An Advent Series: The Way Toward Birth - III. Lost in the Dark

Isaiah 9:2-7 & Luke 1: 39-55

Third Sunday of Advent/11^th December 2011

Advent means “coming.”  In this season we remember the original coming of Jesus, of that journey to Bethlehem, to the place of God’s incarnation, the Word made flesh.  It’s also about the future coming of Christ at the culmination of time.  We could also say it’s about arrival–the arrival of God with us, the promised future arrival of Christ.  There’s yet a third meaning. It’s also about our “coming,” our “arrival” in Bethlehem, to the place of God’s incarnation, God’s Word made flesh in us.  It’s about Jesus’ coming into our lives, his arrival in our lives, in the flesh.  It’s this latter view that I’ve been trying to stress the last two weeks in this series.  The incarnation occurred and continues to occur in us.  What God reveals to us through Christ, God has always been doing and will continue to do.  Once we see this pattern at work in him we can see the pattern at work all around us, in the world and in our lives.[1]  God is in the birthing business, as it were, and delights in bringing universes and things and, most of all, people to life. 

            And so for the last two weeks I ended the sermons with a series of questions.  What if the characters in the birth narratives represent parts of our own personalities?  What if you, then, are like Mary, being asking to bear the life of God into the world?  What if, then, you are like Joseph, being asked to care for the life of God in the world?  

            I believe we are asked to bear the life of God into the world.  I think God is always trying to birth something new within us, to grow a life in and through us, so that our lives in all their beauty and brutality, their suffering and joy, might actually reflect the glory and love of God, in order that we, like Mary, can say, “My soul magnifies, glorifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior” (Luke 1:47).  What will it take for us, for you and me, to be able to say that our souls are magnifying, glorifying, intensifying, reflecting the love of God, and therefore we rejoice? The journey to that point, to that kind of confession, to that realization is the journey toward birth, the journey of life, the journey of faith.  It can happen in a moment or it can take a lifetime, but it’s the journey that counts. Advent, Christmas, Epiphany – the incarnation – is about God making this journey toward us and inviting us to make the journey toward God.

            And like any good journey or adventure there will inevitably come a time when we get lost.  In every spiritual journey toward birth there comes a time when we realize we have lost our way.  Think of the Magi, even with the star overhead – a kind of celestial GPS system – they still had to ask for directions to Jesus. 

            Sometimes it’s the fear of getting lost that prevents us from ever venturing forth on the journey.  Sometimes we lose our way because we become distracted–we lose sight of what’s important, we lose sight of the goal and purpose of our lives, we become tempted by idols conjured up by our minds. Our minds are a factory of idols, as John Calvin (1509-1564) said, around which we obsess.  The commercialism this time of year, alone, is enough to make even the most committed Christian get sidetracked.  The worries and anxieties, the sorrows and grief we bear can also lead us astray.  The stresses and strains of a world that appears to be whirling out of control can also easily block out the light, leaving us feeling as if we are lost in the dark.  We all get lost now and again.  We miss or ignore the signposts.  And sometimes it’s very dark indeed.  And in the darkness, I mean complete darkness­–with no ambient light–it is very dark indeed.  When you’re in complete darkness you cannot move, the way isn’t clear.  It’s inevitable there will come a time, maybe many times, when we are lost.

            Isaiah offered his words of warning and hope to a people who were lost in the dark.  It was dark and getting darker.  The risk of invasion of the Assyrians from the north was real.   Nevertheless, the promise of God is that a way out will be offered.  As Robert Frost (1874-1963) said, “the best way out is always through.”[2]  The way out is always through, through the darkness. In other words, in any journey toward birth there will be a time when we have to concede that we’ve lost our way; we have to acknowledge that we’re in the dark apart from the light of God.  The difficult truth is that sometimes we’re only found after first admitting we’re lost.  We have to get lost in order to be found.  Remember, for example, Dante’s (1265-1321) great masterpiece, The Divine Comedy, a text that has defined the narrative of Western culture, in which he recounts his own spiritual path.  It begins this way, set on Good Friday, 1300, he writes, “In the middle of the journey of our life I came to myself within a dark wood where the straight way was lost.” But then he goes on to “give account,” he says, “of the good which I found there.”[3]  For many, the way toward spiritual birth only occurs after one first admits that one is dead or dying, that one has reached one’s limits, we hit rock bottom, when we are confronted by our own mortality or the mortality of a loved one.  Just think of Scrooge in Dickens’ (1812-1870), A Christmas Carol (1843).  New birth begins only after Scrooge has the courage to face his own death.  That’s when the light of a new day begins to dawn, Christmas Day – the day of birth.

