"Come and See." A Sermon on John 1:43-51 on the 2nd Sunday of Epiphany, the Sunday before the Martin Luther King Jr Holiday.

"Come and See"

John 1:43-51

I heard a story about a woman who volunteered at an art museum as a docent.  There was a statue in the collection that this docent had walked by and even told others about countless times. 

On one particular tour, the docent was leading a group of blind guests.  A young girl was among those invited to touch the statue that she couldn’t see. 

The docent remembers, “She ran her hands down the body of this female figure, and her first remark was: ‘Oh, she’s pregnant.’

The docent recalls, ‘And I had never thought about that.  But in fact, the figure does look like a pregnant woman.  Here was a kid really showing me something that I had been looking at for thirty-five years and had never noticed.’”[1]

The gospel story we heard today about Nathanael is about seeing…and being seen.  It’s a story about seeing what’s in front of you, and how hard that reality is.   It’s about learning to see in a whole new way, because of how Jesus sees him.

This is the second part of a story about Jesus calling the disciples.   As John the Evangelist tells it, these are disciples of John the Baptist.  When Jesus walks by, John the Baptist tells them that Jesus is the one they have all been waiting for.  Then Simon Peter and Andrew go with Jesus.

That’s where today’s gospel lesson picks up.  Jesus finds Philip and says to him, “Follow me.”  Philip goes and finds Nathanael and says, “We have found him about whom Moses in the laws and also the prophets wrote—Jesus, son of Joseph from Nazareth.”

Nathanael isn’t impressed.   He asks, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

Philip doesn’t try to argue with him.  He simply repeats the invitation that Jesus gave the day before: “Come and see.”

“Come and see.”   Peter Gomes wrote that these three simple words are “the entire sum and substance of the Gospel.    Jesus invites us to join him in the fullness of all that God has in store for all who love him.

“Come and see.”   And that’s what Nathanael did.   When Nathanael comes into view, Jesus explains approvingly, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!”

But Nathanael can’t see Jesus at first, because he’s looking through the clouded lens of his own prejudice.   When he looks at Jesus, he sees somebody from Nazareth.  Can anything good come from Nazareth? 

He asks Jesus, “Where did you get to know me?” 

Jesus answers, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.”

Nathanael replied, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God!  You are the King of Israel!”

Jesus tells Nathanael he has seen him and known him…recognized him.  And suddenly Nathanael sees Jesus as he really is.  For Nathanael, being seen makes the difference.   And he begins to see things differently.  When we see things through the lens of the gospel, it changes what we expect to see… and what we already know—or think we know—about what we’re looking at. 

Sometimes we can’t see because of what we think we already know— about “those people” from the wrong side of town… or the wrong part of the world…or the wrong side of the issue.  “Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Or Ghana? Or Nigeria? Or Haiti?”

Sometimes we can’t even see ourselves, because our vision is blurred by denial and self-delusion…or by insecurity and self-hate. 

Nathanael is changed by how Jesus sees him.  Before he knew Jesus, Jesus has seen and known him.  Being seen and loved changes Nathanael, and it gives him new vision, to see greater things than he ever could have imagined. 

Over the centuries, others have been given new ways of seeing.   Martin Luther King, Jr. was one of them.  He was transformed by the gospel and changed by how others saw him, and he heard God’s call.

In 1955, King was a young man, a recently installed pastor at a kind of uptown church-- a place known for being the church of the black elite.

In the mid-1950’s, he wrapped up his course work for his Ph.D. and took his first call to a church.  He had recently declined a nomination to serve as the president of the Montgomery, Alabama chapter of the NAACP, because he felt he needed to spend more time at his church work. 

            Then Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus. A meeting was held in the African-American community to decide who was going to lead the bus boycott.  The other pastors and influential leaders in the community were smart enough to know that this looked like a risky business, so they decided to ask the new pastor in town to serve as president of the Montgomery Improvement Association, the group that would lead the bus boycott.  

 King didn’t see himself in that job.  But others saw him that way, and their vision changed him. 

            Rev. King had every reason in the world to say, "This is not the right time for me. I have a young family.  I have a dissertation to finish writing.  I have a congregation that doesn’t know me or trust me yet.   If I start out at the head of this enterprise, what will that do to my relationship to my congregation?  It just isn’t a good time.  This isn’t the time for me to do something like this.” 

            But, as we know, this very human being was moved from “not my time” to yes.  

            A while later, there was another defining moment. It came past midnight, in the King family’s kitchen. By that time, Martin was 27 years old.  Over the past month, he had been leading the bus boycott, a decision that set off a series of death threats delivered via mail and phone to his home-- as many as 30 to 40 calls a day, often at night. Normally, King could put the phone down and go back to sleep. But one call, on the night of January 27, 1956, stood out.

