Don't be afraid.

A sermon preached Christmas Eve, 2005 at Faith Episcopal Church.

As Christmas of 1980 approached, our nation held its collective breath, praying for the release of the 52 Americans still held hostage in Tehran after more than a year. They were the remainder of the Embassy staff captured when supporters of the Ayatollah Khomeini had stormed the US compound. A few of their co-workers had escaped, sheltered by the Canadians. Fourteen others had been released for various reasons but by Christmas 1980, 50 men and 2 women remained. It would be another month before they were released. That Christmas Eve, I was a 29 year old, mother of two small children, living in the heartland of Indiana and singing in the choir at St. Albans’ Episcopal Church. As we arrived to rehearse before the service, we all fell silent at the sight of the Christmas decorations. On the credence shelf behind the altar, among the greens, were 52 red roses. The sight of those flowers and their significance propelled me into a more profound experience of Christmas than I had ever known. The self-focused boundaries of my faith, unchanged since my youth, were redefined. What we said in church, particularly on Christmas Eve, suddenly related to – well, just about everything. Unsuspectingly, in my safe little life in Indianapolis, I was one with those people so far away. I hoped that somehow the words “Do not be afraid” could mean something to them, too.

As I worked on this sermon this week, pondering the importance of that night in my life I came across an eerie coincidence – at least it would be a coincidence if I believed in them. The US Embassy in Tehran had been targeted as an attempt to force the US to extradite the exiled Shah who was in the US receiving medical treatment. Student revolutionaries stormed the Embassy on November 4^th. Twenty-two years later, to the day, November 4^th 2001, at the American Cathedral in Paris, I officiated at the very grand funeral of Her Imperial Highness, the Princess Soraya, the former wife of the Shah of Iran. I’m still working on the significance of this little discovery but I think it has to do with the way that Christmas infiltrates our lives. The way that God becomes incarnate in us. What I didn’t realize then was that this deeper experience of “God with us” had begun working on me quietly all those years before until it was ready to be noticed. Until it was captured in the spotlight of the memory of those roses. In the curious manner of how our faith works – what appeared to be an “Aha, I’m a grown up Christian moment” in 1980 was really beginning of something that would take a long time to ripen – one that would manifest itself in an unknown way as I preached the homily at Princess Soraya’s funeral looking down into the face of the brother of the late Shah who could have been his twin. I knew that it was a strange moment, I just didn’t know how strange. What I hear in this is God’s whisper saying, “I’ve been here all along; I’ve been working in you for longer than you realize.”

In her fabulous book, Amazing Grace; A Vocabulary of Faith, Kathleen Norris has this to say by way of defining the term incarnation. She says: “For me, the Incarnation is the place, if you will, where hope contends with fear. Not an antique doctrine at all, but reality – as ordinary as my everyday struggles with fears great and small, as exalted as the hope that allows me some measure of peace when I soldier on in the daily round….it is not robed in majesty. It does not assert itself with the raw power of empire (not even the little empire of the self in which I all too often reside), but it waits in puzzlement, it hesitates. Coming from Galilee, as it were, from a place of little hope, it reveals the ordinary circumstances of my life to be full of mystery and gospel…”

The Incarnation – that mysterious desire of God to be truly with us which began with Jesus’ birth, begins again each year. It begins again in every moment in which God breaks through to us. But it comes to us in a way that can be best described in the birth of a child that was barely noticed. Outside of a few astrologers who were interpreting the celestial signs, the shepherds and probably the innkeeper’s wife (because I cannot imagine Joseph handling things on his own!) who on earth knew what had happened? The world did not notice when Jesus was born anymore than I knew that an event half a world away in the Embassy in Tehran would eventually lead to profound spiritual growth.

