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The Smell of Discipleship

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From the Rev. Joe Hensley, Rector, St. George’s Episcopal Church
Fredericksburg, VA | 5th Sunday in Lent, Year C, March 13, 2016 

Here is question for you: What does Christian discipleship smell like? We spend more time thinking about what following Jesus looks like or sounds like, maybe what it feels like, and maybe even what it tastes like. We rarely, if ever, consider what discipleship, what walking in the way of Christ, smells like. Some of us might say it smells like a potluck feast where all are welcome and no one goes hungry. Some of us might say it smells like a dusty road where we are called to wander in search of fellow pilgrims. On happy days, discipleship might smell like Easter lilies or Christmas greenery. There are lots of possibilities. I think, though, that the smell of discipleship is something that wakes us up, that surprises us. It is a powerful aroma that opens our spiritual nostrils to breathe in the Holy Spirit.

When I was a boy, we sometimes made a slight detour on the way to church in order to pick up an older man named Mr. Horton for Sunday services. I do not know whether my parents were assigned this pastoral care ministry or whether they took it upon themselves. I do not know if they considered it to be part of their discipleship of Jesus to offer this man a ride. All I knew then was that when Mr. Horton got into the car, the smell of his hair cream would nearly knock me out. To my young and sensitive nose, it seemed so strong, and once the car door was closed, the intense perfume of it made it impossible for me to concentrate on anything else. Mr. Horton would sit in the front seat of our Oldsmobile, my brother and mother and I in the back. I don’t really remember Mr. Horton’s face, but I have this distinct memory of the back of Mr. Horton’s head, his white hair neatly combed and stuck in place. I wondered how anything on earth could smell so strong. I could not wait to get to church so that we could open the car door and escape.

In today’s Gospel story, I wonder if those gathered for a dinner in honor of Jesus were also squirming to get away. It is an uncomfortable scene, when we consider the etiquette of the day. Mary of Bethany, Mary whose brother Lazarus has recently been raised from the dead by Jesus, Mary whose sister Martha complains in another Gospel story that she doesn’t help with the chores, this Mary (not to be confused with Mary the mother of Jesus or Mary Magdalene) puts everyone in an uncomfortable position as she demonstrates her love for Jesus. Remember that in 1st century Palestine it was taboo for a woman to touch a man in public. Remember that it was scandalous for a Jewish woman to display her hair for everyone to see. It WAS ordinary hospitality for a guest to be received by a servant who would wash and perhaps rub ointment on the feet. So imagine how awkward those at the dinner would have felt when Mary, who might have been a woman of some social status, bends down and rubs ointment on the rabbi’s feet. And then she wipes them with her hair. Her hair. This sensual and intimate gesture would certainly have attracted everyone’s attention. It would be pretty scandalous today. One of those times when people are trying not to look but can’t help themselves. And then there is the smell.

Mary doesn’t use just any ointment to rub Jesus’ feet. She takes a jar of nard. Nard was a very expensive balm often used to anoint dead bodies for burial. The strong perfume would cover up the smell as the body began to decay. Nard was imported from India. It was precious. And Mary takes about a cup and half of it, worth about a year’s wages for the average laborer, and rubs it all on Jesus’ feet. The smell fills the whole house. It probably made Mr. Horton’s hair cream seem tame in comparison.

