"What is truth?" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday January 18, 2026 – 2^nd Sunday after Epiphany
Scripture Reading:  John 1:29-42

I’ve been reading a book this week, a novel, that has me echoing Pontius Pilate’s famous question, “What is truth?”

The book is called, Everyone is Lying to You and I’m finding the genre hard to define.  It is sort of a murder mystery.  It is sort of a thriller, though not a super scary one because I don’t do scary, but it is hard to put down and is keeping me on the edge of my seat.  It is also sort of an exposé of social media influencer culture.

 

Very early on, the book pulls back the curtain to show us how what we see on social media is far from the truth.  That influencer who presents themself on Instagram as the perfect parent, chore charts perfectly organized, children dressed in matching outfits, house never in disarray?  Behind the scenes, she probably has a bevy of nannies and housekeepers, paid to help her present this life to the camera.  And that “tradwife” influencer, cosplaying a 1950s housewife, dressed in a just-below-the-knee housedress, making breakfast cereal from scratch, subservient to her husband who is the breadwinner of the family?  In reality, she manages a multi-million dollar company whose brand is herself, and her husband is now actually an employee of her company.

Social media influencers are lying to us, presenting a lifestyle to us as reality, when in actual reality, it is anything but.

What is truth?

The layers go deeper though.  This book is told through alternating narrators – two women who were best friends in college but who were estranged afterwards, but who then reconnect a decade later as they are both managing careers and children.  One has become a journalist, writing and editing for a floundering print magazine; the other has become a tradwife influencer, presenting her six children and chickens and 3-legged goat and scenic ranch to the world on social media.

In the world of the story, we see both women bending the truth.  The influencer loves her children but hates the pretend life she has created, yet continues to create content in that pretend life.  The traditional journalist may seem more trustworthy, but we get to see her curating the stories that she sends back to the magazine, deciding what to include and what to leave out.

What is truth?

And because these two women alternate back and forth telling the story, there is no all-knowing narrator, and there is no way of knowing how much of what they are saying is the actual objective truth.  Each character is choosing how much to tell us, the readers, and each character is interpreting the story through their own perspective and experience.  I, as the reader, have no way of knowing what they are leaving out, or what they are twisting in the telling.

What is truth?

I also find myself asking this question as I move through the world outside of this book.

In a world that feels increasingly divided, it feels like everything is presented to us with a spin.  Various media sources can be placed on a spectrum of left-leaning vs. right-leaning.  There is no such thing as totally unbiased reporting – reporters are always choosing what to include and what to leave out and how to interpret what they are witnessing; and in today’s world, it feels like the biases are becoming even stronger, that editorial positions are becoming more entrenched.

Politicians too, of all colours and stripes, are guilty of this too.  It is no longer enough to just support one party, we are encouraged to demonize and dehumanize the other side.  And we tend to accuse the other side of doing this, without recognizing that we, ourselves, are guilty of the same charge.

What is truth?

AI, Artificial Intelligence, is another force at work in the world that pushes us to ask this question.  As we scroll through the internet, how many of the images that we see are real, and how many are AI-generated?  Sometimes it is easy to tell – 7 fingers on one hand is usually a giveaway, or a video of an owl sheltering her owlets under her wing where the number of owlets keeps changing as you watch.  But sometimes it isn’t possible to tell.  The same goes for what we read – how many of the stories that we read are real, and how many are written by AI, generated through a series of prompts that someone fed into it?  Again, there are certain clues that you can look for if you know the tells – things like an m-dash, lists of three, or a distinctive authoritative yet confidential voice.  But it isn’t always possible to know.  A year ago, it was estimated that over 40% of Facebook posts were generated by AI - that percentage is likely even higher now.

What is truth?

The irony of the question that Pilate is asking, is that he is asking this question of Jesus; and shortly before Pilate asked his question, Jesus told his followers, his disciples, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.”  Pilate is standing in front of The Truth, and yet he is not able to recognize the truth.

I suspect that at least some of you are starting to wonder if I’m ever going to get to the story from the bible that we read today!  I’ve taken the long way around to get here, but in today’s story, in contrast to Pilate, we have a number of people who encounter Jesus and who are able to see him for who he is.

Jesus approaches John the Baptist, who is doing his thing, baptizing people in the Jordan River, testifying to the light of God, and teaching the people about the Messiah who is to come.  As soon as Jesus walks by, John stops what he is doing, points at him and says, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”  Unlike Pilate, John is able to clearly recognize who Jesus is.

