Feast of the Epiphany 2023

 

I preached off-the-cuff today, without a written sermon. But here are some notes written up after the event…

 

Epiphany, part 3

 

[iii] a myrrh-mur, rising

Lectionary readings: Isaiah 60:1-6 and Matthew 2:1-12

I don’t know what darkness you are journeying through today. Some of you have let me in enough to give me a glimpse, but I cannot experience your darkness as you experience it; nor you, mine. I do know that some of the darkness, at least, is holy. Bereavement, grief, is holy. I know, also, that there is darkness in your life that is the culmination of the sin of the world, that awareness that the days we are living in are lacking in justice and mercy; and I am reminded, again, that this present darkness is passing away. Until it does, stand still, breathe deep and slowly, and watch the dawn. Allow your heart to thrill and rejoice, for Jesus is the omega and the alpha, the End, and the new Beginning.

I don’t know what darkness you will journey through in the year ahead, but I know that Jesus is the brightness of your dawn. And I sense that he would have me offer to anoint you with myrrh [oil of Chrism], for, with the Magi, traditionally known as kings, all those who kneel before the Christ-child in adoration are anointed kings and queens, crowned with the glory of the Lord. Living promises of the dawn that is breaking.

 

Epiphany, part 2

 

[ii] if I may be frank(incense) with you

Lectionary readings: Isaiah 60:1-6 and Matthew 2:1-12

Our reading from Isaiah speaks of thick darkness and of dawning glory, and with it the promise, ‘Then you shall see and be radiant; your heart shall thrill and rejoice’ – a promise experienced by the Magi when they reached the goal of their longing, and ‘they were overwhelmed with joy.’ Isaiah cries out ‘Rise! Shine! Become light, participating in the glory of Yahweh. Though, to rise, the magi must first fall on their knees in adoration. And before that, they must journey through darkness, deep and thick, the darkness where God dwells, hidden from sight, requiring of us that we walk by faith. The thick darkness belongs to God as much as the glorious sunrise.

In this Season of Epiphany, a surprising revelation, we are invited once again to journey with the Magi, through the dark. That is, we are already on a journey through the dark, and we are invited to attend to it, to enter it more fully, to name it for what it is. To give a name, also, to the end of our searching. Every person you have ever met or will ever meet is searching in the dark. And, ultimately, whether they know it or not, whether they can name it or not, what they are searching for is God-with-us, in the human face of Jesus. God, come to us, as a baby, vulnerable, dependent on us. The light of his countenance overwhelms grown men, powerful men of means. Herod did not dare gaze upon the child.

What, then, of the darkness we travel through? The darkness within which God is simultaneously hidden from us and revealed to us? The Magi observe the night sky and discern meaning there, story that makes sense of the world. We journey through the darkness of our learning, our experience, of all that has become so familiar to our community that we no longer see it at all. The darkness is to us what water is to fish. But the Magi also appear in Jerusalem, having come so far on the strength of what they already know, knowing that they still haven’t found what they’re looking for, knowing that others might be able to help them, even if they don’t yet know that the very person whom they are asking will betray their trust. We must journey through the darkness of the very limits of our learning, our experience, from independence, through interdependence, to utter dependence on others, just like the infant Christ. Unless we journey through the darkness, until we are willing to do so, we will never find what we were searching for all along.

Looking through the darkness of history, through the centuries, by faith, Isaiah sees a multitude of camels bringing gold and frankincense, and in the clearer light of dawn Matthew is able also to see myrrh. An opening of treasure-chests. An opening of the life we have been given, to reveal before God what lies within: the seam of gold mined from the earth, metaphor for wisdom; the sap of a tree, its lifeblood surrendered in prayer; oil of anointing, kings and queens, and the dead. Wisdom, discovered in the dark, hard won by hard labour. The life of prayer, also learnt in the dark, its treasure surrendered to the one who has experienced the dark night of the soul, the awareness of God’s presence that comes only after awareness of God’s absence. The glory of being part of the people of God, the family of Jesus, dawn-bearers in a world longing for light.

