The Mystery of Both-And: A Sermon for 25 December 2011

St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, Monroe, La.

Babies are soooo concrete. They must be kept wrapped in some variation on bands of cloth to ease their transition to the harsher reality outside the womb. They sleep, cry, eat and need their diaper changed in a rather relentless cycle that demands our attention and action. 

"the word was made flesh" by Chris Shreve

Infants are utterly helpless, and caring for them rules the lives of their caretakers.

Nothing more dramatically transforms the lives of adults of all ages, then a baby’s birth into a family. For parents, the first baby is surely the most definitive and irrevocable element of passage into adulthood. ‘Children’ grow up when they have children.

But babies also help keep grandparents and great grandparents connected to this world. And they help survivors of inevitable human losses to carry on.

I clearly recall my family gathered in my parents’ living room, about to depart for the funeral of my youngest sibling, snatched from life at the tender age of 21. My nephew Clint, now married with children of his own, was a toddler at the time.

Clint knew at some level that we were gathered because Uncle Roger had died. But he also got that we were a captive audience. And he made it his responsibility to lighten our somber mood. We laughed in spite of ourselves at his bright-eyed, endlessly energetic 2-year-old antics.

One of us, I don’t remember who, commented that in such a moment of great loss and human tragedy, the living presence of the next generation in the form of a babe made it not only possible—but necessary—to go on.

Babies are concrete. They anchor us in reality.

In contrast, words are abstract. Virtually every one in most languages has more than one meaning. Their relationship to what they signify is typically arbitrary. We can trace the history of words, but ultimately learning a language is mostly an exercise in memorization.

Just last night, we gazed in wonder at a babe in a manger-cradle. Now this morning along comes the Gospel according to St. John (John 1:1-14, NRSV). Every year we make this rather abrupt transition from a concrete, recognizably human scene, to this poetic.. and compelling, yet mysterious account of the Word…made flesh…to dwell among us.

Where, we might be tempted to ask, is the baby? Where is Mary, the blessed mother, Joseph, the faithful father? The awestruck shepherds? Indeed, not one human populates this account!

Here’s a Gospel trivia question for you: Where and how does Jesus the human first appear in the Gospel according to John? Not until verse 29 of Chapter 1, and then as a 30-year-old man, when he comes to the river Jordan to be baptized!

John’s account of Jesus the Christ begins with God, and with the unity of “the Word” with God. It echoes the creation story, and tells us again that God exists outside of time, and that even light and life itself are from God. And in so doing, it provides us with a healthy reminder of God’s difference… from humankind.

In John’s interpretation of Christmas, the babe in the manger is “the Word” that not only was with God, but was God, “the Word” spoken in an act of self-communication. It reminds us that we can know God only as God comes to us in self-revelation. Nothing we can do—not our most noble aspirations or our most dedicated acts of service—can earn or precipitate such an event.

From the prologue to John’s Gospel, we learn first and foremost that in Jesus Christ we meet nothing less than the revelation of God. Christmas is, first of all, the celebration of a gracious decision on God’s part to become human in the Baby of Bethlehem.

I myself have often wondered why the author of John chose to tell this story in quite such abstract words and concepts. Why didn’t he just come right out and say, in plain Greek, “Oh, and by the way, Jesus was God!”

I suspect it had to do with the fact that “plain Greek” is no better than “plain English” for talking about such things. How could any human language be up to the challenge of declaring and explaining something so utterly unbelievable, so preposterous, as God becoming human?

And yet again, there’s the babe in the manger. The boy who scares his parents when he goes to the temple... Jesus the man ministers to poor people and sick people. He is tempted; he walks the dusty roads of Galilee and grows weary of the crowds. He becomes frustrated with the religious leaders of his day, their attempts to trap him and their abuse of power.

And then, of course, there’s suffering. The horror of crucifixion. The grief of his mother. Death on the cross.

The events of Jesus’ life are so concrete. We see ourselves and the people we know in those stories. We don’t even like all of them because at times they are too real and they tell us things about our human world we don’t particularly want to know.

At times, they even make Jesus more human than we prefer him to be. And so we go back and forth between the concrete and the abstract, between Jesus the man and God Incarnate.

The Good News today is that we don’t have to choose between one and the other. We don’t have to choose between the babe in the manger and the Word made flesh. We don’t have to choose between concrete and abstract understandings of the One and Only God.

We are fond of saying that we can’t eat our cake and have it to. But that’s classic—and human—dualistic thinking. In the case of God we can. It’s the mystery and miracle of both-and: both God and human, both baby and the Word. Like death and resurrection, each is both question and answer to the other.

When I try really hard to wrap my mind around Incarnation, and all that comes with it, I am convinced it is utterly preposterous. Why would God do such a thing?

And at one and the same time comes the utter conviction that God Incarnate is the only thing that makes any sense at all. Otherwise, who are we? Why are we here? How can any of this be real, if not for God Incarnate? 

The Good News today is we don't have to choose or decide. If we accept the mystery and miracle of both-and, then we live in a universe of possibility we can scarcely imagine. For if the difference and distance between Creator and creature can be reconciled, even for a fleeting moment, whether at one of the mangers of our lives when God is revealed to us through other people or in an internal moment of awareness of the Spirit known only to you, then all of humankind, and all of creation can be reconciled as well.

