Two Christmas Presents

Grace and Peace are wrapped and ready... under the bed or in the hall closet... for us!

SJF • Advent 4a 2013 • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
To all God’s beloved... who are called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Over these weeks of Advent I’ve been preaching on the three of great virtues embodied in the season: love, hospitality and patience. Today, as Christmas is nearly in sight, I want to turn to look ahead to two of the Christmas presents towards which our Advent preparation points us. These two Christmas presents are summed up in Saint Paul’s greeting to the Christians in ancient Rome: “Grace to you and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Grace and peace: what better things could we wish for! We live in the midst now of the winter of our discontent, in a time of terrorism and war, when all the premature Christmas carols in the shopping malls cannot drown out the somber voices droning on twenty-four hours a day on the cable news channels; when all the well-spiked holiday punch and egg nog cannot numb us to the sobering knowledge that war is still raging, and a generation is perishing in horror in that same Syria of which Isaiah spoke — a land tearing itself apart in a most uncivil war. We are hungry and thirsty for grace and peace, and long for God’s promises to be fulfilled, yet wherever we look, they speak of war.

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So too it was for King Ahaz to whom Isaiah prophesied; so too for the Roman Christians to whom Saint Paul wrote; so too for Joseph troubled in his mind that his wife-to-be was already pregnant — and not by him! Our present turmoils and troubles, foreign or domestic, are nothing new, my friends — the world has always longed for the promise of grace, the fulfillment of peace.

The good news is that this promise of God does not go unrealized. God does come through! God delivers those Christmas presents of grace and peace more efficiently than Santa and his elves, though the gifts of grace and peace often come to us in ways that we do not expect and sometimes don’t even recognize. So often the gifts of grace and peace come as a surprise — not as what we expected, but as what we most assuredly need.

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So let’s take a quick peek in the hall closet or under the bed to see what Christmas presents lay in store for us. First the gift of peace — man, do we need that, not only in the world but in the church! Yet this is the promised gift, the gift promised by God through Isaiah to that war-weary King Ahaz of Judah. You see, his ancient enemy, the Syrians of Damascus — that same Damascus that is going through so much trouble today — those Syrians have allied with the northern kingdom of Israel against his own land of Judah in the south. This is long after the split that came after the death of Solomon, when the empire that son of David built was torn in two in the kind of civil war that has plagued the Middle East ever since — and Israel in the north was partitioned from Judah in the south.

So God sends Isaiah to Ahaz and tells him to ask for a sign. When Ahaz is reluctant, Isaiah tells him that God will give him a sign anyway: and there follows that wonderful vision of a young woman whose child will soon be born and who will receive a wonderful name, who will be a sign of God’s deliverance. This was a vision so powerful that it would nourish hope in that land for hundreds of years — until an angel would remind a certain righteous Judean carpenter of the promise... But I’m getting ahead of myself; I’ll get to Joseph in a moment.

For now let’s stick with Ahaz, and Isaiah’s promise that peace is coming, and coming soon! How soon? A young woman is with child and will give birth — so we’re talking less than nine months. This child will bear the name Immanuel — God is with us — and by the time this child is weaned from nursing, able to eat the baby food of curds and honey, by the time he is old enough to know that he likes the curds and honey but doesn’t care for that evil broccoli — say, another year and half — the enemy lands of Syria and Israel will be devastated, their kings defeated!

Now this may seem like a round-about way of promising regime change, but this was the promise none-the-less. Regime change will come; Judah will be delivered, the enemy kings of Syria and Israel will be deposed. Peace will come! Now, it won’t be the best kind of peace — unfaithful Judah and its weak King Ahaz don’t quite deserve that! This will be the peace of occupation — as an invading army will come in from outside and destroy those kings of Israel and Syria — but at least it will be peace; it will remove the threat of destruction be set to one side and people will be able to get on with their lives — much as even today we might hope that the UN or some other force would go into Syria and take it over and stop the war. Occupation is not the best peace, but it is better than a terrible war. And so, even today, many would long for such a peace as a precious prize.