            As King’s wife, Coretta, and their 10-week-old daughter slept in the bedroom nearby, the voice on the other end of the line spoke, calling him a racial epithet, and saying, “We’re tired of your mess. And if you aren’t out of this town in three days, we’re going to blow up your house and blow your brains out.”

            Shaken, King went to the kitchen, made himself a cup of coffee, but soon buried his face in his hands.

            Dr. King described it in his book, Stride Toward Freedom: “I was ready to give up. With my cup of coffee sitting untouched before me, I tried to think of a way to move out of the picture without appearing a coward. In this state of exhaustion, when my courage had all but gone, I decided to take my problem to God. With my head in my hands, I bowed over the kitchen table and prayed aloud.
            “The words I spoke to God that midnight are still vivid in my memory. "I am here taking a stand for what I believe is right. But now I am afraid. The people are looking to me for leadership, and if I stand before them without strength and courage, they too will falter. I am at the end of my powers. I have nothing left. I've come to the point where I can't face it alone.
            “At that moment, I experienced the presence of the Divine as I had never experienced God before. It seemed as though I could hear the quiet assurance of an inner voice saying: "Stand up for justice, stand up for truth; and God will be at your side forever." Almost at once my fears began to go. My uncertainty disappeared. I was ready to face anything.¹

            The fears ceased. But not the threats. Several days later, around 9:00 pm, a bomb exploded on the front steps of the house. Nobody inside was hurt. All these years later, traces of the bomb are still visible in the concrete.[2]

More than 60 years have passed since the Montgomery bus boycott. More than 50 years have passed since the March on Washington when Dr. King gave his “I have a dream” speech. 

We have had a tendency to freeze Martin Luther King in 1963, at the time of his “I have a dream” speech. But he went through a transformation in the last several years of his life before he was killed at age 39.

On Christmas Eve 1967, a few months before he died, he spoke with his congregation in Ebenezer Baptist Church and said, “I must confess to you today that not long after talking about that dream, I started seeing it turn into a nightmare. I remember the first time I saw that dream turn into a nightmare, just a few weeks after I had talked about it. It was when four beautiful, unoffending, innocent Negro girls were murdered in a church in Birmingham, Alabama. “

Dr. King comforted the families of those little girls and preached their funerals, and struggled with the fact that the church was bombed partly because it had been a focal point for Birmingham’s community in the struggle he had led just months before.[3]

If we are to remember Dr. King with honesty, we need to remember the events of those several years and how they impacted him:  the assassination of President Kennedy, the disappearance of the three young SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) volunteers in 1964.

King was going through a rapid transformation from a civil rights leader to a human rights activist. He came to see himself as an advocate for the poor and oppressed wherever they were.  He began working to bring together people of all races and parts of the country, anyone who was impacted by poverty and injustice.  In December 1967, he announced organizing a Poor People’s March on Washington to demand better jobs, better homes, better education--better lives than the ones they were living.

In the eyes of many, Dr. King was seen as a “communist dupe,” “troublemaker,” ‘traitor,” or “naïve, because he was challenging the status quo and speaking out against the triple evils of materialism and systemic poverty, of militarism, and racism.

Rev. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968. (Some of us who are old enough remember exactly where we were when we heard the news.)   The Poor People’s Campaign went forward, climaxing in the Solidarity Day Rally for Jobs, Peace, and Freedom on June 19.

This year is the fiftieth anniversary of the Dr. King’s death and the Poor People’s Campaign. The day after Mother’s Day is the beginning of a New Poor People’s Campaign, under the leadership of Bishop William Barber, Rev. Liz Theoharis, and others. 

In his last speech, Dr. King said, “I’ve been to the mountaintop…. I’ve looked over and I’ve seen the promised land…  Mine eyes have seen the promised land…. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

Martin Luther King’s prophetic witness helped black and white Americans to have visions and dream dreams.  What he saw helped other people to see themselves differently.  He saw African Americans and white Americans as children of God, who needed to be set free from hate.    He helped us to see one another more clearly. 

We’re not in the promised land yet.  But God’s love gives us new vision.

            Change is coming.  So, it seems to me that we can choose how we will face the changes.   We could approach them fearfully…grudgingly… and imagine all the worst possible scenarios about how terrible things will be.  Or we could trust in God to be with us as we cross over a bridge to becoming a more diverse and inclusive, just and righteous nation.  We could pray for God to use us as people of faith, to model what it means to live as Beloved Community and to be part of a transformation of our country that is more and more fully a nation of abundance, where there is truly liberty and justice for all. 

