Three Wise Women

Matthew 2:1-12

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.” When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet: ‘And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.’” Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.”

When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.

That’s the story of the three wise MEN.  But as we all know, if they had been Three wise WOMEN, they would have asked for directions, arrived on time, helped deliver the baby, brought practical gifts, cleaned the stable, made a casserole and there would be peace on earth.   

That funny, but niggling bit of humor can be found on lots of holiday decorations these days, including on a kitchen towel over there in the Rectory!  It’s a VERY understandable dig at men, who for thousands and thousands of years, have insisted that women were somehow lesser and in doing so have missed out on so much powerful wisdom and so many incredibly gifts throughout the ages. 

 

It’s completely understandable to want to hit back at that stupidity and oppression but it also got me wondering this week… Is doing to men, what men have done to women, the best way toward the future God wants for us?  We’ve missed out on SO MANY gifts from SO people simply because those people were women!  We’ve missed out on SO MUCH wisdom, simply because that wisdom was offered by a woman!  But is giving the Three Wise Men the Tea Towel Treatment the way to get to the world God wants for us all?  

It’s fun for sure!  Three Wise Men?  Ha!  Three STUPID Men, more like it!  Late for Christmas!  Didn’t bring anything useful!  But when we do to the other what the other has done to us, do we just end up missing a different set of wisdom and gifts?  Perhaps the Wise Men were neither lost nor late.  Perhaps their gifts and wisdom weren’t meant for Christmas, but were meant instead for Epiphany?  It was God’s star that led them after all and She isn't known for giving bad directions!  It’s true, their wisdom and gifts did not lie in casseroles or cribs.  Their wisdom was in dreams and their gifts in very small, very valuable, and very portable packages.  Gifts that turned out to be portable and perfect for a refugee family on the run from a narcissistic king out to kill them all!  If the three Kings had arrived at Christmas with a casserole instead, what would have happened?  If we do to men what men have done to women for so long… will we get to where we want to be, or simply miss an entirely different set of gifts and wisdom?

I very much suspect that on Christmas Eve there were wise women who heard the cries of Mary in labor coming from a small cave.  Wise women who knew what those sorts of cries meant and knew how to help.  I suspect those women on Christmas Eve were right on time with their wisdom and their gifts.  Right on time, with just the right gifts of swaddling clothes and cleaning supplies and even some food… although likely not a casserole, since the first casserole was made in New Hampshire in 1866… the same year this church was founded by Anna Barnard and her group of incredibly wise and gifted women!    

So here we are.  We've lost the story of the women’s wisdom and gifts given on Christmas Eve just because those gifts and wisdom were offered by women.  But, if in our attempt to right that terrible wrong we turn to retribution, to doing to the men what the men have done to women for all these years, then it would seem we'd just loose different wisdom and gifts given for a different place and time... basically cutting off humanity's nose to once again spite its face.  So what are we to do?

This past Sunday, Archbishop Desmond Tutu died at the age of 90 years old.  Born into Apartheid in South Africa, a system of violent oppression built on hundreds and hundreds of years of racism, HE as much as anyone, had the absolute RIGHT to turn the tables on the people who had beaten him and his ancestors down and dismissed their collective wisdom and gifts for centuries.  But retribution was not what Bishop Tutu was about because he was a follower of Jesus, and retribution is not what Jesus is about.  Bishop Tutu knew, because Jesus knew, that retribution would just continue a never ending cycle of the oppressed becoming oppressor, and the oppressor becoming the oppressed.  Bishop Tutu knew that retribution did not lead to justice, peace, or abundant life... Retribution led only to a never ending cycle of pain, injustice, and death.  

For me, Bishop Tutu’s greatest witness was once Apartheid ended and he found himself in a position of power, he did NOT choose the path of retribution but instead walked and led the Jesus Way, choosing and leading a path of restorative justice.  It was justice because the truth was told... all of it... and not left buried to fester.  It was restorative because he sacrificed what the world would have seen as his RIGHT to get back at his oppressors, and instead walked toward the restoration of his WHOLE country and modeled that path for the WHOLE world.

