January 26, 2014: 1 Corinthians 1: 10-18

Year A, Epiphany 3                   

                                         

            Last Sunday, First Baptist Church of Hampton hosted a community service celebrating the life and legacy of Martin Luther King.  While I loved the idea of such a service, I did not love the idea at 4pm on a Sunday. I’m an introvert and being in front of people exhausts me.  Even being around people tires me.  Because of that, one of my greatest joys is my Sunday afternoon nap.  When I do not get my Sunday afternoon nap, I get very irritable.  

            However, when I walked into their sanctuary and saw the huge choir made up of members of the community churches including members of our own church choir, I snapped out of my haze.  While the readings and the prayers were beautiful, it was the music I loved the most.  Seeing all those people together brought me such joy.  But nothing could compare with hearing that choir full of such diversity sing “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” It was powerful…stunning.  And it was not because it was perfectly harmonious (although it sounded very good), but because this group had come together to honor Martin Luther King, a man who worked relentlessly for unity and equality. 

            Last week I spoke a little about the multitude of denominations in our Christian faith.   There are so many now that we cannot even keep track.  In reading Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, it would seem that this division was almost unavoidable.  Paul wrote his letter to the Corinthians about 15 years after Jesus died.   The Christian faith, or as they called it at the time, “The Way” was new in Corinth, new in the world.  Christianity was not even established as a faith. It was more of an evolution of the Jewish faith; at least that is how people perceived it.  Yet it would seem, that as soon as this new faith was being discovered, it was being divided, parceled out between the various leaders of the faith.  Some people were saying, “I belong to Paul.” Other claimed belonging to Apollos, or Cephas (better known as Peter), or even Christ himself.

            That last association is particularly confusing.  What’s wrong with saying “I belong to Christ?”  That’s the truth.  That is why we call ourselves Christians, at least one of the reasons.  The problem was that while people were saying that they belonged to Christ, what they really meant was that he belonged to them.  Jesus was viewed as a possession to be won, a possession that some had more ready access to than others. 

            It’s true that Christ was broken on the cross.  We often use the phrase: “Christ broken for us.”  However, Christ was not broken on the cross so that we might divide him up and then haggle over him.  In fact, I believe that is one of the reasons why it is so important that he was resurrected in his earthly body.  If his body had been left in a tomb, one person or group would have claimed ownership.  Or worse yet, his bones would have actually been divided amongst different groups and we would still be arguing about it today.  Yet even without his actual body or bones, we still find ways to divide him.

            Paul found this sectarianism distressing; not because of the division itself, but because of the effect that division had on people and people’s perception of the cross.  He worried that the cross of Christ might be emptied of its power.   I have always found that phrase “emptied of its power” intriguing.    Another way to interpret that phrase would be to “make void” or “valueless.”   That essentially means that by associating with different leaders or different factions, we are somehow taking away from the sacrifice that Christ made for us.  While I can understand this theoretically, I am not sure what it means for us today, or even what it meant then for the Corinthians.  What is wrong with us all creating our own little nooks and crannies of the Christian faith, custom tailoring it to our needs and concerns?  Isn’t that better for everyone?
            We all reach God in different ways and it is therefore important that we have different ways to celebrate our faith, which means having different denominations.  Having different styles of worship is very healthy.  Diversity does not equate with division and unity doesn’t have to mean uniformity.  Paul was praying not for uniformity of worship and belief; he was praying for unity of faith.  Later in his letter to the Corinthians, Paul spoke of the variety and diversity of spiritual gifts.  Does that sound like someone who wanted uniformity? He used the analogy of the human body to describe the church.  The body is made up of many different parts.  A body with 20 ears but no legs, arms, mouth or eyes would be a pretty limited body.  It is the same with the church. 

            So how can we work toward unity while maintaining the diversity of the church?  The service last Sunday at First Baptist was a great example. We all went to our own services that morning and then came out for a 2^nd to be with the whole community.  Today is another great example.  We typically have two different services, but occasionally, we all meet together.   I cannot tell you how many times I have asked someone the name of a person and they have said, “Well I don’t know her, she’s an eight o’clocker.”  We should come up with even more reasons to meet as the whole Church of St. John’s as well as the larger community of Hampton.  It is a little inconvenient.  But sometimes convenience is a sacrifice we have to make for community.