            The good news is this:  “The people who walked – and who walk and will walk – in darkness have seen – and will see – a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness – on them light has shined” (Isaiah 9:2).  “For a child has been born for us” (Isaiah 9:6).  In time, the first Christians used this image of light to describe their own experience of what it was like to walk with him.  “In him was life and the life was the light of all people.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it” (John 1:4).  It doesn’t say that in him was the absence of darkness.  The darkness remains.  But the darkness does not have the power to overcome his light–never has, never will–the light of God that shines in the face of Jesus Christ.  The days might be dark, but there’s a light that can shine in the darkness. The light shines within the darkness.

            The anthem we hear this morning was inspired in the darkness.  It was 1953.  Paul and Ruth Manz were sitting vigil with their three-year son, John, who was seriously ill in the hospital.  The doctors gave little hope.  They sat there 24/7, Paul during the day, Ruth at night, both filled with sadness.  They had devotions together behind his bed; they read scripture during this time together.  Ruth was drawn to Revelation 22, the vision of a different John, author of Revelation, standing before the throne of God and the face of Christ.  “And there will be no more night; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light…” (Rev. 22:5). Ruth wrote out some words, expressing her trust in God, and giving her sorrow up the Lord, “E’en so, Lord, quickly come.”[4]  Their son survived and in response Paul set her words to music, dedicated to “John and all those who prayed for him.”  Lost in their darkness, they trusted in the inevitable power of that light, a light that has the power to change the way we see the dark.

           

Peace be to you and grace from Him
Who freed us from our sin Who loved us all, and shed his blood
That we might saved be.
Sing holy, holy to our Lord
The Lord almighty God Who was and is, and is to come
Sing holy, holy Lord.
Rejoice in heaven,
all ye that dwell therein
Rejoice on earth, ye saints below 
For Christ is coming,
Is coming soon
For Christ is coming soon.
E'en so Lord Jesus quickly come
And night shall be no moreThey need no light, no lamp, nor sun
For Christ will be their All!

You can listen to a performance of the anthem here  and here.   

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[1] I’m thankful to Fr. Richard Rohr for this statement/insight.

[2] Robert Frost, “A Servant to Servants” (1915).

[3] Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy, I. Inferno, John D. Sinclair, trans. (New York:  Oxford University Press, 1961), 23.

[4] Paul Manz (1919-2009), E’en so, Lord, quickly come (1953).  See also, http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2004/12/20_olsond_manz/“E’en so, Lord, quickly come.”

An Advent Series: The Way Toward Birth - II. Sign Posts

Isaiah 7: 10-17 & Luke 1:26-38

Second Sunday in Advent/ 4^th December 2011

Come with me to the place of birth and rebirth.

Come, beloved of God, to the place of renewal and new beginnings.

Come, Holy ones, to the place of your resurrection, the place of life.

Come with me down the narrow path that leads to the broad fields of salvation.

Advent is about the journey to Bethlehem, to the place of God’s incarnation, the Word made flesh, the birth of God in human flesh.  This is true.  And yet, what I tried to suggest last week and lift up today and throughout this series is that Advent is also become about a journey to another Bethlehem, God’s Word made flesh, the birth of God in human flesh – in us, in you and me – God’s ongoing incarnation in the world through us.  Yes, the birth narratives in Matthew and Luke’s gospels focus on the birth of Jesus, upon a singular person.  However, the early church saw in the singular Jesus something of God’s larger, ongoing purpose and pattern.  What God reveals to us through Christ, God has always been doing and will continue to do.  Once we see it in Jesus, we learn to see the pattern at work everywhere, all around us, in the world and in our lives.[1]  God’s way in the world is continuous incarnation.  God is in the birthing business, as it were, and delights in bringing universes and things and people to life.  What we see God doing in Jesus’ life gives us some indication of what God seeks to do in our lives. 

            But how do we know what this is?  How do we know we’re on the correct path?  How do we know we’re going in the right direction?  So many feel their spiritual path just goes round in circles, covering the same old territory, feeling their faith has no life.  Others, I know, feel lost in a maze, not sure where they’re going.  Some Christians, oddly, have never ventured on the journey, they’ve stayed close to home; have never explored the meaning of their faith with any depth.  Others still have just given up in despair and live their lives vicariously through others, the religious types, the saints, through ministers and priests.  No wonder the life of faith becomes dead, dull, and boring.  But this journey, if you’re on the journey, is anything but dull and boring, and it’s not dead or deadening.  If it is, then that may be a sign you’re on the wrong road. 

            God never leaves us alone along the way.  God is present with us all the time.  There is no place where we can feel apart from God’s spirit.  God is closer to us than the breath that moves at this very second to and fro from our lips.  Jesus said, “I am with you always” (Matthew 28:20).  And yet there’s so much within our hearts and within the world that would lead us to suspect that these things are not true.  There’s so much that causes us to distrust these things.  The depth of suffering experienced by the human psyche causes us to pull away and enclose ourselves in apparent safety, closing off the outside world.  The depth of suffering in families, in communities, in the sheer brutality and inhumanity of this world are enough to force us recoil from any kind of trust in God’s presence or benevolence. 

