a Revision? A Response to Imagining a New Prayer Book

Before I get into the bulk of this post, I feel a few preliminary notes are in order.

About a week ago, there was a discussion for the Alumni Convocation at Church Divinity School of the Pacific regarding the resolution at the prior General Convention of the Episcopal Church to begin the process of revising the Book of Common Prayer.  The Rev. Dr. Ruth Meyers, the Hodges-Haynes Professor of Liturgics, led the discussion, and she brought up a number of possible places to consider revision for the Prayer Book.  Following this, the Living Church, an Episcopal Church blog, ran a summary of that discussion.  Many of the responses that I have seen on social media about this presentation have been largely negative.  It almost seems as if people are afraid Ruth Meyers is going to take their Prayer Books away from them.  This is utterly ridiculous.  She was one of my professors at CDSP, and though we might not always agree on everything, I respect the work that she does and how she pushes students beyond their liturgical comfort zones. 

Nevertheless though, I decided after reading the Living Church article to actually watch the presentation.  I feel that this presentation and discussion can be one of many good starting points for a discussion about Prayer Book revision, and so I have decided to write a response to this discussion.  As a genuine millennial in the Episcopal Church (I am twenty-six years old), should the Prayer Book actually be revised, I will likely see it and use it for a good length of my adult life, so I want to have discussions as to what that revision might look like, because I will have to live with it.

I do want to acknowledge though that The Rev Dr Ruth Meyers has substantial more education than I do on the subject, liturgical studies is area of expertise, and I am a Masters student in religious studies.  She is more qualified to speak on the history, function, and theology of liturgy.  What I want though is a discussion about the meanings and implication of Prayer Book revision from the presentation. 

Finally, though many have read the post on the Living Church about the discussion, I highly recommend that you actually watch the presentation yourself.  You get a much clearer vision of what being discussed, and a greater appreciation for her knowledge and insight into Anglican Liturgy.

Here is the link to the discussion: https://vimeo.com/141953466

Onto the post:

One of the things that I have noticed about the Episcopal Church is its tendency to assume that the problems of the church and the world can be solved with one form of liturgy or another.  Pastoral, theological, ecclesial, ethical, and social issues are addressed through liturgy; women’s issues, LGBT issues, race and ethnic issues, economic issues, environmental issues can be addressed through liturgy; life events such as the passing away of a pet can be marked by liturgy.  The Episcopal Church loves liturgy, and it especially loves the Eucharist, and that drive for Christ’s Body and Blood.  Though we have this love of liturgy, and though the 1979 Book of Common Prayer refocused the centrality of the Eucharist within the Episcopal Church, the theology of liturgy is not properly understood.  The lack of connection to not only the historical patterns of liturgy, but also particularly the lack of connection to the proper theology of the Eucharist, is what lies at the problem of the Episcopal Church’s addiction to liturgy.  Namely, we see it as a means to an end rather than an end unto itself.  We worship God not to affect the material world, but in praise and thanksgiving for God’s mighty acts in the creation and in the redemption of this world and us.  This is reflected in the misunderstanding of the role of “context” within the life of the church, and the purpose and function of liturgy for Christians.

One theme brought up in the presentation at CDSP is the idea that context matters.  Every generation of the Book of Common Prayer from 1549 in England to the Prayer Books of the various provinces of the Anglican Communion reflect a contextual understanding of the Christian life within the culture and traditions of particular regions or nation-states.  Indeed, Anglicanism seeks to be grounded within the context of the nation to which the church is present in.  However, Thomas Cranmer and the reformers of the sixteenth century like Richard Hooker, John Jewel, and others did not see the Church of England as merely a sect that just happened to pop out of no-where in England at that time, but as the historical Catholic Church in England that has its foundation through history to the time of Christ.  And though they sought the Church of England to be English, they desired to be rooted in Scripture and Tradition first and foremost.  That is why they were so keen on removing those things that they thought distorted the true history and tradition of the Church.  The universal then takes on forms of the local over a very gradual period of time as communities understand the nature of that universal tradition.  In a similar way Christ, the Son of God, always existed, and then entered into human history as Jesus through his incarnation as he took human form upon himself.  Though the Son of God is and always will be eternal, Jesus the human being did not exist until a particular point in history. 

If we put the context before the universality, we end up with a situation where the tail wags the dog. 