            In our time and place, God calls us to be people who “come and see” and are so transformed in the grace and abundance and freedom of Jesus Christ that we embody it as we live together in Beloved Community with all of God’s children.  

Martin Luther King’s prophetic witness helped black and white Americans to have visions and dream dreams.  What he saw helped some people to see themselves and other people differently-- as beloved children of God, created in the very image of God, who need to be set free from hatred and fear.

            We’re not in the promised land yet.  But God’s love can give us new vision.  Can we imagine it?  Is anything impossible for God? 

In the words of our Presbyterian Brief Statement of Faith: “In a broken and fearful world, the Spirit gives us courage to pray without ceasing…to witness among all peoples to Christ as Lord and Savior…to unmask idolatries in church and culture…to hear the voices of people long silenced…and to work with others for justice, freedom and peace.”

God’s love gives us new life and new vision.  So, come and see.  See the face of Christ in your neighbor.  Get a glimpse of who God has made us to be.  Come and see.

Amen!

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

January 14, 2018

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[1] https://pres-outlook.org/category/ministry-resources/looking-into-the-lectionary/

[2] http://lisasingh.com/2010/01/martin-luther-kings-defining-moment-a-kitchen-in-montgomery-alabama-past-midnight/

[3] Vincent Harding, Martin Luther King: The Inconvenient Hero (Orbis Books), Rev. Ed., 2008. Kindle, Location 206.

"Jesus' Baptism and Ours." A Sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church on Baptism of Jesus Sunday.

"Jesus' Baptism and Ours"

Genesis 1:1-5; Mark 1:4-11

         The scripture passages we heard today have to do with beginnings.  The Genesis text is the beginning of the creation story and tells how the Spirit of God swept over the face of the waters and was part of the creation process.

            The gospel according to Mark begins with the words, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”  There’s no birth story here.  The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ is about his baptism.

            John the Baptizer appears in the wilderness    Then Jesus comes to the Jordan and asks John to baptize him.   As Jesus is coming up out of the water, he sees the heavens torn apart and the spirit descending like a dove on him.  And a voice comes down from heaven, “You are my Son, the beloved.  With you I am well pleased.”

            Without the rest of Jesus’ life, his baptism isn’t something we can comprehend.  We can only comprehend the purpose of Jesus’ baptism when we look at the days and years that followed that day in the Jordan.  It’s when we see Jesus taking his place with hurting people that his baptism starts to make sense.  Baptism was Jesus’ commissioning for ministry.

           

            During the week before his death, Jesus was challenged by the leaders of the temple: “By what authority do you do these things?”

            Jesus answers by referring to his baptism: “Was the baptism of John from heaven or not?”    In other words, I was baptized.  That’s how all this started.”  It was in the waters of baptism that Jesus began hearing the Spirit calling him to speak the truth     and to live with grace.

            Baptisms, like all beginnings, find their meaning after the event.  Beginning is usually fairly easy.  Finishing is usually harder.

             Starry-eyed young couples who are in love come to the pastor, and very often, they’re focused on having the perfect wedding.  It’s part of the pastor’s job to remind them that the wedding is just the beginning.  It’s the living out of the promises they make that’s the hard part...  the part that will make all the difference ten or fifty years from that day.

            Baptism is the beginning of a journey.  We’re handed a map, but we have to take the trip.  It takes our whole life to finish our baptisms...  to fulfill what was started when we were baptized. 

            It was no ordinary day when John baptized Jesus in the Jordan, and it’s no ordinary day when we baptize someone here in this sanctuary--whether it’s a baby or an adult.  It’s no ordinary day because Jesus’ baptism shows us how far God will go to be reconciled with us and to reconcile us to one another. God tore apart the heavens to get to us, to give us the Holy Spirit, and to join us to Christ.

            This time of year, we may have made resolutions or renewed commitments to get in shape, to get more sleep, to eat more healthfully to live the rest of our lives better in some ways.  

           

            We live in a time when it feels like there’s a lot to worry about--the economy, a divided government, an increasingly polarized culture… the growing gap between the rich and poor.  Closer to home, people may be concerned about their kids… their work… health challenges… a parent struggling with frailty or dementia…loneliness… or grieving the loss of a loved one.

            In the midst of all this, sometimes we forget who we are… or whose we are.  Sometimes we run away from our identity and our calling. 

            In Disney's film and play The Lion King, the young lion, Simba, is living in exile-- separated from all that reminds him of his identity.  He's away from home...  away from his family...  and away from his responsibilities.  He has forsaken his true identity as the king of the lions.  In his absence, the kingdom has been overpowered by forces of evil, and it is a very dark and wounded place.