We all know that smells are powerful. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a smell is worth a thousand pictures. A smell can bring back so many memories and images all at once. To this day when I get a whiff of a certain kind of hair product, it brings back the Oldsmobile, my father saying, “Hey Mr. Horton!” the cold air outside and my desire to open the window. What did the people in that house with Mary and Jesus think about the smell of nard? When the odor hit their nostrils did they think of funerals and dead bodies? Maybe it made them think of sore feet rubbed clean after a long day of walking. Maybe it made them think of stories they had been told about the spice traders and faraway lands. It probably did not make them think about love and devotion. Yet this is exactly what Mary is trying to express to Jesus. He has raised her brother from the dead. We can imagine that Jesus’ words and teachings have also brought new life into her heart. Mary loves Jesus so much. Did she plan for this outlandish display of affection? Did she think to herself, “The rabbi is coming over, I think I’ll let my hair down and break out the nard.” My sense is that this lavish act, this extravagant offering was not planned ahead of time. When Jesus walks in the door, the power of his presence moves something in Mary, and she willingly follows. She probably is not thinking about whether it is appropriate or not, whether the nard will stink up the whole house, whether it will bring back memories of death.  I think she is just being fully present, fully in the moment, fully caught up in her abiding love for the human embodiment of God’s love. The smell is not the point. And yet, maybe after that, the guests will never smell nard again without remembering that Jesus receives her gift with gratitude. Maybe it wakes them up somehow to the reality that just because something smells powerful doesn’t mean it smells bad. Mary takes a smell that belongs with death and associates it with love. Jesus, likewise, accepts death and transforms it on the cross into an opportunity for life.

Mary of Bethany is really a model disciple. She washes Jesus’ feet, and it is Jesus who imitates her a few chapters later when he commands his disciples to wash one another’s feet. So what does this mean for us? That’s the question we ask. Are we supposed to be like Mary, the model disciple, and make an extravagant offering too? Sure, it would be wonderful if everyone here decided to drop a year’s wages in the collection plate or maybe just put that much as a bequest to St. George’s in your will to help continue the work of this place. Yet, I think Mary’s discipleship is less about the gift and more about following the movement of her heart. What does discipleship smell like? All the times I have remembered the story about Mr. Horton, I have focused on the discipleship of my parents, how nice it was for them to offer him a ride. As I have remembered this story recently, I have been wondering why Mr. Horton would use all that hair cream in the first place. Maybe that was his extravagant offering. He was not rubbing Jesus’ feet with his hair, but he was rubbing that cream into his own hair in order to prepare himself to kneel at the feet of his beloved Savior. Maybe the strong smell woke him up. Maybe it was a way for him to say “I’m not afraid of death. I’m going to church today! And I’ll even accept a ride from this well-meaning young family even though it hurts my heart that I can’t drive myself anymore.” Just getting up and getting ready for church might have been Mr. Horton’s extravagant offering.

As we continue to walk our Lenten road, may we encounter the aroma of faith that wakes us up, more precious than gold, mysterious and transforming. May we open our holy noses to smell what new thing God is doing in this present moment and respond without apology or embarrassment. When God calls us to love and be loved, to become love, may we not hold back, may we be a fragrant offering.

Freedom From the Bushfire

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Sermon preached at St. Mary’s Catholic Church for the Micah Ministries Ecumenical Lenten service: Wednesday, February 24, 2016, by the Rev. Joseph H. Hensley, Jr.

Good day to you all. Thank you to St. Mary’s for hosting this community Lent prayer service. It is good to be here. Something we have been doing at St. George’s Episcopal Church during Lent is taking a moment whenever we gather for church meetings to make sure we introduce ourselves and share a little bit of lives. So I’d like to begin today by asking you to turn to your neighbor and introduce yourself if you don’t know them and just share one word. One word that describes what you are bringing into this space today. My name is Joe. My word is excited. Part of becoming a more open and loving community is the willingness to open ourselves to listen and to share. Thank you for sharing and for listening.

In the reading we heard from Exodus, Moses is also invited to open himself up. Moses is invited to take a risk. The scripture tells us that Moses was keeping a flock of sheep beyond the wilderness. Now you all may remember that the reason Moses was out there with the flock was because he had run away from Egypt after killing an overseer. He was keeping his head down. He was staying out of trouble. Then he sees this burning bush.