 

Epiphany, part 1

 

[i] this is gold

Lectionary readings: Isaiah 60:1-6 and Matthew 2:1-12

Tou de Iēsou gennēthentos en Bēthleem tēs Ioudaias en hēmerais Hērōdou tou basileōs idou magoi apo anatolōn paregennonto eis Hierosolyma

Now Jesus having been born in Bethlehem of Judea, in [the] days of Herod the king, behold, Magi from [the] east arrived in Jerusalem, (Matthew 2:1)

I don’t often offer you whole sentences in Greek, but there is a striking contrast here that is lost in our English translation: between ‘en hēmerais Hērōdou, in [the] days of Herod,’ and ‘magoi apo anatolōn, Magi from the east.’ Herod’s reign is described as the period from sunrise to sunset. That is, a rising to power, a period of brilliant glory, and a fading to a passing. The Magi are described as arriving from the rising of the sun, from the dawn, the light of a new day. The point is clear, certainly to Herod if not to us: Herod’s days are passing, a new day is dawning, its light already breaking the eastern horizon. Herod will fight it tooth and nail, but you cannot hold back the dawn.

Most English churches lie East-West. I live in a vicarage that lies East-West alongside such a church. In these days at the beginning of a new year, I stand on the half-landing and watch the sun rise over our neighbours’ homes. The sky passing from night into day, from darkest blues through electric blue, purple, vivid pink, gold, silver, palest baby blue. I stand, very still, breathe slowly and deeply, welcome the day.

 

Fig trees

 

Gospel reading set for Holy Communion today: John 1:43-51

When Jesus invites Philip to follow him, the first thing Philip does is go and find his friend Nathanael. If he is going to follow Jesus, he wants his friend to follow Jesus too. Philip tells him that he, along with a few others, think that they have found the One whom both Moses (the Law) and the Prophets spoke of, the One whom God would send, to deliver his people and establish a new and peaceable kingdom. They think that Jesus might be the One. Jesus, from Nazareth.

Nathanael is surprised by this, and asks, can anything good come from Nazareth?

When Philip introduces Nathanael to Jesus, Jesus declares, here is a true Israelite, in whom there is nothing false. Now, I choose to believe that Jesus is a good judge of character, and that if Jesus says that there is nothing false in Nathanael, then there is nothing false in Nathanael. And that means that when Nathanael asked, ‘Can anything good come from Nazareth?’ it was not a cynical question, it was not a sarcastic question, it was not a dismissive statement masquerading as a question: it was a genuine and open question.

And this genuine and open question leads me to discover that God chooses the most unlikely places to turn up, the most unlikely people to turn up amongst. Not where you or I would begin, were we God.

And this gives me hope, because, truth be told, the chances of God turning up in my neighbourhood are highly unlikely. Which, it turns out, is reassuring.

That is the first thing that strikes me from the Gospel passage set for Holy Communion today. The second relates to the strange exchange between Jesus and Nathanael. When Jesus declares that Nathanael is a true Israelite in whom there is nothing false, Nathanael wants to know how Jesus knows [of] him. Jesus replies, before Philip called you, I saw you under the fig tree. On hearing these words, Nathanael responds, Teacher, you are the Son of God! You are the king of Israel!

That all sounds somewhat far-fetched, but in fact it makes perfect sense. You see, the prophet Micah spoke of a day when God would establish a new kingdom with a new king in Jerusalem, a kingdom fashioned from the remnant who have endured the fall of Jerusalem, a time of peace between the surrounding nations, former enemies now friends, the formerly hostile now seeking out the instruction that comes from the mouth of the new king, and in those days everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree and no one shall be afraid. And, centuries later, when the land is occupied by Roman armies that put down revolt by lining the major arteries with crucifixion gallows, Nathanael is sitting under a fig tree.

In other words, Nathanael is living the future in the present. Is living prophetically. Is acting, including towards others, as if it were already a time of security and friendship. Nathanael is in the habit of rehearsing this Day, and so, on the day when the coming king comes along, well, of course Nathanael recognises the One he has been waiting for.

And this begs the question, in what ways am I living the future in the present? In what ways am I habitually rehearsing a world in which former enemies sit down as friends, without fear?

 

You shall love, part 2

 

You shall love, part 2

I have already noted that the human = land + sea + sky. But there is another, parallel, way of speaking of this being, as a soul composed of heart and mind and strength (Soul = heart + mind + strength).

This is a true parallel, in that the heart is of the land, the mind is of the sea, the strength is of the sky.

