An Essential Excerpt from the Christmas Message

“An Eye For The Lowly”

Luke 1:46-55

Beloved, it’s Christmas again!  This is that special time of year when expectations are high.   But so is anxiety for too many people.  They (we) are anxious because there is so much that is contradictory about what Christmas means and what it requires of us, and we are pretty well convinced in our heart of hearts that there is little we can do to meet all the expectations, especially the expectations that others have of us. When this sacred day comes so close to the Sabbath, we are presented with a special opportunity to re-assert the reason and the true meaning of the season, in the midst of all the other definitions and purposes that are floating around.  Let us go first to the source of the occasion, the birth of Jesus, and the circumstances surrounding his coming into the world.

Mary, the lowliest of servants as she characterized herself, gave birth to Jesus in a manger among livestock because there was no room for her and Joseph in the inn. From the beginning, through the demonstration of the very circumstances of his birth, we are put on notice that Jesus’ life and the focus of his concern would be like no other known in human experience. As the son of man, his life and ministry was to shine the light on the purpose of human life and its place in the divine scheme of things.  Ours is but a temporary sojourn. We are born, then we die; but the power and presence of our creator continues.  In the time we have on the earth, interspersed with a few good times and bad, we are called to allow our lives to be used for God’s purposes, to allow our personalities to reflect the holy spirit of God, in the context of human community.

Any power or status or enduring worth we appear to have is only temporary, and the very value we have, the meaning we have is found in our relationship with and dependence upon God.  In recent weeks in Bible Study, we have studied the nature of sin, and we have concluded that sin is fundamentally having a higher opinion of ourselves than we ought.  And all the things we customarily think of as sin are but symptoms of our larger failing---that of being drunken with pride.  If we are stricken with this moral illness, if we have a really bad case, we can expect to meet a tragic wall sooner than later.  Thus the expression, “the bigger they come, the harder they fall.”  In the end, no matter who we are and what we have, we are all subject to the same fundamental human conditions of mortality, aging, loss, sadness, failure, abandonment, lovelessness, the inability to control the inevitable.

When we face these existential realities, nothing can prop us up except the love and strength of an all-knowing and ever-present God. And God’s love and strength are most readily available to those who are conscious of their weaknesses and their low station, and are inclined to ask for help.

Mary sings (The Magnificat) her song of praise, being fully conscious of her powerlessness and expressing her expectation that the one who is to come will be her source of strength; that he will be her rescuer; that he will be her shield and protector from the proud---the sinful, from those that are full of themselves.  “He will scatter the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He will bring down the powerful from their thrones, and lift high the lowly. He will fill the hungry with good things, and send away the rich empty.”

It is enticing to think of the rich as the absolute rich, people of a certain class as defined by material wealth and maybe accident of birth, but I rather like to consider them the allegedly rich---the rich by their own illusion.  Because I say again, no matter what your current earthly circumstances, they only last a little while.  No matter how high you or I may be flying at the moment, we will all one day sing the blues.

As a deeper examination of the scripture and especially the teachings of Jesus will convey, it is not as much what we have in our hands that will determine our fate as what is in our hearts.  After all, Nicodemus, as indicated in John 3, was a distinguished member of the ruling elite, but he humbly sought guidance from Jesus about his own access to salvation. Joseph of Arimathea was was a man of immense wealth, and like Nicodemus, a member of the Sanhedrin. Yet he was the faithful follower of Jesus who gave up his burial plot so the Master could be buried.  At least the rich young ruler in Mark 10 came to ask “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” even if he thought the price was too steep to pay.  Even Luke, the gospel writer and the chronicler of the early church in the Book of Acts, the only Gentile with writings in the canonized scripture, was an accomplished physician and a man of means.  The fact that these men were “rich” in the earthly sense, but were able to recognize their vulnerability is the essence of the spirit of the godly search.

Each of us are subject to become, in James Weldon Johnson’s words, so drunk with the wine of the world that we forget God.  But if we can dare humble ourselves and acknowledge in the deepest parts of our being that we are nothing without Him, that we are incomplete without Him, that we need him to give us meaning and purpose, that our fate (now and forever) is in His hands, we will be turning toward Him, and He will be turning toward us! 

He has an eye for the lowly.  This doesn’t mean there is no hope for the proud and the puffed up, for the judgmental and the intolerant, but just watch and see the camel squeeze through the eye of the needle, and you will know the “rich” man’s plight.

In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:3-12), Jesus tells us his preferences in human demeanor and spirit, beginning with these words, “blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God.”