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And what of grace? Well, as we know from the great and well-loved hymn, what? Grace is amazing! That is part of what makes it grace, after all: it is not what we expect, but comes as a wonderful surprise, a gift we do not deserve but which it turns out is exactly what we most need.

This Christmas present of grace comes to us wrapped up in the story of Joseph and Mary. Now, if anybody needs gracious good news it’s poor Joseph. He discovers that his bride-to-be is already pregnant; but since he’s a good and righteous man, not hard-hearted, he’s unwilling to make the kind of fuss he perfectly well could, including, under the laws of those days, dragging Mary into the town square and putting her to public shame, and possibly even being stoned. Rather, he prepares to take the option ending the marriage quietly, putting her away with as little embarrassment as possible. That’s what he’s decided to do; he’s going to call it off — and then, amazing grace happens! The angel comes to him in a dream with exactly the same message delivered hundreds of years before to Ahaz — only this time the promise is not of earthly peace, but of heavenly grace, the full and perfect fulfillment of that ancient prophecy. You see, that prophecy had a double meaning: it wasn’t just a word to Ahaz; it was a word for Joseph, and a word to us. This child is not the result of infidelity on Mary’s part; rather this is the act of God the Holy Spirit, descending into the created reality over which the Holy Spirit moved at the beginning of all things, now to bring forth from the womb of a human mother a child who shall be the savior of the world — not just of a small Middle Eastern kingdom, but of the whole world.

This is the wonder of grace: instead of a prudent end to a scandalous episode in the life of a Judean carpenter — a sort of first century Downton Abbey — instead we overhear Joseph being told, and hear ourselves, of the earth-shattering and life-changing arrival of God himself in the person of a child to be born in Bethlehem. This is the grace to which we look, my brothers and sisters in Christ, a grace that is amazing and unexpected and yet exactly what we need.

So let us, in this last few days before Christmas, in the hustle and bustle and the last-minute shopping, remember what it is we are waiting for. Let us make use of all of those virtues of love and welcome and patience, as we look forward to the great gifts of grace and peace, the peace which passes understanding, and the grace that announces the presence of our Lord and Savior, Immanuel — God with us and all who believe. Let us prepare for the salvation of our souls and the redemption of our bodies, for the restoration of all that is broken and the lifting up of all that is fallen, so that our consciences, being purified and made ready to receive him, may at his coming be as mansions prepared to welcome him, the King of kings and the Lord of lords, even Jesus Christ, our only Mediator and Advocate.+

The Two Ways

SJF • Proper 8c 2010 • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
A man said to Jesus, “I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”+

I’m sure that many of you here are familiar with the Narnia series — children’s stories by CS Lewis, beginning with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. That first volume, and the second, Prince Caspian, have been made into movies — and you may have seen one or both of them. For those who haven’t, let me just say that Lewis was trying to address some of the major themes of Christianity in his imaginative portrayal of another world — and, in a way that would appeal to the imagination of children, a fantasy world of talking animals, magic and mystery.

I can attest how important these stories have been to many people over the years — including myself. They played a part in my adult return to the Christian faith when, as a teenager, I was working as a counselor at the Episcopal Mission Society summer camp, and shared these stories with the children under my care — most of them orphans or children in foster care, living in situations very far removed from the polite English world of CS Lewis or the fantasy world of Narnia! Yet they just couldn’t get enough of these stories — nor could I! They spoke truth, and truth we heard. When I returned home from that summer, I looked up the local Episcopal parish and became an active member.

In the last volume of the Narnia stories, Lewis chose to end with his own version of Revelation — a description of the last days of Narnia in a great Last Battle. And as the battle between the forces of good and evil rage through that fantasy world, one group tries to play the part of neutrality — the Dwarfs. They don’t want to get involved on either side. They do nothing to help the forces of good, to hinder the forces of evil, or vice versa. As they say, “The Dwarfs are for the Dwarfs.” And so they refuse to take sides in the Last Battle — off to one side in a circle by themselves.