The heart is the seat of the will, our capacity to make choices, for good or evil but always being redeemed. The will has a certain dependable—habitual—solidity to it, but also experiences the churning passion of subterranean magma, renewing us; also experiences the tectonic friction of rubbing against the will of others, especially those closest to; also experiences erosion, worn down or away over time.

The mind is our capacity for emotion and reflection, for feeling and thought, for discovering the world around and within us, for pooling knowledge, wisdom. The Scriptures speak of a coming time of peace, when ‘the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea’ (Isaiah 11:9). Warm shallows, clear as green glass; hidden depths searched out by sub(conscious)mariners; powerful waves, that threaten to submerge us.

Our strength is our capacity to move, being moved. Power. Freedom. Jesus said, ‘The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.’ (John 3:8). Today, we can track the wind, can even farm it. But the wisdom holds. We are animated, given strength, by the breath, the wind, at times a gentle breeze, at times wild and free, destructive even. Our strength is not of ourselves; yet we can learn to track it, to recognise the doldrums and the storms, to farm our energy and put it to good purpose.

You shall love. You shall love, with every element of yourself aligned, in harmony. You shall love your God, your neighbour, yourself. All this, upheld by God. Supported by the law and the prophets, by instruction and reflection on practice. But, ultimately, upheld by God, who holds all things.

 

You shall love, part 1

 

You shall love, part 1

Our Lord Jesus Christ said:
The first commandment is this:
‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is the only Lord.
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
with all your soul, with all your mind,
and with all your strength.’

The second is this: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’
There is no other commandment greater than these.
On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

When God birthed the world and all that is in it, ‘she’ did so simply by speaking everything into being. God’s words are substantial, have substance, form substance, matter. But when the Lord God created human beings, ‘he’ fashioned them, alone, with his hands.

God had created Sky and Earth and Seas, each a place for life to flourish, delighting in a bird that, having once taken flight, would not set foot on land again for years; in earthworms that would pull fallen leaves into the soil and break them down to feed future leaves, as-yet unfurled; in the majestic blue whale circling the oceans as the sun wheels the heavens. But when God created humans, he took clay and added breath, water vapour: air and water, Sky and Sea, combined, and combining with Earth, all three. This creature, this new creation, is not bound to any one place but elected from every sphere.

This three-in-one creature has a purpose, and that purpose is to love. So shall they be the crown of, and over, all creation. When God expands on this later, God says, ‘You shall love…’ You shall love with your whole being. Remember, God’s words are substantial, give substance. We tend to hear these words as an injunction we fail to adhere to, an impossible command that sets us up for failure, but they are not. When God says, ‘You shall love,’ these are the substantial words of the One who creates, redeems, and sustains all life. It is as impossible for us not to love as it is for the sun to give light: the very thing God created it to do, bringing it back after it is eclipsed by every night, by every winter, guaranteeing that it shines on. The question is not can or will we love—it is impossible for us not to—but where will our love be directed?

 

Feast of the Holy Innocents

 

Today, 28 December 2022, is the Feast of the Holy Innocents, on which we remember the massacre of the innocents recorded in Matthew chapter 2.

In his Gospel, Matthew presents Jesus as the Son (descendant, heir) of David. Matthew groups Jesus’ teachings into five blocks, and it has often been noted that this is a nod to the Five Books of Moses, Jesus the New Law Giver; but it is surely also a nod to the five books that make up the library of the Psalms.

David is loved by God, but that doesn’t stop him from doing terrible things. Among them, David rapes Bathsheba, then, when she is found to be with child, has her husband, who is away fighting one of David’s wars, murdered to cover his tracks. The child dies, but Bathsheba refuses to be discarded: first, David will take her as his queen, relegating his other wives; then, later, David will name their son Solomon his heir, even though Solomon is nowhere near the head of the line of succession.

When Jesus, Son of David, is born, another king is on the throne in Jerusalem, the pretender, Herod the Great. Herod, also, has issues with his issue. Not long before his own death, Herod had his firstborn son and heir, Antipater II, executed, having already had two sons by his second wife executed some years earlier. On his death, his territory was mostly divided between two sons by his fourth wife and a son by his fifth wife (Herod’s sister also being given a few cities).

