January 21, Third Sunday after the Epiphany

Deacon Sue Nebel

Earlier this month I was at the Diocesan Center in downtown Chicago for a meeting of the Commission on Ministry.  It was our first meeting of the new year, a time to welcome new members.  A time to get to know each other and to orient the new people. Prior to the meeting, we had been told to be prepared to respond to this directive: “Tell briefly about an important decision you have made.”  After a brief go-around to introduce ourselves, we divided up into small groups of three or four, to share the stories of our decisions. In my group, one person told us about asking a woman he barely knew to accompany him to a business social function.  It was the beginning of a relationship that led to marriage.  The other three of us had made decisions related to vocation. In each one of the situations, the person faced a choice. They could move forward on a well-defined path, a path shaped by family background, role expectations for women, and a sense of security.  Or they could opt for a non-traditional path, responding to a deeply-felt conviction that it was what was right for them.  Each of them chose the second one, moving out of their comfort zone into the unknown. 

We have a situation like that—people making important decisions--in this morning’s Gospel lesson.  The setting is the Sea of Galilee, where fishermen are in their boats out on the water, engaged in their work.  Jesus comes walking along the shore.  Spotting two brothers, Simon and Andrew, he calls out to them, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.”  They drop their nets, get out of the boat, and follow him.  Continuing on, Jesus finds two more fishermen.  James and John, with their father and some hired men, mending their nets.  Jesus calls out, “Follow me.”  Like the other two, they drop their nets and join up with him.  An important, life-changing decision for the four men.  They choose to join up with this man Jesus to head off to who knows where.  They turn their backs on a secure livelihood.  A familiar pattern of going out each day in their boats to fish.  Bringing their daily catch back to sell.  Keeping their boats and their nets in good repair.  In the blink of an eye (Mark uses his familiar term “immediately.) they leave it all behind to set out on a different path—into the unknown.

It is quite a story.  Like so many Gospel accounts of Jesus’s ministry, this one is pretty thin on details.  I find it frustrating. What’s going on here?  I want to know more about the decision made by Simon, Andrew, James, and John. I want more information.  When I was in Deacons School, moving toward ordination, the instructor in one of my preaching classes offered some good advice. Words I have remembered and put to use.  When faced with a challenging passage of Scripture, he told us, approach it in a stance of asking questions. First, what questions do you want to ask the text?  Then, what questions is the text asking you?  What questions do I want to ask this passage about Jesus calling his first disciples?   I want to ask about the back story.  Did those four men make their decision to follow Jesus on an impulse?  Or, was it something they had been thinking about?  Was his calling to them on the Sea of Galilee their first encounter with him?  Was he a complete stranger, or had they already met him?  What, if anything, did they know about his plans?  Not much to go on here. 

But the version of this story in the Gospel of Matthew gives us a clue about the situation—and a possible scenario.  Matthew begins his version of the story by telling us that Jesus had left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the Sea of Galilee. So it could be that Jesus had been in the area for a while.  He may have been looking for followers.  Maybe he was talking with lots of people. Talking about his mission to spread the word about the good news of the kingdom. Keeping an eye out for people the potential to do the work of ministry.  It is possible that Simon and Andrew, and James and John, had heard about Jesus and his mission from others.  Or maybe they had been involved in some of his conversations.  Maybe they were more than a little curious about his vision of a different world than the one they knew.  One that would be better for everyone.  So, when Jesus comes walking along the shore with his invitation “Follow me and I will make you fish for men” they might have been open to possibility. Open to setting out on a different path. They respond to Jesus’s invitation.  They choose that different path. A path that will take them to places far beyond the limits of the place where they lived and the work they did.  They will indeed “fish for people,” bringing new followers to Jesus. They will learn to do new things, like teaching and healing. and, eventually, they will begin to  build the church. 