            In my many years of working with youth I had more than a couple moments when I lost my cool. On one such occasion, someone was complaining about having to get up early for something and I snapped, “Jesus died on a cross, I think waking up a little early is the least we can do.”  While that’s probably not the best use of the sacrifice of the Jesus, I think it is important to remember that sacrifice and the cross is at the heart of our faith, whether we like it or not.  Sacrifice is rarely easy or convenient.

            Some of you might know that the shape of this church is called “cruciform.” If you looked at it from above, it would look a bit like a cross.  One of the things I love about the cruciform church is that people are physically closer to one another and closer to the altar.  A lot of modern churches are built in a circular fashion for this very purpose.  They call it, “church in the round.”  This is the original church in the round.  I find it amazing that it is literally the shape of the cross that brings us closer to one another.  It is the cross that brings us together.  At the peace today, I am going to ask you to do something a little inconvenient and a little uncomfortable.  I want you to share the peace with someone you do not know.  This might mean you have to walk across the aisle, walks down a couple of rows.  Let this be the first step in many to knowing your community.  In moving across the church to greet one another, we will also be walking the cross together. 

January 19, 2014: 1 Corinthians 1:1-9

Year A, Epiphany 2                                                        

                                                         
         In April, after my skype interview with the St. John’s search committee, but before the small group from the search committee visited me, I made a clandestine visit to St. John’s with my parents and my aunt who were in town.  It was the Monday after Easter and no one was around.  I wanted to go inside the church, but the doors were locked and I really didn’t want to look as though I was lurking and have someone call in a suspicious person.  So we mostly just walked around the grounds. It was a beautiful day and the flowers were blooming.  As I walked down one of the lovely brick paths, I said to my family, “I don’t have a chance here.  Look at this place! They are never going to call someone like me.”  I became a little more hopeful as I proceeded through the process and got to know your search committee.  I never lost the feeling that I would be the most fortunate person in the world if I was called to be your rector.

            I remain grateful for that call.  I am so thankful that you all would take a risk hiring someone younger than your average rector of a church this size and with such an historical legacy.  I am thankful that while you are a serious church, you do not take yourself too seriously.  I am thankful that as your parish profile said, you sought a rector who has a respect, but not reverence for your long traditions.   And I am thankful that you have been patient with me as I get to know you and your customs.  So far, no one has slapped my hand when I have made a mistake.  You have been nothing but gracious and generous.  I thank God for each one of you.

            You might be wondering why I am buttering you up.  Perhaps you think I am about to ask for money.  This is not the case. I am merely following the model that Paul, the author of 1^st Corinthians used so often in his writings.  Paul almost always began with a greeting and a thanksgiving; even when he was a little ticked off at the community, even when he was writing from prison.  He always gave thanks.  If I had followed his exact style, it would sound more like this: “I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus…” 

When Paul wrote the Corinthian people he was very careful to thank them for the gifts that God had given them.  While we often proclaim that everything we have comes from God, we tend to take credit for the good things.  It’s hard not to, especially when those accomplishments come as the result of hard work and practice.   Yet Paul was pretty careful in this letter to the Corinthian Church.  This was an important community. They were on a port and consequently had more money than most.  They were also exposed to more people, more education, and more culture.  They were the elite and they knew it.  It would appear from other parts of the letter that they actually took pride in the spiritual gifts that they acquired and used these gifts to make them feel superior to other communities or even people in their own community. 

