"Birthing God" (sermon)

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

This is the conclusion of a 4-week (plus Christmas Eve) story-telling series. In week one, Mary told us how the beginning of Jesus’s story ended; in week two she spoke about the beginning of the beginning of his story; in week three she told of her visit to Elizabeth; in week four she spoke of the vision that she had, and the song (Magnificat) she sang about it. Now she tells us of the birth.

 

I treasured all these things, and pondered them in my heart.

 

Now that I’m old, there is so much in my life to treasure, so much that I have to ponder in my heart.  I’ve been telling you some of these things that I treasure – I told you about how I was visited by an angel, a messenger from God-Whose-Name-is-Holy, who told me that I had been chosen to carry and birth and raise the son of God-Whose-Name-is-Holy.  I told you how I said yes, and how the Divine Presence gave me courage even when my knees trembled for fear.  I told you about visiting my kinswoman Elizabeth, who was also expecting an unexpected child.  I told you about how a vision came over me, and I was able to see the world as God-Whose-Name-is-Holy sees the world as it will be some day.

 

There is only one more part of my story that I have left to tell, and that is about the day that my child, the child of God-Whose-Name-is-Holy was born.

 

For our whole lives, we have lived under the threat of Empire, and now the Emperor in Rome decided that there should be a census to make sure that his tax lists were up-to-date.  He wanted to make sure that he wasn’t missing out on any money, I guess.  And because Joseph, my beloved, was a descendent of King David, we had to travel to the city of David, to Bethlehem, to be registered there.

 

As you can imagine, this census caused chaos on the roads. So many families had to travel to their ancestral homes; and the people who didn’t have to travel had houses full of extended family members staying with them.  When I had traveled to visit Elizabeth many months earlier, I had been able to travel quickly, but now that the time was coming close to birthing my baby, I couldn’t walk as quickly as I had then.

 

All-in-all, it took us 10 days to walk from our village of Nazareth to Bethlehem.  When we got there, we searched for Joseph’s relatives for a place to stay, and when we arrived at their home, there were other family members staying in every corner of the house.  But because family is family, and hospitality is the expectation, there is always room for one more!  They found a warm and dry place for us to sleep in the lower level of the house, underneath the living quarters and beside the kitchen, in the place where the animals are kept safe at night. The walls were thick, and the straw was comfortable to rest on after so many days of walking.

 

But we hadn’t been there for very long when I realized that this baby of mine wasn’t going to wait until we got home to Nazareth to be born!  The first pains started that same afternoon that we arrived in Bethlehem.  My mother had told me what to expect, and so I went to Joseph’s cousin and told her what was happening.  This cousin already had two children of her own, and knew where to find the midwife, so she went to fetch her.

 

It was a long night, but the midwife told me that I was doing well as I laboured there in that safe and warm space.  She said that first babies often take a long time, but that I was progressing faster than most first-time mothers.

 

The pains came in waves, but in-between the pains, I remembered all that had happened to me.  A wave of pain, but in the peace that followed I remembered the angel’s visit, and their words to me, “Do not be afraid, for you have found favour with God.”  Another wave of pain, but then I remembered my words to the angel, “Let it be with me, according to your word.”  Another wave of pain, but then I was back on the road, walking to visit Elizabeth last spring, passing fields full of wildflowers.  A wave of pain, but then I remembered feeling Elizabeth’s baby dancing as I pressed my hands to her belly.  A wave of pain, and then I remembered my vision of a world where the hungry are filled with good things, and where the powerful have been brought down from their thrones.

 

All through that long night this went on, with the midwife reassuring and encouraging me, and Joseph pacing in the courtyard outside, sticking his head in frequently to see how I was doing.

 

But then, just before the sun rose, with a final pain and a final push, I delivered my baby at last.  At last, after so many months of waiting, I held this precious and vulnerable infant in my arms, and I knew that I was cradling God-Whose-Name-is-Holy.  The midwife washed him off, and wrapped him snugly. She made sure that I was able to nurse him, then she went on her way with a promise to return later.

 

I had so much to treasure, and to ponder in my heart, not just that day, but every day of my life.

