Ash Wednesday

The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa

Some months ago I referenced a Church sign in a sermon that read, “Be yourself, everyone else is taken.” Today we begin our Lenten journey. This ritual season of 40 days and 40 nights is often characterized by self-examination, prayer, repentance, and discipline. I submit to you that our Lenten journey in essence is an exploration of what it means to be truly ourselves. I do not suggest this exploration as an exercise of narcissism as our culture might encourage, but rather to explore your lives through a lens of belief that we are created by a God whose power is love. So powerful is this love that it dares to take the very dust of the ground and call us into being so that we might be delighted in, find delight, create, and experience the depth of love, in essence, come to know ourselves as the once who created us knows us, discover who we are!

The exploration of who we truly are must lead us into the knowledge and truth that this gift of life in love is not just for us as individuals but belongs to everyone. All of us are created out of love and dust. We are inextricably bound together and made to be in relationship with the one who loved us into being and with one another. These relationships call us to live with authenticity, faithfulness, and integrity!

Our experience has taught us, however, that there are times and moments when we are not aligned with life in such a way. Just as remembering that we are dust reminds us of God’s creative moment and our interconnection with our brothers and sisters of dust, we also are reminded that on our own our struggle to live that life is often colored with limitation. “And to Dust you shall return.” Our lives are finite, the dust of which we are made does sometimes grow tired and weary, and sometimes it is filled with dis-ease. With an eye only to the dust and not on the creative love that called it into being, we sometimes forget our interconnection and interdependence. We sometimes are fooled into placing our value in a narcissistic adventure of who we are that leads us to selfishness, hatred, disregard and offense. We know this about the dust, we have experienced it, and we are it. With an eye leaning back toward the love that calls the dust into being we know deep in our hearts that we cannot hate, disregard, offend, do harm to another being of the ash without in essence hating, disregarding, offending, and doing harm to ourselves. We know this in our minds and in our hearts, and we know too often it is a script we find ourselves participating in; it is a script of sin.

Today, should you choose, you will wear the mark of dust on your forehead and you will be reminded of the depth of opportunity and challenge that comes with our call into being. We are given the opportunity to embrace the depth of what it is to live a life that aligns itself with the intentions of what is was created for. The journey to come into the fullness of who we truly are is the opportunity to discover through experience the depth of what it is to love. This exploration will place before the God who created us and our brothers and sisters created of the very same love and dust our failures, disappointments, and disillusionments. Discovering and naming the limitations that impede our faithfulness and integrity to our relationships, we rend our hearts wide open. We invite the creative love to fill the gap and to move us to make right what needs to be made right, and restore us to union with God and our neighbors. In essence, coming into our own, discovering who we are. Blessed journey.

Only Jesus

February 22,2009
Scripture Lesson: Mark 9:2-9
Text: Matthew 9:8

When Jesus led three friends to a place on “on a high mountain,” “he was transfigured before them” until they heard a voice instructing them to “Listen” to their teacher. “Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.” It can sound like a big let-down: after a moment of vision, after a great spiritual experience, there is only Jesus, the traveling preacher, teacher, healer from Nazareth. After all is said and done, for us also, there is only Jesus.

Dean Pompa asked me to talk about how world and local mission work has impacted me. Mission: responding to a call, to an invitation to move beyond your usual place, comfort zone, to serve and witness to Christ. Missions is the outcome of the Transfiguration story, the real importance of which is not so much on what happened to, or in Jesus, but in the response to it. One way is illustrated in the first response of those disciples: because “they were terrified,” they wanted to memorialize it; build a worship center; protect what they had built up; and so on. The second way is illustrated in Julia Ward Howe’s famous hymn: “Mine eyes have seen . . . a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me?” Are you allowing that glory to transfigure you, and your life, and this church, and the corporate life of this church? Are you allowing it to free you from your fears? Missions, involvement in and commitment to missions, is the key. Because it is through mission that you will either find that transfiguration experience, or that you can appropriately respond to it.

Let me tell you a mission story. In the mid 90’s I organized a group of people from several churches in the suburbs just north of Chicago for a mission trip to Haiti both to be part of international security for a national election at a time when elections there were marked by violence and murder, and to work at a children’s hospital. Haiti is one of the poorest places in the world. You can see that as soon as you fly over it: the country has been denuded of trees for fuel, so the topsoil has all washed into the ocean inlets where it becomes a mucky mix with sewage and garbage. Other than the fortified complexes where the rich and powerful hide, there is almost no sanitation, no utilities, no medical care. During the day you see children searching through the huge piles of garbage and human waste in the main intersections that gets doused with gasoline and burned at night.