The Incarnation does not come like a parade or like an invasion on the beaches of Normandy. There is little fanfare, no press coverage, no feedback or spin. It lies seemingly dormant, sleeping like a baby and grows slowly until one day, the unseen work is accomplished and you notice it. You look around with recognition and see that nameless hurricane victims are dearer to you than you can explain. Events that earlier had seemed unrelated to you are endowed with poignancy because as with the story of the Velveteen Rabbit, love has made them real. This gentle nature of Christmas is why the angels keep saying “don’t be afraid.” The presence of God is often experienced as an awful thing – that is a thing of awe and holy fear. It’s generally a good thing to be wise enough to be afraid of God’s messing in your life. It can lead to radical change and directional shifts so sharp as to give you whiplash, but not Christmas. Christmas is proof of God’s wisdom – we might learn how to run from a more direct divine approach but not one that works on us so gently, so quietly. We are told not to be afraid, because we need not be.

There has been considerable nonsense in the weeks leading up to tonight about a “war on Christmas.” As if anyone could truly interfere with the work of the incarnation. As I looked at those red roses twenty-five years ago tonight all of the commercial trappings of the Christmas retail season were absolutely superfluous. They were not Christmas then and they are not Christmas now. My encounter with the incarnate God could not be lessened if no one ever said “Merry Christmas” again. If Christmas has not happened in your heart, I doubt that its use in advertising language will move you a deeper experience of Bethlehem. Don’t be afraid, Christmas will never depend on a corporate policy that dictates what someone says to you as they hand you a receipt. Don’t be afraid, even if all you ever hear is “Happy Holidays” because you will find Christmas in places that the world cannot touch.

The best of Christmas is not what happened so long ago but what is happening now in your heart. You are Bethlehem and God has come down to be made known, to be made real, to be born in you. Don’t be afraid – it is good news and great joy.

Let It Be

A sermon preached at Faith Episcopal Church, December 18, 2005.

Advent and Lent are seasons that have a similar function – they are the seasons of preparation before the two most important events in our year. The colors are serious colors, purple or this wonderful saran blue – the color of the night sky. They are different in their intensity – while Advent is a solemn season, Lent is penitential, no Alleluias allowed. There’s another difference – Lent feels somewhat leisurely – it takes its time and given our deprivation of choice, it seems even longer. Advent on the other hand flies by in a round of preparation, parties and the foods of celebration. There barely seems enough time in Advent to be ready for Christmas – unless you’re a child. Then Advent can seem like the longest season. A child’s anticipation of Christmas, the arrival of something wondrous, is deliciously agonizing. The closer it gets to Christmas, the more impossible the task. By Christmas Eve, children are usually wound so tight that you have to be careful around them as they might explode – the pressure of waiting is so great.

To me Advent is like a Master Class in waiting – it forces us to wait. You have to do it, but you have lots of ways to do the waiting.

Our Gospel today is the lovely story of Mary and her visit from the angel Gabriel. His announcement begins her very particular waiting. Pregnancy is another one of those seasons that takes its own sweet time. Mary models good waiting for us. To continue our Beatles’ theme from last week…”When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me, speaking words of wisdom “Let it be.” That’s how she begins her waiting; she gives herself to the will of God and her season of waiting and all that it will mean. There’s no evidence that Mary began to try to affect her future, she accepted.

In Florence, Italy, at the Convent of San Marco, the lovely frescos of Fra Angelico are found. The depiction of this story, the Annunciation, for me was literally breath-taking. I have always loved it but was unprepared for its power. You come upon it as you climb the stairs to the second floor. Suddenly it’s right in front of you. It’s beauty nearly undid me. It stopped me in my tracks and it was a while later that I realized that I wasn’t even breathing. There’s a calm that radiates from Mary, she is looking down and to the left, not at the angel, it’s clear that she’s already been given the news. Her face so perfectly communicates “Let it be.” In that moment she gives her life over to God and accepts what that might mean. She begins a life of waiting.

Mary’s waiting is not passive. The first things she does is to walk over the hills of Galilee to go visit her cousin Elizabeth. Waiting is often done best with those who understand. Mary and Elizabeth are both undergoing unlikely pregnancies in small town settings. Better to meet the gossips together. They have both been told that their children are special, that God’s particular drama is being played out in their wombs. They stand together and say “Let it be.”