And then we have those first two disciples.  They had been disciples of John the Baptist, but after hearing their teacher proclaim that Jesus is the Lamb of God, they also immediately turn and follow Jesus.  Again, in that moment they have a much greater insight about who Jesus is than Pilate does.

And then one of those first disciples, Andrew, after hearing Jesus teach (and oh, I wish that there was some record of what Jesus said that day), Andrew went to find his brother, Simon Peter, and told him, “Come and see! I’ve found the Messiah!”

And so all of these people in today’s story – all of them are able to recognize the truth.

So turning from the story back to the world that we are living in – in a world where truth feels to be so slippery, how can we recognize the truth?

If we trust that Jesus is the truth, as he claims to be, then to recognize the truth, we can look for the places in the world where we recognize God.  Places where there is love.  Places where there is peace – a genuine peace, and not solely places where violence is suppressed.  Places where generosity and abundance abound.  Places where joy bubbles up in unexpected ways.

God is present when a neighbour lends a hand to another neighbour.  God is present when a community rallies together to protect the most vulnerable.  God is present when protestors walk through the streets without violence, singing together.  God is present when someone brings you a cup of tea… or coffee… and asks, “how are you doing?”  God is present in so many big and little ways in our world.

When we share our God Sightings at the start of each worship service, we are sharing the times when we have been especially aware of God’s presence, the times when we have noticed God working in the world.  And in a world of chaos, when truth seems slippery and we don’t know what we can trust, these are the moments we can turn to when we need to ground ourselves.

What is truth?  God is truth, and in the places where we find God, we will find truth.  And may God give us eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to love.  Amen.

"Beacons and Candles of Hope" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday January 11, 2025 – Baptism of Jesus
Scripture Readings:  Isaiah 42:1-9 and Matthew 3:13-17


I don’t know about you, but this has felt like a tough news week.  On Wednesday, when I put up a post on the Two Rivers Facebook Page, asking for prayer request, every single person who commented wanted prayers for the world we are living in right now – prayers for the world, prayers for world leaders, prayers for world peace.  If you follow the news, even just a little bit, these are scary times we are living through right now.

Greed seems to be the force that is driving the world these days – greed for land, greed for oil, greed for money, greed for power.  And I don’t think that greed can exist without its sidekick and companion, fear.  Because once you are so greedy that you are willing to do whatever it takes to get the thing that you want, you also become fearful that you might lose it some day.  And fear can maybe be an even more powerful motivator of evil acts than greed.

And fear is even more contagious than greed is.  In some ways, we have a bit of an inoculation against greed.  We can observe greed, and as we observe it, we can be tempted to participate in it.  That person has that fancy new car, I want one too.  That country has all that lovely oil, I want some of it too.  But it doesn’t take much self-awareness to recognize greed and resist it.  But fear, on the other hand. Fear has a way of sneaking into our bones and creeping up on us.  Often we don’t realize how much our actions are driven by fear.  I’m afraid of that person, so I’m going to hurt them before they have a chance to hurt me.

And in a week that has seen one country take over another country and threaten several others; in a week that has seen a woman shot at point-blank range by people with authority – it seems as though greed and fear and chaos have been given free reign in the world.

Like I said, it has been a tough news week.

But there is nothing new under the sun, as the author of Ecclesiastes tells us.  Tough news weeks, tough news years, tough news decades have happened throughout history – I think that the only difference between then and now is the fact that we are living through it right now.  (And maybe also the current media landscape makes us more quickly aware of what is going on around the world.)

There is a great Christmas poem by Madeleine L’Engle called “First Coming” – the first stanza goes:

He did not wait ’til the world was ready,

’til men and nations were at peace.

He came when the Heavens were unsteady,

and prisoners cried out for release.

The world that Jesus was born into was also a world that was filled with uncertainty and fear and imperialism and wars.  In fact, when you read the stories about Jesus, his world had a lot in common with our world today, even though the specifics of culture and language and technology are different.

In Jesus’s world, a global superpower that was hungry for land and resources had a nasty habit of taking over and assimilating other countries – in that world, the superpower was the Roman Empire.  In Jesus’s world, if the government felt you were a threat in any way, they could kill you – the punishment for treason, or plotting against the Empire, was crucifixion.  In Jesus’s world, systems were designed to keep people “in their place” – the poor had no opportunities to get ahead in life, and it was only by scrambling through life, hustling, that they could maintain the status that they had and avoid imprisonment or slavery.