The 1979 Book of Common Prayer opened the door in a number of ways for people and communities to be creative with the liturgy.  Though my experience has shown me that very few parishes actively exercise that creativity to its fullest extent.  Most of the time the liturgies in question are Rite II Eucharists with an agenda.  However, when that creativity is fully exercised, it often times is highly problematic.  In hindsight, I think the offer for communities (and priests especially) to have that “creative” option was a mistake.  The intent was for communities to form liturgies that are contextual to their needs, but it has the byproduct of removing of that community from the larger body of the church catholic.  When a church gathers to worship God, it is not an isolated event, but an event where the whole community is drawn up before the very throne of God with all communities past, present, and future.  We worship with the One Liturgy before God where Christ is our Great High Priest.  When we decide to be “creative,” it can appear that we are worshiping our own awesomeness rather than God.  Sure, we can invoke God all we want in the prayers we write, but part of the Christian life is discipline, and part of that discipline is joining with our wider family to worship God because at the end of the day, it is not about us, but about God alone.

This, more than anything, is why we ought to say the Nicene Creed at our services, it tells the story of our faith, and unites us with not only every Anglican on the planet, but the whole of the church universal.  We recognize that we are not alone in our worship, but that we are part of a great story that flows from God through history.  The Creed is a symbol of our faith.

That is not to say that the specific issues and context ought not be ignored.  Issues like the environment and greater inclusivity within the life of the church are important and desperately need to be addressed.  But a Prayer Book revision with such contextual focuses, and with greater invitations for creativity will not solve the greater problems of the Episcopal Church at hand.  This leads to the second issue with the Episcopal Church and liturgy, misunderstanding the function of it. 

In the first round of audience discussion a very good question is raised.  To paraphrase, you have the liturgy; you have the lament for environmental sin, and then what?  It was a very good question, and one that did not receive much of an answer.  This underlines though that we in the Episcopal Church seem to act as if liturgy will somehow solve our problems.  Whether we use our creative energies to cry out for our sins towards creation, or seek to find new and expansive language for God, at the end of the day the underlying problems are not going to be solved by our liturgical language or prayers.  This is not to say that I am questioning the efficaciousness of prayer, far from it, but I am using this to point out two things. 

First, this approach to liturgy shrugs off our own responsibility for sin.  The presentation mentions the EOW Confession where we confess not only for our own sins, but those committed “on our behalf,” and Ruth cites the procurement and burning of fossil fuels for energy, actions we are not directly doing, but are benefiting from nonetheless, as an example of it.  It is a nice sentiment, but that is all this is.  The problem of this is that though people may say this confession, seemingly individuals or communities are doing little to no action because there is no explicit naming of the sin within this general confession, and no penance being directed before absolution is given.  This is why I generally do not like the General Confession in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, it lets people off the hook, and the EOW Confession makes it worse.  If we genuinely want people to care about the environment in the Episcopal Church, prayer alone will not magically cause our church to disinvest in fossil fuels, we have to take concrete action as penance for our sins.  From the top down, we all should confess, and then do things within our power to try amend our lives.  In fact, if we genuinely care about this as a Church, then bishops and priests ought to use the disciplinary rubrics and actually force changes of behavior to those of us living in sin, while also making changes on how energy is procured and used in dioceses and in the national church offices.  We have the power to make a difference; we cannot just have a liturgy and be done with it. 

This has led us into a particular trap as the Episcopal Church, we use liturgy as a masking issue for the problems we see within and without the Church.  It seems the knee-jerk response to an issue is either to make a liturgy about something, or modify the liturgy to respond to something, when really we need to look elsewhere for the problem.  An example of this is the push to have expansive language within our worship when it comes to referencing God.  On the surface, this is all well and good; there are plenty of images and metaphors of God in the Old and New Testament that are barely touched in liturgical texts.  However, we need to be honest here, most of those images and metaphors are still grounded in a masculine framework, and even the images and metaphors from Scripture that are feminine are still functioning in that masculine framework.  What ends up happening is that we end up debating over what expansive language is and what it looks like, while leaving the root of the problem unaddressed: there are a lot of people in the Episcopal Church who are not being represented within the Church.  Yes, patriarchal language may be a symptom of the problem, but avoiding saying “God the Father” in the liturgy or Prayer book will do nothing to change the fact that the House of Bishops is disproportionately male, that full-time rectorships are disproportionately male, that queer discrimination is considered acceptable in multiple diocese despite pushes from General Convention, and that on the whole, the Episcopal Church is very white, and has historically been associated with white and upper-class peoples in the US, and has a troubled history with the Indigenous communities of America and the African-American community.  Changing the liturgy to be more inclusive might give the appearance of solving the internal issues of the Episcopal Church, but unless we actually take time to genuinely tackle these structural and cultural issues, the liturgical revisions will be for naught.