            The baboon "priest"- figure Rafiki finds Simba in the jungle and calls Simba back to his true identity.  Rafiki leads Simba to a lake.  As Simba stares into the pool of water, it is not only his own face that he sees.  It is also the face of his father.  The father and son are inextricably

linked. 

            As Simba recognizes his father within himself, the heavens open...  and his father speaks to him from heaven.  In that moment, Simba is transformed.  He understands his true identity as the Lion King.  He sees the responsibility his identity carries.  He is empowered for the mission that lies before him...  and is able to combat the evil forces of the world.  In the end, Simba is able to bring light and healing back to the kingdom.

            On this Baptism of the Lord Sunday, we are reminded of Jesus' baptism...   and our own.  We are reminded who we are...  and whose we are.

            At your baptism, the same Spirit came down upon you as came down upon Jesus at his baptism.   The same Father said to you, “you are my beloved son"...   or "you are my beloved daughter."  The same Father has continued ever since to hold you...   and to work to empower you for God's work.

            In baptism, God proclaims God's grace and love for us.  God claims us and marks us as God’s own.  We have a new identity as members of the body of Christ.

            Through the waters of baptism, we participate in Christ’s death and resurrection.  Repentance... conversion...  and growth are a lifelong process.  Anything in us that separates us from God has to die, so that we can be raised to new life in Christ. 

            The good news of our baptism is that God adopts us as God's own.  God reaches for us...  and claims us as God's chosen ones—God’s beloved.   We are baptized-- not because we have come to God...  but because God has first come to us.   So, we are baptized   and begin a lifelong pilgrimage with God...  a lifelong process of conversion and nurture which begins at the font...  and doesn't end until death-- until we are at last tucked safely into the everlasting arms of the God who first reached for us in baptism.

            God keeps on reaching for us throughout our lives.  God isn't finished with any of us yet.  Every day we live out our baptism.  Every day we need to respond to God's gracious gifts in our lives...  open ourselves again to God's work in our lives...  say YES in all the big and little things we do throughout the day.

            A major part of God's daily saving work in our lives is God's gift of the Holy Spirit.  Just as God's creating Spirit hovered over the waters in the very beginning, the Holy Spirit works in us...   leads us daily...  tugging at our lives to turn us more and more fully toward God. 

           

            How easy it is, in the midst of this life, to forget who you are...  and whose you are.  So, the church is here to remind you...  to remind each of us-- that God has named us...  and claimed us...   and seeks us and loves us unconditionally.

            What a difference it can make in our lives when we know—deep in our souls—that we are God’s beloved!  So-- remember your baptism.  Remember who you are   and whose you are.  Hear God’s blessing and let it shape and strengthen your life: “You are my beloved child. With you I am well pleased.”

            Amen!

                         

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

January 7, 2018

 

 

"Saying Yes to God." A Sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church on the Fourth Sunday of Advent.

"Saying Yes to God"

Luke 1

Angels don’t show up very often in the Scriptures.  But when they do appear, usually something BIG... strange...  and wonderful is about to happen.

            The angel Gabriel came to tell Mary that she had been chosen by God to help change the world, by bearing the Christ.

Though Gabriel called Mary "favored one,” she apparently didn't feel favored-- at least not at first.  She felt perplexed.  “How can this be?”

            And yet Mary responded to Gabriel by saying, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord.  Let it be with me according to your word."

            In other words, Mary says, “I'm not sure what all of this means.  but nevertheless, here I am, ready to be of service in God's work.  Whatever you say, God."

            What a wonderful, faithful thing for Mary to say!   It couldn't have been an easy decision for her.  Change never is.

            There was a lot at stake for Mary.  She was a young peasant girl from a small village.  Her marriage to Joseph had been arranged. 

Mary was poor...  and vulnerable.   As a female, her economic survival depended on marriage.  Her security depended on her attractiveness as a wife and mother.         So-- what did it mean for a girl like Mary to say yes to God’s plan?

            It meant risking all that she had hoped for...   all her plans for her life.    It meant risking her security.  And it meant risking her very lir3.  The penalty for a woman caught in adultery in her day could be public stoning.  If Joseph believed that her pregnancy was a result of an illicit affair, then-- by law-- Mary could be taken to the edge of town and stoned to death. At the very least, she will be disgraced in the eyes of the people of the village. She’ll be damaged goods.

            Mary's story reminds us that to be God's servant in the world means risking radical changes in our priorities.  It means placing our very lives into God's hands.   It means trusting in God to care for us—even through dangerous times.

            Yet Mary responded in obedience and trust and courage.   "Here I am, Lord."  I'll be your servant." 

            If Mary's decision was extraordinary, her response to the decision was even more extraordinary. 