            Because of all of that, Paul took a fairly subtle approach in the beginning of his letter.  This is unusual because if you know Paul, you know that he was rarely subtle and in this particular case, the subtlety only lasts about 11 verses.  Enjoy it while you can.  Another rather subtle point that Paul made was in his greeting: “To the church of God that is in Corinth… together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours…”  As you can see, he started by acknowledging them as the church of God, which is exactly what they expected to hear.  However, they were not THE church of God, they were “the church of God in Corinth…” 

He went on to add: “together with all those who in every place who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ…”  This probably does not sound very scandalous to any of us.  I doubt that any of us are under the impression that we are the only church God loves and cherishes.   However, in Paul’s day and age, there were the chosen and the unchosen.  People believed that God’s love did not reach all people, but only a limited number.  And even if they did believe in their head that all people could call on the name of Christ, in their heart they believed that they were the ones who God would actually answer.  It’s like that saying, “God loves everyone, but I’m his favorite.”   Some of the people in Corinth had started to believe that they were the especially holy ones, the especially gifted ones.   So in this simple greeting and thanksgiving, Paul was saying that not only was Jesus Christ the God of all people, but all were loved equally as well. 

            It is important to be thankful for the church we are members of and to have confidence that we are God’s people and following the word of God to the best of our ability.  Yet it is also important not to get too insulated, too congregational.  When Paul was writing to the church of Corinth, there were no denominations or dioceses.  There were communities and even then people found a way to seclude themselves from others. I fear that it is even easier in this day and age to segregate ourselves from other Christians and other faiths and consequently make judgments on others. 

            In 1956 Martin Luther King delivered a sermon to his Baptist Church in Montgomery.  He called it, “Paul’s letter to American Christians.”  He started by saying how impressed he was by all the advances we had made over the last 1900 years but he quickly moved into what he felt were our lack of moral and spiritual advances.  At one point he spoke to the division of the church, just as Paul had so many years before.  He said, “They tell me that in America you have within Protestantism more than two hundred and fifty six denominations. The tragedy is not so much that you have such a multiplicity of denominations, but that most of them are warring against each other with a claim to absolute truth.”[1]  When I heard that line I thought, what would he say now?  Some estimate that there are over 30,000 denominations.  It’s impossible to keep track of them all so no can claim to know the exact number.  One thing is certain, we are still warring against one another.  Usually that war looks more like disregard and apathy than actual violence.

            I love St. John’s and I still find myself in awe of this church and in awe of my place in this church.  Yet we are all called to remember that we are only as good or as holy as our acknowledgement of God’s gifts to us and our reliance on God for all that we are and all that we have.  I know that we have been going through some difficult times for the last couple of years.  Everyone is ready to grow and reclaim the greatness that was once St. John’s.  Let me say this: you never stopped being great.  You never stopped being loved by God.  God never left this place.  We won’t ever go back to who we once were. Why go back when we can go forward?  Why be great when we can be loved by God?  Why be THE church of God when we can be one of the many churches of God?  When I arrived to St. John’s, nailed to my door was a piece of paper that said, “We have been waiting for you for approximately two years or 730 days or 17,520 hours…”  There is a lot of waiting when the church is in transition.  So let me tell you this: you are the church you have been waiting for.  You are the church I have been praying for.  I will conclude as Paul ended his letter, “The favor of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you.  My love to all of you in Christ Jesus.”

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[1] Paul’s Letter to American Christians by Martin Luther King Jr.  

http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documentsentry/doc_pauls_letter_to_american_christians/

January 12, 2014: Matthew 3:13-17

Year A, Epiphany 1                                                              

           Whenever I teach a class on the Book of Common Prayer, I like to poke fun at the Church of England because they have not formally revised their Book of Common Prayer since 1662.  The reason they have not done so is because any revision to the Book of Common Prayer in England has to be approved by parliament. Can you imagine if the Episcopal Church had to go through congress to make changes to our liturgy?  We would still be using the one from 1789.  The way the Church of England has gotten around this is by creating alternate texts, supplemental texts.  Those texts still need to be approved by the leadership of the church, but the church (thankfully) is less bureaucratic than the government.   In the 1970’s (about the same time we were revising our Book of Common Prayer) the Church of England decided that they should look into revisions and created their first supplemental liturgical book in 1980.  Since then, there have been three more revisions and all revisions have changed something in the Baptismal liturgy.  Just a couple of days ago the Church of England sent out an experimental baptismal liturgy which will have trial use in 400 churches.[1] 

This liturgy has made waves because it softened the language around evil.  All references to the devil were removed. But the big news was that the parents and god parents are no longer asked to repent from sin.  In fact, the church essentially removed every reference to sin, except for one optional reference.  Some of you might be thinking, “What’s the big deal? It’s usually babies or small children who are being baptized.  They haven’t sinned.  Why should parents need to repent from sin on their behalf?”  That is a valid question.