At the church I where I was the pastor, [there] was a man named Dan: an active churchman, but a guy who never related to the missions, not even to our men’s group service at a soup kitchen in Chicago. Somehow the Lord put it upon my heart to invite him to Haiti. One day when I was getting ready to go to the hardware store to get some supplies, Dan showed up at my office, and I asked him to go along. It is kind of a guy thing, hardware stores. There surrounded by the tools, I asked him to join us on the mission to Haiti, and he astonished me by saying yes. He just needed to hear a call, personally, in the right context at the right time. Later I was astonished by the transformation that occurred in Dan as during that mission experience. It might have happened the time that we went up to a small mountain village. I hiked with others, but Dan isn’t the hiking sort, and I have a picture of this overweight American on a small donkey traveling up a mountain path surrounded by smiling children. It might have happened the night before the election when I convinced him to ignore the Marines warnings and walk around Pour-au-Prince [sic], during which we saw hundreds of children sitting around the only gas station is the area doing homework because there are no lights in homes. Maybe it was when we delivered our suitcases full of medications to the joyful nun who runs the most primitive clinic I have ever seen in the poorest slum. Maybe it happened when we were on the roof of the children’s hospital pounding nails. I just know that the experience transformed him. And in almost every Christmas letter he mentions his most recent mission trip to Haiti.

For others mission is the way to respond to having glimpsed the glory. At New Bethany Ministries missionaries from this congregation and a hundred others do birthday parties for our resident homeless children, help homeless moms with school work or driving lessons, become pen pals with our mentally disabled residents, do filing in our financial case management program for the mentally disabled, help me raise the money to pay for our good work, or cook and serve meals to the hungry. For example, three days a month mission teams from this church cook and serve meals, which you could occasionally join for a hands-on mission experience. And thousands of people like you participate by sacrificially donating so support our local mission work. Occasionally I bring a television crew into New Bethany for action shots and interviews for my weekly television show. Recently, I walked up with the camera man and asked the missionaries from St. Ann’s Roman Catholic Church why they seemed so happy. One woman looked right into the camera and said, “we are always happy when we are here.” Another looked up from the salad preparation counter and said, “it’s because when we are here we are doing exactly what Jesus wants us to do.”

Don’t you want to be happy? Then allow the frequency and degree of intensity of times when you are doing exactly what Jesus wants you to do to increase. Those three disciples not only had a vision, they also heard a voice explaining the meaning: “This is my Son, the Beloved. Listen to him!” That is when “they looked around, [and] … saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.”

I am quite aware of the fact that many criticize people of a liberal theological bent of being more focused on the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth which so center on being a good neighbor, on serving and giving for others, than on the significance of salvation through Christ Jesus Our Lord. This gospel lesson, however, clearly reveals that you can’t have one without the other: Christ who saves us, is Jesus to whom we are to listen, and whose way of being in the world we are to follow.

Many of you have had a mountain top moment in which you glimpsed the dazzling beauty of the transfigured Christ, an experience that convicted you of the truth of the doctrine of the Incarnation: perhaps during a sermon, or a sacramental occasion, or while pray-fully pondering scripture. If not, participating in missions can be your path toward that experience. But as a mountain hiker, who always feels compelled to get to the top of the highest mountain within reach, I can tell you that you cannot stay long at the peak: you have to come back down to where the air is thicker, the elements less serve, water is available, and … where the poor and those who serve them can be found. But that is ok with me, because every day down here in the valley there is only Jesus.

Listen to him, and through the eyes of faith you will see only Jesus in the hungry, the homeless, the poor, not because of their virtue, or behavior, but because that is what he taught. Listen to him, and through eyes of faith, you will see only Jesus in happy people who sell some of what they have to give to the poor, even during frightening economic times. Listen to him, and through eyes of faith you will see only Jesus in those good Samaritans who happily work together to serve needy and poor neighbors. And, if as a congregation you listen to him, and make, above and beyond ordinary denominational requirements, missions and the participation of every member in missions through some appropriate way, your top priority, this church, like others that make that commitment will thrive in faith, in hope, in joy, in active participation, and others will see in your life together, only Jesus.