            Luke tells us-that, after the angel left, Mary hurried to visit her elderly cousin Elizabeth, who had been unable to bear children all her life.  As proof that nothing is impossible with God, the angel Gabriel had told Mary that Elizabeth was six months pregnant in her old age.

            When Elizabeth hears Mary's voice, the child leaps in her womb, and she knows that she has been especially touched by God.  Filled with the Holy Spirit, Elizabeth calls out:  "You are BLESSED among women.  Blessed is she who believed that God's promise would be fulfilled!"

            By declaring both Mary and the fruit of her womb “blessed,” Elizabeth begins a series of blessings that weave through Luke’s birth narrative and intensify its tone of joy and praise.  Mary, Zechariah, and Simeon will all add their blessings, praising God for what God is doing at this moment in history   and recognizing that those who are privileged to be instruments of God’s saving work have been richly blessed.  

            Mary starts singing a song the church is still singing today-- a song we might think of as the first Christmas carol.  Her song is a song of joy and praise.  "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.  Surely, from now on, all generations will call me blessed."

            Mary sings about the God who saves not just souls, but embodied people. The God she celebrates isn’t content merely to point people toward heaven. God’s redemptive work begins here on earth. God fills the hungry not only with hope, but with food.  God isn’t satisfied with comforting the lowly, but lifts them up, giving them dignity. This is a merciful and subversive song, that sings of how God shows strength by disrupting the world’s power structures, bringing down the powerful from their thrones, and lifting up the lowly.

            Through the centuries, Mary has been a model of faith.   God needed Mary's freely given "YES” to God's gracious invitation to become the Mother of Jesus.  The mystery of INCARNATION could not have taken place without Mary's wholehearted "YES".  And that "YES” couldn’t have taken place without Mary's unbounded trust in God.

            Do you wonder?  How was such radical obedience and openness on Mary's part made possible?  How did she get from saying, “How can this be?”—to “Let it be, according to God’s word”?

            I think it grew out of the sense of trust that had developed in her as she heard the stories of the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob...  and how God had always dealt with her people.  That long history had taught her two things about God-- that God was utterly mysterious...  and yet always good.   God's ways are almost never obvious...  but they inevitably work out better than we could imagine.   And that's some of the GOOD NEWS of God. 

            The old King James Version puts part of Mary’s song of praise this way: “He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.”  I think that’s an especially apt translation, for it is by our imagining, by what our hearts picture in fear or desire, that we humans are pushed and pulled in our many directions.

            Imagination can be a channel for our destruction—especially when fear and resentment prevail.  But it can also serve to gather and bless and inspire us.   

            We live in a society in which the gap between the rich and poor keeps widening…  a society in which many people of goodwill are finding it important and necessary to declare that black lives matter… where it’s important and necessary to stand in solidarity with our Muslim neighbors and with refugees.    We live in a time of fear and suspicion of people who are different… and a growing number of people believe they need guns to protect themselves against all the terrible things they imagine.   

            We live in a world in which many people lack adequate food or safe water or shelter or sanitation.   The ways of the world seem to have taken over, and mercy is in short supply.  But it doesn’t have to be that way.  Mary models for us a way of joyful, hopeful obedience, working with God to change the world, hoping in God’s promises.

            If you read through the first few chapters of Luke, you’ll notice that several songs.   Mary sings the “Magnificat” in today’s story.  Zechariah sings when his son John is born and his tongue is finally loosened.  The angels sing of peace and goodwill when they share their “good news of great joy” with the shepherds.  And Simeon sings his song of farewell when he has seen God’s promises fulfilled. 

            Why all these songs?  I think David Lose is right when he suggests that singing can be an act of resistance.   African slaves knew this.  When they sang their spirituals, they were praising God and also protesting the injustices of their lives and pointing the way to freedom. 

            The civil rights leaders in our nation knew this, too, as they sang their freedom songs.  

            The protesters in Leipzig in 1989 knew this as well.  For several months before the fall of the Berlin wall, the citizens of Leipzig gathered on Monday evenings by candlelight around St. Nikolai Church—the church where Bach composed so many of his cantatas—to sing.  Over two months, their numbers grew from a little more than a thousand people to more than three hundred thousand—over half the citizens of the city.  They sang songs of hope and protest and justice, until their song shook the powers of their nation and changed the world. 

            Later, when someone asked one of the officers of the Stasi, the East German secret police, why they didn’t crush this protest like they had so many others, the officer replied, “We had no contingency plan for song.”[1]

            Today, I hope we will sing Mary’s song of praise with her...  and watch for signs of how “the world is about to turn.”

            A lot of what we do when we come together in worship is practicing this imagination of the heart, by the gift and command of God.  In the liturgy, we imagine that love rules already, that the lowly are lifted up, that death is conquered, sin cleansed away... peace triumphant...and Christ touched and seen and tasted.  On the verge of Christmas, we imagine and sing with Mary.