            There has been confusion over the years of the purpose of baptism, the theology of baptism.  Some of that comes from the different accounts of Jesus’ baptism in the Gospels.   I believe at the heart of the confusion is the question of why Jesus needed to be baptized in the first place.   When John the Baptist was proclaiming baptism, he described it as a baptism of repentance.  To receive a baptism of repentance, one would assume that you would have some sins to repent from.   Yet we are taught that Jesus was perfect and without sin.  Some rather huge pieces of Christian theology are constructed around the fact that Jesus is sinless.  If this is true, why would he need to be baptized?

            That’s the thing.  He didn’t need to be baptized.  He chose to be baptized so that he could follow the will of God, so that he could show submission not to a man, but to the God who had the power to divide the heavens and send the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove.  In a sense that was a moment when Jesus was displaying his power over sin.  It did not matter to Jesus how it looked.  He was not worried whether this might lead people to think that he was sinful and in need to repentance.  He was not worried that John the Baptist might get the wrong idea and assume that he had more power than Jesus.  Jesus was not concerned about how things appeared or how the story would be retold by the Gospel writers.  His only concern was following the will of God, submitting to the will of God. 

             Our mother church, the Church of England, wants to remove sin from their baptismal liturgy because they don’t want to scare potential newcomers away.  They are worried that if we talk about sin and the devil, then all those people who come to church only for baptisms will be offended or confused.   And perhaps that is true.  I am sure that even to regular church goers the frequent references to sin and the devil in our baptismal liturgy is a little unsettling.   Yet I fear that when we relegate talk of sin to the sidelines of our faith, we are giving the power back to sin. 

Jesus conquered sin so that we would never be defeated by it, so that we would always have the option of repenting from sin, turning from sin and giving ourselves the opportunity to experience God’s saving grace.  We can only really experience grace when we have asked for forgiveness.  And we can only ask for forgiveness when we are able to admit that we have sinned.  In admitting that, we are not wallowing in guilt, beating our breast and scaring all those potential Christians away.  No, we are standing up and proclaiming that we are disciples of Jesus; the one who defeated sin by taking it on, by kneeling in water and then lying on a cross.  Ours is a victory cry that looks different from the typical cry of victory that we are accustomed to seeing in the sports arena or on an award’s show.  Because the source of our victory cry was actually a cry from a crucified man; a cry that was heard by few but remembered by many.

            Unfortunately for much of the history of the church, shame and guilt were used to manipulate people and make them feel as though they were unworthy of God’s unconditional love.   Sin became associated with shame and guilt.  It became a vehicle for those emotions.   In doing so, we gave sin the power to beat us down.  So I understand why the Church of England is trying so hard to show people that we are not dwelling on sin anymore but emphasizing the love of Christ.  When Jesus came out of those waters God proclaimed to all who were present, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”  When we are baptized, we cease to be identified by our sins.  Instead we become identified with the Beloved.  Actually, we become the beloved sons and daughters of God.

            There is a quote we often hear, a misquote really.  The quote is: “Sin Boldly.”  People often use it to justify sin, like if you are going to sin (and we all are) you might as well do it up big.  More accurately, the quote goes like this: “Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong , but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world.”[2]  The quote comes from the great church reformer Martin Luther and comes in the context of a long paragraph about mercy, sin and forgiveness.  My interpretation of it in the context of the whole letter is that if you want to talk about mercy, if you even want to say that mercy exists, you must first talk about sin and be ready and willing to confess your sin.  And if you are going to sin (which we all are), make sure that your trust in Christ is always stronger than your sin.  Instead of saying “sin boldly,” it might be better to say that we should talk about sin boldly so that it never again claims power over us, so that it never defines us. And then let us even more boldly proclaim the love of God in Christ Jesus so that if we are sinners, we may also be beloved children of God whose mercy and forgiveness is without limit.   If we sin boldly, let us be forgiven and loved even more boldly.