So, Brother Tony: the impact of missions in the lives of individuals like me and congregations like Nativity who respond to the call: a fuller, more meaningful, more holy, happier life of hope and faith. Plus the possibility of singing: “Mine eyes have seen . . . a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me!”

Missions is the route toward transfiguration. Missions is the way to respond to transfiguration, because, in the end, there is only Jesus. Listen to him.

Rev. Demery Bader-Saye
Sermon ~ February 15th, 2009
Cathedral Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem
Mark 1:40-45

The Lonely Leper

I was the second tallest girl in my sixth grade class. Annie was the first. She towered over all of the girls and all but one of the boys. As you may imagine, that grade being what it is, and kids being who they are at that age, she was sometimes the target of teasing words. She was somewhat of a leper, an untouchable, a misfit. But then most kids are at some moment in their lifetime ~ too short, too tall, too skinny, too fat ~ I was teased for my buck teeth and bony hips... “hippy,” I was branded that year. Which is why Annie and I got along OK. That, and we had a wonderful teacher, Mrs. Osborne ~ a big, tall, beautiful black woman with big hips and big lips... “all the better to kiss you with,” she responded when Emily Hubbel asked her about them one day. Mrs. Osborne would circulate about the room with smiles and squeezes and little hugs and winks for all of the outcasts in the sixth grade. She was a healing hand when we needed it, which guided us through a rocky time. She never talked about it to us, but I just know she was a Christian. She had that Church Potluck veteran look to her ~ that gospel-singing, amen-saying kind of spirit. And she just radiated with the love of Christ.

It was the healing hand of Christ which reached out and touched the leper that day in Galilee. An outcast, he came to Jesus, begging, and said, “If you choose, you can make me clean,” for it was thought that people with the contagious disease were not clean. And Jesus was moved, and tenderly, he first reached out and touched the man. And then, Jesus healed him, saying, “I do choose. Be made clean!” And, unable to contain his elation, his joy, the man showed himself to the temple priests as Jesus had commanded him, and went about the countryside telling everyone about the loving touch and healing hand of Jesus of Nazareth.

You see, the leper was healed in two ways that day ~ emotionally and physically. Because he was a leper we can be sure that no one had touched him for as long as he had the disease. Can you imagine? Not being touched, not even by accident ~ for surely people would go far out of their way to avoid even coming near a person with leprosy, which is defined as a “contagious disease marked by ulcers on the skin and bone and can lead to paralysis, gangrene and deformation.” The man had probably not been touched for years. And who knows what he looked like, or smelled like. And yet there he stood, desperate and bold, before a man he believed might bring healing to his lonely life. And the man, Jesus, reached out and touched the leper ~ before healing him ~ a touch without condition, a touch without hesitation, a touch without judgment. A touch that said, sick or not sick, you are worthy of love and acceptance.... and it is yours in the name my Father, God, the creator. Before Jesus healed the leper’s sores, Jesus touched him, and then, only then, did Jesus command his illness to be gone. The healing hand of Christ.
When in your life have you felt untouchable, unloveable, undesirable? .....

Have you ever been the outcast? ..... If, when you think about it you feel that loneliness again, or pain, or isolation, or sorrow, I invite you to imagine yourself coming before Jesus, asking to be made well and whole again, to feel his warm gaze upon you.... See the gentle smile on his lips, feel the warmth of his hand. Spend a moment in the circle of his grace... Know that sick or not sick, clean or not clean, all together or falling apart, you are worthy of emotional healing – of his love and acceptance right now today. And know that his intention, his choice, is to heal you completely ~ and if it cannot be today, then one day.... and forever.

Until that day, when every leper is healed, every blind eye given sight, every lame limb enlivened, the healing hand of Christ is at work in the world to touch the untouchables, give love to the unloveable, to recover the outcast as one who belongs. How, how can it be that his hand at work when he sits in heaven at the right hand of God and so many are lost and suffering, alone and in need of acceptance and kindness ~ where is the healing hand of Christ?
Take a moment, won’t you, and lower your eyes a bit and look at your hands... Be they older or younger, or somewhere in between, be they gently spotted with age and bent with a touch of arthritis, soft and firm, or weather beaten and dry ~ your hands, each of our hands, have the power to heal. We remember today that we, the church, are the body of Christ ~ imperfect but utterly loved and undoubtedly called to bring hope and healing to this broken world.