  

Until we all set aside retribution as the way fight the injustices of this world and instead follow Jesus, and his disciples like Bishop Tutu did, and walk the path of restoration instead of retribution… until we choose differently than we have for thousands of years, we will continue to miss all the gifts and wisdom creation has to share with us... gifts and wisdom given to the world by God so that we all may have life and have it abundantly!  Until we choose restoration and give up retribution, we will not know the peace that passes all understanding and we will not live the abundant life we were created to live.  May the gifts and wisdom shared by Bishop Tutu with the living of his life, be an Epiphany for our world and may we learn to live together in true justice and into new life as one.  Amen.  

The Whole Why of Christmas

Luke 1:39-55

In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”

If you are looking for the genuine “Why” of Christmas, this Gospel lesson is it.  If you are looking for the “What” of Christmas that’s Christmas Eve, the incarnation… Emmanuel… God with us… Jesus being born into this world.  The “Why” of Christmas is what Mary sang about in today’s Gospel lesson.  God came to be with us in the person of Jesus in order to show the the world the power of God’s kind of strength, the strength of sacrificial and mutual love.  God came so that the proud would have their “way it’s always been”, shaken right down to their shoes and after that shaking, to make sure the ways of the world would settle back to the way God had created them to be.  

God came so that the powerful would be brought down and the lowly brought up… so that the hungry would be filled up and the rich sent away empty.  But not so that those who had been on the bottom could finally give those who had been on the top a taste of their own medicine.  Jesus didn’t come for retribution… to add a heavenly wrong to humanity’s wrong to try and make one big right!  

The “Why” of Christmas was to begin the great turning of creation… to shake the world like a snow globe, and let it all settle back into the place and the way God created it to be in the beginning.  The “Why” of Christmas was to sweep up all of creation, from the very, very bottom to the tippy, tippy, top... to scoop ALL of it… all of us… into the healing, loving, presence of God without missing even the tiniest molecule of creation along the way. 

This genuine “Why” of Christmas, however, seems to be very difficult for us humans to do as a whole.  We either just  declare “Peace on Earth” without doing the real shaking that genuine peace requires OR we hijack God’s version of revolution and make it look like one of ours, where the former winners are turned into the new losers, and the former losers triumphantly give the previous winners a whole lot of what for! 

But God was not born into this world as a child to play humanity’s zero sum game!  That’s not Good News!  Christmas is the moment when God reached down to the very bottom, down to the most backwater of backwater towns, into the most scandalous sort of family and scooped up the poor and the rich, winners and losers, women and men, Jews and Gentiles and all of creation… scooped it all right up with a mighty hand and outstretched arm.  Scooped it all right up into the Presence of God.  And it is there… in the glorious Presence of God… deeply nestled in the loving embrace of Christ, that all of creation finally experience what God intended from the beginning… that we really and truly are neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for all are now one in Christ Jesus!  THAT is the “Why” of Christmas!  

As Christians it is our goal to celebrate that WHOLE of Christmas all year long, never pretending there can be Peace on Earth without the Earth being first shaken loose from the way it is.  And if we are to celebrate the WHOLE of Christmas we must stop the never ending insanity of simply changing the current winners into losers and the historical losers into winners by trying to play humanity’s game of retribution.  But celebrating the whole of Christmas even on one day, let alone all year long, turns out to be very nearly impossible for us.    

And THAT is why God in person has come to shake the world for us, shake it in a mysterious and divine way that is filled with endless inclusion and completely free of anger and retribution.  God has come to shake the world in a way we don’t seem able to do ourselves.  God has come, in person, to do what needs to be done FOR us.  For the "us" at the very lowliest bottom right up to the "us" at the tippy top.  Then God stays with us, is still with us, making sure you and I and all of creation settles gently back into the place God created for us all to belong before even time began… back into our places as beloved children of God.  Amen. 

You Want Them On Your Bus!

Luke 3:7-18

John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” And the crowds asked him, “What then should we do?” 

In reply he said to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.” Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, “Teacher, what should we do?” He said to them, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what should we do?” He said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.”

As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.