 

All of this happened many, many years ago.  It has been decades since I saw my son crucified, then witnessed his resurrection, then saw him ascend into heaven to be with God-Whose-Name-is-Holy.  I’m an old woman now, and still I treasure, and still I ponder.

 

The group of people who followed my boy when he was alive have continued to gather, have continued to share his stories, have continued to serve the world in the same way that he did, healing and feeding people.  Their leaders are now educated people – more educated than his parents ever were, or the fishermen who were his first followers ever had the opportunity to be.  They have started to write about him – to write letters from one group of followers to another, teaching each other and encouraging each other; and they’ve started to record the stories of his life.  I’m told that they have started to call me “theotokos” – a fancy Greek word that means “God-bearer” or “God-birther” – because I carried this Word-of-God within my body, because I birthed the Holy Child.

 

But I don’t think that I did anything special.  All I did was to listen to the angel, and to say yes to God-Whose-Name-is-Holy’s plan.  And so I wonder if each one of us could be theotokos; I wonder if each one of us carries God-Whose-Name-is-Holy within ourselves, and when we live our lives according to God’s plan’s, I wonder if each one of us is birthing God into the world?

 

I’ve come to the end of my story, but I want to hear your story.  What things to you treasure and ponder in your heart?  And how do you carry God-Whose-Name-is-Holy within yourself?  And how do you birth God-Whose-Name-is-Holy into the world?  For this story isn’t just my story – it is the story of all of us.

 

 

“And the Word Became Flesh”

Frank Wesley

Used with Permission

"I've Already Seen It" (Sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday December 22, 2024 – 4^th Sunday of Advent
Scripture:  Luke 1:39-56

This is the fourth week of a 4-week (plus Christmas Eve) story-telling series. In week one, Mary told us how the beginning of Jesus’s story ended; in week two she spoke about the beginning of the beginning of his story; last week she told of her visit to Elizabeth; her story continues this week

 

Over the past several weeks, I’ve been telling you my story.  I actually started at the end of the story – or at least the end of the beginning of Jesus’s story, when my boy Jesus was executed on a cross, and those of us who were with him wept for the sight of it on that hill outside of Jerusalem.  But then I went back and tried to start my story properly, with the beginning of the beginning of my story, when I was still young, and an angel, a messenger from God-Whose-Name-is-Holy, told me that I had been chosen to carry a Holy Child within my own body, and raise him as my own.

 

I told you that the Divine Presence gave me the courage to say yes, as I trusted that I had the strength of my ancestors behind me; though I thought that it was best to leave Nazareth for a time to visit my kinswoman Elizabeth while my parents managed the consequences of what had happened.

 

Even as I said yes to the angel, my knees trembled for fear underneath my skirt.  I knew that even before I risked losing my life in childbirth, I risked losing my live to stoning if my village found out that I was pregnant before I was married.  And I was almost certain that I never would be married, as my parents were going to have to tell the family of Joseph, my betrothed, what had happened. And even though Joseph had kind eyes, and I had witnessed some of his acts of kindness towards others, I knew that it was not his kindness, but rather the opinion of his family that would have the final word.  And because of the way that inheritance is passed to the eldest child, there is no way that they would want to bring a child not their own into their family.

 

Let me jump ahead a little bit in my story.  I can tell you that when I got home from Elizabeth and Zechariah’s house, I learned that all of my fretting and worry had been for nothing.  My parents had spoken to Joseph’s parents, and eventually word came back to them that the marriage could still go ahead.  Joseph would later tell me that he too had been visited by an angel, and that the angel had told him what had happened to me, and that he, Joseph, was to raise this child as his own; and because Joseph and his family are people who love and fear God-Whose-Name-is-Holy, the marriage hadn’t been called off.  But it was three months before I would learn this news; and many more months after that before Joseph would share his story with me.

 

Now back to where I was in my story.  That first night at Elizabeth and Zechariah’s house, the child that Elizabeth carried in her belly began to dance and leap for joy, so much so that I could almost make out the tiny hands and feet as I pressed my hands to Elizabeth’s belly.

 

And as I felt the dancing beneath my hands, something came over me – something like I’ve never felt before.  A vision came over me.  The closest way that I can describe it would be like standing way up on the hillside looking down on my village from far above; and yet in my vision that day, even though I was at a distance I could see things as clearly as if I was standing right next to them.  And somehow I knew that I was seeing the world as God-Whose-Name-is-Holy sees the world.  The colours were somehow brighter and more vivid than regular colours, and I could see more than one place at once, so many places and times all at the same time.