Who are the lepers in your own life? Who comes to you desperate and bold in your week, or hovers on the fringes of your life, quiet and afraid, in need of acceptance and kindness?
And, thinking of the broader community around us, which of society’s lepers will we (or could we if we chose to) come in contact with during the week? ~ the homeless? the poor? those with HIV or AIDS? prisoners? people with different skin color? people with different ways of thinking? people who are emotionally or mentally ill?

If we choose, others may experience the healing hand of Christ in our warm touch, in our kind smile or gracious words. Clean or unclean, sick or well, they deserve his love ~ and if his love is good enough for them, without a doubt ours is, too.

The Cathedral Church of the Nativity
Sermon
V Epiphany-I Mark 29-39
February 8, 2009
The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa


“Wait a minute, it can’t be over, Where is the Redemption!” These are the words that were lifted up behind me and into my ears from a dark movie theatre at the conclusion of a recent film Felicia and I viewed. A complex drama of struggle; personal struggle, power struggle, struggle with integrity, compassion, sexuality, concludes in such a way that leaves the audience, well disturbed, wandering how it all works out, what the truth of the matter is. Unsettling at best, the words waft from a dark theatre amply for sure vocalizing my own unspoken and unresolved sentiment: “Wait a minute, it can’t be over, where’s the Redemption?”

I believe that we, the people of God, created in God’s image, have a story that lives in us that we take to every moment of our lives! When the story in us is challenged we cry out! I believe that message living in us is a story of redemption! A story where the things in our personal lives, the things in our common life, the things in our country, our world, and yes even in the cosmos are whole, free, in union.
Our Gospel story today invites us into this story of the acting upon a message of wholeness, freedom, and union. We learn from the story that there is a miracle, a healing, and that this action is part of the deliverance of a message. What is the miracle? Simon’s mother-in law is ill, in bed with fever. Jesus goes to her at once and lifts her up, the fever leaves her. She is healed. Now, what is the miracle? A colleague at clergy bible study suggested the miracle was that Simon wanted his mother in law healed at all, (not so nice). But, she is healed, restored, and set back into motion in her life of service. The story goes on to tell us then, that all who were sick or possessed with demons gathered around the door of that house, and Jesus cured many and cast our demons of many.
Mark’s telling the story, from chapter one announces to us that in the person of Jesus, our deepest yearnings are met with God’s deepest desire! The miracle is for the first century experience, that those things which held power over people in such a way that distorted and disrupted their participation in wholeness, freedom, and in life, are removed! Simon’s mother in law is healed, and is restored, she is set right, brought back into the fullness of her life, as are those who come to Jesus, crowded at the doorway.
If we now have answered the question, whats the miracle, the more important question to be explored is what the story reveals to us in the next paragraph, Jesus got up, went off to pray (good modeling by the way), they hunted for him (also known as they disturbed his prayertime), and he responded, now we must go on to proclaim the message to the next town! So, we move from miracle to message! Whats the message!
The message I submit to you is found somewhere in the articulation of the young woman’s cry at the end of a challenging life story in that movie theatre! You remember, Where’s the redemption! The message as it were is in the Kingdom principles revealed in the actions of Jesus of Nazareth! It is that story the begs to be lived in each of us! It is redemption-Salvation itself!
Now these are words, words we throw about you and me. They are churchy words, theological words. I submit to you that these words have power and meaning for you and for me. The deepest meaning of these words are already planted in a story that begs to be lived in us through God’s grace! We want the order of things set right don’t we! We want for those things that block, inhibit, imperil, distort the fullness of who God created us to be, to be removed, set right, redeemed is the theological word. We want to be set free from those things that hold us in bondage from knowing the fullness of our potential as creatures of God. We want to be set free form our addictions, our worries and anxieties, our greed. We literally want these obstacles removed so that we might taste freedom- Salvation is the theological word.
There is a story that is implanted in each of us. The story is a story of redemption and salvation. It’s the kind of story that begs to be lived and told, and when it is not, when it is not told, lived, experienced our very soul cried out for it. The messiness of life, of our world, yes even of our cosmos! When out of kilter, we know deep inside ourselves that something is out of order! It is then that our soul sends the cry for redemption and a message if you will meets us where we are-God’s Kingdom desire is that things be set right, set free!

IV Epiphany
February 1, 2009
The Ven. Richard I Cluett

Deuteronomy 18:15-20 + Mark 1:21-28

This morning I want to use a few of my words to talk about the Word of God and I know that is a daunting task I have set for myself, but I am going to step out on the Word of God.