Now to the other question, the more important one. What question, or questions, is this text asking us?  I think it is this: Will we do what Simon and Andrew and James and John did?  Will we decide to follow Jesus?  The answer is yes.  The fact that we are gathered here this morning testifies to that.  We said yes in our baptism. The question is right there the baptismal liturgy, as clear as can be.  Candidates for baptism, or their parents and sponsors, are asked: Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Savior?  Do you promise to follow and obey him as your Lord? They answer: I do.  Most of us, I would guess, were probably too young to understand what was happening in our baptism.  What was being pledged on our behalf.  The Church, thank goodness, makes sure that, as we grow older, we learn what baptism means.  We claim those commitments as our own.  They shape and form who we are and what we do. The Church gives us many opportunities to affirm the promises of baptism.  We can do in liturgical rites like Confirmation or Renewal of Baptismal Vows.  We do it in baptismal liturgies, joining with the persons being baptized to renew our Baptismal Covenant. To respond to questions about how we live our lives.  In the Diocese of Chicago, renewing that covenant is often part of a Celebration of New Ministry, the official welcoming of a new priest as rector or vicar.  Again and again, we claim ourselves to be followers of Jesus, his present-day disciples. This, we affirm, is who we are.

Follow me, Jesus says to the four fishermen in the Gospel story. Follow me.  Jesus has continued to say it to people down through the years.  He says it to us. Every single one of us. Every single day.  The question is not if we will say yes, if we will follow him.  We have answered that one.  The question is how.  How will we follow Jesus today? How will we continue the work started by Jesus and, the four fishermen on the Sea of Galilee, along with others who joined them?. Each morning, as we look to the day ahead, we should ask ourselves: What will I do today as a follower of Jesus? How will I live out my promise to love my neighbor, understanding neighbor in the broadest terms? How will I respect the dignity of everyone I meet or with whom I interact today? What can I do to work for justice? To make the world a better place for everyone.

Follow me, Jesus said to them. And they dropped their nets and followed him.

Epiphany 3; Year B: Jonah 3:1-5,10: Psalm 62:6-14; 1 Corinthians 7:29-31;  Mark 1:14-20

January 7, Baptism of Christ

Kristin White

Mark 1:4-11

The Jordan River is muddy.

I don’t think I would drink that water, and I tell you that I would not lower a baby down into it.

There’s a divider down the center of the river, in the place where I visited, on pilgrimage, at about this time last year. It’s one of those ropes with the little floaty things on it, like the ones that get used to divide the lanes in swimming pools so that people can swim laps without crashing into each other.

Except our guide pointed out to our group that the rope in the middle of that river was not about designated swimming areas in the Jordan. It is an international border. In a conversation that I would have with him a few minutes later, he showed me the Jordanian soldier who stood guard under a shelter on the other side of the river, with a machine gun slung over his shoulder. And then he nodded his head at that soldier’s Israeli counterpart, who stood on the hillside just behind us, also holding the requisite automatic weapon.

There’s a church on the Jordanian side of the river, pretty close to the water. It has a bell tower with bells that chime on the hour. And there are doves living up in that bell tower – no doubt well-fed doves, the cynical side of me supposed – there to further heighten the spiritual experience of so many pilgrims coming to that space to remember the baptism of Jesus.

My own experience on that day was like much of what happened throughout our group’s pilgrimage to the Holy Land last year. Our schedule was regularly shifting, based on delays or availability or traffic or security. We had hurried to make it to this baptismal site before it closed at the end of the day, quickly proceeded through a short liturgy that included a reading of scripture – the baptism of Christ, which had happened right there, or someplace near there, but scholars at least agree that it happened. We prayed for the renewal of our own baptismal promises. And then we divvied up into two groups, to be anointed with holy oil by one of the two bishops helping to lead us.

There were groups of people wearing white robes over their swimsuits as they went down into the Jordan to be baptized. I remember loudspeakers and tightly timed aspects, and still those soldiers with their machine guns, and an overall aspect of: “hurry up, have your spiritual experience, stick your feet into the Jordan if you’d like, buy your souvenir, and then let’s get back onto the bus for the next stop because it’s time to go.”

Somewhere in there, though, one of those well-fed doves flew out over the water.

And suddenly it wasn’t all that difficult for me to imagine John the Baptist (who might well have used a loudspeaker himself if he had had one on offer) together with his cousin Jesus, the person John had known since before the two of them were born, stepping down in among the reeds and the mud of the Jordan River. Maybe there. Maybe someplace nearby.

---

Of the four accounts of Jesus’ life and ministry, Mark’s gospel is the earliest. It’s also the most concise and urgent. I read somewhere in recent days that Mark uses the word “immediately” 47 times…which feels like kind of a lot. There’s no story here about Mary and Joseph and a donkey and a dream, no talk of angels or shepherds and wise men coming to find this new baby – nothing is even mentioned of the Baby Jesus. The beginning of this good news begins with the words of one prophet, Isaiah, and leads us to another prophet, John, whose arrival is the start of our gospel passage today.