This kind of waiting has played out through all history. The mothers and wives and sweethearts of men at war or out at sea have always come together to share their anxiety, loneliness, fears, impatience. Somehow it is lessened when one is not alone.

Faithful waiting seeks company and stays busy which keeps the fearful mind in check. Of course there are many different sorts of waiting fears. Fear of the unknown is hard for those of us who like to be in command of our lives. Let it be – the way I want it. I remember when I was engaged to Melanie’s father. He told me that he had picked out a ring. Now I like surprises but I wasn’t sure that he could be trusted with such a decision of taste and fashion. My anxiety about this came through in a dream in which the ring he gave me had a black stone. Obviously I was fearing the worst. But the ring turned out to be a lovely star sapphire and all of my worry had been for naught. That fear that you won’t get what you want makes for difficult waiting.

Then there’s the waiting that fears the inevitable. We all fear the future when someone we love is leaving, whether they are moving or moving on to a larger life. Looking ahead to a future changed by loss is truly fearful. When Brady and Melanie were little and unspeakably cute, I felt real disease about their growing up and moving on, partly because I wasn’t sure who I would be or whether they would still need me. That kind of waiting needs to be tended carefully so that fear doesn’t lead to clinging or obessessive control. Seek the words of wisdom and let it be. As we await inevitable changes, trusting that God will be with us and those we love is holy waiting.

There’s another kind of waiting – that of endurance. “Let it be” is replaced by “How long, O Lord, how long?” How long until pain and suffering ends. The hymn “Come thou long expected Jesus” is about that kind of waiting. For Jews in Jesus’ day, there was suffering. As a nation, they could not control their cities let along their destinies. Rome was cruel oppressor and they sought comfort in the hope of a long expected messiah who would change things. People in grinding poverty know this kind waiting. Hoping that their lives will be made easier some how, some day. They are waiting for the kingdom to come. “Let it be” can sound hollow and uncaring.

Then there’s the joyous kind of waiting – the grown-up kind of Advent. We know that there will be joy. We know that some of the things that mattered when we were sleepless 8 year olds have been replaced by a calmer more profound sense of Christmas surprise. We hear in all of this bustle, the quiet renewed promises from a God who loves us so much so as to enter into our small lives and say “Greetings, favored one, I am with you. Be with me.” Mary has given you the wise reply - "Let it be."

The Gospel and John Lennon

A sermon preached at Faith Episcopal Church on December 11, 2005.

On February 9, 1964, the largest television audience in history tuned into the Ed Sullivan Show. The guests – an emerging British quartet, were seen but not heard. The screams from the audience completely drown them out. Two months later, the Beatles songs held the top five slots on the Billboard 100. The British invasion had begun. A nation traumatized by assassination threw itself into Beatlemania and tried to forget.

Parents, of course, were bemused at best. At worst they were convinced that everything about the Beatles, starting with the haircuts, spelled the end of civilization as they knew it. Civilization didn’t end, but it certainly noticed the Fab Four.

All things considered, I think that the Beatles held up pretty well under the intense exposure and popularity. That much adulation would have to make a body a bit wild. They handled their fame better than Elvis did. They became cultural icons. Queen Elizabeth conferred on all of them the Member of the British Empire in 1964 for their contribution to the British economy. Their fame even spread to those around them – their record producer was made a Knight in 1996. Sir Paul McCartney received that honor the following year –not for having been a Beatle but for his many contributions in his post Beatle years.

At the height of the hype, when the Beatles were truly the most popular figures in western pop-culture, John Lennon had the temerity to be quoted acknowledging just that. The quote was, I believe, misinterpreted. He was being interviewed about “How does a Beatle live?” He was talking about what life was like for them, the gargantuan notoriety and popularity. I don’t know exactly what the question was that led into the infamous remark. Here’s what he said. “Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue with that; I'm right and I will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first - rock 'n' roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me."