Second, it assumes that people outside the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion will care AT ALL what we do with our liturgical life.  Much of the discourse throughout the presentation desires to open the rites and practices to be more accessible to the general public.  Things like opening up the service of the blessing of Holy Chrism, reimagining the place of the Nicaea Creed in the liturgy, and entertaining the idea of so-called “open table” might appear to make the church more welcoming.  It seems however that it humorously presumes that if we just make a few changes, the church will experience a deluge of people who can now understand God and were kept away by arcane language and practices.  I hate to break it to those of us in the Episcopal Church—we are not that important.  Sure, we like to think we are an established church like our English counterparts, but we are not.  No matter what we do with our Prayer Book, it will only affect us.  We might think we are special, that our Prayer Book revision might be that elusive Vatican III that so many want the Roman Catholic Church to have in order to become a liberal church.  If Christendom is truly gone, then we no longer operate at the center of society.  We now are at the margins, and we are shrinking.  We must be humble, we are not that special, and our weirdness of language, thought, and symbols, some of which are open to the public, some of which are hidden and secret, are our greatest gifts.  The weirdness is what gives life to the church, but it is a weirdness that we must grow into to transform us.  If we do not allow for that weirdness to transform us, when we say the words of the Creed or anything else, it will come off as hollow, dry, and boring.  And more than anything else, our sitting on our laurels of presumed importance and not being transformed by Christ to embody this weirdness has led the Episcopal Church to be a boring place. 

I am convinced that boredom has led more to the decline of the Church than anything else, more than the presumed liberalness that led to ordination of women or acceptance of LGBT.  Those that left for those reasons got the media attention because they were loud, but how many thousands have left because they found something better to do, and left without saying a word, and without us noticing.  They will not come if we are hip, they will not come if we are simple.  We have to be ourselves over and above anything else, we have to accept and embrace the weirdness, the same weirdness of Jesus Christ, the Apostles, and the Saints.  We have to learn and grow into it to learn over the course of YEARS that our actions, symbols, and words have meaning, and we must be willing to educate others and ourselves about it over the course of YEARS.  Changing the Prayer Book will not make the Episcopal Church important again, it will not draw people in with new contextual worship, and it will most certainly change a culture of boredom in the Church.     

What concerns me the most about General Convention calling for a revision to the Prayer Book is that it has triggered a sort-of Game of Thrones style contest to see who can have influence over what.  To be sure, every revision of the Book of Common Prayer has seen people attempting to influence the revision to suite their own needs, such as Martin Bucer with the 1552 Book of Common Prayer.  I must however ask the question, is this really the best time for Prayer Book revision?  For all the strengths of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, and with its emphasis on Baptism and the Eucharist, I think we can celebrate that the liturgical life of the Episcopal Church has been reoriented towards the traditional practices of the church universal.  What has not occurred though is the full and complete restoration of the theology of Baptism and the Eucharist.  We see them as tools for us to use for our own ends rather than the great Sacraments and Mysteries of God.  If we say we believe that Baptism is participation in Christ’s death and resurrection, so much more of God’s vision of our lives should flow from that into every corner of our being.  If we say we believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, so much more of God’s vision of the Church should flow from that into every corner of the Episcopal Church.  Though many parishes stick to the Prayer Book and do the quiet work of the church without disturbing the waters, there are those who want to push for more changes and faster (and those clerics probably avoid using the Prayer Book all together) and yet in that rush much is left behind. 

We have not yet fully realized the implications of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer on the Episcopal Church, and therefore I believe a revision for the Prayer Book at this time is ill advised.  Instead, the time has come for a new Oxford Movement to occur in the Episcopal Church, a movement to help us recognize that we are not some Protestant sect started as a consequence of the American Revolution, or the by-product of Henry VIII wanting a divorce from Catherine of Aragon, but the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church that stretches from the United States through time to the Apostles, and ultimately to Jesus Christ himself, the one who was, who is, and is to come, the one, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, to whom we owe our adoration and glory towards.