And after the battle is over and the forces of good have triumphed and the forces of evil have been conquered and dispatched, the Dwarfs are still sitting there — off in a circle to one side. They have become blind. They literally can no longer see what has happened — that the battle is over and the world itself is about to end, folded up into a glorious new life — not unlike the biblical images in Revelation! But the Dwarfs have missed out on it all, and don’t even know it. They think they are stuck in a damp, lightless stable, when they are in fact sitting in a beautiful sunlit flowery meadow. As the new creation dawns, they sit in their circle, arms folded across their chests and chanting, “The Dwarfs are for the Dwarfs!”

The children try to rouse them from their blindness, holding flowers in front of them, but they cry out, “What do you mean by shoving filthy stable-litter in my face!” Even when the great Lion Aslan — who represents Christ in Lewis’s fantasy world — goes over to the Dwarfs and gives them a low growl of warning, they all say, “It’s just someone trying to frighten us with a noise-making machine! They won’t take us in.” As the old saying goes, they have made their bed and they’re going to lie in it. Or as Aslan himself observes, “Their prison is only in their own minds, yet they are in that prison. They are so afraid of being taken in that they cannot be taken out.”

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I mention all of this because in our readings today we see similar failures to respond to a call to action, people failing to see the good that is set before them, and engaging in all sorts of delaying tactics. Elijah calls Elisha but Elisha wants to say goodbye to his parents before he follows on the way. Jesus gets a whole litany of excuses from various people, as to the things they need to do before they can follow him — and he gives them a stern rebuke.

More importantly Saint Paul lays two choices before the Galatians when he talks about the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit. There is a long tradition in Judaism and early Christianity called, “The Two Ways” — the way of evildoers and the way of the righteous. And which way you take will shape your life.

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I think it was Yogi Berra who said, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” The point is, you have to choose — it’s one way or the other. The problem is that sometimes people don’t want to commit; they don’t want to take sides — it may not be quite so clear as the contrast Paul makes between the flesh and the spirit; I mean, he make it obvious about which way is the way of righteousness!

But sometimes, even the best intentioned people can be more like the Dwarfs in Lewis’s fable, or like the would-be disciples who delay in or withdraw from following Jesus because they decided they have other, more important things to do. Sometimes people think that rather than making a choice to reject what is wrong and do what is right, it is acceptable to do nothing, to abdicate responsibility and stand in watchful waiting to see how things go.

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And the church can be just as guilty of this kind of inaction as anyone else — being made of fallible people sometimes the church as a whole fails to live up to the challenge Jesus presents us. Paul’s letter to the Galatians reminds me of one such instance in our own history. The passage we heard begins with a call not to submit to a yoke of slavery This reminds me of a sorry aspect of our own church’s history — not this parish, but the whole Episcopal Church. By the 1850s the Episcopal Church was well-settled in just about every part of the United States, North and South, East and West. And of course, because of this, the church was faced with becoming embroiled in the controversy dividing the nation — slavery. The nation was occupied with the question: shall slavery be allowed to continue or shall it be stopped; and if stopped, how.

The church decided to play it safe. To avoid allowing this important issue to become a source of division, the Episcopal Church officially decided not to take a position on the question of slavery — the church would neither approve nor condemn what was called “the peculiar institution.” The Presiding Bishop of the Church, John Henry Hopkins of Vermont, even wrote a book defending the biblical foundations of slavery. He argued that as long as slaves were treated well there was nothing to prevent Christians from holding slaves, and that going to war about it was a far greater sin than the continuation of a venerable biblical institution — after all, he pointed out, Abraham had held slaves, and he was a model of biblical righteousness. That a bishop from the far North could make such an appeal warmed hearts of his Southern confrères.