 

And I began to sing about what I was seeing.  I began by praising the name of God-Whose-Name-is-Holy.  I sang:

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.

 

And then I went on to describe what I saw.  I sang:

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.

 

That day with Elizabeth was the first time I sang that song, but it wasn’t the last time.  I wanted to hold on to that vision, to hold on to those words, so I used to sing it to myself as I went about my day.  And when my baby was born, I sang it to him as a lullaby as I rocked him to sleep.

 

And so when my boy Jesus grew up and began to teach people about God’s vision for the world, I wasn’t surprised to hear him teach things like “the last shall be first and the first shall be last.”  I wasn’t surprised to see him welcoming the most vulnerable and marginalized people.  I wasn’t surprised to see him feeding crowds of hungry people.  Because this is the message that he heard from his mother from before he was even born.

 

And as for me, even when the world feels overwhelming, even when it seems as though the powers of Empire, the powers of Rome, are stronger than anything else in the world, even when it seems like pain and suffering will never end, I remember my song.  And my song reminds me of the vision that I had that day.  And I can never fall into despair because I’ve seen a different world.  I’ve seen the world as God-Whose-Name-is-Holy sees the world, and I’ve seen that some day this vision will have come to be.  I may not live to see the day when hunger has ended, when the powerful Empires have been overturned, when the lowly have been lifted up, but I trust that this day is coming because I’ve already seen it.

 

My story is drawing to a close, but it isn’t over yet.  I stayed with Elizabeth for three months before I returned to my parents and began preparing both to be married and to birth my child.  The last part of the story I’m telling you is about the time when my baby was born, and I do hope that you’ll come back to hear the ending.

 

 

Image:  “Magnificat!”

Lawrence OP on flickr

Used with permission

"Blessed is She" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday December 15 – 3^rd Sunday in Advent
Scripture:  Luke 1:39-45

This is the third week of a 4-week (plus Christmas Eve) story-telling series. Two weeks ago, Mary told us how the beginning of Jesus’s story ended; last week she spoke about the beginning of the beginning of his story; her story continues this week

 

Two weeks ago, I told you about my boy Jesus, and how the beginning of his story  ended on a cross on a hill outside of Jerusalem.  Then last week I told you about the beginning of the beginning of his story, about how an angel, a messenger from God-Whose-Name-is-Holy appeared to me and told me that I had been chosen to carry the son of God within my body, then birth him and raise him as my own.

 

I said “yes” to the angel, even though I didn’t know what my future would hold as a result of that “yes.”  But I trusted that God-Whose-Name-is-Holy was with me.

 

And I felt the Holy Presence surrounding me as I told my parents what had happened.  They were upset, as you can well understand.  The punishment for a woman caught in adultery is stoning, and my father told me that even if they believed my story, and it was a big “if,” even if they believed my story, there was no way that they would be able to convince all of the neighbours once it became known that I was expecting a child.  My mother took to her room, ashamed to look at me, and ashamed to be seen by the neighbours.

 

But the Holy Presence gave me courage and filled my heart with peace.  Even if nobody else believed my story, I knew what had happened out there on the hillside.  I treasured the words of the angel in my heart.

 

Now, at this point in my story, I need to tell you about my kinswoman Elizabeth.  She lives a 4-day walk from here with her husband Zechariah, not too far from the holy city of Jerusalem where Zechariah is a priest in the temple of God-Whose-Name-is-Holy.  Elizabeth and Zechariah never had any children, and they were both old – even older than my parents – though not as old as I am now, standing here telling you my story.  But a strange story had reached our ears that Elizabeth was now carrying a child, and Zechariah was no longer able to speak.

 

I was curious to know what had happened.  Elizabeth had always been kind to me when we stayed with them on our way to or from the temple.  It was almost like she was a bonus mother to me, and I was the child that she had never been able to have.

 

I told my parents that I wanted to visit them, and they were still upset and angry with me, and they said to me, “Go!  And if misfortune falls on you on the road, so be it.”  I wasn’t worried – I knew that I was smart and strong and capable of keeping myself safe.  And so I went.