This is a pretty famous story. If you have heard it before, you have probably imagined what that burning bush looked like. There is, of course, the famous depiction of the bush in the movie The Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston. For many of us that image has been “burned” into our memory. There is a bush and it is lit from behind with a nice warm glow. Kind of like a cozy campfire. But with all respect to Cecil B. Demille, if God were to appear in a fire, I don’t think it would be a glowing bush. It would be more like a bush-fire, a wild fire, a fire that could potentially get out of control, a fire that would make most shepherds run in the other direction.

But for whatever reason, Moses does not behave like most shepherds and takes an extra moment to look and see that this is no ordinary fire. It burns in the bushes but it is not burning up the bushes. And then Moses does this extraordinary thing. He turns aside. He makes a detour. He somehow has the courage and the curiosity to walk toward the fire, to approach the mystery of a blaze that does not consume, to go toward what is hot and strong and intense. It is when Moses takes that detour and walks toward the fire that God calls and Moses responds, “Here I am.”

This is a turning point, a moment of opportunity. When we begin the story, Moses is keeping his head down, tending the flock, staying out of trouble. Now God has got his attention, and Moses is present. “Here I am.” You wonder if God had tried before to get Moses’ attention, and Moses was just clueless. Maybe there had been a talking snake or a miraculous spring of water, but Moses just thought, “Oh the heat must be getting to me.” So then God tries the burning bush, and Moses finally turns aside. I say that, because although there’s this moment of opportunity, Moses pretty quickly retreats. “Who am I that I should go to pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” “Who am I?”

Many of us have stood in Moses’ position. God gets our attention for a moment and the next moment we are ready to put our heads down and go back to tending the flock. The churches, God love them, have also often stood in Moses’ position. We mind our own business, tend our own flocks, stay out of trouble. Then by some miracle of grace we find the courage and curiosity to turn aside, take a risk, and walk toward the fire. Walk into some hot territory. I’ve been in Fredericksburg a year or so now, and I have heard stories about the times when the congregations in this town have been willing to walk toward the fire. It seems to me that the founding of Micah Ministries was such a time. A time to step onto the holy ground of speaking for those who had no voice. A time to step into the heat of public debate about how to be compassionate neighbors. A time to be on the holy ground of learning to be in relationship with neighbors living on the edges. We are gathered here today because of our congregations’ continuing commitment to Micah and its mission. And we are so blessed that Micah provides the coordination of services and the expertise and the encouragement to be in relationship as we learn to live with neighbors on the edges.

The churches in Fredericksburg have had their moments of walking toward the fire. We have probably even experienced some transformation. But we also have had our moments of retreating back to our separate flocks, of putting our heads down and trying to stay out of trouble. During this season of Lent we are invited to repent. And that word “repent” literally means to turn around, to change direction, to take a detour. How might God be calling us to turn again toward the fire and say, “Here I am”? The bushfire of God is an awesome and frightening thing. Moses hid his face. We can remember though that God’s bush-fire might cook but it does not consume. It might be fierce, but it does not destroy. It might heat us up but it will not burn us down. God is calling us to a fire!

In the one year that I have been in Fredericksburg, (I know I’m new here), I have listened as the community has argued about how we are to respond to our neighbors living on the edges. And it has been tempting at times to say that God is calling us, like God called Moses, to go to Pharoah and say “let my people go.” Go to the authorities and demand justice. But then I step back and look around, and I say, “who really needs to be set free?” Maybe it’s not just the folks “over there” or the folks we call “needy.” When we have such difficulty even talking about what it means to be neighbors, are we not all in bondage? It could be that God is calling us to cry for our own freedom. This may be another opportunity to turn aside, to turn around and step toward the heat of conversations about why this is so hard. Why are we often so divided? We are in a political season that has the potential to separate us into red and blue camps. I might even call them prison camps, because they will be hard to break out of. As churches, as the people who believe that God has made us brothers and sisters in Christ, can we find ways to have conversations that open us up instead of shutting us down? With God’s help, I know we can! I know many of you have stories about entering, with God’s help, into relationships across party lines, economic lines, race lines, religious lines, any lines that keep us apart, because our God is that great! Maybe you can tell some of those stories over lunch today. Yes, it is hot and scary territory. It may seem like a bush-fire that could get out of control in a hurry. But if God is in the fire, and I do believe that God is in the fire, then it will not overwhelm us. When God is in the fire, we may find that our difficult conversations become holy ground. We can learn to take off our shoes, remove our protective layers, and stand vulnerable before God and each other. We can learn to listen just as God listens to the cries of God’s people. That is the path to freedom. God is calling us with a bush-fire of transforming grace. May we have the grace, the courage, and the imagination to turn aside, to listen, and say “Here I am!”