An Excerpt From the Message on the Sunday After Newtown

“Signs of His Nearness”

Philippians 4:4-7

Beloved, in this season when we celebrate Jesus’ coming into the world, we have spoken since the first Sunday in Advent of a stubborn hope, a hope that followers of Christ must claim, even when there appears to be no grounds for hope in our ordinary lives.  We have been careful to say then and now that we are not to be exempted from the most heinous of trials and set-backs; rather, right in the face of peril, we must keep on rebelliously affirming that the misery that we know now will not last.

Advent hope should not come easy. It should not be painless.  On the road to “hope against hope”, we ought be tested, especially by the enemy of hope, the Devil himself!

Maybe before today, we were tempted to consider these words merely thoughtful and cleaver rhetoric, however the vile and tragic slaughter of the 20 innocent children in Connecticut offers us a specific, unavoidable, living example of how hoping against hope is not a cliché.  When we say hoping against hope, we mean  even when we are confronted with the starkest, most brutal, seemingly insurmountable expression of evil, we will dare to shout out with deep conviction and feeling, godliness will ultimately prevail!

Right in the middle of Advent, an atrocity threatens our hope. Already, there are reports that some people in Newtown are removing their Christmas decorations! The spirit of the Devil is at work, determined to stamp out the hope that is inherent in this season, but we must believe we are not powerless in this situation.  

Indeed, if we are to rely solely on our own resources, we will be crushed by the weight and bewilderment of it all.  But I am reminded of these words from 2 Corinthians 12:9: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.”

When we are weak, when we are broken, when we are lost for words to say, His power strengthens us to live for another day.  When we feel the most insecure, the most unraveled, the most discombobulated, it is the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ that fills us with a new resolve not to be defeated by the evil in our midst.  It is the strength of Christ that empowers us to have compassion, not only for the precious victims, but for the lost and troubled soul who perpetrated this dastardly act. 

Adam Lanza is not a monster, as the news media will characterize him---no more than those of us who lack the will to act to uproot the culture of violence that leaves us mourning now, and will cause us to mourn in the future. No, Adam, a young man whom I obviously did not know personally, is a product of a broken and confused spirit that was induced by a world which he experienced as uncaring and un-nurturing.  It is unlikely that we will ever know his conscious motive, but we know he is not alone---as we recall even the most recent merciless rampages in places like Colorado and Virginia Tech and Fort Hood.  Everyday, in the dark corners of our economically marginalized cities, children meet an early and senseless death almost without notice. So something is seriously wrong.

Without excusing individuals for their actions, let us acknowledge to ourselves that something is wrong with a culture that keeps spewing out these cold blooded assaults on unsuspecting crowds. We must acknowledge there is something wrong with a culture that incarcerates so many of its people;  what is wrong with a culture that is still so encapsulated by what Dr. King called “the giants triplets”---racism, poverty and violence. He reminded us that our destinies are intertwined, that we are part of "a single garment of destiny". This is why we share the grief and outrage for the people in Newtown, and whenever some event of this magnitude takes place.

I declare my support for the appropriate federal laws regulating guns and ammunition. And as difficult as it may prove to be to realize these goals, even after this horrific massacre, I believe the more difficult challenge is to win King's prescription for our ailment, which he called a "Revolution of Values". Without such a revolution that will turn the American culture of violence on its head, we can regulate guns, but our national sickness will remain.

On Gay Marriage

Beloved, I feel compelled to say a word to you about one of the hot topics of the day---Gay marriage.  There is a lot of heat being generated on this subject, even among the clergy, but far too little light.

First, let me say I am quite familiar with what the Bible says about homosexual practice, whenever it is mentioned. Some Christians use these biblical texts to justify their opposition to Gay people being able to marry one another. Depending on your interpretation of scripture, you need not embrace the idea of same sex marriages.  However, I would remind you that just 45 years ago biblical arguments were used to support the law against the marriage of a man and a woman of different races. I refer you specifically to the Loving v. Virginia case in 1967.

Our Federal Constitution defends the rights of religious institutions to oppose, on religious grounds, all kinds of things. But what is not negotiable, what is not subject to a public referendum, is the civil rights of individuals and equal protection under the law---however unpopular these rights may be with the majority. African Americans, more than most, should understand the importance of this.

I agree with Dr. Delman Coates of the Mt. Ennon Baptist Church in Clinton, Maryland, who rightly says we are called to live our faith, not to try and legislate it. We live in the midst of a fragile experiment with democracy, in a radically diverse society, comprised of people who practice very different religions, and of those who practice no religion.  Our public policies must be adopted with the welfare of them all in mind.