 

I knew that they were going to be speaking to the family of Joseph, my betrothed, while I was gone.  Joseph and his family, they weren’t going to be happy, and the engagement was surely going to be called off.  Maybe it would be better for me to stay away for a couple of months to let the emotions settle down.

 

I was safe on the road, as I knew that I would be.  It was easy walking – I was fortunate not to encounter any rain, but the heat and dust of full summer hadn’t arrived yet.  The weather was starting to warm up, at least in the daytime, and I was able to stay safely with family members each night on the road.  And oh, the flowers.  April is always the loveliest season of the year if you like flowers.  My favourites are the almond tree blossoms, but they had already finished for the year, but the fields that I passed were fully of poppies, and chrysanthemums, and lupines, and wild mustard.

 

When I arrived at Elizabeth’s house, she came running out to greet me. She would have had no way to know that I was coming, but I was welcomed in with literally open arms.  And with one glance at her belly, I knew that the rumours that had reached us were true.

 

There we were, two women, one too old and too barren, the other too young and too unmarried, yet both of us were carrying babies within our bodies.  We were both of us laughing, and yet with tears streaming down our faces, as we embraced each other in front of her house.  For we were both carrying babies made possible by God-whose-name-is-Holy.

 

Elizabeth told me her story as we made our way into their home and sipped at the glasses of wine that were brought to us.  Her husband, Zechariah, had been serving in the temple and was in the Holy of Holies right at the heart of the temple, as close as it is possible to get to God-Whose-Name-Is-Holy.  And when he was there, an angel, a messenger from God-Whose-Name-is-Holy, appeared and told him that they were finally going to have their longed-for child.  But when Zechariah didn’t believe the angel because Elizabeth was too old for this to be possible, the angel took his voice, and he hasn’t said a word since.  He has been moving about the house like a silent ghost ever since.

 

But don’t worry – Elizabeth and I more than made up for Zechariah’s silence!  After she shared her story with me, I shared my story with her, another story about an angel, and we puzzled about what new thing God-Whose-Name-is-Holy might be doing in the world with all of these angels and miracles.  Why, it almost felt like the earth itself was pregnant, and something new was waiting to be born into it.

 

And as we sat there in the courtyard, watching the sun slowly setting, all of a sudden Elizabeth gave a cry that sounded somewhere between terror and delight.  She had told me that she had started to feel her baby moving a few weeks earlier a little bit like the feeling of you get after a good meal; but now she grabbed my arm and placed my hand on my belly.  Underneath my hand, I felt her baby dancing – I swear, I could almost make out tiny hands and feet.

 

And with my hand on her belly, Elizabeth began to sing.  She sang:

Blessed are you among women!

Blessed is the fruit of your womb!

And why has this happened to me,

         that the mother of my Lord comes to me?

Even my child in my womb leaps for joy!

And blessed is she who trusted in the Lord.

 

We had so much to ponder, Elizabeth and I, as we sat together in her courtyard and as the darkness gathered and the night embraced us – the words of the angels, the words of her song, the miracles unfolding around us.  But there is still more to tell, and her song wasn’t the last song to be sung that day.  I had a song inside of me to sing, and I want to tell you about that song. My story isn’t over yet!

 

 

“Visitation”

Church of St. Elizabeth, El Sitio, El Salvador

Used with permission

"The Beginning of the Beginning" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday December 8, 2024 – Advent 2
Scripture:  Luke 1:26-38

This is the second week of a 4-week (plus Christmas Eve) story-telling series. Last week, Mary told us how the beginning of Jesus’s story ended; over the next couple of weeks, she will tell us how his story began.

 

Last week, I told you about how the beginning of Jesus’s story ended, on a cross on the hillside outside of Jerusalem.  This week, I want to tell you how his story began.

 

I don’t know exactly when the story began.  When I was a young girl, I used to love to run on another hillside, this one near my village of Nazareth.  I watched the butterflies flitting among the flowers, and then I picked those flowers and brought them home to decorate my mother’s table.  I loved to hear the birds calling to each other as they flew overhead.  I used to make music there on the hillside, singing, and then dancing to the songs I made.  My hair would always slip out of its braid, and I would feel the wind tugging at it, pulling me faster and further up the hillside.