            Imagine with the Magnificat its dream of a justice that re-distributes wealth and privilege and power, so that everyone has what they need.   Imagine a world where the lion and the lamb can be together in peace… where those who have been proud and rich can be in solidarity with those who yearn for a turning of the socio-economic tables… imagine discovering that there can be enough for everyone in God’s realm.          

            And remember that we're invited to participate more fully in God's saving work in the world. 

            Mary was invited to bear Christ.  And so, my friends, are we. 

            We can choose to say YES to God, and open ourselves to let God use us as instruments of love and grace and mercy and justice and peace.

Today’s gospel story is about Mary.  But it’s your story and mine as well.  God has chosen each of us, favored each of us, graced each of us, and spoken God’s Word to, over, and in each of us.

By the power of God’s Spirit, God has descended upon us and conceived Christ in us.   We are called to be God-bearers, a calling that can bring with it extraordinary blessings, as well as significant hardships.  But the promise remains the same: nothing is impossible for the One we serve and bear.

We are called to bear the love of Christ out into the world...  and let it transform the world, as it transforms us.  

            " Let it be with me, according to your word.” 

            Let it be with us, according to your Word.”

            Let it be!

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

December 24, 2017     

                                                     

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[1] David Lose, “Singing as An Act of Resistance, at davidlose.net, December 14, 2015.

"Witnesses to the Light." A Sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church on the Third Sunday of Advent

Edward Hicks, "A Peaceable Kingdom with Quakers Bearing Banners," 1829-30

"Witnesses to the Light"

Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11; John 1:6-8, 19-28; 1 Thessalonians 3:16-24

            I love the season of Advent-- the invitation to quiet reflection and expectant waiting… the eschatological hope for justice through God’s realm on earth.

            The Third Sunday of Advent has traditionally been known as Joy Sunday.   That’s why we lit the rose-colored candle.  Joy is a theme in most of the scripture lessons we heard today.  In the epistle lesson we heard the apostle Paul urging the church to “Rejoice always and in everything.”

            Yet-- during the past few days, as I've meditated on the scriptures, I've been thinking about how painful a season this can be for many people. Some are lonely.  Some are grieving the loss of a loved one.  Some are depressed.  Some are too poor to be a part of the festival of extravagance the merchants would have us believe is what Christmas is all about.  Some are hungry. Some are homeless.

            In our nation, parents of millions of children are worrying about how they will pay for their children’s health care if the CHIP program isn’t re-funded.

            Every day, someone in our nation dies due to gun violence. Opioid addiction keeps claiming more victims. Forest fires continue to rage in California.

            More and more women have been breaking the silence and accusing those who have sexually assaulted or harassed them--many of them powerful men from the entertainment business, or politicians or journalists, who used their power and privilege to oppress women and to assure their silence. Many of us have our #Me Too stories. Most of us long for it to end so we can live and work together with respect and civility. But how?

            We live in a system in our culture where people have learned to see one another as less than fully human, as less than precious and valued, and we have adapted ourselves to this understanding, with our lives shaped by these values. Sometimes, for those who are privileged, it works to their advantage. Others live with this because they don’t know what else to do… or they haven’t had the power to do so… or they couldn’t survive the cost of losing a job if they spoke out.

            In the midst of so much bad news, we long for some good news.

           

            Today we heard the prophet Isaiah proclaim: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD’S favor, and the day of rescue of our God; to comfort all who mourn….”

            This Advent, many of us are longing for God’s justice and peace in the world.  We long for good news for the oppressed, for the brokenhearted, for the fearful, vulnerable and captive. We wonder: when will our ashes be replaced with garland?

            We could use some good news for those who mourn and those who huddle in ruined cities and devastated places. We wish that our elected officials could hear the prophet’s message from God, “For I, God, love justice. I hate robbery and sin.” 

            Surely, this is nothing new. God’s people have been yearning for the fulfillment of God’s promises for thousands of years.

            Some days, the prophet’s vision seems too good to be true, no matter how badly we want to believe that the God who loves justice is on the way. 

            Isaiah saw the injustice of the suffering of his people. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be, he tells us.  And so does John, as he points to Jesus, the one yet to come.

            John comes as a witness to testify to the light, proclaiming, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’” as the prophet Isaiah said.

            Perhaps this is the beginning of the freedom Isaiah announced and Jesus brought and will bring in all of its fullness… a time when the brokenhearted are finally bound up and healed… and God’s powerful promises are fulfilled. Do we believe that God’s good news has the power to transform our lives?  I want to believe that.