Matthew records that Herod, on hearing news of a son born in Bethlehem and being proclaimed David’s rightful heir, ordered that every boy who fell, give-or-take, within the spatial parameters of Bethlehem and the temporal parameters of two-years-old, be killed. Thus, we are told, the wailing lament of Rachel for her lost children (Jeremiah 31:15) is fulfilled. But the lament the Lord speaks of through Jeremiah is the lament of exiled youth, met with the promise of a return from exile. The fulfilment is not Herod’s paranoia but in the exile of the holy family to Egypt and the promise that they will return. Not even Herod and his heirs can prevent this work of God’s grace.

Nothing in God’s selfless goodness makes human selfish wickedness okay. There is a field of darkness that encompasses the hero as much as the villain, a part of all our stories, if not the whole story. But there is a light shining in the darkness, and the darkness cannot grasp it with evil intent, cannot extinguish it. Seal it in a tomb, and it will burst out, ablaze.

Some have questioned the historicity of the massacre of the innocents, but history knows better than to doubt. There have been, and remain, countless children killed before their rightful time to die, through our negligence, our weakness, our own deliberate fault, in the wrong we have done and the good we have failed to do. This is a tragedy. And if death was the final word, an utter waste. But despite the tragedy of life, death is not the final word. Today is the Feast of the Holy Innocents, a bitter-sweet day no doubt, and yet a day in which all that was intended for harm is caught up in goodness, where every tear of pain is washed away with tears of joy. Where mothers and sons are reunited, and all wrongs redeemed.

God has loved us with an everlasting love. So come to the table of the future, set for us in the present. This night is the fifth night of Christmas. Let us raise a glass to the children.

 

Christmas

 

I will not wish you all a Merry Christmas. For some of you, this Christmas is already full of joy, of diamonds and champagne and promise, of Christmasses to come, of new traditions waiting to be birthed. For others here, this Christmas is as bitter and unpalatable as the baked camembert Jo served up tonight. Though even such full-bodied notes as these, having recoiled, may come to be appreciated by the mature palate. An after-taste, a counterpoint to sweetness.

Instead, my wish is this. That, with the babe, this Jesus, wrapped tight in strips of cloth, and hidden in the manger, you may find whatever grace you need this night. Whatever you need.

 

Advent 2022 Day 28

 

Today is the final day of Advent 2022. The end of our annual Season of making ready for the unknown day when Jesus will return in glory. Are we ready? That depends on where we choose to focus. Consider the arrival of relatives for Christmas. We might know the date they’re due, but we can never be certain of the hour. Will they be delayed, in traffic, by bad weather? If we fixate on All That Must Be Done before they get here, then, no, we’ll never be ready, never have quite enough time. Yet they come. Not in search of a perfectly tidied and seasonally decorated home, but because, for all its difficult challenges, family matters. Love compels us, in search of joy (however fleeting), peace (even if it is a temporary truce), hope (for, so long as we have each other…).

This Christmas, Christ comes again, perhaps not yet in glory, but rehearsing the Day. Over and over.

This Christmas, may you know Love.

 

Advent 2022 Day 27

 

The Season of Advent calls us to contemplate the Last Four Things, Death, Judgement, Heaven, and Hell, alongside the great Virtues of Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love. The fourth week brings together Hell and Love. To love is to live in hell, for to love is to live with the seemingly bottomless chasm that is the weight of absence of the beloved. The child who has grown up and left home. The parent who has died. But on Holy Saturday, Jesus, the lover of every soul, descended into the pit of hell, filling every part of it, claiming it, as much as heaven and earth, for his own. Hell will endure for as long as the New Heaven and New Earth endure, not as a place of damnation or eternal conscious torment, but as the place of longing and desire. This, for the simple reason that our resurrection bodies, though imperishable, are finite, are embodied. If I should take time, in the world to come, the world made new and healed of every harm, to walk the Appalachian Trail, something I have never had opportunity to do before, and my children are not there but off somewhere else, pursuing other adventures, then I shall know the weight of their absence, pressing the very air from my lungs. If not, how would I know the joy of seeing them again, the air now rushing back into me? Hell will endure, but this, too, shall be made New, healed of every pain. Christ’s three realms: desire, deep within, in subterranean chambers of the heart far from human habitation (Job 28:3, 4); it’s consummation, that catches us up into the halls of heaven; and the world that unfolds inbetween.