 

I felt the most myself out there on the hillside, but the other place where I felt comfortable in my own skin was in the synagogue in our village.  I used to go there with my parents, and I would watch the rabbis, the teachers, unroll the scrolls and read to us.  I would hear the powerful words of the prophets, as they pointed the way back to God-Whose-Name-is-Holy.  But I especially loved hearing the stories of our ancestors in faith.

 

I used to wonder what it would have been like to be Sarah, who baked bread to feed the angels, and then overheard the angels saying that she would have a child even though her years for bearing children were long past.  I used to think that her laughter was the correct response, even when the teachers said that she should have been more respectful towards the messengers of God-Whose-Name-is-Holy.

 

I also used to wonder what it was like for Hagar, Sarah’s slave, who ran away into the desert when she found out that she was pregnant.  You know – she encountered God-Whose-Name-is-Holy there in the desert, and she was the first person to ever give a name to the God who can’t be named – El Roi, God Who Sees.  She trusted that, even in her distress, she was seen and cared for by the Holy One.

 

I used to wonder what it was like for Moses, to have spoken directly with God-Whose-Name-is-Holy who appeared in a burning bush.  And I used to wonder what it was like for Miriam, Moses’s sister, to have trusted in the protection of God-Whose-Name-is-Holy when she placed her baby brother in a basket of reeds and set him adrift in the river.

 

I used to imagine that I was Deborah, one of the Judges, leading the army into war, seeing them trust in my leadership even though I was a mere woman.

 

I used to imagine myself into the sandals of all of my ancestors, wondering what it would be like to trust in God-Whose-Name-is-Holy, even when that trust meant risking everything.

 

On the day that the angel came to me, I was out on the hillside, rather than in the synagogue. I knew that my days for running with my hair loose were few in number, as my parents had arranged with the parents of Joseph, a family of carpenters, that we were to be married.  I wasn’t upset with this arrangement – I had seen Joseph in the synagogue of course, and working around the village.  He had kind eyes, and once I had seen him making a walking stick for a child with a lame foot.  I knew that ours would be a happy home, but I also knew that once I had a home of my own to tend and children to look after, I wouldn’t have the freedom to sing with the birds on the hillside, or gather flowers for a table bouquet.  So I was savouring every moment I could spend out there.

 

There are stories in our scriptures about angels, or the messengers of God-Whose-Name-is-Holy.  Sometimes they are described as looking like ordinary humans, like the three angels who appeared to Abraham and Sarah under the oak trees of Mamre.  But sometimes the angels are downright terrifying – the 6-winged serpents flying around the throne of the Holy One that the Prophet Isaiah witnessed, or the wheels and eyes and flames in the vision of the Prophet Ezekiel.

 

When the angel appeared to me, I knew at once that it was an angel, but I can’t for the life of me describe what it looked like.  I know that there was a light so bright that I couldn’t look directly at it.  I know that there was movement, but I couldn’t tell you if it moved like a human or like a bird or like a fish.  The angel spoke to me, but again I can’t describe its voice – it reminded me of a bell ringing, or the sound of water dancing over stones in a stream, but at the same time I could understand exactly what it was saying.

 

What I do know for certain is how I was feeling.  When I met the angel, I was both terrified of this other-worldly creature, but also filled with a deep sense of love that was coming from it.  It felt as though time was standing still, like the world outside of our little bubble was melting away.

 

The angel must have sensed my terror, because the first words I heard were “Don’t be afraid.”  But then the next words only served to heighten my fear.  The angel told me that I had been chosen by God-Whose-Name-is-Holy to carry the Son of God within my body, and then to give birth and raise this son as my own.

 

If this were to come to pass, what would Joseph say?  He would surely not want to marry a girl who was carrying a child not his own.  What would my parents say?  The story I would have to tell them would be beyond belief.  What would the neighbours say?

 

And yet, in that moment, I remembered all of my ancestors in faith, and everything that they had risked because they trusted in God-Whose-Name-is-Holy.  I remembered Ruth, leaving her home and her people to make a home in a new land.  I remembered Joseph, sold into slavery by his brothers, but who trusted that God-Whose-Name-is-Holy would keep him safe.  I remembered the midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, who dared to lie to the Pharoah to keep their people safe.