            The prophet Isaiah would be very comfortable in such a world. He observed first-hand the suffering of God’s people.  He saw how their obsession with and trust in silver and gold, with military and technological advances, with senseless, dead idols (Isaiah 2: 7-8), led to false piety, dead religion, and meaningless worship, all of which led to a rejection of righteousness and justice (Isaiah 1: 10-17).  “Cease to do evil,” Isaiah warns, “learn to do good, seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow” (Isaiah 1:16c-17). And, not surprisingly, the people became anxious.  They worried about what the future will be.  Judah knows the Assyrians ruthlessly invaded the Northern Kingdom and Isaiah warns that the same is about to take place in Zion, in Jerusalem.

 

            God wants to give King Ahaz some assurance that all will be okay.  “Ask a sign of Yahweh your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven.”  In other words, Ask away, God says, be bold!  But Ahaz refuses.  “I will not put the LORD to the test.”  While Ahaz’ response might sound like an expression of humble belief, it really isn’t.  It actually demonstrates a lack of faith and trust.  I wonder if Ahaz’ reluctance to ask is due to the fact that once he asks for the sign, then he will have to actually go out on a limb and trust it.  It’s easier to not ask too much of God, then we won’t be disappointed.  It’s easier to have little trust in God, than risk having our egos hurt. 

            Isaiah responds, frustrated, “For God’s sake, Ahaz, it’s bad enough you weary everyone else with your empty piety and hollow trust, but your empty piety and hollow trust have become tiresome even for God!”  Now the LORD will give a sign.  “Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.”  The child’s name shall be: “God is with us.” 

            Now before you float away with the melodies of Handel’s Messiah in your ears and assume where I’m going with this, let me say Isaiah here is not talking about a coming Messiah, he’s not referring to Jesus, he’s not talking about Mary, and he’s not talking about a virgin young Mary.  These Christian readings of the text come much later, after Jesus, of course.  The sign focuses not on the young mother and not on whether or not she is a virgin, the focus is on the birth of a child, a son who bears the name, embodies the name “God is with us.”[2] The son is the sign. His name is not “God will one day with us.”  God is with us – always has, always will.  The birth of the child with this name serves as a visible, physical, concrete reminder of what always has been and always will be true, that Yahweh is with us.  The birth is a sign of assurance.

            Fast-forward to another Mary who bears a child. Gabriel’s annunciation offer’s a similar word of assurance, the birth of her son will be named, not Immanuel, but Yeshua, meaning “Yahweh saves.”  The sign is made flesh, again, and this time it becomes really real, tangible, clear for all to see.  God is really with us.  Yahweh saves.  Assurance made flesh.  Because this is true, a future begins to open before us. A way in the darkness begins to take shape.  A road that leads toward being in the world that fully trusts in the goodness and faithfulness of God to God’s people and to creation.

            For Christians, Jesus is the sign post, maybe the only sign post we need; perhaps he’s the best sign post among many sign posts.  At minimum, we know him to be a trustworthy sign post on the way toward Zion.  His name – God is with us; Yahweh Saves – are the signposts we need along the road that leads to our birth in God, for the growth and unfolding of lives that trust in God’s faithfulness.  God is with us.  God wants to be with us.  God can’t bear to stay away from us. 

            With us – not with us in general or with people in general.  With us – not off in the distance, watching us from afar. With us – around us, through us, and, yes, even within us.  And the way God gets to be with us is through birth.  A birth is required.  Didn’t Jesus say, “You must be born again” (John 3: 9)?[3]  As we saw last week, citing the historian Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975), a continuous “recurrence of birth” is required for transformation to occur.[4]   I believe that God’s walk with us in and through Jesus is always a recurrence of birth.  The incarnation did not happen once, it always happens and is continuous through us because we are in Christ and Christ is in us. When he’s alive with us we experience recurrent birth because God is also trying to birth something in us.  And because God is with us we know that whatever is being birthed in us by God, it can be trusted. 

So, what if, then, you are, like Mary, being asked to bear the life of God into the world?  What if, then, you are, like Joseph, being asked to bear the life of God into the world? Or, what if the birth of Jesus demonstrates at some level that in our experience of new birth we, too, will come to discover that we are children of God? What if this is what we really need to discover about ourselves?  What if we are the sons and daughters of God conceived by the “young woman,” people who bear the name “God is with us”?   How, then, might this outlook change the way we move through Advent and arrive on Christmas morning?  Perhaps it will shape the way we view the infants and children in our world, as vulnerable gifts deserving our care, honor, and respect.  For God is with them too.  And it will shape the way we view the child still within all of us, as we too are called to care, honor, and respect that child within us.  For God is with us too.