“You brood of vipers!”  If John was anything, he was honest.  But ‘honest’ was strange in John’s day.  Nobody was honest.  Living like a snake is how the world had always been.  It’s how you got by.  But what if the people gathered there knew it wasn’t right?  Wished it could be different.  What if they were there because they genuinely, really, and truly WANTED life to be different… but they knew that if they changed just on their own… If they started being honest in the middle of a world that relies on dishonesty… well, how would they get by?  Those people gathered there in front of John?  I think they knew they were like a brood of vipers… like a tangle of snakes, brooding in a hole.  Trapped.  No where to go.  Scared out of their minds, wanting something better out of life, but completely paralyzed with fear, not knowing any other way to live.

When my psychology guru, Kevin Polk, talks to people who are stuck like the people who came out to see John, he doesn’t use the image of a brood of vipers.  He says it is like you’re a bus driver who wants, more than anything, to drive your bus toward the people you love, toward the ways of living you value, toward a world that gives life and doesn’t take it away.  You know where you want to go… or at least a direction you’d like to try.  You’re in the seat, the engine is warm, you’ve even put it in gear… BUT you find that your bus is surrounded by a horrible, seemingly infinite, menacing, zombie-like horde.  And as you look closer at that terrifying horde you realize that THIS horde is made up of all of your personally curated, hand selected, custom designed, and meticulously crafted fears.  Not even the smallest, most insignificant fear is missing from the horde!

Surrounding your bus, they block your bus from moving even an inch.  This is how its been.  This is how it will be, your fears tell you.  There isn’t another place you can go!  There’s no changing now.  You couldn’t survive there anyway.  Sure, where you’re stuck right here isn’t perfect, but at least you know it.  It’s familiar.  And look at us!  Your fears!  We’re familiar too!  So just shift that bus of yours back into park, turn off the engine, and climb out of that bus and stay right here… and brood some more with us.

That’s how the tax collectors and soldiers were stuck!  They didn’t like shaking down people… but the Romans had told the soldiers that was their side hustle.  They weren’t paid enough to live.  They needed a side hustle.  They were stuck.  The tax collectors were stuck too.  The only pay they got was what they got out of people over and above what the people owed.  That was it!  They weren’t paid another way.  They were stuck, like a brood of vipers… without the first clue how they might drive their bus out of that situation and toward a new live… toward what they valued… toward the people they loved!  

What John did for this brood of stuck vipers, was to help them see, not their final destination, but just… one… next… step.  He didn’t tell the tax collectors to stop collecting taxes.  He told them to collect no more than was prescribed.  He didn’t tell the soldiers to desert the Roman army.  He told them stop shaking down the locals!  

But how could they?  How could they even move an inch surrounded by such a horde of fears shouting at them, “How will you make a living?  How will you eat?  This is the way it’s always been done.  You didn’t build the world this way.  Sure, this may not be perfect, but at least it’s known.  It’s familiar… it works, pretty much… sorta.  So just put your bus back into park, turn off the engine and climb down here and brood with us.  We’re familiar after all.” 

So how… HOW do you move your bus forward when surrounded, not by little, silly, insignificant fears, but by huge, genuine fears, created by very real and very powerful traumas?  How about waiting until the crowded horde of fears starts to wander?  Just wait the fears out?  Well, if you wait for the day your fears move out of the way on their own, you’ll find that day never comes.  John knew that.  The brood of vipers knew that... and you know that too.  Deep down anyway.  So how?  

Here’s how.  You invite that whole horde of fears onto your bus with you.  I know, it sounds crazy but what you're driving isn't a bus by accident!  It’s a bus on purpose!  It’s a bus so there’s room for each and every one of them to take a seat.  They’ll be happy because they get to stay with you, but what they never count, is with them on the bus, they are  no longer blocking your way forward!  Now YOU can start driving!  Yeah, once they realize it, they will probably make a giant fuss in the back but by then it's too late!  You're driving your bus toward what you value… toward the people you love… toward the Kingdom of God… toward really living again, or maybe even beginning to live for the very first time.  

You say that sounds hard?  Darn tootin! It’s hard!  Impossible even!  But I am here today to tell you that ONE, more powerful than John the Baptist has come; one whose sandals John wasn’t worthy to untie.  So invite your fears onto your bus.  Ignore the racket from the horde behind you, and get your bus rolling.  Now, once it’s moving, notice the heat growing under your drivers seat.  Notice how good it feels.  That’s no seat warmer.  THAT is Christ’s unquenchable fire lit beneath your seat so you'll keep moving!  And that One, with impossible to untie sandals and an unquenchable fire... That ONE will be with you single inch of your way.  Amen.  