            The message of Advent is that God in Christ is coming into the world.  In Jesus, God's Word became flesh and lived among us, full of grace and truth.   What came into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it.[1]

            In Charles Dickens' story, "A Christmas Carol,"  Ebenezer Scrooge is London's most notorious miser.  He's a mere shadow of the joyful person he was created to be, hunched up against the world...  stingy and suspicious.  When the Ghost of Christmas Future shows Scrooge his own grave, the knowledge that he will die breaks through all the defenses he’s used to try to hide his childlike soul for so long.  He's overwhelmed with a piercing sense of remorse for how he has been living. 

            Seeing the light of truth after living in the darkness for so long is painful.  But what follows his rebirth into new life is joy!

            For some time, I’ve felt drawn to the work of Edward Hicks, who was an American sign and stagecoach painter in the early nineteenth century.  He’s known almost exclusively for his many paintings of the Peaceable Kingdom. 

            One of these, entitled The Peaceable Kingdom with Quakers Bearing Banners, was painted during a time when tension and separation had split American Quakers into two groups.  In the background is a cluster of very somber-looking people.  But in the foreground, is a depiction of the peaceable kingdom:  a leopard is lying down with a lamb.  A little child is embracing a lion. 

            Those somber-looking people in the background are connected to the peaceable kingdom by a banner that declares, “Behold I bring you glad tidings of great joy.”  The sinuous ribbon with its beginning in the mists of eternity weaves its way through and among them, braiding them together.

            Our Christian joy and faith aren’t based solely on the evidence we see in the present-- but on the hope of the future.  Our Christian joy comes to us in our experience of God’s presence.

            This Advent, the coming may be a present experience.  God is about to be born in the cradle of believers' hearts and lives, either for the first time or as a renewed birth, as God-with-us reaches new depths within our very souls.  And this, my friends, is reason for joy! 

            Do you remember what Ebenezer Scrooge was like when he was re-born that Christmas?  He couldn't keep his joy to himself!  He was filled with the joy of new life...   and he just had to share his joy with others!

            When we receive the JOY of Jesus Christ, we're called to proclaim the light that outshines all darkness.  Once we've been touched by the light of Christ, we're called to carry the light out into the world    and be witnesses of the light. 

            The God we know and trust because we have seen his love revealed in Jesus Christ calls us out of darkness--  into the Light that overcomes the darkness.  Our job as we wait for Christ to come again in power and glory is to proclaim the good news of Jesus, who is the light of the world and calls us to live lives that reflect Christ's light!  

            Our calling as the church of Jesus Christ is to mediate God’s promises and commands to the world.  We are called to live into hope-- of captives freed...  of sight regained...  the end of greed. 

            No matter how dark things look, we know that darkness does not have the last word.  Jesus, the Light of the world, has come and shines in the darkness.  The darkness does not and will not overcome it.

            So-- let us rejoice always.  Let us pray without ceasing, and give thanks in everything…  for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for us.

May the God of peace make you completely holy and whole.  May your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ![2]

            Come, Lord Jesus!

           

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

December 17, 2017

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[1] John 1

[2] 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24

"Waiting in the Dark." A sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church on the First Sunday of Advent.

"Waiting in the Dark"

Mark 13:24-37

Today, on this first Sunday of Advent, the scripture readings the lectionary gives us aren’t about angels bringing tidings of great joy.  That will come later. Today, we’re asked to consider the end times, or at least what will happen in the future.

            Over the centuries, there have been many predictions about the end of the world, but they’ve been wrong. We’re still here.

            Some of us may have taken a peek at the last pages of a book, to see how it ends. Over the centuries, many have longed to get a look at the “last page,” to know when and how the end of time will come.
            The followers of Jesus, too, wanted to know about the future. Earlier in Mark 13, the disciples ask Jesus, “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?”[1]
            Jesus told them, “Beware that no one leads you astray,” and he says that the future is not ours to know.  In today’s lesson, we hear Jesus say, “About that day or hour no one knows…. only the Father.  Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come…. Therefore, keep awake-- for you don’t know when.  Keep awake.”
            In Mark’s “little apocalypse,” there’s no mention of the end of the world…no indication of final judgment…no call to flee daily realities and responsibilities-- only the promise that the Son of Man is near.

            One of the places I'd like to visit someday is Ireland.  Around 500 A.D., the southwestern coast line of Ireland was the end of the known world--   which someone suggested may be why it's dotted with prehistoric stone circles and the ruins of ancient monasteries. 

            One of these monasteries was built on an impossibly steep rock island eight miles off the coast.  For 700 years, the monks there practiced a strict, ascetic way of life.  They survived the weather and raids by the Vikings.  They hauled stones to build 2700 steps up the mountain's dizzying height-- to the prayer huts on top the mountain.  They'd climb up to the mountaintop to pray...   and to watch for Christ to return in power and glory.