Love will not, cannot, abandon hell, for they are wed; to live, as the fairy tales remind us, happily ever after.

 

Advent 2022 Day 26

 

Yesterday was the Winter Solstice, here in the northern hemisphere. As of some point yesterday (the precise moment varying from year to year) the turn and tilt of Earth inclines us towards the light. For months, we have been drawn to darkness; now, we are drawn to light. There is, of course, no moral judgement here: light and dark are both alike elements of God’s creation, intended to complement one another; though, perhaps, provoked to jealousy—the day of the moon’s dignified and mesmerizing beauty, the night of the sun’s bold warmth—by some wounding fallen angel of light; perhaps in need of the Word that restores them to their purposed harmony.

Luke tells the story of Jesus’ birth from Mary’s viewpoint. Matthew, from that of Joseph. John tells it from the perspective of the heavens. This Son is a light-source, that shines in the absence of light, and the darkness has not taken possession of it. The Day is coming, and the light-source of the Day is the Sun of Righteousness. But the light-source is firstly that which shines in the dark, the Moon that reflects the radiance of the sun without blinding those who gaze directly upon it. This Word that is with God and is God is ‘Moon,’ reflecting the unbearable dazzling brightness of the Father. Here is Mary’s egg, that will not wax and wane in a twenty-eight-day cycle, but will shine in the fullness of glory, always facing the Light, never shying away.

And to all who believed in him, he has given power to be suns and moons, lights to light the day and the night. Not erased by unending day, nor gripped fast by over-reaching night. Christ is our Moon and Sun. We are as suns and moons, set free to love the day and the night, the bright days and the hours, or months, of darkness. Empowered to know their own distinctive hallowedness.

May you come to Love the dark as much as the light; for it was in the dark that our Light first shone. There is loveliness here, that draws us near to Him.

 

Advent 2022 Day 25

 

It is often said, of warring humanity, that ‘we have more in common than that which divides us,’ and we should focus on what we share, to overcome animosity. Our human alike-ness. But this might get it precisely wrong. So often, it is that which we cannot love about ourselves, seen reflected in the mirror of our neighbour, that causes us to reject them. It is where we share the most common ground that we find the Other most unlovable, for they remind us of ourselves. How dare they reveal, in themselves, the very thing I most try to hide in me? And then, we live in days when the inability to love ourselves is epidemic. When the insatiable desire to be, always, other than we are is celebrated; the right to annul ourselves, fought for. Free speech, freedom of expression, both ciphers for violence. How easily taking care of our soul transforms into a cell. How easily taking care of our body turns to a regime.

To love oneself, of course, is not at all the same as believing oneself to be the ideal specimen. That is simply another form of annulling who we truly are. To love oneself is to receive the gift of life in awe and wonder, with daily gratitude; and to meet that about us that causes shame or pain with wise compassion. You are a soul, that has a body, a body that changes over time, a soul shaped by the contingencies of your history meets the divine grace that heals all wounds, that will draw all experience into harmony.

Before ever he receives the wounds of crucifixion Christ takes up into glory in his resurrection body, he has received so many scars: beginning with the navel, and then his circumcision; a history of childhood falls; the record-keeping of an apprenticeship in carpentry. A baby, child, man, stretching limbs, that knot in the shoulder blade from repetitive action, his mother’s eyes. The sky torn open at his baptism, and his Father’s voice, from heaven. Jesus is good news not because his being fully human is greater than his being fully God—more in common with us than that which divides—but because he embodies how to love the Lord our God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength; and love your neighbour as yourself. Because love draws all experience—that which we have painfully in common—into harmony.

Today, may you nurture love, in every place it may be found, and most of all, where it is needed most.

 

Advent 2022 Day 24

 

To open ourselves to love is to open ourselves to a broken heart. This is the wisdom old Anna and Simeon share with Mary, that a sword shall pierce her heart. As this mother watches her firstborn son grow, leaving behind ages and stages of development that will never be shared between them again. As her beloved Joseph dies, an event so heartbreaking that it is hidden from us, and their son reaches other milestones, Mary will not be able to share her joy and pride with his father. As her son leaves home. As he encounters rejection and opposition. As Mary realizes that she must let him go. All these heartbreaks, before ever she stands at the foot of an executioner’s scaffold and watches her son die the most tortuous, public, humiliating death; as his body is taken down, and she cradles him in her arms, as she had done so many times before, so long ago. As she washed away the sweat and blood and shit and wrapped him in cloth—again, recalling days long since lost, back at the beginning, when she first loved this man, son, Jesus.