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[1] Liturgy can be found at: http://www.churchofengland.org/media/1903641/baptism%20pack%20for%20trial%20use.pdf

[2] http://www.projectwittenberg.org/pub/resources/text/wittenberg/luther/letsinsbe.txt  Let Your Sins Be Strong: A Letter From Luther to Melanchthon

Letter no. 99, 1 August 1521,

 

Christmas Eve 2013: Luke 2:1-20

           A couple years ago I was in a quite different Christmas procession.  At my pervious church, we did a double procession, which means we walked down the aisle, then walked back up around the sides and back down again.  I confess I never really understood the purpose.  It was a logistical nightmare with the choir, 12 acolytes, 2 clergy, and at least 2 Eucharistic ministers.  There was one Christmas where I was a bit out of sorts.   I have no idea why, but I was standing back and then started talking to someone in the narthex.  The next thing I knew, the procession was already on its second go around and the clergy portion had already passed.  There was really no sneaky way to wiggle in, so I booked it down the side aisle and then squeezed through a pew practically leaping over a few very confused parishioners and then finally joining the procession.   My boss looked at me like, “Oh there, you are!”   I would like to tell you that was one of my most embarrassing moments, but I am not sure it makes the top 3. 

            It seems that almost every year, Christmas creeps on me.  We are moving our way through Advent, slowly preparing for the coming of Christ and all of a sudden it’s the week before Christmas and two of the candles on my Advent wreath still have not been lit.   In the church, we spend so much time trying to be countercultural…not decorating until after the final service on the 4^th Sunday of Advent, not singing Christmas carols until Christmas itself, it seems as though in my attempt to not celebrate too soon, I almost miss Christmas itself.  Next thing you know, people are putting their trees on the curbs because they have had them up since Thanksgiving, and here I am still wondering what happened to Christmas. 

            I wonder if it felt like that to Mary and Joseph, if the whole thing kind of took them by surprise.  Just this past Sunday we heard about the angel appearing to Joseph telling him that this child was conceived by the Holy Spirit.  We know that Mary also had been visited by an angel. But that had been months before, 6 months at least.  Now suddenly, they find themselves having to journey to Bethlehem so they can register for a census that they just learned about.  I doubt this was the way either Mary or Joseph had imagined the birth of their first child. 

After all, they deserved more than this.  They had already been through so much.  After their community discovered that Mary was pregnant out of wed  lock, they were surely shunned by most of their friends and family and considered to be sinners.  I would think they were eagerly anticipating the moment when this divine child would be born, with a halo propped right above his head so there would be no doubt from their family and friends that this was a child born of God and not their own recklessness.

            But when that very important moment came, they did not find themselves surrounded by family and friends, the people who could assist them and care for them. No, they were in a stable far from home, surrounded by animals and a cold dark night.  No this was not the way this was supposed to be at all. They were supposed to be in Nazareth, with a glowing child who was so clearly divine and no one would have reason to doubt….they would have no reason to doubt.  Yet the child did not come out with a halo attached.  He looked like every other newborn they had seen before.   I imagine they gazed into the child’s eyes, trying to see the divine spark, the answer to the prayers that they had been so diligently praying. 

            Then they were interrupted by those dirty and strange shepherds babbling about angels, a host of angels, so vast that they could not count them.  The shepherds were saying that this baby was the Messiah, the savior of all humanity.  Could it be true?  This was the very same thing that the angel had told both Mary and Joseph those many months before.  Yet if this was true, why didn’t the host of angels come and sing to them?  Wasn’t that the appropriate way to welcome the savior of all humanity? Instead they have shepherds who have left their flocks and wandered far away to the stable where they are staying.  That does not sound like a very reliable group.  Yet that is who they had.  There are no wise men in Luke’s birth story…just shepherds and shepherds did not have good reputations. 