 

Good News

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From the The Rev. Joseph H. Hensley, Jr., Rector, St. George’s Episcopal Church
Fredericksburg, VA | Epiphany III Year C,  Jan. 24, 2016

A notable Sunday in that a near-blizzard dumped at least 14″ of snow on Fredericksburg

Jesus opens the scroll of the prophet Isaiah and reads these words: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.” Good news. If you made it to church this morning in the snow, you’re probably hoping to hear some good news too. The preaching of good news is one of the most important callings we have as a church.

Jesus reads from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, chapter 61, verse 1: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.” To the poor. To the humble and meek, the afflicted. The poor to whom Isaiah refers are God’s exiled children, God’s children who had been conquered by foreign powers and made to leave their home. The sons and daughters of Israel who had seen the humiliation of God’s people. The prophet is speaking of an anointed one who will bring good news of a return home and a rebuilding of ancient ruins. In the Gospel, Jesus unrolls the scroll and takes this text as his own. He is the one come to fulfill the scripture, to bring the good news that God’s people can go home again.

As we will hear in next week’s Gospel reading, God’s people, at least the ones listening to Jesus in his hometown of Nazareth, are sometimes not interested in going home again. Instead of embracing the good news Jesus brings, they get angry with him. I don’t want to spoil anything for next week. I just want us to remember that sometimes God’s people have trouble receiving the good news God is bringing.

In the passage we heard from Nehemiah this morning, God’s people have difficulty receiving the good news. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah are the story of God’s exiled people who have finally returned to Jerusalem, their ancestral home. They rebuild the wall of the city which had been broken down by foreign conquerors. And in the reading that we heard today, the people have gathered to hear the word of God, the law, the books of God’s best ways to live. And when they hear the words, they begin to weep and mourn. Maybe it didn’t sound like good news. Maybe when they heard it they remembered the disobedience of their forebears. Maybe they remembered their own lack of faith. For whatever reason, they wept and mourned. But the leaders encourage the people: do not mourn. Eat and drink in celebration and share with those who do not have anything to celebrate with. Do not let the word of God be bad news. God has given to God’s people words to live by, not words to die by. God has given a law that is for life and wholeness and peace. So celebrate and make sure that others can too!

Jesus comes to fulfill and complete that law. Jesus comes to fulfill the prophecy of restoration for everyone. Jesus comes to make whole the promise of God to be with us forever. But sometimes we have trouble receiving that good news. Why is that? Is it because we are like the people in Jesus’ hometown who are too full of pride? Is it because we are like the people in Nehemiah’s time who are too full of shame? Is it because the good news of God has too often been delivered to us in a way to make us feel like it’s a punishment instead of a gift? Maybe it’s all these things depending on the time of our life. Here’s another thought. Jesus quotes Isaiah who has come to preach good news to the poor. The poor. Maybe the reason why sometimes we have trouble receiving the good news is because we forget that we are poor.