            This past week I was playing around on iTunes searching for some new Christmas music. I came across a new arrangement of “Do You Hear What I Hear?”  It’s on the new Glee Christmas album, volume 2.  It’s a beautiful arrangement, but they omitted the last stanza for some strange reason.  I can remember singing that song as a boy at the Washington School Christmas concert in North Arlington, NJ.  It’s one of my favorites; yes, it’s kind of sappy, but it’s so simple, majestic, profound. It can send chills down my spine.  It was released just after Thanksgiving in 1962 by Noël Regney and Gloria Baker.  What I didn’t know until this week (Thank you, Google.) is that it was written during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The lines, “Said the night wind to the little lamb, ‘Do you see what I see?’” and “Pray for peace people everywhere,” came to Regney after watching babies being pushed in strollers through the streets of New York City. It was difficult for them to perform this song in public during the missile crisis because they thought of those babies and became overwhelmed with emotion.  “Said the shepherd boy to the mighty King, ‘Do you know what I know?’ – Do you know what I know? – ‘A child, a child, shivers in the cold, let us bring him silver and silver.” 

It’s striking, a Christmas song about the Christ child is born after looking out and seeing “signs,” babies and infants.   So are they singing about the Christ child or the children of New York City or maybe about the child in us that reaches out for the children in the world, the child in us that also shivers in the cold?  Yes.  We can’t tease them apart.  They’re all connected. To care for one is to care for the other.  For a young woman shall bear a child.  Her name, his name is “God is with us.”  How we care for these “signs” among us and within us just might be the signs posts telling us that we’re on the right way.

           

             

           

           

           

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[1] I’m thankful to Fr. Richard Rohr for this statement/insight.

[2] Walter Brueggemann, Isaiah 1-39 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 1998), 69-70.

[3] An alternate reading is “born from above” or even “born anew.”  Either way, Jesus points to the necessity of a new birth.

[4] Arnold Toynbee, The Study of History (a twelve-volume work written between 1923-1961), cited in Joseph Campbell, The Hero With a Thousand Faces, Bollingen Series XVII (Third Edition) (Novato, CA:  New World Library, 2008 [1949]), 11-12.

An Advent Series: The Way Toward Birth - I. The First Step

Isaiah 2: 1-8 & John 1:1-5

First Sunday of Advent/ 27^th November 2011

Come with me, dear Christian, to the place of birth and rebirth.

Come, beloved of God, to the place of renewal and new beginnings.

Come, Holy ones, to the place of your resurrection, to the place of life.

Come with me down a narrow path that leads to the broad fields of salvation.

Many say they wish to take this path.  Many say they’re looking for it with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength, but most never leave home, most never muster the courage to step out upon the way, many have good intentions and hope to one day; others have read-up about the way, studied its terrain, memorized stories about the journey –the stories of others who have travelled there, but have never ventured very far from the known on their own. 

            Every journey of the human spirit recounted in ancient mythologies and religions, every journey of faith requires leaving home.  The journey of the hero, the journey toward wisdom and enlightenment, the way toward salvation, requires that one sets forth down a new way, a new path, the road less travelled that makes all the difference.[1]  Dorothy Gale was wrong when she said, “if I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't look any further than my own backyard.”[2]  I like Dorothy, but she’s wrong here, all that we desire cannot be found in the corner of our own backyards, it will be not be offered at home.  We are called out toward a new place.  We are summoned to leave home and go where the Spirit leads.  We are invited to leave the old way behind and step out toward the yet unrealized future. 

            Abraham was called to leave home in order to meet his future.  Moses had to leave home in order to find the way toward liberation.  Mary and Joseph had to leave Nazareth in order to go to Bethlehem.  The magi had to leave home to meet the Christ child.  The Apostle Paul had to leave home to find salvation.  There’s something about the journey, the traveling, the adventure that shapes and forms who we are, which forces us to question our faith and rediscover a deeper one.  It’s only on the journey that we discover who we really are and discern what God is calling us to be and to do.  Jesus had to leave home, go off on his journey, in order to show us the way that leads toward God.

            When Isaiah says, “O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the LORD” (Is 2:5), we’re given a liturgical summons, a call, an invitation to step out on the journey toward God, to walk down a different path, to follow a different way, led by the light of God.  Isaiah offers an invitation.  It’s really more like an urgent plea:  For God’s sake, please, walk in God’s way, in this path, and not in the other path.  The prophet Isaiah is desperately warning Judah to change its ways, to turn away from its idols and obsessions and return to God. Isaiah relentlessly calls the people to give account for their wayward lives, for their falling away from the worship and service of Yahweh toward idols and the worship of “things.” He warns.  Man, does he warn. 