When we read the stories about Jesus, it is important to remember that he wasn’t living in some fairy tale, once upon a time, in a land far, far away.  Jesus and his friends and neighbours were facing many of the same fears and uncertainties that still exist in our world today.  Fear for safety.  Financial uncertainty.  Vulnerability to political shifts that they had no control over.

So all of this is well and good, but I can hear you asking, what does that have to do with the story of Jesus’s baptism that we read today?

To me, it is everything.  Jesus’s baptism is one of the moments where we can see God breaking in to the ordinariness of this world.  The heavens open.  The Holy Spirit descends.  A voice proclaims, “This is my Child, whom I dearly love.”  This is one of the stories that reminds us that the world around us – the world that we can see, and the world that is presented to us in all of the horrific news stories – this world isn’t the only reality.  There is an even more real reality that we occasionally catch glimpses of.

Jesus is baptized there in the Jordan River, and then his ministry begins.  A ministry that echoes what we heard in Isaiah this morning.  A ministry that is about bringing justice.  A ministry that is about bringing light to people living in the shadows.  A ministry that is about freeing prisoners.  A ministry that is about bringing the fullness of life to all people.

Jesus’s ministry is all about resisting the forces of Empire and fear in the world, because he knows that this isn’t in line with God’s plan for the world.  And he does so with confidence, trusting fully that it is God’s world that will eventually reign, no matter how many setbacks it encounters along the way.

And the same is true for us as well.  When we think of our own baptism, and when we think about the baptism of all of the people in all of the churches everywhere, we can think of many different things.  We can think of baptism as marking a person’s entry into God’s family.  We can think of baptism as the Holy Spirit filling a person with God’s love.  But we can also think of our baptism as marking the beginning of our ministry, the beginning of our participation in God’s work in the world.

Because of our baptism, because we are baptized, because the Holy Spirit descended upon the waters that were sprinkled our poured over your head, or the waters into which you were submerged, because at your baptism, God said, “This is my child, whom I dearly love” – because of all of this, like Jesus, we are invited to participate in this alternate world.  Because of our baptism, we know that the chaos and horror that confronts us every time we turn on the TV or radio, or open up our phones or computers – we know that this chaos and horror isn’t the ultimate reality.

God’s ultimate reality is one of peace and love and justice.  And because of our baptism, we get to participate in this world.  God’s reality becomes our reality.

Alas, it can’t happen all at once or right away.  The work that Jesus began hasn’t reached completion yet.  But each one of us has an opportunity to manifest God’s world in the here and now.

I sometimes share the story of my first Christmas Eve here at Two Rivers, and if you have ever been to one of our Christmas Eve services, you know that we both begin and end with the church in darkness.  The first year I was here, I didn’t realize how dark the church at Long Reach would get if we turned out all of the lights.  Total darkness.  The sort of darkness that seems to press against your eyeballs.  The only illumination came from my iPad, as I read the beginning of the gospel of John.  “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”  I knew where the lighter was, as I had placed it just below the iPad stand before the service, so I felt around for it and was able to pick it up.  The only problem was that I couldn’t see the Advent Wreath to light the candles.  I knew that it was somewhere in this direction (gesture vaguely to the right), but it was only when I got the flame of the lighter right next to one of the candles that I could see it – fortunately it was next to a candle wick and not the greenery of the wreath that had been slowly drying out over the past month.  And I lit the first Advent Candle – a candle for hope.  And with that one small candle flame, all of a sudden I could see the rest of the wreath, the rest of the candles, and almost all of the faces of everyone who had gathered that evening.

No matter how oppressive the shadows might feel, it only takes one small candle to illuminate the world.  The power of one small candle is greater than all of the powers of darkness.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never overwhelm the light.

It isn’t up to us to bring world peace – that power hasn’t been given to any one of us.  It isn’t up to us to end homelessness or addictions in New Brunswick – again, no one person has that power..  It isn’t up to us to change the whole world so that all people everywhere, of every gender, every gender identity, every sexual orientation, every race, every religion, can live a life free of fear.  No one person has the power to change the whole world.  But what we can be are candles of love and hope.  We can do small acts of love and compassion and courage and by doing so, we can push back the shadows of this world.  For as long as a single candle is burning, the darkness will never be complete.