The rightness or wrongness or relevance of homosexuality to us as Christians is a discussion we must continue to have among ourselves. But if in the end you oppose Gay marriage, even when conducted by civil authorities, my best advice to you is that you not join any movement that seeks to limit the civil rights of our fellow citizens, but rather that you simply elect not to marry a Gay person yourself.

I hope this is helpful.

The Choice to Live

 John 10:11-18 

(“For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again.” John 10:17)

Beloved, we are all born with at least one purpose. We are given life in order to be instruments in God’s plan for His creation. While life does consist of occasional joys and pleasures, these are not the reasons why we exist. We are His servants; we live and breathe to do His bidding in the midst of our daily living---sometimes in ways noticeable and memorable, sometimes not---but always for His sake. What then, is your purpose; what is your reason for being? 

This is a message about commitment and purpose, about passion for your convictions, about your belief in something so strongly that if you don’t do it, it won’t get done. This is a message about making your life count for something ---something YOU believe in, and how giving your all to your passion, even to the point of death is to source of great joy and exhilaration; how it is uplifting, transforming and takes you to another dimension toward being alive! 

Luke writes in the 33rd verse of the 17th chapter, “ Those who try to make their life secure will lose it, but those who lose their life will keep it.” MLK said once “If you haven’t found something you’re willing to die for, you’re not fit to live.” In our lesson this morning, Jesus says, “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again.” Each of these statements underscore that our relationship with God, and our purpose in God is derived from our willingness to live with abandon, to let out all the stops for the mission to which we believe God has called us. Our willingness, the courage we have to lay down our all for Him is what draws us closer to him and empowers us to live for his will instead of ours. 

This is a critical point to digest, because far too many human beings live wasted lives trying to avoid controversy, to be loved by everybody (and actually being loved by no one), and to calculate their every move in order to be self-promoting. This is the way of slow death. We are not called to be martyrs; we all called to live for what we care about even to the point of death. Jesus’ passion was for you and me. 

His mission was the unconditional love of sinful human beings---to love them to forgiveness and righteousness. He lived to show us the way to eternal life---how to live fully in the life we have, and to, with courage, lay down our lives as evidence of our ultimate commitment to our reason for being. It is only then that we can find that thing that anchors our purpose, and only then do we truly begin living; only then do we begin to express the full measure of our personalities and to give life our all! 

We are surrounded by people who have learned to play the game of life---to adhere to the rules of groupthink. Playing it safe has become the modus operandi, even in the Lord’s house. Last week, David Brooks wrote in the NYT about the creativity deficit that exists in the culture. Creativity requires taking risks. Cornel West, appearing with Terence Blanchard on a recent recording, described the Jazz musician as one who is willing to take risks, to find his/her own voice, the voice of improvisation, on the road less traveled, or maybe never traveled. 

But who among us lives by improvisation? We have the ill-informed notion that victory belongs to those who color within the lines. E. B Williams, economics professor at Morehouse in my day, reminded us of the disadvantage of “getting all you can, putting it in the can and sitting on the can for as long as you can.” You can wind up keeping everything in the can, but you never acquire anything greater, and even what you have will risk losing value. In the same way that you may keep what you have balled up in your fist; while what you have there may never get out, nothing new gets in. 

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. We experience life, not by unduly playing it safe, but by choosing to expose ourselves to uncharted territory, to the not yet known, and by being self-giving, living for the sake of others in a world that promotes looking out for self.  Risk takers for love gain life. Those who live in fear of risks, too often inherit isolation. As the old saying goes, it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. The Resurrection, the resolve of Jesus to live out his conviction, his purpose, even to the point of death, will give US courage to love and to live without fear. It is the one event in human history that opened the gates of life to us, and left them wide open.

"Helpless"

Ephesians 2:1-10

Over the years, I have met people who were once active in church, but who had become disillusioned and dropped out. I have also met their counterparts: people still going to church but are there for mainly social reasons, and long ago had developed a tepid faith after many years of feeling God had deserted them in the face of all the difficulties they’ve encountered and problems they still have. They might be heard saying under there breath, “where was God when I needed Him?

There are degrees of this problem; some people have it worse than others, but it all springs from the erroneous notion of what a personal relationship with God entails. In our lesson today, Paul is stressing to the Ephesians that whatever relationship we have with God, God is the initiator. He chooses us, not the other way around. And we are helpless, totally at God’s mercy in all things.