            The people have turned away from relying upon God toward relying upon themselves for their well-being.  He’s fed up because the people are fed up to the full – full of themselves, full of their things, full of silver and gold, full of horses and chariots, full of idols.  They have turned away from the things that matter most. They have ignored the needs of the most vulnerable among them, the needs of the orphan, and the widow.  They have focused so much upon themselves that they have rejected the needs of their neighbors.  And he warns. 

            Full of silver and gold, full of horses, full of idols – it all sounds so foreign to us, so exotic, the sins of an earlier time, cut-off and removed from us.  But they’re not. They’re actually remarkably similar to our own “sins” – we too are full of wealth; we too are full of silver and gold.  We too have our silver and gold and stock and bonds and other securities. 

            We too are full of horses, it’s called the military industrial complex, it’s called military expenditures. 1 trillion dollars full of horses for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and now there are rumors of more horses needed for Iran and Pakistan. 

            And we are full of idols.  This can be summed up with two words:  Black Friday.  While we might not have ventured into a mall on Friday or withheld from online shopping, we are all complicit in a society that is full of idols, we are tempted and seduced by idols, we worship idols, we’re fascinated with things, mesmerized by all the bling.  Idols are anything that compete with our reliance and trust upon God.  Idols are our projections of self-achievement, self-congratulation, and self-security.  Idols are -isms, every –ism we encounter today are usually idols.  They are the things, people, beliefs we carry around with us, trust, never question.  Most of these idols are also our own creation. We’ve invested them with authority and power.  God has not invested them with authority and power.

            When Isaiah says, “O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord,” he’s calling them – and us – to come away from our obsessions with gold and horses and idols.  Come away from the road that leads to all those things.  Come away and take a detour – repent – and go down a different road, the road that leads to God.  It’s a calling away from economic and religious accommodation to the culture as a whole, to a different way.  The implication here is that in order to travel on this road we need light, because the road we’re currently on is full of darkness – or leads to darkness.  To live full of gold, full of horses, full of idols is to live in a kind of darkness – and not even know it.

            The light of God is offered as an alternative way.  It’s the way away from one form of being and the way toward a new way of being, of renewed obedience to God, of a new relationship with God.  So, yes, Isaiah warns. And he warns. And yet, the voice of the prophet never gives up his confidence and trust in Yahweh to save, to redeem, to restore, to rebuild.   Over and over again Isaiah calls us to “Walk in the light of the LORD,” which leads down a new path, to a new place, a place of rebirth and renewal.  What Isaiah hopes for is the return of God’s people back toward God, the renewal of the covenantal relationship, the (re)discovery that they are the beloved children of God.  Judah has a long road to trod before they discover this.  Jerusalem will be destroyed and the people forced into exile in Babylon.  But it’s in Babylon, in exile, that the promise of a return starts to emerge, it’s the image of a redeemer who will come to save the people through the birth of a child who will bring salvation.

            These are the images and words of Advent and Christmas. Immediately, we begin to think of Jesus as that redeemer and savior, a child given to us, wonderful counselor.  That’s how the early church understood Isaiah, how they approached the birth of Jesus.  So as we enter Advent and move toward Christmas, these are the stories we hear – the promised coming of Jesus, the birth of John the Baptist and Jesus, Mary, Joseph. We try each year to focus on the reason of the season.  We know Isaiah’s warning rings true. We are all complicit in the over-commercialism of the season.  Advent, to some extent, offers resistance to the pull of the culture in its rush toward Christmas without taking the time to prepare for it. But it’s tough.  We want to sing Christmas carols, decorate our homes and churches, so we can be just like the malls.  There was a time in American society when homes were decorated for Christmas on Christmas Eve.  Every year churches are engaged in a titanic struggle to preserve the meaning of Christmas.  It’s tough.  It’s not surprising that many churches just give up and give in (probably the same ones which cancel worship when Christmas falls on a Sunday).

           

            All of which leads me to this Advent sermon series.  This year I’m not going to follow the lectionary, no apocalyptic texts from Mark, no reference to the Baptist’s voice crying out in the wilderness.  Advent hymns? You betcha! I’m not giving those up.  Instead, I want to listen for a different voice that runs through the Christian tradition which is often not heard or ignored.  It’s a voice that comes from the early centuries of the Church, from places like Palestine, Egypt, and Turkey; it’s the voice of Christian mystics and theologians who were less concerned with the facticity of the historical birth of Jesus They didn’t deny the historical veracity of Jesus’ birth.  They went deeper than history. Instead, they looked to his birth, the reality of his birth, of God taking on flesh in Jesus, becoming incarnate and dwelling with humanity full of grace and truth, as a revelation of something deep and profound in human experience.  And it’s this:  the birth of Christ reveals to us the mystery of God.  His birth, life, death and resurrection, together, sets the pattern for all of us.  By pattern, I don’t mean example.  That is, Jesus was not born only so that we might follow him.  Instead by pattern I mean that his birth reveals a pattern that we are called to participate in and that pattern, that way, that life is the very life of God being born and again and again and again in human flesh. 