            Unfortunately we do not get to hear the reaction of Joseph and Mary to the shepherd’s proclamation.  All we know is that all who heard were amazed…which is more accurately translated to mystified, confused or flabbergasted.  This was not how it was supposed to be.  This was not what their lives, as parents of the savior of humanity was supposed to look like.  Was it?  “But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.” 

            After leaping into the procession after it was almost completely over I felt like a bit of a fool. I thought, this is Christmas Eve and I just messed up our double procession…and I am the priest.  This is not how it is supposed to be. This is not how my life as a priest is supposed to look like. I’m supposed to be holy, calm and collected….not darting through pews, leaping over unsuspecting parishioners.  After the service, a parishioner who was really only marginally involved and always seemed a bit on the margins approached me.  He said, “That was sublime.”  I looked at him confused.  Was he talking about the music…the sermon…the double procession that I had fouled up? He responded, “That was one of the coolest things I have ever seen in a church service.”  He was talking about my little escapade through the pews.  Apparently, he was in the pew behind the one I had rushed through.  At first I thought he was mocking me, and he kind of was. But he was also clearly happy to see such a bizarre snag in the service. My embarrassing moment was the highlight of the service for him. It wasn’t holy.  It definitely wasn’t what it was supposed to be, but it was real.

            We can never know what Mary pondered in her heart, but I would like to think that she was just taking it all in.  Whenever something unfortunate happens, my mother always says, “Well it will make a good story one day.”  I wonder if that was what Mary was pondering.  Well this is not the way it was supposed to happen, but I bet it will make a good story one day, possibly the greatest story ever told!    Sometimes we spend too much time preparing and not nearly enough time experiencing and living in the moment.  The birth of Christ, the incarnation is about Christ being with us, in our midst.  In our preparation for holiness, in our striving for beauty and synchronicity, let us never miss the God that comes in the mistakes, in the wrong turns, in confusion.  Let us instead let go enough to be amazed in the moment. I wish you all an amazing Christmas. 

December 21, 2013: Matthew 1:18-24

 Year A, Advent 4                                                                    

I have always wished that God could be a little clearer in his will for us.  It would be nice if there were more effective ways to discern the will of God.    In the Bible, there are all kinds of wonderful stories about angels appearing to people, God speaking in a loud booming voice from heaven, prophets coming and speaking on behalf of God.  It seems as though God does not communicate like that anymore. I am not looking for the heavens to open, but it would be nice if I could get some clarity from God everyone once in a while.  I would settle for a short text.  But so far, no texts from God, not even a tweet. 

There have been many moments in my life when I have struggled with a decision, a path to take, and I appealed to God for intervention.  There is one decision that I remember very clearly.  It was right after college and I was doing an internship in a small church in an even smaller town.  It was a dark summer for me and that was partially due to a rather horrible breakup.  When I was in the midst of that break up, I found myself sitting in a church late at night.  I had turned a couple of lights on, but it was still fairly dim.  There was a light rain outside and I could almost feel God’s presence with me.  I knelt at the communion rail and I asked God for a sign.  Was this the person I was supposed to be with?  Should I fight for this relationship or just let it go?  All of a sudden there was a huge clap of thunder.  Hmm I thought, well that could really go either way.  It’s still not clear whether God thinks this relationship should end.   I said, “Please God, show me the way.”  There was another clap of thunder, then lightening.   Suddenly all the lights in the sanctuary went out and I was left in darkness.