When we hear the word “poor,” many of us here will think of others: people who are worse off than we are. Some of us here will remember a time in our life when we were poor. Some of us are actually facing material poverty right now, at least in the terms that our society measures. But when Jesus quotes Isaiah and says he has fulfilled the prophecy to bring good news to the poor, he is not just talking about the homeless, the hungry, or the destitute. He is talking about all of us. We are all poor. So often we divide ourselves into categories of poor and not poor, haves and have nots. We separate ourselves into superior and inferior groups of society, superior and inferior members, even of the Body of Christ. And when we find ourselves thinking that we are in the category with the haves and the superiors, we sometimes forget just how much we need God. We sometimes have trouble receiving the Good News of God’s grace, because we fool ourselves into thinking that we have what we need, we are relatively well off, life is good. And we sure don’t need God’s grace as much as the person who doesn’t have a home or enough food. But that’s not how God sees us. In God’s eyes, we are all needy. In God’s eyes, we are all impoverished. We are all exiles looking for a way home again. And when we realize that truth, then I think our human-made distinctions of have’s and have-nots make less sense.

The apostle Paul wrote a letter to the church in Corinth and gave them some instruction about this. There were people in that church with more than enough wealth and those in the church with very little. They would get together and the rich folks would eat while the others had nothing. And they were constantly comparing themselves to each other, who had the greater spiritual gifts. So Paul writes and tells them they are all parts of the same body. And in fact, the inferior members deserve greater respect and honor. In fact, members of the body that seem less honorable should actually be clothed with greater honor, so that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together. If one member celebrates, then all should be able to celebrate. That’s what Paul wrote to the Corinthians, but he could have written it to us. It is tempting sometimes to think that we don’t need each other, or that we would be fine without some member of the body. But the good news, the best news, brothers and sisters, is that God has made us this one body with all these members, and we need each other. The good news is that all suffer together, all rejoice together, all are honored and blessed together. Because we are all poor in God’s eyes. This church is God’s feeding program for our souls, and we are all in the line to receive assistance.

Now this doesn’t mean that the categories of rich and poor go away. This doesn’t mean that we stop fighting material poverty in our society and around the world. The good news just puts that fight into perspective. The good news puts our categories to shame because our categories often shame people. We are one body, and no part of the body is shameful. If one member suffers all suffer together. That’s what the word “compassion” means, to suffer “with.” As we seek to become a more compassionate community (as our upcoming weekend with Natalie Finstad will be all about), a community of God’s beloved children, we look at the ways in which we label ourselves as poor and rich, as inferior and superior, and we remember that we all suffer together. Thanks be to God that there were not widespread power outages with this snow storm. But there is nothing like a power outage to remind us that we need each other. Years ago when my eldest daughter was just a couple of months old an ice storm took out power for about 10 days. We tried to make it on our own but eventually we moved in for a few days with another family and some friends of theirs who were also without power. We crammed in and made it work, and even though was a little uncomfortable, we actually had a wonderful time. That sharing was good news to us during a temporary shortage. My brothers and sisters we come to this church each and every week with temporary shortages in our lives. We come seeking shelter and nourishment and comradery. We come for some good news when our power is out. We come for some good news when the world seems dark. We come for some good news when we feel like we have been conquered. We come for some good news when we are not sure if we can really succeed. We come for some good news whether we are inferior, superior or unsure. We come for some good news, and our savior Jesus Christ promises to give it to us. It may not be easy to hear. It may be difficult to believe sometimes. But he has come to suffer with us so that we all might be honored and all might join in the celebration. Jesus Christ the good news has come, and today, as we gather together, as we gather week by week by week, the scripture is being fulfilled in our hearing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We Are God’s Beloved

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From the Rev. Joe Hensley, Rector, St. George’s Episcopal Church
Fredericksburg, VA | Epiphany I Year C,  Jan. 10, 2016.

1st Sunday after the Epiphany Year C January 10, 2016 The Rev. Joe Hensley St. George’s Episcopal Church

“You are my son, the beloved, with you I am well pleased.” These are the words from heaven that Jesus hears spoken after his baptism in the river Jordan. You are the beloved. Two weeks ago we celebrated Jesus’ birth, the incarnation, God becoming human with us. Part of the blessing that Jesus brings us is belovedness. Jesus, the son of God, receives the affirmation of God’s loving kindness, and we are also heirs, through hope, in him of that legacy. Those words spoken to Christ are meant for our ears also, if we will hear them, “You are the beloved, with you I am well pleased.”