            It was the early theologian Irenaeus (c.115-c.202), from France, among many others, who affirmed that, “the glory of God is a human being fully alive.”[2]  Irenaeus had a tough life, his community of faith was traumatized by persecution and yet he held on to a vision of humanity as full of divine light and presence: “For those who see the light are within the light and partake of its brilliancy; even so, those who see God are in God, and received of His splendor.”[4] The incarnation was viewed as a cosmic event through which “Divinity became human so that humanity could become divine.”[5]  In other words, divinity becoming human didn’t just happen in Jesus and for Jesus alone, but Jesus, participating in our humanity, calls our humanity into the divine life – all of us.  The Christian experience is this journey; it’s the way toward new life – our life.  It begins with birth.

           

            And birth, a new way, as Isaiah said, is required. The British historian Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975) pointed his readers in a similar direction.  In his twelve-volume work, The Study of History (1923-1961), Toynbee analyzed the laws of the rise and disintegration of civilizations.  He argued that schisms or divisions in the soul or in the body politic can only be resolved one way.  They will not be resolved “by a scheme of return to the good old days (archaism), or by programs guaranteed to render an ideal projected future (futurism), or even by the most realistic, hardheaded work to weld together again the deteriorating elements.  Only birth can conquer death – the birth, not of the old thing again, but of something new.  Within the soul, within the body social, there must be – if we are to experience long survival – a continuous ‘recurrence of birth’ (palingenesia) to nullify the unremitting recurrences of death.”[6]  I believe that the walk with and toward Jesus is always a “recurrence of birth.”  Every time we encounter him we experience a “recurrence of birth.”

            What if every mother is Mary, every child is a kind of “Christ,” every father is Joseph?  What if Mary and Joseph are more than historical figures, but each parts of our personality?  What if God is really trying to birth something new within you?  What if God is trying to born something of God’s own life with you? What if you are, like Mary, being asked to bear the life of God into the world? What are you being ask to “father” and care for, like Joseph, something, some life that belongs to God within you?  That’s what this sermon series is about. 

            Perhaps there’s resistance to all of this, to what might appear as wacky ideas.  Or maybe you can resonate them.  Either way, they’re worth examining.  My hunch is that there’s a part in all of us that is unwilling to fully claim who we are as beloved children of God. Why is this so? No less an authority as Augustine (354-430) – Augustine – said, “The Son of God became the Son of Man that he might make the sons of men sons of God.”[7] 

            What if this Advent, what if on this Christmas morning you can celebrate the birthing of your identity as a son of God, as a daughter of God?  Is this not what Jesus came to show us?  Is this not the greatest truth we can discover about ourselves, that at the core of our being, in the depths of our psyches, that we are beloved daughters and sons of God?  Then everything else we might say about ourselves becomes secondary, secondary like silver and gold and horses and idols.

            “The Son of God became the Son of Man that he might make the sons of men sons of God.

            Our journey toward Bethlehem is also the way toward our birth.  This can happen no matter how old we might be.  So let us follow the light and step out on this journey and go where the Spirit leads us.

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[1] Allusion to Robert Frost (1873-1963) poem, “The Road Not Taken,” Mountain Interval (1920).

[2] The Wizard of Oz (MGM Studios, 1939).

[3] Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses (Against Heresies), 4. 20.7. (c. 180 AD).

[4] Irenaeus, 4.20.5.

[5] Wendy Farley, Gathering Those Driven Away:  A Theology of Incarnation (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 170.

[6] Cited in Joseph Campbell, The Hero With a Thousand Faces, Bollingen Series XVII (Third Edition) (Novato, CA:  New World Library, 2008 [1949]), 11-12.

[7] Augustine, Mainz sermons, 13.1. Cited in Norman Russell, Fellow Workers with God:  Orthodox Thinking on Theosis (Crestwood, NY:  St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2009), 39.

What is a Life and What is it For?

Psalm 23 & John 10: 1-15

22^nd Sunday after Pentecost/ 13^th November 2011

Both Psalm 23 and John 10 lift up familiar images of God as shepherd.  Actually, both of these texts are related.  The shepherd leads us into green pastures, to places of safety, nourishment, and growth.  These pastoral images have offered considerable comfort, especially during times of loss and grief.  Psalm 23 is often read at funerals, “surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever.”  We imagine the psalm speaking about a heavenly pasture, of the life to come.

Jesus takes up the shepherd image, of course. He’s the good shepherd because he lays down his life for his sheep.  This is a remarkable statement, given that shepherds were despised in his day.  When Jesus takes up the image, however, he does something new and different with it.  First, the focus of John 10 is not on some far-off distant shore, as in Psalm 23.  John 10 is rarely read at funerals, probably because Jesus is not talking about a life to come, but life here and now.  “I came that they may have life,” Jesus said.  Life.  “…and to have it abundantly.”