Critics promptly lined up to chastise his blasphemy. Mark David Chapman cited that statement as the reason he shot John Lennon to death, 25 years ago this week. From other interviews he gave later it was clear that John Lennon was not claiming to be greater than Jesus, he was commenting on the insanity that surrounded the band. As I wrote this sermon, I got wondering about what Beatlemania type attention would have done to Jesus. His notoriety, without the boost of an electronic media, proved to be difficult enough to handle.

Five years later, John Lennon would write, arguably his most important song, Imagine. Depending on who you are, Imagine was the anthem of a generation or just more blasphemy. We chose Imagine for today’s reading not only because the anniversary of his death has brought John Lennon’s music back into our minds and hearts but because of its important Advent themes. When I first heard it, I was taken aback by the challenge to imagine no heaven or possessions or countries. I like the idea of heaven. But, focusing on heaven has at times diminished the desire to address the lack of peace and justice on this earth. The “don’t worry about the here and now, your suffering in this life is not permanent because a better day is coming” kind of thinking has had many proponents. But I don’t think that Jesus was one of them. He taught us to pray for what we needed each day and that God’s dream of peace and justice would happen on this earth, here and now. That’s what John Lennon meant by “Imagine there’s no heaven…Imagine all the people living for today.” Imagine…it’s a very Advent thing to do.

The next verse really made people crazy – but it makes a shocking kind of sense. Imagine if we quit putting our effort into the kind of things that we fight over – nationalism, patriotism and religion. Dominic Crossan is a renown Jesus scholar. He wrote that Jesus came to proclaim a “brokerless kingdom.” That is, the non-hierarchical kingdom of God in which no one needed an intermediary or go-between to relate to God. Along with Bruce Chilton, who wrote Rabbi Jesus which we read last Lent, both felt that in the institution of the Eucharist, Jesus was saying, you don’t need the sacrifice of animal flesh to get right with God. You need community. He held up bread and said “This is my body” - actually in the original Greek, he said “This is my flesh.” He’s playing off of the animal flesh sacrificed in the Temple and substituting bread. He says, “Bread, eaten with thanksgiving, shared around the table with family and friends, is more pleasing to God than any ritual sacrifice.” Jesus’ kind of sacred table fellowship needs no religion – just people living life in peace. “They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord.” It was dangerous enough to sound like Jesus when you were Jesus – we certainly weren’t going to stand for it when John Lennon sounded like Jesus. But that’s exactly Dominic Crossan’s point – you don’t need to be Jesus to be a holy one of God. Come together, give peace a chance, all you need is love.

In his book A Generous Orthodoxy, Brian McLaren adds his voice to this same thought. He says, “I am more and more convinced that Jesus didn’t come merely to start another religion to compete in the marketplace of other religions. …I believe he came to open up something beyond religion – a new possibility, a realm, a domain, a territory of the spirit that welcomes everyone but requires everyone to think again and become like little children. It is not, like too many religions, a place of fear and exclusion but a place beyond fear and exclusion. It is a place where everyone can find a home in the embrace of God.” John Lennon invited us to imagine just that.

Imagine no possessions – I can certainly imagine a world without the $1.25 million Bugatti that Volkswagon spent six years developing. I can imagine a world in which no father shells out $10 million for his 13 year old daughter’s bat mitzvah. I can imagine a world in which no one is hungry and children sleep safely in warm beds. I can imagine that but it’s not easy. We’re a long way from that. Advent is the time to get serious about imagining such things because soon we will celebrate a birth that says how much God believes in us and also to celebrate what God might be imagining.

John Lennon may have been cynical about Christianity but only because it has so often missed the mark. He didn’t claim to be a theologian, only a very popular singer/songwriter. But John Lennon’s words are as spirit filled as any you can find in holy books. He sang and many listened. We’re still not to the place that he imagined, or the place that Jesus imagined. The Kingdom of God is a work in progress but we can help to make a place ready for it. “You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one, I hope some day you will join us, and the world will live as one.”