We spend a lot of time, though, convincing ourselves that we are not beloved. I wonder how many of arrived here this morning with some nagging voice of criticism about ourselves or someone else. Just to get ourselves in the right frame of mind, turn to your neighbor and tell them, “you are beloved!” I hope we are feeling a little better.

When Jesus arrived on the scene, the people of God were not feeling all that beloved either. The glory of Kings David and Solomon had long since passed. The prophets for centuries had been promising a messiah who would come to set things right again. So when John the Baptist starts baptizing people in the river Jordan, people came in droves, thinking that maybe he was the one to restore the people of God to their former greatness. And if you asked Jews at the time who exactly were the people of God they would tell you that it was only those living in Judea. For centuries earlier, the descendants of Jacob had divided into northern and southern kingdoms. The north was conquered. Historians can’t agree on exactly what happened, but the residents of the north lost their connection to the traditional faith of Israel. They were seen by the Jews of the southern kingdom as unclean and unfit to be called the people of God. Many of these people lived in the region of Samaria and thus were called Samaritans. You may remember a parable about the good Samaritan in which Jesus tries to make the point that it is the capacity for mercy and loving kindness, not religious pedigree, which is the basis for relationship in the kingdom of God. So what I’ve been getting around to is that God’s historic people, the descendants of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob had been divided and conquered for centuries when Jesus arrives on the scene. They had lost touch with their belovedness.

And so in the short reading we heard from the Book of Acts this morning, something is mentioned which is quite extraordinary given what I have just been describing. The first verse we heard reads: “When the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them.” When the apostles at Jerusalem, which was part of that favored southern kingdom, heard that Samaria (their unclean long lost cousins) had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to baptize them with the holy spirit. This is remarkable. For centuries Jews in Jerusalem wanted nothing to do with Samaria. But the Jewish followers of Jesus in Jerusalem have begun to see things differently. Because of Jesus, his chief disciples, Peter and John, are now going into Samaria to baptize, to lay hands and call upon the Holy Spirit so that they too can know their belovedness as children of God. What is happening here is a significant act of reconciliation. Dignity is being restored, peace is being made after centuries of estrangement. This is the power of God’s love.

We live in a world that is sorely in need of reconciliation. We live in a world where old divisions like the one between Jerusalem and Samaria continue to give birth to fear, distrust, prejudice, and abuse. We live in a world where debates and angry arguments drown out the calls for dialogue and reasonable discussion. And what it boils down to, I think, is that we have lost a sense of our belovedness and the belovedness of our neighbors. We are the beloved. God spoke these words to God’s people through the prophets. Isaiah said on behalf of the Lord, “you are precious in my sight and honored and I love you.” Jesus hears the voice from heaven and then passes that message on to us, “you are the beloved.” Of course, we do not always act like the beloved. We are still becoming the beloved God calls us to be. But there is hope for us, beloved ones! We are and we are becoming the beloved ones of God. Alleluia!

Henri Nouwen was a Roman Catholic priest in the latter part of the 20th century. One of the most famous books he wrote is called “Life of the Beloved.” In that book he says that we need to change from viewing life as a painful test to prove that we deserve to be loved to living it as an unceasing “yes” to the truth of that belovedness. We spend so much time and energy trying to prove that we deserve God’s love. We keep finding reasons to say, “no,” I’m not really worthy. No, you are not the real deal. No, no, no, God has the wrong person. Instead of saying, “no,” how can we find ways to say “yes.” I’ve preached about that word, “yes,” before. Yes to our belovedness! Yes to the belovedness of others! This is our life’s work. This is the challenge of living in a beloved community.

Beloved community was and is a phrase that prophets have used to describe what we are about. When we welcome Natalie Finstad to join us the first weekend in February for a weekend we are calling The Compassionate Community, what we will really be talking about is this idea of remembering our belovedness through spiritual practice and community action together. What does beloved community look like? It looks a lot like what is happening here at St. George’s, but we can go much deeper.