            In John’s gospel, Jesus has a lot to say about life – Jesus is the light of life (John 10: 12), the way, the truth, and the life (John 14: 6).  The majestic prologue to John’s gospel draws our attention to this theme:  “All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.  What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people” (John 1: 3-4).  We also find plenty of reference to “eternal life” in John.  We might think that Jesus is talking about the afterlife, but he isn’t.  Jesus is concerned about this life, this world.  Eternal life might be better translated as life touched by eternity, or life informed by God’s presence.  Either way – eternal life or life touched by eternity – is not reserved for some far-off future time, but something we can possess in the present.  And we can hear it in Jesus’ high priestly prayer, in John 17,  “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, since you have give him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.”  Now, listen carefully to what Jesus says. Eternal life is not reserved for the after-life, it’s not the reward for believing in Jesus, or what we get for accepting Christ as our savior.  Here’s Jesus’ definition of eternal life: “And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (Jn. 17:3).

            Can you hear this?  Eternal life is experienced here and now.  How?  When we know God.  Know God.  It doesn’t say, when we have belief in or faith in God.  It doesn’t say, when we know about God.  It says, when we know God – have a personal knowledge of who God is, who God is for us and for our neighbor and for the world.   It also claims that eternal life is given when we know who Jesus is as the Christ, and that to know this Jesus – not just believe in him, not just know something about him, but to know him – is to know God.  To know one is to know the other.

            To know Jesus as shepherd is to know God as shepherd.  And what does a shepherd do?  A shepherd keeps the flock intact, protects the flock, and provides food.  Of course we can see all of these qualities in both God and Jesus.  But we need to know more than this.

            It was common for shepherds in the Middle East to give each of their sheep a name.  We can hear this in the text: “He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out” (Jn. 10:3) of the pend.  This verse attests to God’s high esteem accorded to human beings.  Later, Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd.  I know my own and my own know me” (John 10:14).  This too is a remarkable claim and it’s easy to miss its significance.  You see, Jesus does not love in general.  Jesus loves in particular.   Jesus’ love is not love in general, but always in particular.  “I know my own and my own know me.”  Knowledge of Jesus is not in the abstract, it’s not intellectual, nor even theoretical.  It’s intensely personal.  It’s a personal knowledge.  It’s a particular knowledge of Jesus because we have been and are being known by Jesus.  “I know my own and my own know me.”

            Jesus doesn’t stop here.  He expands the metaphor.  Not only is Jesus a good shepherd, Jesus is also the gate for the sheep.  To which the disciples offer a profound theological response: “Huh? – What are you talking about; this is confusing.”  How can Jesus be both the shepherd and the gate through which the shepherd walks, leading the way for the sheep?  The brain starts to hurt pondering on this image.  Now there will be a tendency in us to say either he’s a shepherd or a gate, but not both.  We have to resist this temptation. 

            Working on this text this week, I remembered one of my religion professors at Rutgers College making a comment about this confusing text.   It was a class on the gospel of John, the professor’s name was Bart Ehrman.  Today, Ehrman  is a New Testament professor at UNC-Chapel Hill  and a best-selling, having published twenty books.  When I had him as a professor he was a Christian, but he’s not one today.  I can remember Ehrman’s quizzical, puzzling response to these verses about the shepherd and the gate.  It didn’t make any sense to him and therefore wasn’t very useful or edifying, so we moved on.  I’m not sure what he would say today.  Since then in my journey, one of my core convictions is that deep truth and profound wisdom are almost never found through either-or thinking, but always discovered through both-and.  Jesus is both shepherd of the sheep and the gate by which the sheep enter and leave the pen.  We have to hold the tension.  Holding the tension of the metaphor helps to remind us that Jesus is a person, not an idea or even a collection of beliefs about him.  Like all human beings he is irreducible, that is he can’t be reduced to this or that, but requires respect as a complex being, like all of us.

            And it’s the person that matters.  As I stressed several weeks ago, it’s not the ideas or beliefs about Jesus that are the way, the truth, and the life.  He is the way.  He is the truth.  He is the life.  He gives us himself, his person, and it’s through the relationship with him and his way of bringing us into the life of God and God’s truth, that call us to eternal life, or God’s life.

            The gate statement was was difficult for the disciples to wrap their heads around, so Jesus says to them, again, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate…” He is the gate.  Not the church, not theological orthodoxy.  He is the gate.  Although we find a reference to gatekeeper earlier in the chapter, here Jesus says he is the gate.  The sheep come and go through him.  He is a kind of threshold or doorway.  He is the thoroughfare through which we move, through which we come and go.  And it is through him as gate that we are led by him out from the confines of the sheep-pend out onto vast, broad, safe, green pastures. And it’s out there in the fields of the Lord we feed on the food that yields life! 