Jesus began the work at his baptism, and all of us continue this work in the here-and-now.  The Holy Spirit is working in all of us, and in all of God’s beloved children, so that we can be beacons and candles of hope and love in this world.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

 

 

“Light in the Darkness”

Image Credit:  leoahm on flickr

Used with Permission

"Leaving the Manger" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday January 4, 2025 – Epiphany
Scripture:  Matthew 2:1-12


If the story that we just heard sounds familiar, almost as if you have heard it somewhere recently, don’t worry – you’re not going crazy!  We read this same story here, just two weeks ago, as part of our Advent Series, “Will you come to the manger?”  Each Sunday during Advent, we looked at the story of a different person who journeyed to meet the baby Jesus; and on December 21, we heard from one of the magi.

All through Advent, we asked the question, why have you made the journey to the manger?  Why did you choose to re-visit the baby Jesus this year, and the story of that first Christmas?  What is it that draws you back to the manger year after year after year?  There are probably as many answers to this question as there are people here this morning!

I suspect that some people choose to celebrate Christmas here in the church out of tradition – this is just something that we do every year.  I suspect that there were some people in church on Christmas Eve out of obligation to their parents or grandparents, and no judgment on anyone who was here for that reason.  I suspect that some people choose to celebrate Christmas in awe and wonder of God choosing to become human flesh and blood.  I suspect that some people choose to celebrate Christmas to celebrate the unfolding of a new and transformed world.  Some time, I would love to hear your story – why do you choose to revisit the story and celebration of Christmas year after year?  Why did you choose to come to the manger this year?

But the thing about coming to the manger is that it isn’t enough to just come and stay at the manger.  We eventually have to leave the manger – we eventually have to put aside our nativity sets and ornaments, we have to tuck our stockings and Christmas music away for another year, we have to either compost our Christmas tree, or put it away in the basement until next December.  We eventually have to leave the manger and go back out into the world.

And I think that this second journey – our journey away from the manger and back into the world – is maybe even more important than our journey to the manger.  Because as we leave the manger, we have to ask ourselves, what are we going to do with the story that we have just re-enacted?  How are we going to be transformed by what we experienced at the manger?  How is our encounter with Emmanuel, God-With-Us, going to change our lives?

In the story we read on Christmas Eve, from the gospel of Luke, we read that the shepherds returned to their fields, glorifying and praising God for all that they heard and seen.  Their lives were transformed by encountering the newborn Messiah.  Mary’s body was literally transformed by his birth, and her life and Joseph's life, like the lives of all parents, will never be the same again.  And in today’s story, we read about the Magi, who had been instructed by King Herod to return and tell him where to find the newborn king, but instead decided to return home by a different route, one that bypassed Jerusalem completely.

My imagination wants to fill in the details – what did the dream that warned them look like?  Did all of the magi have the dream, or just one of them, and they had to convince the others?  How long did Herod wait for them before he realized that they weren’t coming back?

But no matter the details, the magi had their literal path through the world changed because of their encounter with Jesus.

These wise ones who had spent their lives studying the stars – studying them so closely that they noticed when a new star appeared in the sky where there had been no star before – these magi were wise enough to be able to acknowledge when they were wrong.  They were wise enough to recognize that going first to King Herod had been a mistake – an extremely costly and disastrous mistake if you were to read on to the story that comes next, and I can’t help but wonder how the story might have unfolded differently if the magi had gone directly to Bethlehem rather than taking that detour to King Herod’s palace.  But they were wise enough to recognize that going first to King Herod had been a mistake, and rather than stubbornly sticking with their original plan, they were willing to change course.

There is so much wisdom that we can glean from this story of the magi, but I think that maybe the most important one might be learning a willingness to be open to God, however we might encounter God, and a willingness to be changed by that encounter.

For it is God who was born as human flesh and blood at Christmas.  It is the Creator of All who lies as a helpless baby in the manger.  And because God has become human, we, in our humanity, have been made holy, and have been given the opportunity to participate in the divine dance of God.  The Holy Spirit is longing to transform all of us, more and more, into the image and likeness of Christ, just as the magi were transformed, just as the shepherds were transformed, just as Mary and Joseph were transformed, just as everyone who has ever encountered Jesus has been transformed.

And so my hope and my prayer for all of us, is that Christmas isn’t just a story that we re-visit once a year, but that the transformation of the world that began at Christmas might touch all of our hearts, and transform our lives, not just today but every day.

And may it be so.  Amen.