And so, during the very years when this congregation was forming, while other Christian churches split along north-south lines, the Episcopal Church was able to remain a single body — at least until war actually broke out, and with the creation of the Confederate States of America, all of their bishops and deputies withdrew from participation in the Episcopal Church of the United States — after all, from their perspective they were part of a different country. One of the southern bishops was even a Confederate general, and died in battle.

The irony is that some people will point at this history with pride — the Episcopal Church didn’t divide, except for those few years during the actual war, and came back together afterward — unlike the Presbyterians, Methodists and Baptists. But somehow, I think in failing to stand for something we missed a great opportunity. By accepting slavery — for others, since few slaves were themselves Episcopalians — we colluded in injustice, and at a crucial moment remained silent; like the Dwarfs who were only for the Dwarfs, we were only interested in the preservation of our ecclesiastical union — a union that was in fact divided when the war broke out, even though the Northern bishops refused to recognize it, and continued the roll call of the names of the absent southern bishops whenever the House of Bishops met — knowing full well they were not there.

Is there virtue in such obliviousness? Such living in denial and embracing fantasy? Such collusion in injustice? Do you think so?

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For to be truly righteous it is not enough just not to do bad things — it is not enough just not to take the way of the works of the flesh, those obvious failings. It is not enough to say to Jesus, I will follow you when it becomes convenient for me to do so. No, my friends, we are called to choose — and to choose rightly; not just to avoid the way of the flesh but to get on our feet and walk in the way of the spirit — to follow Jesus. We are called to live by the Spirit, and, guided by the Spirit, to join Jesus in the proclamation of the kingdom of God. To follow him will mean to do the works of God and bear the fruit of the Spirit in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. And these are the things God calls us to do, calls us to follow. Where he leads us, will we follow? Will we?+

Work of the Spirit

SJF • Pentecost C 2010 • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone.+

Today is the feast of Pentecost, marking the fiftieth day from Easter, commemorating that day on which the promised Spirit came down from heaven, blew through the windows, and landed square on the heads of the apostles setting them on fire. The Spirit found them gathered in one place, like a pile of tinder or a stack of kindling wood, not yet started on the ministry, not yet set on fire for the task that Jesus had called on them to do. The only thing they’d done since Jesus ascended into heaven was to choose a successor for Judas — and then they sat around waiting for God to show them what to do. They didn’t have to wait long, for God’s Holy Spirit came upon them like fire, and inspired them to action from inaction to courage and boldness from fear — and to work! A fire was lit that day that has not been put out since.

Just as what happened on the first Easter wasn’t merely something spectacular for that one particular Sunday morning, but marked the turning point for the history of the whole world, as Jesus our Lord was raised from the dead — so too what happened on Pentecost fifty days after Jesus was raised from the dead wasn’t just a spectacular pyrotechnic display for a single day. No, it was the beginning of something; what happened on Pentecost was a new beginning, so new that people call Pentecost the “birthday of the church.” For it was on this day that the disciples were converted from being followers into being leaders. They got “all fired up” and started into action!

And it is that conversion, that “firing up” I want to talk with you about today, for it is a conversion and an “ignition” to which we all are called and in which we are all empowered, if we will accept the call of God and the power of God to work in us as it worked in the apostles long ago, to convert us from simply following Christ to taking the lead and spreading the word, to build up the church for which Christ died.

For the work of the church is not just my job alone, even though I have been given a particular office and ministry — about which I spoke a few weeks ago. Nor is it only our organist Mr. Baker’s job or the choir’s job, or Br James’ or Mr Greene’s or Mr Korlai’s, or the acolytes — though some of them literally do carry fire around in the torches and the thurible — or the members of the Bishop’s Committee or the Men or Women of St James, or the members of the other parish groups. Rather the work of the church is everyone’s job, and everyone has a role to play in the spread of the Gospel, to carry that torch that was lit so long ago, and to build up of God’s kingdom. Nobody is off the hook; everyone is part of God’s inspired workforce for the work of the Holy Spirit; everyone.