Mark tells us about the people from everywhere leaving their homes and their villages, leaving Jerusalem, in order to go out to the wilderness to be baptized by John. This is a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, which is a different thing than Jewish people would have known. And people came from all over, hearing that call to repent, which means to turn away; hearing that need to be cleansed from their sins by this unlikeliest of characters: John, with his camel’s hair and his leather belt and his locusts and his wild honey.

This guy out in the wilderness is the one that people are leaving their safety in Jerusalem, leaving their familiarity in their cities and their towns, to go out and meet in the wilderness?

Jesus joins them there. Mark’s gospel leaves out John’s protest – “I should be baptized by you!” – but it tells us this part: “As he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens split open and the Spirit descending like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’ ”

The Greek word for the heavens being split open will be the same word this gospel uses for the tearing of the curtain at Jesus’ death. Nothing will separate God’s love from the Beloved in this moment: not the heavens, not anything. And why is he there, even? Why is Jesus going through a rite that is for repentance and the forgiveness of sins – he, who has nothing to turn away from, no sins that need to be forgiven?

Because he would be with us. Because nothing will separate us from him.

And so, God uses ordinary things to convey extraordinary grace. Muddy water and unusual clothes and strange food; urgency, and oil, and some unlikely characters. And a bird and the sky and a voice that I’m not sure which people actually heard – but somebody did, or else we wouldn’t know about it today.

Was there jostling and a concern about who spent how much time in which place? Did someone say “immediately” out loud, with an edge to their voice? Were people keeping track of which of the baptized had the most stature (and did they want to stand in a particular part of that water)? Did the humanity of it all catch up to what was happening? I have to believe that it did.

And still, I’m telling you: I watched a dove fly out over those waters.

C.S. Lewis once told a group of people that, “for Christians, ‘spirit’ is not lighter than matter, but heavier. Spirit is the real substance of God acting in creation and redemption and…reconciliation.

(But) Spirit is always tied to material – real water, real bread, inexpensive wine, beautiful baptismal dresses …Spirit fills us in church and then drives us from church (as it will drive Jesus from the Jordan to the wilderness). There, outside the walls, we wrestle with the beasts, and pray for ministering angels…angels heavier than air.”[1]

God uses the substance of the things we know, in order to convey the heavier reality that is more – more than we can ask, or even imagine: “You are my beloved. With you I am well-pleased.”

The great reality of our faith is that God would be with us. The truth of our faith is that nothing will separate us from God’s love – not the heavens above, not a piece of cloth in the Temple.

Jesus will go on from the shores of the Jordan River, driven immediately out into the wilderness, Mark’s gospel tells us. There, he will be tempted for forty days by the devil, and there will be wild animals. And – thank God – the angels will minister to him.

Only after that does Jesus begin to live his call in ministry. From there, he will bid disciples to join him. He will teach and preach and heal people. He will cast out demons. He will give God thanks for five loaves and two fishes, and will use those to feed a whole bunch of people who are sitting down on a large bit of grass. He will call Lazarus out from the grave, and he will tell those who are with his friend to unbind him, and let him go. He will use his own hands to turn over the tables of the money changers in the Temple.

Over and over again, God will use ordinary things to convey extraordinary grace, teaching us, over and over again that we are the beloved, that God will tear through the heavens in order to be with us. God will use ordinary things to show us that we are called to the ministry of sharing the gifts we have – generously, lavishly, with a world that starves for good news.

And so let us go, now, to the font of our salvation.

[1] Elton Brown. “Pastoral Perspective: Mark 1:4-11” Feasting on the Word: Year B, Volume 1. Knoxville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010. 236-238.