There is a story told about a group of people in the southern part of Africa known as the Babemba. In the Babemba culture, if a member of the community commits a serious crime against the community, the entire neighborhood gathers around the accused. They form a large circle, young and old and everyone in between. I’ve told this story several times to groups of school children. And when I ask them what they think will happen next after the circle has formed around the accused, they have often said things like, “they are going to yell at them.” Or “they are going to put them in jail,” or “they are going to throw things at them.” So they are usually surprised when I finish the story. The accused stands in the middle of the circle and is forced to listen as one by one, the members of the community recall every good thing they can remember about them. Every story of kindness, every anecdote about a positive deed is told in great detail with nothing left out. This storytelling can go on for hours and sometimes days. When every last story has been told, the accused is welcomed back into the neighborhood and a celebration is held. People ask me if this is a true story. Honestly, I have tried to track it down, and I’m still looking. Whether this actually happens or not, this is what beloved community can look like. This is what reconciliation and healing can look like. We are here to remember that God loves us and we are here to help others remember the love they have forgotten. In a moment we will renew our Baptismal Covenant, and those promises we make to God and each other are really all about remembering God’s love for us. We are here to look for a way to say “yes” to that love: over and over again.

Samaria accepted the word of God. And they received the Holy Spirit. Peace and wholeness and an end to centuries of division is possible, says the scripture. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.”  Thanks be Jesus Christ, thanks be to God. We are and are becoming God’s beloved children, and yes, we have some good work to do.

 

 

Christmas Has Always Been a Crazy Time

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From the Rev. Joe Hensley, Rector, St. George’s Episcopal Church
Fredericksburg, VA | Christmas Eve Year C,  Dec. 24, 2015.

Hear again these words of the angel of the Lord, spoken to the shepherds, watching their flocks by night: “Do not be afraid; for see, I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people.” On this Christmas Eve, as we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, as we gather again to remember that God entered the world as a human child, we are invited to set aside our anxiety and worry. The angels invite us now as they have in ages past to hear some good news of great joy that is for all people.

We can talk all we want about good news of great joy, but there’s no getting around the fact that Christmas is a crazy time. I know there are a few of us who manage to get the decorations hung, cards mailed, presents wrapped and delivered, food cooked, and prayers prayed (don’t forget those prayers)…all in good time. For many of us, though, whatever we are able to manage is a scramble, and often a last-minute scramble. I won’t ask how many of you barely made it here tonight. Many of us give ourselves a hard time, because we have not been able to do things the way we wanted to. Maybe, in addition to finding it hard to get our ducks in a row, we also found it hard to pray or be spiritual. The chaos is real and overwhelming. And yet look at the look at the story we just heard from Luke’s Gospel about the birth of Jesus. Imagine being nine months pregnant and then getting the news that you are going to have to travel away from home. You are going to have this baby on the road. Crazy! Then there is no suitable place to have the child, so you end up giving birth in the back of a guest house with the animals. The baby has to be put in a feeding trough. Fortunately, someone remembered to pack the receiving blankets! I like to think that maybe that was Joseph’s job. Then, in the middle of the night the angels of God appear in the middle of nowhere to some random shepherds who go door to door looking for a wrapped up baby lying in a manger. Can you imagine having just had a baby and then here come a bunch of rough shepherds? This story is out of control. Christmas has always been a crazy time.