            In the eleventh century, a somewhat more relaxed form of monastic rule came into fashion on the mainland.  When the European orders of Benedictines and Augustinians arrived in Ireland, the local tradition of small, independent monasteries began to die out.  In the thirteenth century, the last of the monks got into their boats and rowed away from their rocky outpost.

            Nobody knows for sure why they left, but it's possible that they just got tired of waiting.  As Barbara Brown Taylor suggests, seven hundred years is a long time to watch the horizon for the second coming.   It's a long time to keep your fasts and say your prayers at prescribed times throughout the day and night.              It's a long time to live in strictly disciplined community with one another-- especially when word reaches you that the monks on the mainland have made some changes.  They're eating better and sleeping later than you are.  They've decided they can be in the world a little more without being of it--   especially since it looks like they're in for a longer wait than anyone had expected.^[2]

            Centuries later, we can sympathize.  Few of us spend our days watching the horizon expectantly for Christ's second coming.

            The earliest Christians thought the Second Coming would be immediate, and they lived accordingly. But more than 2,000 years have passed since God came to dwell among us in Jesus of Nazareth, and Jesus hasn't come back.

Waiting is hard.  Waiting has always been hard.  The Bible is full of stories about what faithful people did while they waited.  It’s full of promises not yet fulfilled. 

            Centuries before the birth of Jesus, the Old Testament prophets were writing and talking about waiting for one who would be like a light for the darkness.   Those who heard the prophets were weary with impatience.  They wanted the Messiah now.  They yearned for God to be on their timetable.  For years...  for centuries...  through the events of history, God's answer was, “Wait."  

            In the prologue to John's Gospel, John the Baptist said, “I am not the light, but I come to tell you about the light that is to come."   The crowds were so anxious for a Messiah that they wanted John the Baptist to be the Messiah.  Again, God's message was "Wait"...

           

            The Christian year begins in dark times.  The days keep getting shorter and shorter, and the darkness keeps increasing, and it looks like darkness rules-- until the earth rounds the bend on December 21. That day, the Winter Solstice, can be a sign to us that longer days are coming, that light will be increasing and darkness will be decreasing.

            The disciples were looking for certainty-- a sign.  They needed to know that the world was in God's good hands.  When the cosmos collapsed and every light in the sky was put out, they were to remember what he had told them.  They were to remember that God is Lord over darkness as well as light.   They were to watch-- even in the darkness-- for his coming.

            By the time, Mark wrote his words down years later, it seemed that the end was very near.  The stars were still in the sky, but the headlines were as bad then as they are now.  Jerusalem was in ruins.  The temple had been destroyed.  The emperor Nero was persecuting the Christians in Rome.  False messiahs were setting themselves up on every street corner, each of them claiming to be God's anointed one. 

            It felt like everything was falling apart...  and those who had believed in Jesus must have wondered if they'd been fooled.  Surely this wasn't the way things were supposed to turn out.  Not this chaos!  Not this darkness!

            That's when Mark told them the story again, writing it down so they wouldn't forget:  how Jesus himself had predicted it all...  how he had tried to tell them that they couldn't have a new world without letting go of the old one.

            It was and is the good news of the end of the world:  when the end comes, it won't be because God is absent-- but because God is very present...   because God is coming in great power and glory to make all things new.

            In the meantime, our job is to watch, Jesus says.  Not to watch out.  But to watch-- to stay alert...  pay attention...  so that we aren't snoozing when the time comes.

In the midst of all the pain… suffering… confusion… injustice…and chaos in the world, the people of God are called to proclaim the Light that out-shines all darkness. Once we’ve been touched by the Light, we’re called to be bearers of Christ’s light, to carry the light out into the world.

            The military has developed special goggles that help people see in the dark.  In a place that's totally dark, you can look through the goggles and see.  Something in the goggles picks up and concentrates the light that would be too faint to see otherwise.

            Isn't that a wonderful parable for the church?  There's always some light in all darkness, even if we can’t see it. As a community of faith, we can pick up the beacon of unseen Light and help the world to see it more clearly. 

            The God we know and trust calls us out of darkness-- into the Light that overcomes the darkness.

            The good news is that darkness does not have the last word.  Jesus, the light of the world, has come and shines in the darkness....  and the darkness does not and will not overcome it.  

            So, stay alert.  Stay awake.  When we live as if the Lord might return at any time, we have nothing to fear.

            Come, Lord Jesus!

        

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[1] Mark 13:4

^[2]I'm indebted to Barbara Brown Taylor for the monastery story and this line of thinking, which appear in Journal for Preachers, Advent 1996