Malachi my Guy!

Malachi 3:1-4

See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight—indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years.

Do you see that window over there of the apostle holding a thing that looks like a canoe paddle?  That, my friends, is James the Less, one of the Twelve Apostles chosen by Jesus.  He’s also called "the Minor", "the Little", "the Lesser", or "the Younger", none of which are much better than the others if you ask me.  He has that title so that he is not confused with James, son of Zebedee, also known as James the Great, James the Elder, James, son of Alphaeus or as James, the brother of Jesus.  

But enough about them!  Today we’re less interested in James the Great or James the Less and more interested in that funny canoe paddle looking thing he’s holding!  It turns out it’s not a canoe paddle.  It is supposed to be a “Fulling Hammer.”  It is the tool that “Fullers” used to “Full” of course!  Which should in turn, completely clear up the lessons for today, right?  No?  Well so much for a super short sermon!  Because now you need to be finally, fully filled in on fulling.

Fulling involves the cleaning and thickening of cloth, particularly woolen cloth.  Originally, fulling was carried out by the pounding of the woolen cloth with a club, or the fuller's feet or hands.  In Scottish Gaelic tradition, this process was accompanied by waulking songs, which fullers sang to set the pace (and I can only assume always needed more cowbell).  Starting in medieval times the cleaning stage was done by a water mill that drove fulling hammers, then the cloth was stretched on giant frames known as tenters attached by… you guessed it… tenterhooks!  Which is where the phrase being on tenterhooks came from, meaning to be held in suspense. 

In Jesus’ day though, the work was conducted by slaves working the cloth, ankle deep in urine.  The natural ammonia in the urine cleaned and whitened the cloth.  After the cleaning, the cloth was beaten to mat together the fibers which gave it strength and made it waterproof.  Then all of the “Fuller’s soap” as the Scriptures called it (pee) was rinsed away with clean water.  ALL of which leads us back to the lesson from Malachi for today and also indirectly back to the Gospel lesson from Luke where Jesus quotes from Isaiah.  It also hopefully leads to at least one good point for this sermon!  

We hear these lessons every year and because of Handel and his obscure little work you may have heard of known as “The Messiah” we end up hearing these lessons probably more than most other lessons in Scripture!  I for one can’t hear them read without hearing Handel’s music in my head!  That’s not a bad thing, but sometimes that level of familiarity can inadvertently allow us to miss the deeper content, and the content in these lessons is profoundly deep. 

You see, these things…  making roads straight, filling valleys, tearing down mountains and hills, building roads, all by hand... refining silver in a furnace burning at over 1700 degrees Fahrenheit, and fulling cloth by standing ankle deep in urine to make the cloth clean and bright.  All of that stuff… all of that hard, hot, dirty, nasty smelling, work… THAT is the kind of work that God is willing to do FOR YOU, so that YOU and God might be in relationship with one another!  

These lessons don’t show us a laid back God on a throne waiting for us to make ourselves right while God meanwhile plucks grapes off the stem!  These lessons show us a proactive God… OUR God… busting the Divine Backside, doing literally the most labor intensive, back breaking, undignified work imaginable ALL to get us ready to be with God now and through eternity, regardless of what we do or don’t do in this life!  This God… our God… YOUR GOD… is willing to move mountains for you… sweat over a thousand degree forge in the blazing heat for you… march and pound and walk ankle deep in urine for you… ALL so that YOU, and the God who created you, can be together, bound together, now and forever.

And if this God… our God… YOUR GOD… is willing to do ALL OF THAT for you…  Do you think, even for a moment, that there is ANYTHING God won’t do for you to insure that you and your God will be together?  If God is willing to do the Fuller’s job for you, I think the answer to that is clear.  My God… Our God… YOUR GOD will do literally ANYTHING… and has, in Christ, done literally EVERYTHING to hold onto you forever!  No matter what.  Amen.