My mother tells of how one year in the middle of the night the Christmas tree came crashing down. Just fell down. All the fancy glass ornaments she had just bought, because she finally had her own house and family and money, were now broken—except for the ugly duckling. Somehow the humble duck survived, and for years, until it too finally broke, the duck was our reminder of Christmas grace. We hung it with reverence and remembered that not all was lost, and blessed are the meek, ugly ducklings of the Christmas tree. Maybe you have a story about a Christmas when things were falling apart. The year the food burned or the presents did not arrive on time. The year everyone got pink eye or the time the car broke down on Christmas Eve. Or there may have been, there may still be, some Christmas experience that will never be funny, that will never be tied up neatly with a bow. It is a strange holiday, Christmas. With it comes the promise of good news but also a tension. There is a pulling between the joyful good news of this amazing gift from God and the reality that there is still chaos and messiness in our lives and in the world. And the world just seems crazier than ever these days!? I am going to give you a Christmas present and not go through the list of ways that the world seems crazy. We know without having to say. What I want us to see is that there is tension in Christmas. There is pressure to have this wonderful celebration, and there is the pressure of life itself which is beyond our control.

Do not be afraid, though, says the angel of God. Do not be afraid. I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people. Two thousand years ago, God entered a crazy and chaotic world. God became human, one of us. The Word of God took on our form and lived our life so that we would see and know God’s love and forgiveness in the midst of the tension and craziness.

The prophets of God imagined a messiah who would come to bring justice and peace on the earth, a king of kings whose power would purify and dignify the people of God. What they might not have imagined was that this messiah would not only be anointed by God but would actually BE God. God in human form. And that is not the way things are supposed to be. God is almighty. God is powerful. God is not vulnerable like a baby in a manger. We want God to come into the world and bring order out of chaos. But on this Christmas night, we witness God entering the world with the weakness of a newborn child. We witness God coming, not to be the savior of the world but simply to be with us. That little boy Jesus in the arms of his mother is God with us. God could have chosen a different way. God could have parted the heavens and come down to fix what was broken. Instead, God responds to the craziness of the world by going right into the middle of it and resting there.

When we feel how crazy life is, we want someone to fix it. When we feel the tension, we want someone to relieve it. Perhaps, though, the good news of great joy is not that God fixes the world but that God is with us in the brokenness. On the day of his birth Jesus was not fixing anything. He performed no deeds of power. He gave no lessons of wisdom. He simply was born and rested in the humble manger. He simply arrived. In fact, he needed people to take care of him. To hold him. To feed him. To give him a place to lay down his sweet head. For centuries, people of faith have been inspired by the image of a baby and his unprepared parents and random shepherds and sheep clustered in a barn doing nothing. They are just sitting there together. Yet that image is so powerful. Maybe its power is in its powerlessness. These people are inspiring, simply because they are resting in the middle of the chaos, resting in the power of God. The power of God is so complete, it can be still in middle of a storm. It can be manifested in the form of a helpless child and the makeshift community that surrounds him.

On this Christmas, the power of God is manifested yet again. Here we sit, doing nothing, gathered around the baby. The power of God is not that we leave this place ready to fix the world. The power of God is not that we leave this place totally relieved. The power of God is that we gather here together in our powerlessness with a vulnerable baby Jesus. The joy of God is that we gather together in the midst of anxiety and happiness with Mary and Joseph. The peace and wholeness of God is that we gather here in communion, in the middle of broken lives that can be healed, with rough and tumble shepherds who hear glorious angels sing. We gather here to celebrate that God took on human form so that we would know for certain that we are not alone. The power and glory of God is that we gather here to stop and take it all in: to ponder, as Mary did, these things in our hearts. It is glorious to be present together, fully present in the Christmas story that is unfolding before us. We do not know where this Christmas story will lead us. Do not be afraid. There is good news of great joy. God is with us in the chaos. God is right here in the middle of tension. Jesus is born and rests in the midst of it all. And that is the beginning of our salvation.

Christmas has always been a crazy time. And we are always welcome to be in communion with Christ and each other in the silent and holy night. There is good news of great joy for all the people. It is right here, right now. Christ is born. Christ is born in us, and that means Christ is sitting next to us and behind us and all around us. Glory to God in the highest heaven. Glory to God in the lowest places on earth. Glory to God. To us is born this day a savior. Joy to the world.