When we assume we have a relationship of mutuality with God, an understanding, a bargain, a contract, a quid pro quo connection, and God fails to deliver his side of agreement, some are so disillusioned they walk away from God. They lose faith. But if you know that God is sovereign and is not subject to your influence, that He moves on his own time and according to his own purposes---that we are his instruments in the world, then you stand on a firmer foundation.

God does not always remove adversity from our paths, as we would like it, but rest assured the strength that can only come from Him will help us weather whatever storms we encounter. Our challenge is never to lose faith that God is with us, no matter how hot it may get in the kitchen of life.

We strive to shape our preferred circumstances, then declare that what WE want as God’s will. When we say that God is our friend, what we really mean is that God is our “buddy”---that you and God have an understanding that if you will do certain things for Him, he will do certain things you.

Acts 17:25 says God is not “served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things.” He is a sovereign God and all that is, flows from Him. He has created us to serve as vehicles of his nature in the world—his love, his compassion, his right actions. If we have the strength to love without condition, it is not our doing, rather it is the love of God, flowing through us.

Our very purpose in the time we have been given in life is to avail ourselves to His will, to become holy vessels of healing, reconciliation and the outbreak of joy! I say this even as the troubles of this world never relent. Once understood, this becomes the source of our security, the ending of our anxieties, and our struggles are put in perspective. All our suffering, all our disappointments, our missteps are put in perspective.

I know this because, despite our pathetic state, God saved us---not by anything we have done, but by His grace. God is the giver and we are the receiver. He is the creator; we are the creature. He is the potter; we are the clay. And if we are righteous, it is God moving through us. Otherwise, we are but self-serving sinners, committing acts of kindness and charity that are designed to redound to our own purposes.

God is the unmoved mover (Aristotle), the Alpha and the Omega (Revelation 1:8). He stands alone and is not subject to my influence. “In him we live, we move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28)

“The Creeping Worldly Norm"

John 2:13-22
The Lenten season is meant to be a time when we come back to the realization of what is urgent and central to our faith, what is the source of our peace and joy. It is a time to reconsider what is important to us, what is more likely to contribute to the fulfillment of our lives and the soothing of our souls. Lent does not arrive this year or any other year in a vacuum, but in the midst of competing claims about how we should live our lives, about who we should be.

All around, the streams of social change are running wild---so many choices that may not be good for us, but we are free to choose. What was known and accepted yesterday as the “in-thing” is now passé. The pressure, however subtle, is in our faces to be on the cutting edge, to be up with what’s happening now. This doesn’t mean what is happening now is an asset to the lives we want to build, or should want to build. While temptations are as old as humankind itself, media, technology, fast travel, and communications are agents that make it feel as if temptations are more powerful, that change is happening at lightning speed. Yet what this change brings is no more superior to what we already have than are things, which are imported, are better than things made right around the corner. Fast change is inevitable, I suppose, but not always good.
And the change we see today is often driven by greed, the hunger for power, notoriety and selfishness. Virtually nothing seems sacred and worth holding on to, and nothing appears exempt from the demands of the marketplace.

The temple need not ignore the market place, but is must clearly and intentionally stand separate and apart from it and not become gobbled up by it, and it must be our home base for building up resistance to the onslaught of anti-human values.
Without the temple’s role, we can become unraveled and left to behave like wild animals. With all the things we hear are happening, near and far, we need a place of retreat and renewal, and it was no less so in Jesus’ time. The pressures to adopt the ways of the world were no less evident. What goes on beyond these walls in the name of living has too many pitfalls that potentially distract us from lives that leave affirmative legacies, which shape communities in ways that leave them stronger than we found them. It takes a special discipline to resist greed, to resist a quest for power, to resist shortcuts, to resist corruption. But none of this is new.

As is so evident as we contemplate Jesus’ challenge, upon entering the temple and finding it had become virtually a shopping mall. Even in this ancient context, where the need was just as strong for a sacred place to which persons could retreat and be revived, we find the norms of the world were creeping in. The wall of separation between the sacred and the profane had fallen down. The nurturing, the acceptance, the teaching of unadulterated truth and caring, were threatened with compromise by the unbridled norms of a sinful world. What was the “right thing” by the world’s standards was becoming the right thing in the temple, and Jesus would have nothing of it.

We, too, are often attracted to this co-mingling. More and more, we want the church to remind us of the world. But if we get what we want, it may be too late when we realize that the rhythms and ethos of the world are what makes us feel lost and aimless.
That is why Jesus shows a rare anger and outrage. He feels too much is at stake to approach this situation with a calm voice. He knows how much our hope depends upon our response to a higher calling. We who yearn to respond must have a sanctuary of refuge to find communion with God and with each other. But if the temple is indistinguishable from the world; if the commercial values that obtain here as they do out there, where is our solace and our place of spiritual rest?