 

 

We received our Epiphany “Star Words” this week –

words to guide and lead us through the year ahead

Why Everyone Should Be Reading a Book Published 52 Years Ago

Back in the late fall, at a church gathering, we were talking about evil, and I shared that my strongest understanding of evil / the devil comes courtesy of the book A Wind in the Door, written by Madeleine L’Engle, and its depiction of the echthroi.  (The book also has a pretty decent depiction of a “biblically accurate angel” in the cherubim Proginoskes, whose naming is intentionally grammatically singular and plural.)  And by calling that book into my memory, I added it to my post-Christmas reading list. Though, since order is important, I had to read A Wrinkle in Time first, and A Wind in the Door was the book that spanned the old year and the new for me.

 

 

Proginoskes, a "biblically accurate angel" on the cover!

 

The re-read was more powerful than I had anticipated – chills and goosebumps and tears and heart being ripped open.  And so here are the reasons why I think that A Wind in the Door is the book that the world needs to be reading in 2026.

 

1)   Little acts of resistance matter.  At one point, the book quotes the old poem, “For want of a nail the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe the horse was lost; for want of a horse the rider was lost; for want of a rider the message was lost; for want of the message the battle was lost; for want of the battle the war was lost; for want of the war the kingdom was lot; and all for the want of a horseshoe nail.” Not one of us can change the world, but every little act of love, no matter how insignificant it might seem, makes a difference in the big picture.  No act of love or kindness is ever a waste.

 

2)   And related to that, love is the most powerful force in the universe.  More powerful than hatred.  More powerful than emptiness.  More powerful than fear.  More powerful than despair.

 

3)   Naming is an act of love.  This book uses the concept of “Naming” someone or something to mean more than just attaching a symbolic handle to it.  To Name someone or something, you see it clearly for who or what it is – you see the essence of its isness (to borrow a favourite term from Dr. David Deane), and you love it.

 

4)   It is the origin of one of my favourite quotes about love.  “Love isn’t how you feel. It’s what you do.”

 

5)   Hope.  In the world of this book, as in the so-called “real world” outside of the book, evil is real and evil is powerful in both big and small ways.  And yet in the world of the book, as in the world outside of the book, evil can be overcome and defeated.  Evil will never have the last word.

 

So go ahead – track down a copy, and give it a read/re-read. (And if you are so inclined, read the other books about the Murray family while you’re at it!). Even though this book was written 52 years ago, it feels as relevant as if it had been published today.

2025 in Books

Here we are, early in the new year, and it's time for my annual round-up of what I read in the old year.

I'll start off by saying that  2025 wasn't a particularly great year for reading. Last winter was really busy (full-time congregational ministry, teaching a course at the Atlantic School of Theology, and taking over as chair of the Pastoral Relations committee of the region just before our Pastoral Relations minister suddenly died), which meant not only less time for reading, but almost no mental energy for reading. My re-reading numbers are higher than usual this year, as I found myself turning back to childhood favourites where I can fall into a world that I already know and love.

And then the summer, which is normally the season for lounging on the deck with a book in hand, also didn't slow down. Work stayed busy, and the season felt particularly short as I spent a week and a half in Calgary at General Council in August.

So my grand total of books read in 2025:  27. Less than half of my 2024 count (though to be fair, that year was an anomaly as I was on sabbatical for 3 months).

Some other numbers that I like to track:

Paper Books:  11
Ebooks:  7
Audiobooks:  8
Pre-Publication Manuscript:  1

Purchased Books:  6
Library Books:  18
Gifted Books:  3

Fiction:  21
Non-Fiction:  6
Poetry:  0
Graphic:  0

Re-Reads:  8
First Time Reads:  19

Canadian Authors:  11
Non-Canadian Authors:  16

Female Authors:  18
Male Authors:  10
Non-Binary Authors:  1
(Yes - I know that these numbers don't add up - two books had two authors!)

Non-White Authors:  2
White Authors:  27
(Yikes - not good.)

Books with Racial Diversity:  15
Books set in an all-White world:  8
(Again - the numbers don't add up - 4 of the non-fiction books didn't have "characters")

Queer Authors:  4
Non-Queer Authors:  25
(Another yikes.)

Books with Explicitly Queer Characters:  11
Books with No Explicitly Queer Characters:  12
(See note above re. non-fiction books with no characters)

I'm happy with the percentage of library books this year (2/3 of my books came from the library in either electronic or paper format - three cheers for public libraries!). I also like the increased percentage of audiobooks this year. But I also want to diversify my reading next year - more non-white and queer authors for sure, and hopefully throw in some poetry and graphic novels too!

Thank you to Sarah at Smart Bitches Trashy Books for sharing her reading spreadsheet. I downloaded her 2020 version, and have tweaked it year by year so that it tracks for me the things that I want to be tracking.