To open ourselves to love is to open ourselves to a broken heart. And yet, we are compelled by love, compelled to love. A broken heart is not a heart no longer capable of holding love. It is a heart broken open, that love might flow. And so the Hell of loss, of separation, is overwhelmed, one broken heart at a time.

 

Advent 2022 Day 23

 

In Atlas of the Heart, the very wise Brené Brown writes

‘We cultivate love when we allow our most vulnerable and powerful selves to be deeply seen and known, and when we honor the spiritual connection that grows from that offering with trust, respect, kindness, and affection.

‘Love is not something we give or get; it is something that we nurture and grow, a connection that can be cultivated between two people only when it exists within each one of them—we can love others only as much as we love ourselves.

‘Shame, blame, disrespect, betrayal, and the withholding of affection damage the roots from which love grows. Love can survive these injuries only if they’re acknowledged, healed, and rare.’

Today my mind turns to Luke 2:7, where we are told that Mary brought forth her firstborn son and wrapped him and laid him in a manger because there was no topos, no place, for them in the space set apart for offering hospitality for the night to strangers passing through on a journey. Such hospitality can certainly cultivate love, but the topography of the nativity, as might be charted in some atlas of the heart, is the timeless covenant love God has for David, the shepherd-songwriter-general-king. This child shall be called the Son of David, shall be loved, and love, and know betrayal, and healing. His mother shall love and know love and have her heart pierced by a sword. Yet love will survive its injuries. And, one day, love will have grown so large that it encompasses all in her embrace. While we wait for that day, what might you do, today, to cultivate love?

 

No room in the inn

 

kai eteken ton huion autēs ton prōtokon kai esparganōsen auton kai aneklinen auton en phatnē dioto ouk ēn autois topos en tō katalymati.

And she brought forth the son of her, the firstborn, and wrapped in swaddling cloths him, and laid him in a manger, because not there was for them a place in the inn.

Luke 2:7

When Mary brought forth her firstborn son, she wrapped him and laid him in a manger, because there was no topos for them in the katalymati.

A topos is a place, a region or terrain, from which we get the word topography, the recording of the forms and features of place. But there is more to the meaning. The topos is the place assigned by God to any given creature to inhabit: the oceans, with their mountains and canyons, where the great creatures of the deep migrate; the sky for the birds (though we do not chart this topos in quite the same way); the land in all its diversity, the polar caps for bears or flightless birds, the great plains for herds of cattle beyond number, the forests for the tiger, the mountain gorilla, the smaller elephants. In Genesis 1, we see God create a topos for all life, and bring forth the firstborn of every kind.

The katalymati was (not a commercial inn, but) the place set aside for the stranger passing through on their journey and in need of hospitality for the night. In the place where Jesus was born, families lived in one shared common room, with a place set aside for such travellers. It could be a small room beyond the main space, or even a curtain at one end, providing some privacy. It could be a room, or even a canopy, on the flat roof, accessed by steps on the outside of the house (the upper room where Jesus would celebrate the Passover with his disciples on the night he was betrayed was a katalymati).

When Mary brought forth her firstborn son, she wrapped him and laid him in a manger, because there was no topos for them in the katalymati. There was no place assigned to them by God within the provision for those who were only passing through. Instead, Jesus is laid in a manger. In the main room, shared by the whole family, and, at night, by their peasant animals—perhaps a small cow, perhaps a donkey, perhaps a family of goats, the body heat of the animals providing warmth for the humans. There is no manger out on the hills where shepherds watch over larger flocks of sheep. There is certainly no manger in the stable of a commercial inn.

There was no place assigned to them by God within the provision for those who were only passing through. The topos God assigns to the young mother and her firstborn son is in the heart of the family who are descended from David.

There will come a time, soon enough, when they will need to flee the hot anger of Herod. They won’t need a lodging for the night because they will travel by night, the better to slip away unnoticed. But they shall return, to claim the topos assigned by God, a kingdom that shall endure for ever.