"BEING In The Wilderness"

The Power and the Majesty of God

Isaiah 40:21-31
This lesson is a kind of doxology. Every Sunday, we sing “the doxology” (Praise God from whom all blessing flow, praise him all creatures here below, praise him all heavenly hosts.), but in truth this is only one doxology, the one chosen by the early church fathers to be sung in worship. And the Bible has numerous doxologies recorded. Even the Gloria Patri is a doxology, declaring the preeminent power and majesty of God: “Glory be to the father and to the son, and to the holy ghost. As it was in the beginning, now and ever shall be, world without end.”
Another familiar doxology, though not called that, per se, is the closing words to the Lord’s prayer: “For thine is the kingdom and the power, and the glory, forever." This version of the Lord’s prayer had the doxology amended to the versions of the Lord’s prayer that appear in Matthew (6:9-13) and Luke (11:2-4). We can also find doxologies throughout the Psalms and in other parts of the scripture.
The message of all doxologies is that God is without peer. He has all power, he is sovereign, he is the very epitome of glory, honor and majesty. He stands alone as our creator and as the arbiter and finisher of our fate. If there is hope for us, it is by his hand and by his grace. When we find strength in life’s withering circumstances, and are able somehow to carry on, it is the Lord’s doing. And every now and then, in the midst of our petitions and wailings, and routine expressions of gratitude, we ought to pause and acknowledge, even to ourselves, what an awesome God he is; what an awesome father he is; what an awesome protector/defender he is; what an awesome friend and foundation of hope he is! Not for his sake, but ours. Every now and then we ought to declare with our loudest voice that without God, we are nothing; that our highest calling is to serve him; that our destiny is all wrapped up in his will for us.

Speaking to the Spirit

Mark 1:21-28
God’s preference for you is that you are a healed, whole, self-actualized human being---growing to your fullest potential, to the glory of God. After all, as Psalm 100 aptly says, “it is He that has made us, and not we ourselves”. So it is only natural that one who is created by a God who makes no mistakes, should be freed in their spirit to become all they can become, using their God-supplied tools and energies. When a person excels, when they are beautiful inside, when they live redemptive lives with a self-giving purpose, they are the very evidence of the love and compassion of God. When we are healed; when we are joyful; when we are selfless and compassionate; when we are tolerant and patient and respectful of others, we are in the truest sense, evangelists.
Too often our efforts at bringing people, or inviting people, to accept Christ are impaired because such invitations are too often extended by people who are themselves bound by some variation of the same unclean spirit that caused the man in our lesson today to yell out to Jesus in the synagogue.
We cease to be agents of the gospel, the good news, when we ourselves are bound by the demons of resentment, bigotry, and a compulsion to judge others; by lust, by addictions of various kinds, by class prejudice, color prejudice; by ignorance, anger, envy, low self-esteem, fear, impatience, you name it. And sometimes, we can be miraculously rid of one demon, but rather than having our spirit freed, we trade in one demon for another. And what is more toxic and self-righteous than a reformed, intolerant anything? (ex-smoker, ex-philanderer, ex-overeater…) There are few things more overbearing and off-putting than a person who has only recently seen the light.
It is the Lord’s will, not that we trade or substitute demons, but that we are rid of them, that we are totally, completely, thoroughly unbound! His aim is not to condemn us, but to call out of us the spirits that contaminate our lives--- to free us of our bad attitudes, our negative outlooks, our feelings of victimization, our need to dominate and control. His will is that our lives be redeemed and set free to serve others.
God’s love for you is immeasurable. His perennial focus is your rescue from the shadows, to bring you into his marvelous light. His hatred is for the spirit that keeps you from channeling his love and grace in the world. You are not the enemy of godliness; instead, the unclean passions that direct your conduct are God’s enemies. That is why Jesus speaks not to the man in the synagogue, but to the spirit that is within him. “Be quiet! (He says) Come out of him! And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him.”
By whatever name the unclean spirit goes, human beings are seldom without one or the other. They cause us to yield to the temptations of the world. They cause us to put ourselves first in all things. They cause us to fear acknowledging we are weak and in need of help.
But it really doesn’t matter what they are and how they manifest themselves, whether quietly or in open defiance, they need to come out, and the blood of Jesus is the vehicle for our purging. He can wrench them from us if we fall to his feet and avail ourselves of his mercy.