            Whenever a movie depicts the event described in the Gospel reading for today, it is always some variation of a person (who may or may not have wings) standing over Joseph and telling him exactly what is happening and what he needs to do. One of my favorite depictions of this scene came from a pageant I saw where the angel was a teenager who had aspirations for the military.  He stood over Joseph and said in a voice that sounded a bit like a drill sergeant, “Joseph…wake up!” I do not remember the rest because I was trying very hard not to giggle.   However, I am fairly certain that Joseph got the message loud and clear.  I doubt this is how it really happened.  If an angel appeared while Joseph was actually sleeping, my guess is that the message was a little murkier than it is usually depicted.  I can see Joseph waking up, shaking the cobwebs from his head, thinking, “Did that just really happen?”

            The Gospel describes Joseph as a righteous man, which is why he was divorcing Mary privately. This probably does not sound very righteous to most of us, but there were Biblical laws that mandated a woman who committed adultery should be put to death.  So it is not just that Joseph had compassion, he was also willing to look past the letter of the law.  He was willing to put mercy above justice.  When the Bible uses the word righteous, it means someone who not only followed the laws of the Torah (the first five books of our Bible) but also tried to seek the will of God and follow that will.   That is no small task.  In some ways, Joseph was prepared for this dream because he was already faithful and trying his best to follow the will of God.  Yet to me, it is still astounding that he was able to hear the angel so clearly.   The text said that he was already resolved to dismiss her quietly.  That means he had already prayed about it and studied the relevant scripture.  It’s hard to change your mind when you are resolved about something.

            After the lights went out in the sanctuary where I was praying, I sat there for a couple more minutes.  In that moment, it was clear to me what God was saying.  This person was not the right person for me.  I needed to get out of that relationship and never look back.  Yet that moment was just that, a moment.  A moment later, my resolve kicked in. I thought, “Didn’t Jesus say that we are not supposed to ask for signs?  Obviously I need to ignore these signs because they were not really signs at all.  If anything, God was telling me to stop asking for signs.”  It is amazing how easy it is to take what should be a clear message from God and misinterpret it.

            I suspect that most of us have complained at one time or another that it is hard to discern/know God’s will for us.  But I wonder how often we actually work at being open to God’s will.  It is so much easier to talk over God than it is to listen to God.   I am always amazed at people who can meditate.  I assume that they must just be that kind of person who is calm and quiet.  Yet almost every time I ask someone who has that skill how they came to it, they tell me that it is really hard work.  That is true for listening to God as well.  Listening to God, praying, is hard work.  It is rewarding, but it does not come without sacrifice.  Sometimes that sacrifice is very small, but sometimes, it is not. 

When Joseph chose to listen to the angel and accepted those words into his heart his life got a whole lot more difficult.  People knew that Mary was pregnant and they probably believed that either she was carrying his child before they were married or another man’s.  Either way, it would appear they disobeyed God.  Considering what we already know about Joseph, that he had consistently followed the laws of God, it must have been hard to have other people think that he hadn’t been faithful to God.   They were mostly likely ostracized by their community and possibly even the temple where they worshipped.   He was able to make this sacrifice because he had heard and accepted the will of God.   That sacrifice led to more difficult sacrifices as their journey continued, but it also enabled Jesus’s message of hope to spread throughout the world.  In retrospect, it probably seemed like a small sacrifice considering it led to the salvation of humanity.

            In Jewish thought, the Holy Spirit brought truth to people and enabled them to accept that truth.  When the angel told Joseph that Mary was pregnant as a result of the Holy Spirit, the angel was showing Joseph that this was truth.  But it was not just that the angel was delivering a message that was the truth, he was saying that the child Mary was carrying in her womb would be the truth.  Jesus would later tell people, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” 

We all have access to that truth now, but like Joseph, we have to make space in our minds and our hearts for that truth.  We must invite that truth into our lives, which often means letting go of our resolve.   I assume that most of us have spent a lot of time preparing for the holiday by shopping, sending Christmas cards, decorating the house, baking cookies, attending parties, hosting parties, etc.   As we prepare for the coming of the Christ child, let us take time (even if it is only 10 minutes) to really prepare our hearts and our minds for the truth that is Jesus Christ.   It might not result in homemade biscotti, but it will provide a much greater result.  If you prepare your heart for God’s call to you, you too will hear it clearly and have the strength to follow it.