            “I am the gate.  Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture” (John 10:9).  By “saved” Jesus means saved from those who seek to rob and steal us from life.  The Greek here suggests a thief who robs, steals, and kills for food and does not allow the sheep to fully develop or grow. Jesus wants us to develop and to grow and to grow up.  We are safe to come and go – where? – to find pasture.  He grants us freedom to come and to go find the place that yields life.  For “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

            This is not just ordinary life.  But zoē life.  There are two Greek words for life, bios and zoē.  Bios is basic, functional existence.  That which allows us to survive.  Zoē is life-giving, generative life.  It creates.  Bios is about surviving; zoē has to do with thriving.  I came that you may thrive, Jesus says.  Jesus doesn’t just want us to “get by,” but to thrive, perisson – abundantly.  This word suggests life that is superfluous, more than is necessary for life, it suggests surplus, it means to have it all.  Not “up there” after we die alone, but here and now.  This is the same resurrection life of God that raised Jesus from death.  It’s the life that will never die.  And it’s offer to you and me when we are found in him.  Or, to put it another way, we experience this life when we are in Christ, when we follow him, listen to his voice, dwell in his presence; know, as our baptisms attest, that our lives are hidden in his.

            The life of God Jesus holds out to all of us is about thriving, about coming to life.  So many people have come to believe that life is about surviving, the survival of the fittest, of achieving, having more “toys,” winning, getting ahead. At some level the Occupy movement on Wall Street in Manhattan and in other cities is tapping into the deep dissatisfaction in American life, that existence has to mean more than accruing wealth and greed and capitalism absent a moral ethic.  There are many for whom life is about survival; some are just trying to hold on, one day at a time.  I’ve come to believe, dare I say, know, that this is not God’s intent for God’s children.  Life was and is meant for so much more.  How this thriving will be enfleshed in your life will be particular to who you are, to your circumstances, your life-experience.  But I’m convinced that God wants us, every one of us, to come alive.  

            The spiritual life, the way of faith and discipleship, the way of the cross is figuring out how and what and why and where God’s life will be lived in us.  The answer, I’m convinced, will be found, not through simply belief in Jesus or ideas about God.  God doesn’t want our beliefs or our ideas.  God doesn’t need our beliefs and our ideas.  In fact, as heretical as this might sound, God does really need our faith.  God wants us – not to possess us, but in order to love us, deeply, intimately, so that we know just how loved we really are, right now, completely, every part of the us, the good and bad, the light and the shadow.  Right now.  As Paul said to the Corinthians, “Now is the day of God’s favor. Today is the day of salvation” (2 Cor. 6:2)! 

            With Jesus’ words here in John 10 and his priestly prayer in John 17, we have been allowed to witness the deep communion between Jesus and God.  We’ve been given a glimpse of this relationship in order that we too come to know – not believe, but know – that this is what is available to all us: a deep union, a profound communion of our spirits with the Spirit of God.  Through this relationship, through deep prayer, through worship, through service, staying close to God, learning from Jesus how to relate to God, we follow after him and follow this pattern.  Jesus’ way with God, we then discover, is the gate, as the way he is the gate, the gate through which we move out into the pastures of freedom and abundance, of life. 

            The contemporary poet, Mary Oliver, asks, “Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?  Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”[1] That’s the question. Or, to theologically reframe her question,  “What are you going to do with your now resurrected life?”[2]  What is a life and what is it for?[3] 

            How we answer these questions, “live the questions now,” as Rilke (1875-1926) said, will shape our lives and the lives of our children.[4]  Living into these questions, I’m convinced, will lead us to green pastures and still waters, water that revives and blesses us, onto vast, broad pastures of freedom.

            I can’t tell you what that the pasture will look like from your perspective.  I can’t tell you how to get there.  I can’t tell you what you should or should not do.  No one can.  You have to discover that for yourself, listening to God’s voice, following Jesus’ way.  Yes, together in community, but you have search for it. If you ask for it, Jesus said, you will receive it.  What is a life and what is it for?  If you seek it, you will surely find it (Matthew 7:7).

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[1] Mary Oliver, “The Summer Day,” New and Selected Poems (New York:  Beacon Press, 1992), 94.

[2] This is what Richard Rohr deems to be “the heroic question” in Falling Upward:  A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 2011), 21.

[3] This is a variation of James E. Loder’s  (1931-2001) question, “What is a lifetime and what is it for?”  See The Logic of the Spirit:  Human Development in Theological Perspective (San Francisco:  Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1998).

[4] Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet (1903):  “Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them.  And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now.  Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”  

Image:  Georges Rouault (1871-1958), Crucifixion