 

And so, with all of the strength of my ancestors behind me, I dared to say “yes” to the Holy One.  I said to this messenger, “Let it be with me, according to your word.”  I didn’t know why I, of all people, had been chosen.  I didn’t know what my future would hold.  I didn’t even know if I would survive to carry this child to birth – after all, the punishment for adultery is stoning – and I didn’t know if I would survive the birth itself.  But I did know that God-Whose-Name-is-Holy was with me, and that no matter what happened in my life, Their plans were greater than anything I could ever imagine.

 

Have you ever had a similar moment in your life?  A time when you’ve had to take a leap of faith into the unknown, not knowing where you would land, but trusting that God-Whose-Name-is-Holy would catch you?  It is terrifying and exciting, both in equal measure.

 

My story isn’t over yet – I’ve got so much more to tell you – but my voice is tired now and I need to rest.  I do hope that you will come back another time to listen to more of my story.

 

 

Wildflowers in Galilee

Used with permission

"The End of the Beginning" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday December 1, 2024 (Advent 1)
Scripture:  John 19:18-30

This is the first week of a 4-week (plus Christmas Eve) story-telling series. Mary, the mother of Jesus, begins her story this week at the foot of the cross, and will go back to tell the “beginning of the beginning” of the story over the following weeks.


“It is finished.”  Those are the last words that my baby boy spoke before he breathed his last.  “It is finished.”

Many years have passed now since that grief-filled day on a hill outside of Jerusalem.  I’m an old woman now, even though in my heart I’m still a young woman and Jesus is still my baby boy.  I spend my days thinking back to when I was truly young – when I was a young girl running over the hills of Galilee, watching the butterflies, collecting flowers for my mother’s table, listening to the birds calling as they flew overhead, feeling the wind tugging at my hair when it inevitably slipped out of its braid.

 

I also think back to the days when I was a young mother, and Joseph my beloved was busy with his carpentry, and I had a house full of children to raise.  Jesus, my first-born, was sometimes full of mischief, sometimes lost in his thoughts, but always curious and always kind and caring, not only to his family but also to our neighbours, and even strangers and foreigners who would sometimes pass through our village.

 

Later on, after Joseph, my beloved, had died, Jesus took on the responsibility of the first-born and made sure that I was cared for.  Even in his dying moments, he made sure that I would have a home and a family after he was gone.

 

I do remember the time when he was only 12, just on the threshold of becoming a man, when we were travelling home from the temple in Jerusalem with the other families from our village.  The other mothers and I were watching our younger children, so we were half-way home before I realized that I was missing one of my children.  What a fright I had that day, thinking that I had lost my first-born!  Though from where I am now, I know that the fright of that day was nothing compared with the horror of actually losing him.  It turns out his curiosity about God-whose-name-is-Holy had kept him back in the temple, questioning the elders, and listening to their wisdom and their stories.

 

There was another time, after my baby had become an adult and was making his way in the world, when we ended up at a wedding together.  It was a wedding between one of the girls from our village of Nazareth and a young man from the village of Cana, just a few miles away.  Because I was a widow, Jesus, my first-born, accompanied me to the celebration.  There was music and dancing and singing, but then word reached the women’s tent that the wine was about to run out.  Oh, the shame that this would have brought to both families, if they weren’t able to extend the hospitality that was expected of them.  I knew that my boy would be able to do something about it, so I went to him and I pleaded with him to do something, and wouldn’t you know, the stone vessels that had held water were then filled with wine, better than the best wine you have ever tasted, and the joy and the celebration could continue.

 

I was part of the group that traveled with him as he went around Galilee and into Jerusalem, teaching and healing people.  I could hear the words that I sang to him when he was a baby echoing in his teaching, as he showed people that a different world was possible – as he taught people that God-whose-name-is-Holy has a dream for the world where all hungry people are well fed, where oppressors and tyrants have lost their power, where only love reigns.  I mean, you only needed to see him feed a crowd of thousands of people with a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish to know that he trusted in the words of that lullaby I used to sing to him:  “God has filled the hungry with good things, and has sent the rich away empty.”