December 31, First Sunday after Christmas

The First Sunday After Christmas – December 31, 2017

John 1: 1-18

A sermon preached by Debbie Buesing

St. Augustine’s, Wilmette

It is the seventh day of Christmas. In my house, the Magi and their camels have crept halfway around my living room, on their way to meet the Christ Child on top of my piano. Outside, Christmas trees have been stripped of their finery and set out curbside to await the chipper, around the same time the “holiday music,” that has been in non-stop rotation on WLIT-FM since early November, went silent. But here in the Church, we still sing Christmas carols. The green wreaths and red bows are still here, as are the festive vestments on our clergy and the altar. While the world’s attention moves on to the next thing, here we linger over Christmas just a little longer, with today’s lectionary reading presenting that most mysterious of Christmas stories, from the Gospel According to John.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. These words seem far from the beloved mashup of Luke’s and Matthew’s gospels that we know so well from nativity scenes and Christmas pageants. Today we do not hear of angelic messengers, long journeys, strange visitors, or of a poor and no doubt frightened young couple who dared to say YES to a call that must have seemed impossible. The writer of John’s Gospel takes the Christmas narrative away from first century Palestine, across the boundaries of place and time, to proclaim the One who existed before time itself.

What has come into being 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 … and the Word was made flesh, and lived among us.

To me, the words that introduce John’s gospel are sheer poetry, with their echoes of Genesis and the way they surround its mysterious story with imagery and cadence. I find echoes of John’s words in a modern poem, aptly titled “Christmas,” by English poet John Betjeman, in which he struggles to make meaning of that same mystery.

He opens the poem with several verses describing a walk through his village in the days before Christmas, with its elegant manor houses decked out in greenery, the more modest homes with cutout decorations in the windows, and of course, the pretty church in the center. It may be mid-century England, but he could just as easily be describing Wilmette. But suddenly, in the midst of all that sweetness and nostalgia, a troubling question breaks through to the surface:

 “And is it true?” he asks.

And is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window's hue,
A Baby in an ox's stall?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me?

In the beginning was the Maker of the stars and sea. The Maker of the stars and sea became flesh, and lived among us. This is the story behind the more familiar stories of shepherds abiding in the fields, of wise men following a star to find a baby in an ox’s stall.

The baby part of the story is easy. We like babies. We gather around the font to bless them and welcome them into their new family. We pass them around at coffee hour for snuggles.

It is the Incarnation – literally, the taking on of flesh and muscle and bone – by the Maker of the stars and sea, that gives us pause. It is so staggering a claim that we can, I believe, be forgiven if we too ask, “And is it true?”  -- even when the question comes to us when we don’t want or expect it.

In the town of Bethlehem – which isn’t so little anymore – the Church of the Nativity, which dates to the fourth century, sits on top of a hill, in an open plaza they call Manger Square. Inside the church, there is a hole in the floor above a grotto that the faithful believe is the place Mary and Joseph sought shelter to bring the infant Jesus into the world.

Surrounding the hole in the floor is a large, fourteen-pointed silver star, about 36” across. The fourteen star-points represent the fourteen generations between Jesus and King David, as reported in the Gospel According to Matthew. Pilgrims come here to pray and to reach their hands into that hole in the floor, to touch the sacred space.

When my turn came, I knelt by the star and was suddenly overwhelmed by uninvited questions. Was this really the place? How do they know? Was it maybe down the hill, closer to the shepherd’s fields? Or was it really in Nazareth, like some scholars say? I found myself afraid to reach into the opening, so I just kissed my fingertips and pressed them into the star points. I couldn’t find words to pray. So I just rested in the mystery for a few moments, while sixteen centuries of prayers hung in the air like incense.

And is it true? And if we ask ourselves this, do we dare to ask the next question –

What if it is?

To return to the last part of Betjeman’s poem:

And is it true? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,

No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare -
That God was man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine.

Now that the busy-ness and stress of Christmas preparations are behind us, it is good for us to linger a bit longer with this mysterious “single truth.” To consider, perhaps, that the most tender aspects of our celebrations – whether in recent days or in years gone by – are simply an echo of a greater tenderness. The awkwardness of the well-intended gift that misses the mark but is graciously received (I mean, who among us hasn’t had their own “hideous tie” moment?); or loneliness relieved by a surprise Christmas phone call; or the grace that happens in our own families – families of origin or families of choice – when folks travel across town or across the country to set aside present differences or past disappointments, just to sit down at table together and remember who we are: these joys that we can understand point us towards something that perhaps we cannot: the love that burst through space and time to take on human flesh and walk with us.

The Maker of the stars and sea was made flesh, and dwells among us. This is a mystery, but it is also Good News. May we embrace this truth, and carry it out into the New Year, with joy.

“Christmas” by John Betjeman (1906-1984), published in John Betjeman: Collected Poem   http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/john_betjeman/