“Words, words, words, I am so sick of words…” were the words of Eliza Doolittle, in the musi-cal, My Fair Lady, and those words are basically what the people of God were saying to God about “the Word of God” in the reading from Deuteronomy. “No more. God’s Word is too pow-erful, too demanding, too real, too personal, to close, too much what God wants and not enough what we want, and we’re not going to take it anymore!”

Which is, really, an understandable human response.

God’s word is powerful. God’s word can be overwhelming. God’s word sometimes is too per-sonal. God’s word sometimes is too demanding, and too relentless, too stark, too true. It gets in your head, it gets in your gut, and it gets eventually into your heart. It can be too much. It can be too hard, sometimes, to hear the word of God and then to bear the Word of God, too live with it. That was the experience of God’s people told in the Deuteronomy.

And we know what they knew. You cannot run from, you cannot hide from, you cannot turn off the Word of God. It just keeps on coming. Or do you disagree?

Do you think perhaps the word of God takes a holiday? Leaves the scene from time to time? Or takes a hike when God is fed up with us? No. We have learned that God is faithful. Won’t leave. Won’t give up. Called the “Hound of Heaven,” God is.

God’s word is eternal. It’s there – always there. We may not hear it, but it is there. If the word is rare in these days or on any days, it is because we have blocked it out, sort of like the Voice of America radio station is blocked out of Cuba. But like the VOA, it is possible to shut it out, but you can not shut it off.

So what the people of Israel tried to do was to tone it down. They wanted an intermediary who would stand for them in God’s presence and receive the Word of God, and then who would re-cast it, reframe it, rephrase it, humanize it, tenderize it, downsize it so that it becomes palatable to God’s people in a more comfortable form.

And so God called Moses to be the intermediary, and he became the greatest of all the prophets of Israel. But what people discovered was that the Word of God delivered by Moses was still the Word of God. It still had power – power to create, power to move nature and kings and armies and God’s people; power to reveal God’s will, power to reveal God’s reign in the midst of life.

When Moses spoke as Moses you could tell it was Moses. Like when I speak as Rick, you know it’s only Rick. When Moses spoke God’s Word you could tell it was God’s Word. Theologian Karl Barth said, “There is a yawning gulf with no fellowship or comparison possible between God’s Word and all other words. God’s word works wonders.”

Eventually “the word was made flesh and dealt among us, full of grace and truth.” We learned new things about God, experienced the power of God’s Word in new ways: healing ways, re-demptive ways, life-creating and life-changing ways.

The Word has the power to confront and overcome evil and to restore humankind into a relation-ship with God where each of us can hear the Word of God as Jesus heard it, himself. “You are my child, my beloved.”

Because of Jesus we know that God has said to each of us and continually says to each of us, “You are my child, my beloved.”

And those words have the power to move us deeper in God’s kingdom, deeper in God’s world, deeper into meaningful relationships with those around us and with those who live far, far away from us. Power to move us out from our self-centeredness, self-conceit, self-delusion, and self-gratification.

Some of you know of the marvelous poet Maya Angelou who wrote a memoir titled Wouldn’t Take Nothin’ for My Journey Now.

“One of my earliest memories of Mamma, of my grandmother, is a glimpse of a tall cinnamon colored woman with a deep, soft voice, … each time Mamma drew herself up to her full six feet, clasped her hands behind her back, looked up into a distant sky, and said, ‘I will step out on the word of God.’

“The depression, which was difficult for every one, especially so for a single black woman in the South tending her crippled son and two grandchildren, caused her to make the statement of faith often.

“She would look up as if she could will herself into the heavens, and tell her family in particular and the world in general, ‘I will step out on the word of God. I will step out on the word of God.’ … I grew up knowing that the word of God had power.”

“(But) In my twenties … God didn't seem to be around the neighborhoods I frequented.

“One day a teacher, Frederick Wilkerson, asked me to read to him. I was twenty-four, very eru-dite, very worldly. He asked that I read from Lessons in Truth, a section which ended with these words: ‘God loves me’ I read the piece and closed the book, and the teacher said, ‘Read it again.’ I pointedly opened the book, and I sarcastically read, "God loves me." He said, ‘Again.’