 

Fourth Sunday of Advent 2022

 

The Fourth Sunday of Advent rejoices in the theme of Love. And this year, the lectionary has us in Matthew’s Gospel, and the birth of Jesus from Joseph’s point-of-view. Whatever we make of the virgin birth, make no mistake: Joseph is the man chosen by God to be the father of His only begotten Son: adoptive fathers are fathers 100%. Like Mary (in Luke’s account), Joseph is visited by an angel, who addresses him as the Son of David, a name by which Jesus will be called nine times in Matthew’s Gospel, by those who recognize him for who he is (Jesus refers to himself as Son of Man, thirty times; while those who oppose him—Satan, demons, chief priests, mockers—and, once, his disciples, call him Son of God five times). Joseph, alone, shares in this special title, Son of David, beloved by God.

For Joseph and Mary, as in every good love story, the course of love does not run smoothly. There are obstacles to be overcome, misunderstandings to be worked through, good counsel needed. But this quiet man, who never says a word, loves Mary and her son, and will go to the ends of the earth—to Egypt—to protect them, whatever the cost. Love knows no bounds.

 

Advent 2022 Day 21

 

Often, in the Scriptures, joy is the response to being delivered from oppression (joy flows from peace, as peace builds on hope) not only liberated people singing for joy but the liberated land itself, the trees of the field clapping their hands, caught up in a moment of oneness, wholeness, all things connected to each other in mutual interdependency.

All creation sings for joy at the birth of the One who comes to judge all things with equity, with justice and mercy. The trees shed their leaves and shake their bare branches with joy at release from the burden of having to be useful all of the time, of taking in carbon dioxide through their leaves and giving out oxygen. In the spring, the same trees will unfurl new leaves with spring joy, for the winter is past. In the summer, their joy is in having strong limbs and a canopy in which birds nest and raise their young. In the autumn, their joy is that of preparing to let go, a crowning blaze of orange and gold. All creation sings, through out the seasons, sunrise and sunset and the beauty of the moon as it waxes and wanes, the dance of the planets, the snow in its time.

All this though we still only anticipate the great joy of all creation delivered from harm.

How will you be surprised by joy today?

 

Advent 2022 Day 20

 

Happiness is dependent on circumstances (these can be specific or general). Joy is not.

The opposite of happiness is sadness. The opposite of joy is fear.

My friend Dan died yesterday. I feel sad, a sadness beyond words. There is no room for happiness right now. But I am overwhelmed by joy. Joy that Dan is with Jesus. Joy that I am in Jesus, and so Dan and I are one with another. Joy in response to the immeasurable, unerodable wonder that Dan brought to the world, by which all creation is moved closer to what God always hoped and dreamed for it to be.

The intensity of both my sadness and my joy will fade in time. But the sadness will fade completely, and I shall know happiness (and other sadnesses) again. The joy will lay down an ever-thickening layer of life, every time I think of my friend, every time we ‘meet’ again, until we meet again.

 

Dan

 

A friend of mine has died yesterday. I say a friend, for that is what he is, but there are many people who were much closer to him; I do not post for your sympathies for my loss.

He was younger than me, and had lived for twenty years with MS. One might say that the world is diminished by his no longer being with us; and certainly, those for whom he was a tangible presence, his family most of all, will feel that loss sharply. But in a very real sense, the world is not diminished at all: the world is immeasurably enriched by his having been given to us; and he himself is still alive, in Christ. He is still where we are, in Christ. He and I had lived in different cities for the past fifteen years, he was already a real but intangible presence in my life; now he is a real but intangible presence in our lives. Alive in Christ, he no longer endures the advance of MS; though he was already so very fully alive that I doubt the untrained eye can tell the difference in his now fully-alive now fully-glorious body, it will be such a small thing.

One day, we shall meet again, face to face, in the fully-accessible new heaven and earth, and then my own constraints (for every person has her constraints, we are not infinite but particular, unique, personal, embodied) both the dyspraxia I live with daily and any other constraints that will form me in days to come, will also be made glorious. Not stripped from our resurrection bodies but freed from harmful intent. Until then, may I live each day as my friend did, with immense gratitude, and joy, and love.

Thank you, God, for Daniel Cooper. And thank you, Dan, from the bottom of my heart. You are a legend and a role-model. May you, and all those who love you, rest in peace, and rise in glory.