Look what God says through the prophet Joel. There is no minimum age requirement, no , nor no early retirement neither — God’s spirit is poured out on all flesh, on old and young. There is no class or educational requirement — God’s spirit is poured out even on the humblest servant. And there is no sex discrimination either — and if there are even in this day and age people in parts of this world who think women shouldn’t serve the church, think how revolutionary it must have been when Joel spoke those words a thousand years before the birth of Jesus Christ! God’s Spirit comes to sons and daughters — and not just the daughters of the best families — but even female slaves are given God’s spirit to proclaim salvation. God is no respecter of persons! God lifts up the lowly and puts down the mighty. God was an equal opportunity employer long before Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, and God still has a job for everyone to do — everyone! — and will pour the Spirit lavishly upon them all, to equip them for that work. There is no job shortage, no being made redundant, no layoffs, no down-sizings, no golden parachute, no laying off or laying back — there is no unemployment in the kingdom of God: all are servants of the Lamb.

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You know, when people who are out of work, are looking for work, they go to the “help wanted” ads in the papers, or in these latter days, they search the Internet. Well, Saint Paul provides us with a kind of help-wanted ad for the work of the church in his First Letter to the Corinthians. Look at all these job opportunities! People gifted to speak words of wisdom, and words of knowledge; people with the gift to bring a healing touch; people with the astonishing gifts of working unthought of things, or the ability to speak the truth so clearly that people will be convicted in their hearts and souls — we call them prophets; those with the gift to look into the heart and discern the Spirit at work, and those who can speak or interpret the language of human beings or the language of heaven. And the only job requirement for all of these tasks is the presence of the Spirit, God’s Holy Spirit, that living flame and spark of divinity who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.

There are many, many gifts given to God’s people for God’s work. Note in particular one item from Paul’s list I’m saving for last: those who have the gift of faith — because that covers all the rest of us who may not be healers or teachers or prophets or miracle workers. We all have the gift of faith, and we are promised that even if our faith is as small as a mustard seed, it can move mountains more effectively than the biggest rig from Caterpillar Tractors or a ton of dynamite. Even if it is a flame as small as a spark, we all know — as the apostle James said — how great a pile of lumber can be set alight by even a tiny flame, a tiny spark.

So, fellow workers all of us, if I can (on the next to last Sunday in May) borrow and modify a phrase more often heard on the first of May: “Workers of the church, unite!” Who dares stand idle on the fruited plain: the harvest is ripe, and we have all the job skills we need to do God’s work.

Can you carry a broom? There’s plenty of cleaning up to do. Can you tell a story? There are young ears eager to hear the story of your faith, of our faith — the church’s faith. Can you sing? Lift up your voices, people of God! Shake the rafters with a joyous noise! Can you give? Who does not have the strength to carry his own weight, to share the abundance he or she has to help this church recover and rebuild from the times of narrowness, the times of fear? Who dares to stand before the throne of God and say, “God, I’ve got enough for me but I don’t have enough for you.”

Can you pray? Don’t let’s forget that, for it is something we all can do, young or old, rich or poor — to pray, even if it is as simple prayer, “Jesus, Lord, save me!” Pray earnestly, in season and out of season, pray that the Spirit will continue to bless, to inspire, to set us alight with divine fire, and pour out God’s gifts upon us.

After all, today is our birthday, the church’s birthday, and God is giving us a whole pile of birthday presents; today and every day, and all we have to do is unwrap them and put them to use! God’s gracious gifts keep coming, even before we can ask. This is the promise and the power of God, and his promises are sure, and his power is great — not only to save but to preserve.

We are no longer merely followers of our Lord — we are commissioned as leaders to carry forth his mission, and to share in his work, to do our share of that work. So be brave, sisters and brothers of the faith. Be strong in the knowledge of God. Rejoice, rejoice believers, for the Lord our God is a mighty Lord. Glory to him, glory to him, whose power working in us can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine. Glory to him from generation to generation in the church, and in Christ Jesus our Lord! +