Finishing off with a couple of books that stood out to me this year.

The Story Spinner (Barbara Erskine)

This was a Christmas present from one of my sisters. She included a note with it, outlining the reasons why she thought that I would enjoy it:  "a setting from long ago; takes place in Wales; lots of Welsh and Roman (Latin) names; a character with the last name Jones; a main character who is an author; and a pastor named Kate." She was right - I did enjoy it! I enjoy most of Barbara Erskine's books (with the odd exception that crosses the line from spooky to too scary), and this one fit the mold:  time slip, strong female characters, a plot that makes it hard to put down, and vivid scene painting.

When the World Fell Silent (Donna Jones Alward)

Historical Fiction seems to be this year's theme! This is probably the book that has stayed with me the most vividly post-finishing. It is set in Halifax during the explosion on December 6, 1917. It follows the stories of two women - a nurse, working at the Camp Hill hospital treating soldiers injured in the war who finds herself unexpectedly pregnant just before the explosion. The father is a soldier who doesn't write to her after he is sent overseas. The other character is a young widow with an uneasy relationship with his family with whom she lives. Both of their lives are dramatically changed by the explosion. This one was especially engaging because of the years I lived in Halifax - I could picture all of the places where it is set (including Camp Hill!), and this was another impossible-to-put-down book. I look forward to reading her next book, about the Titanic!

Endurance (Alfred Lansing)

This was recommended to me by another member of the Grand Bay Writers Group, and I listened to the audiobook of it on a road trip to Cape Breton and back. It is non-fiction, telling the story of the Shackleton Expedition to the Antarctic, but it reads like fiction. I was on the edge of my seat, listening to the story unfold - even though I was driving on a flat highway after dark, I actually started to feel seasick listening to them riding in a small lifeboat over the enormous swells of the Drake Passage! It isn't a perfect book. It doesn't question the motivation of the expedition, but rather paints it as a grand adventure (an expensive and life-threatening adventure); but after finishing the book, I learned that it had been written in 1959 and am willing to extend some leeway to the author.

Jesus and John Wayne (Kristin Kobes Du Mez)

Another non-fiction book, this one about how the American evangelical church has warped the image of Jesus, creating an idea of Jesus in the image of John Wayne, the hyper-masculine cowboy renegade. It has shaped my thinking and my preaching, and has helped me better understand some of the political movements of the present moment.

 

"The Enfleshment of God" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Thursday December 25 – Christmas Day
Scripture Reading:  John 1:1-14


I have a great Venn Diagram in my office about the biblical Christmas Story; or I should probably say, the biblical Christmas Stories, because they don’t always line up.  So, as you probably know, Venn Diagrams are overlapping circles that show where the things you are talking about overlap, and where they are different.

When you look at the Christmas Stories in the bible, there are two main ones – one according to Matthew, and the other according to Luke.  (The Gospel of Mark begins with Jesus as a fully grown adult.)  And the Venn Diagram that I’m talking about has three overlapping circles – one for Matthew, one for Luke, and one for the standard church nativity play.  In the centre part of the diagram – ie things that are found in Matthew, Luke, and the standard nativity play – you find mention of Bethlehem, you find Jesus’s birth, you find angels.  In Matthew and the standard nativity play, but not in Luke, you have the magi.  In Luke and the standard nativity play, but not in Matthew, you have shepherds, a census, and a journey to Bethlehem.  Unique to Luke is the story of the angel appearing to Mary, and the story of Elizabeth and the birth of John the Baptist.  Unique to Matthew is Joseph’s dream and the flight to Egypt.  And unique to the standard nativity play, but not found in any of the gospels are donkeys and an innkeeper!

You get the idea – since a picture is worth a thousand words, when I share this sermon online, I’ll be sure to include the Venn Diagram with it!

But alongside this fairly standard Venn Diagram, off to the side is a fourth circle that doesn’t overlap with either Mathew, Luke, or the standard nativity play.  This circle is titled “The Gospel of John” and the centre of the circle reads “complex stuff about the word and light and things.”

The reading from the Gospel of John that we heard this morning is John’s version of the nativity story.  There are no shepherds, no magi, no angels, not even a mention of Bethlehem.  But it is the Gospel of John that gives us the heart of the Christmas Story:  God’s Word became flesh, and dwelled among us.