 

I know that your book just gives you the names of the men who followed him, but we were a much larger crowd than the ones who are named.  Why, some days he travelled with over 100 people following after him, listening to what he was teaching and watching to see what miracle he would do next.  And of course there were women as part of his group!  And of course his mother would be part of his group!

 

When we entered Jerusalem that last time, we all knew that things probably weren’t going to go well.  Tensions were high.  All along, Jesus had been provoking the people in power with what he was saying and doing.  The people with the power were afraid that they were going to lose their power, so they were ready to do whatever they needed to do in order to preserve the status quo.

 

And yet.  Yet even so, I don’t think that I ever considered that things could go as badly as they did.  I thought that they might torture my boy, or arrest and imprison him, but I don’t think that I had let myself consider that they might execute him.  After all, he wouldn’t have hurt a fly.

 

And yet somehow I found myself on the side of the hill that day, watching my boy in agony, struggling to draw a breath, slowly suffocating.  How could my treasured baby have ended up here?  My heart was a shriek of anguish that day, drowning out anything else.  Maybe we were in danger too, as his followers, but at that point I didn’t care.

 

“It is finished.”  Those are the last words he managed to gasp out before we saw the life fade from his eyes.  Yet from where I am now, I know that it wasn’t truly finished.  In that moment, I didn’t know what was going to happen just two days later.  I didn’t know that the grave was going to be empty.  I now know that that moment on the cross wasn’t the end, it was only the end of the beginning of his story.  He hadn’t been my little boy for many years now; and since that day I now know that he belongs to the whole world.

 

That day was only the end of the beginning of his story.  I’d like to tell you more, about the beginning of the beginning, if only you will come back to listen to me.  There is so much more that I want to share with you.

 

 

Crosses in the chapel of Kirchliche Hochschule Wuppertal

Wuppertal, Germany

"We Two Kings..." (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday November 24, 2024 – Reign of Christ Sunday
Scripture:  John 18:33-37


I want to invite you to imagine that you are sitting in church… well, I guess that part doesn’t take too much imagination!... but I want to invite you to imagine that the church you are sitting in is located in Germany, and it is November 1933.  Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor in January of this year, and one of his projects was aligning the German church with the values of the Nazi party, including anti-semitism, racism, and placing the word and authority of the Fürher – ie Hitler – above all other authorities.

 

In the months since January, the leadership in the Protestant churches – whether they be presbyteries or bishops – has been replaced by people in line with the values of the Nazi party.  Any clergy who had Jewish ancestry have been defrocked, as have any clergy married to someone with non-Aryan roots.  There are calls to remove any Jewish elements in the bible, including, from some quarters, removing the entire Old Testament.

 

What do we do as a church?  In the 15 years since the last war ended (which our country lost), there has been a groundswell of German nationalism.  We are always being told that Germany is the best country, that Germans are the best people, that God loves us most of all, and that German Christians are the best kind of Christians.  And because of this, doesn’t it make sense that the Christian German Chancellor should be the supreme authority of the church, maybe not just in Germany but elsewhere too?  Who doesn’t want to hear that we are winning, both as a people and as a church?

 

What do we do?  The easiest thing is to go along with it.  Not only does our government promote this way of thinking, but all of our new church leaders are in agreement with it, and are enforcing it through the hierarchical structures of the church.  And since the world outside of the church is rallying around chants of “Make Germany great again!” and “A German Church for the German People!” this is the only way that we will survive in a world of turmoil.

 

But there were some German pastors who didn’t agree with going along.  They didn’t agree with the nationalistic fervor that was invading the church.  They had a different understanding of what the church was, and what the church was supposed to be.  And so between May 29 and May 31, 1934, 139 delegates from different Protestant churches, a mixture of ministers and lay church members and university professors, gathered in the town of Barmen and worked around the clock to draft a theological statement to stand against the German churches’ acquiescence to and acceptance of National Socialism or Nazism.

 

At the end of the third day, they had written and signed a document that begins:  “Jesus Christ, as he is attested to us in Holy Scripture, is the one Word of God whom we have to hear, and whom we have to trust and obey in life and in death”; and went on to include politically radical statements like:  “We reject the false doctrine that there could be areas of our life in which we would not belong to Jesus Christ but to other lords,” and “We reject the false doctrine that the Church could, and could have permission to, give itself or allow itself to be given special leaders [cough… Hitler] vested with ruling authority.”