AMEN

Amazing Grace: A sermon for 21 March 2010

So here we are, rounding the bend and heading down the home stretch of Lent. Today begins the fifth week of our annual journey into the wilderness, following the example of our Lord.

This week culminates with Palm Sunday, a moment of celebration that kicks off the somber events of Holy Week, leading up to the ultimate joy of Easter. Thus today’s lessons not only help us to look back at our Lenten journey, but also offer us a glimmer of what is to come, both the somber and the celebratory aspects.

The prophet Isaiah (43:16-21) is quite explicit in bridging past and future, and placing the emphasis on hope. The context of this poem or hymn is that the Israelites have been exiles in Babylon for nearly 50 years. By the 43rd chapter of Isaiah, they have heard that they will be allowed to go home.

But Babylon and Jerusalem are a long ways apart when travel is by foot and camel. The way is rough. It goes through wilderness, where food and water is scarce and animals of prey do their thing.

And so Isaiah begins by reminding the Israelites that the Lord has seen them through danger before. He made a way for them through the sea, the same sea that then “extinguished” the Egyptian chariots and warriors that pursued them.

But then Isaiah makes an about face. Don’t dwell on that, he says. The Lord is “about to do a new thing.” Notice how the poetry switches into future tense: The Lord will make a way in the wilderness. The Lord will provide water. The wild animals will honor the Lord their God.

Had I begun preparing this sermon a little earlier last week, I might have e-mailed Ed and asked that we sing “Amazing Grace” today. For the most significant, unifying factor that ties together all of our lessons this morning is the good news of the amazing grace of our God.

My study Bible suggests that Psalm 126 was most likely written after the Israelites have returned from Babylon to Jerusalem. It is a hymn of thanksgiving that also begins in the past tense, but on an even more upbeat note: “[T]he Lord restored the fortunes of Zion” and we were so happy we had to pinch ourselves to make sure we weren’t dreaming. We laughed and shouted for joy, and bragged about our Lord to anyone who would listen.

Then the psalmist too turns to the future. This will happen again, he says. We can count on the Lord our God. Tears and weeping are part of the human condition, but with God’s help we will “come again with joy.”

The apostle Paul’s testimony in his letter to the Philippians (3:4b-14) is a very personal variation on the theme of God’s amazing grace. Paul’s look backward is at his own life and accomplishments. He enumerates them: circumcised on the 8th day, an Israelite of the esteemed tribe of Benjamin, not just a Jew but a Hebrew, a Pharisee who knew and followed the law flawlessly, a zealous protector of the faith as he understood it, even to the point of persecuting the church of Jesus Christ.

But now, Paul says, all of that is worthless. It is rubbish. Again, my study Bible says that the Greek word Paul used here actually has a stronger connotation, the connotation of “excrement.”

Having come to know God in the risen Christ, Paul turns his back on such egoistic claims and attempts to earn righteousness through the human worthiness competition. Instead, he says, righteousness is a gift made possible by the amazing grace of God. It is given and accepted through faith by all who have been made God’s own, through Christ Jesus.

Notice two things about this passage. First, suffering itself is transformed. It is no longer something to beg God to relieve us of at the first possible moment. Rather, it is precisely that which draws us closer to Christ. “I want to know Christ,” Paul says, “and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death.”

Second, human striving is no longer a worthiness competition. It is no longer directed at being more religious or more pious or more moral or better behaved or whatever… in relation to other people. Rather, Paul says, let us keep our focus on the only worthy goal, which is the heavenly call of relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Thereby we will receive the only gift worth having, which is the righteousness of God.

And so we come to today’s Gospel lesson (John 12:1-8), and it is here we find most explicitly the foreshadowing of the somber events of Holy Week.

Jesus sits at table in the home of his friends, Mary, Martha and Lazarus. We have met these people before. The presence of Lazarus, who was dead and now lives, foreshadows what is to come for Jesus, although none of those at dinner save Jesus have an inkling of what is to come.

Martha serves, as usual. Mary expresses her extravagant love and devotion to Jesus, as usual. She takes a pound of costly perfume, anoints Jesus’ feet and dries them with her hair. For this she is criticized by Judas Iscariot. Why wasn’t that perfume sold and the money given to the poor? he asks.

But John makes sure we see the falseness of Judas’ piety. Of the four Gospel accounts, John’s is the one most preoccupied with making a case against Judas by seeing signs that lead up to his betrayal of Jesus.

Jesus, on the other hand, is rather gentle in his rebuke. He reminds Judas that the poor aren’t going away. They will always be here.

I have actually heard this passage used by people to excuse not helping the poor and to justify opposing social safety nets for the poor. “Jesus said the poor will always be with us,” they say. And their piety is as false as that of Judas.

It is always possible for the self-righteous to take something out of context and make it mean whatever serves the selfish interests of the moment. Jesus’ teaching about how we are to love and care for the poor, as recorded over and over again throughout the Gospels, is eminently clear.

In this story, what Jesus most likely means is that the apostles can take care of the poor tomorrow and the next day and the next, but at this very moment, what they need to do most is begin to come to terms with what will soon happen. And what will soon happen are the somber events of Holy Week.

I like to think that somehow, through her devotion to Jesus, Mary intuitively collaborates with him in this scene by anointing his feet with burial perfume.

The Lord is indeed about to do a new thing. That new thing is, by the grace of God, the most amazing gift of all time. It is no less than the salvation and reconciliation of the world to its Maker. But it comes through the suffering, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

AMEN.