The implications of this are profound.  God – the same God who spoke creation in to being; the same God who has the power to flood the earth, but who placed a rainbow in the sky to promise never again; the same God who led the Ancient Israelites for 40 years in the desert, making manna to fall from the sky and water to flow from a rock – this God chooses to empty themselves of all of this power and become human flesh and blood.

This isn’t the same as the stories of God who walked with Adam and Eve in the garden; this isn’t the same as the stories of God who spoke to Moses out of a burning bush – in all of these other stories, God remains God, wholly other and not human.  But with Christmas, God is still God but God is fully human too.  It’s almost as if an artist has painted a picture, and then somehow manages to crawl inside and become part of the picture.

Like I said, the implications are profound.  If everything that God touches becomes holy, becomes sanctified, then our humanity – our human flesh and blood have been made holy; our human experiences have been made holy.  God became human, and our humanity will, forevermore, be united with God.  Because of the birth of Jesus, and by the actions of the Holy Spirit, God is drawing us into the divine dance.  We are no longer separate from God, but God is with us, Emmanual, and we are the literal body of Christ.

And for me, this is why Christmas and the incarnation, the enfleshment of God, is at the heart of my faith.  I was in conversation online a couple of weeks ago with some colleagues, who were pondering why Christianity, as a whole, tends to focus on the Good Friday / Easter story rather than the Christmas story.  Why is the cross the central symbol of our faith, rather than the manger?

I think that it is because incarnation is inherently messy and earthy and vulnerable.  The church is more comfortable with the blood of violence than with the blood and amniotic fluid of birth.  The church would rather have “immortal, invisible, God only wise” instead of a helpless baby whom the king tries to kill.  A God who turns the tables on death itself is easier to accept than a God who is born to suffer just as all humans suffer.

And yet.  And yet none of the rest of the story makes any sense at all without the incarnation.  Because of Christmas, because God’s Word became flesh and dwelled among us, as one of us, every human experience, from joy to sorrow, from hope to despair, from love to abandonment, every human experience has come into contact with God and has become holy.  No matter what we experience in life, we can know that God is with us because God has been here before.  And we can delight in our own flesh and blood too, for our flesh is the same flesh that God became.

And to me, this is Christmas.  Christmas is more than a sweet baby cuddled by loving parents.  Christmas is more than beloved songs and beloved movies.  Christmas is more than spending time with the people we love.  To me, Christmas is about God shattering the ordinary, mundane existence, and becoming part of the thing that they have created.  The world has been transformed because of Christmas – the transformation hasn’t been completed yet, but the transformation has begun.

And so yes, the Christmas Story in the gospel of John is, quote, “complex stuff about the word and light and things,” but this is what gives meaning to the other stories about shepherds and magi and angels and a manger.  God is with us, and the light of God shines in the darkness of this world, and the darkness can never overcome the light.

Thanks be to God, and merry Christmas to all!

"My Soul Magnifies the Lord" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
December 24, 2024 – Christmas Eve
Scripture:  Luke 2:1-20

This is the final installment of a 4-week (plus Christmas Eve) story-telling series. Different people who are part of the nativity scene tell the story of how they ended up at the manger.

 

You asked me how I came to be at the manger.  I’m here, because I trust in God-whose-name-is-Holy.

 

Ever since I was a little girl, I knew that God-whose-name-is-Holy is with me.  I used to wander the hills, where the wind blowing against my face would remind me of the ruach, God’s spirit.  I would gather flowers for my mother’s table, and be reminded that God-whose-name-is-Holy is the Creator of all Things.  I would sing the psalms, the songs of praise of our ancestors, and sometimes I would sing my own songs of praise to God-whose-name-is-Holy.

 

I loved to go to the synagogue with my parents to hear how God-whose-name-is-Holy had been with our people in the past, but I was most aware of the divine presence when I was out on the hillside.

 

It was when I was out on the hillside that I met the angel, the messenger from God-whose-name-is-Holy.  I knew that my opportunities to wander the hills were few in number, as my parents had recently arranged a marriage for me.  I was to be married to Joseph, a carpenter in town, and once I had a home of my own and a family to raise, I wouldn’t have time to roam.  I didn’t know Joseph well, but he had kind eyes, and a reputation for being a dreamer, just like our ancestor, the other Joseph.  His family was known to be particularly devout in their worship of God-whose-name-is-Holy, and I thought that we had a good chance for a happy marriage that would grow into genuine love with time.