 

This radical statement, that proclaimed that since Jesus Christ was the one true head of the church, therefore no human being could ever fill that role, came to be known as the Barmen Declaration.  It was inflammatory in the political state of Germany in the 1930s.  It led to the formation of a new denomination, known as the Confessing Church – ie the church that confessed the ultimate authority of God in Jesus Christ, rather than the ultimate authority of the Chancellor.  But many of the people who signed the Barmen Declaration ended up imprisoned for their opposition to the Nazi government, and some of them were executed for it.  And though a new denomination formed as a result, this declaration didn’t sway the opinion of the majority of churches in Germany, or the majority of Christians.  The majority of churches accepted the authority of Hitler over the church and over their lives.  Maybe this was the easier road.  Maybe this was the safer road.  Maybe they believed in the message of German superiority.

 

But in the almost-century since, we have come to recognize which churches made the right choice.  At least, I hope that we have come to recognize this.

 

Which brings us to our bible story today.  We’ve jumped to the very end of Jesus’s life – we’re in the middle of the Good Friday story here, and Jesus is on trial before Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor.  We are in Pilate’s palace in Jerusalem, surrounded by the opulence of the Roman Empire.

 

As we observe this scene, we are presented with two options, two paths that we can follow.  We can put our trust in the power of Rome, the power of Empire, as represented by Pilate.  This would be the way of worldly power, of comfort and luxury, of security (as long as you’re willing to tow the party line).

 

The other path that is presented to us is the path of Jesus.  Now this is a radically different path than the one that Pilate offers us.  Jesus has been saying some pretty challenging things on the way into Jerusalem – things like “the greatest commandment is to love God, to love others, and to love ourselves.”  Things like, “To be greatest, you must be the servant to all.”  Things like, “Let the most vulnerable come to me, for it is to ones like them that belongs the kingdom of God.”  Things like, “The first are last, and the last are first.”  Things like, “I’m going to walk this valley of suffering before you have to.”  And the way of Jesus eventually ends up on the cross.

 

And so in this scene that the Gospel of John paints for us, we are in Pilate’s palace, looking at two kings, and being asked to choose which king we are going to put our trust in.  Are we going to trust in the king of worldly power, the king of Empire?  Or are we going to trust in the king of the cross?

 

Before ending off, I want to paint one more scene to add to Barmen 1934 and Pilate’s palace circa AD 33.  And that third scene is the church in Canada in 2024.  Because I think that the foundational question we have to ask ourselves today is the same question as it is in those previous scenes.  Which king are we going to choose to put our trust in?

 

I don’t know if the urgency is as close to the surface today as it is in the two previous scenes, but I do think that it is something that we have to consider.  What are the things in our world today that might lure us away from the way of Jesus, from the way of the cross?  Because I think that there are things that would lure us away.  The way of Jesus isn’t an easy way. It is the way of service to others even if, especially if we don’t think that they “deserve it.”  It is the way of extending forgiveness to people who have wronged and hurt us.  It is the way of giving up control over our own lives and destiny.  Certainly there are far easier paths that we could choose to travel.

 

And when the rubber hits the road, where are we going to ultimately put our trust?  Do we trust in the king of Empire, or do we trust in the king of the Cross?

 

And yet the way of Jesus, the way of the Cross is also the way where we receive forgiveness just as we are called to extend forgiveness.  It is the way where we receive unconditional love, just as we are called to extend unconditional love.  It is the way where, even as we give up control, we are giving control over to the one whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light.

 

Let me end with some words that I shared earlier this week – words that come from the now-inactive Facebook account, Occupy Advent.  They wrote:

If Jesus is Lord, then nothing else can be.

If Jesus is Lord, then violence and anger are not.

If Jesus is Lord, then the nation is not.

If Jesus is Lord, then my stuff is not.

If Jesus is Lord, then I certainly am not.

If Jesus is Lord, then ______ is not.

 

Which king are you going to choose?

 

 

Die Barmer Theologische Erklärung

The Barmen Theological Declaration

Photo Credit:  Shawn Harmon