 

Anyways, I was telling you about the angel, wasn’t I?  I had never seen an angel before – not many people have – but I knew right away that it must be an angel, even though I can’t describe it very well for you.  Trying to look at it was trying to look into the sun, with dazzling brightness.  And yet there was movement within it, almost like wheels turning, or a bird’s wings flapping.  And even though I couldn’t see it clearly, I felt like the angel was watching me with the gaze of a thousand eyes, looking right into my soul.

 

And it’s voice.  When it spoke, it sounded something like the rumbling of thunder, combined with the ringing of the biggest bell you’ve ever heard; and yet I could understand every word.  The angel told me that God-whose-name-is-Holy had chosen me to carry their child.  These words filled my heart with fear, even as the angel had told me not to be afraid.  I was afraid of what would happen to my body.  I was afraid of the risks of carrying and birthing a child.  I was afraid of how my parents would react.  I was afraid of how Joseph would react.  And, underneath it all, I was afraid that God-whose-name-is-Holy had chosen me.  The Creator of All had seen me, Mary, and had somehow believed that I could do this.  What within me could make me worthy of this honour?  Why was I the one who had been chosen?

 

But in that moment, the stories of all of my ancestors came flooding back to me, the stories of people in the past who had trusted in God-whose-name-is-Holy.  I remembered Sarah, and how she had trusted that she would be able to have a child, even long after her years for birthing children were past.  I remembered Moses, and how he accepted the mantle of leadership even though he felt unqualified.  I remembered Ruth, a foreign woman who had worshipped foreign gods, and how she put her trust in God-whose-name-is-Holy and followed Naomi to a new country and to a new life.

 

As I remembered my ancestors, a feeling came over me, as though I had the strength of all of my ancestors behind me.  A warmth filled me from my toes to the tips of my hairs, and I felt the love of God-whose-name-is-Holy embracing me, and the stillness of peace quieted all of my fears.  And in the very next moment, I was certain, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that God-whose-name-is-Holy had a plan for me and for my life.

 

And with my next breath, I said to the angel, “Let it be with me, according to your word.”

 

And as soon as the words were out of my mouth, I had a vision of the world, somehow it was like I was floating far above the earth and could see the whole world at once, yet, I could also see the details a clearly as if I was standing right beside them.  And I knew that I was seeing the world as God-whose-name-is-Holy sees it.  And in this vision, I could see that everything had been made perfect.  There were no more hungry people.  Wealth was equally shared between all people.  There were no more kings, no more empires, but every life was valued.

 

And somehow I knew that with my simple “yes,” I was going to play a part in this world becoming a reality.  I don’t know how, and I don’t know when, yet I trust that God-whose-name-is-Holy is bringing this world into being.

 

And I began to sing a new song.  I sang of the vision that I saw of the world, and I continued to sing this song, singing for myself, singing for God-whose-name-is-Holy, singing for anyone who would listen.

 

And, well, the details took care of themselves after that.  My parents and Joseph were upset, as you can imagine, but somehow Joseph still agreed to the marriage even though he knew that I was carrying a child that wasn’t his.  You will have to ask him to tell his story some time.

 

When the time came for me to birth the child, we had traveled from Nazareth to Bethlehem for the census.  We were staying with family members there, but the house was so crowded that we had to stay on the lower level, where the animals are kept safely at night.  My mother had told me what to expect, and yet the pain still caught me off guard.  The midwife was kind, and she talked me through the process, and showed me how to breathe when the pain felt too strong to bear.  And with one last pain, and a rush of blood and water, my baby was born.  The midwife cleaned him off, wrapped him in a blanket, and handed him to me.

 

And as I cradled him, I sang for him the song that I had been singing all those months that I had carried him in my body.

 

My soul magnifies the Lord,

and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour.

For God has looked with favour on his servant,

and from now on, all generations will call me blessed.

for The Mighty One has done great things for me,

and Holy is God’s name.

God’s mercy is for all of revere God, from generation to generation.

God has sown strength and power.

God has scattered the proud.

God has brought down the powerful from their thrones.

God has lifted up the lowly.

God has filled the hungry with good things.

God has sent the rich away empty.

God has come to the aid of God’s people,

         according to the promises made to all of our ancestors.

 

I don’t know how, but somehow, God-whose-name-is-Holy is going to work within you and me, to make this world a reality.

 

And that is how I came to the manger – I’m here because I trust in God-whose-name-is-Holy, and because I trust in their plans for me and for the world.  What about you?  Why have you come to the manger this year?

 

 

“Nativity with Women Attending”

Frank Wesley

Used with Permission