“After about the seventh repetition I began to sense that there might be truth in the statement, that there was a possibility that God really did love me. Me, Maya Angelou. I suddenly began to cry at the grandness of it all. I knew that if God loved me, then I could do wonderful things, I could try great things, learn anything, achieve anything. For what could stand against me with God, since one person, any person with God, constitutes the majority?

That knowledge humbles me, melts my bones, closes my ears, and makes my teeth rock loosely in their gums. And it also liberates me…”

The power and possibility of the Word of God. Don’t deny it. Don’t close yourself off from it. Seek it, eagerly. Hear it. Crave it. Wait for it. Don’t let it pass you by.

God would speak a Word to each us – maybe it will come in the night hours, or in the reading of scripture, or in the bread broken and the cup shared, or in the voice of another, or in the face of a stranger, or perhaps in the silent spaces when we make ourselves ready to hear the Word that is always there.

Listen for it and “step out on the Word of God”.

1.25.09 - 3 Epiphany, Cathedral, Bethlehem Year B The Rev. Canon Jane Teter

In the name of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

“Give us grace, O lord, to answer readily the call of our Savior Jesus Christ and proclaim to all people the Good News of his salvation, … (Collect for the day).

When I was a child, one of the more important pieces of family equipment was an old iron bell. My mother used this bell to call us home for dinner and other family activities. Its gong would sound throughout the neighborhood, and my brother and I would abandon games of hide-and-see, cowboys and Indians, and turn our skates and bicycles around and head home.
Because we knew the consequences of not immediately heeding its summons, we quickly responded to the bell. Even the neighbors knew what it meant. Our passage home was often accompanied by a neighbor calling out, “your Mother is calling.”
The calls in today’s Gospel demand a similar kind of obedience, even if they are profoundly different from my mother’s dinner bell. Jesus issues two calls, one universal and one particular. Though their scope is different, both insist on an immediate response.
The first call defines Jesus’ message in three simple phrases, “This is the time of fulfillment. The reign of God is at hand! Reform your lives and believe in the good news!” Isn’t that the heart of the Christian vocation? - “this is the time of fulfillment, the reign of God is at hand, reform your lives and believe the good news.” To know that here and now God is completing the work of redemption in our lives? To hear in that good news the invitation to become more than we ever thought imaginable?
Only from the center of that first calling can we begin to understand the second, not as something that was given to the disciples there and then, but to us at this moment. For Jesus takes the universal call of his preaching and he calls Simon and Andrew, James and John, you and me, to follow him.
But notice how he does it – it is not simply a matter of call; but to call from; to call to. Unlike my mother’s bell, the call of Jesus doesn’t demand that we abandon what we are doing but that we transform it. Simon and Andrew will no longer be simple fishermen. They will fish for people. James and John will leave their father not to abandon their family but to belong to a larger family: those who hear the word of God and keep it.
It is the same for us today. Each one of us is called to use our particular talents and limitations to further the fulfillment of the good news in everything we do.
We are called to model our lives on the example of Christ. Now, we know we can never be perfect, but surely we can try to do our very best.
We need to do what we can do as best we can and not worry about what we cannot do. Perhaps that is visiting a shut-in, volunteering at a soup kitchen or a food bank or a shelter, maybe reading a book to children or the elderly. Some may run errands or do some shopping or help with minor repairs, shovel snow or cut the grass. I know some of you helped in some way when our local churches (including Nativity) cam together to set up emergency shelters for the homeless when it was bitter cold outside. There are many opportunities – use your gifts to make a difference in someone’s life.
When I moved here from Lebanon many years ago, I left behind several residents of nursing homes that I visited regularly. I missed those visits and I began to send notes and cards to them on any and every holiday. I did that for several years and then began to wonder if I was doing this for myself. Then one day I met an old friend for lunch and she told me she had been to visit May and May had showed her a huge pile of cards she had received from me over the years. My friend told me she looked through them all the time.
So, you see, little things do mean a lot.
Today’s gospel tells us to “follow me and I will make you fish for people.” A retired priest who is a good friend is an avid fisherman. He says, “the lesson is about the calling of Simon and Andrew to be evangelists.
The point is that God through Jesus asked them to be followers of him, and that he would make – not force – but help them become “fishers of men.” He built on what they already knew and utilized what they were to help become evangelists, heralds, role models, mentors.
I think of the people who have influenced me, he continues: college professor, priest, mother, garbage man, sick and lonely, many parishioners and many friends. In this day and age with the decline of heroes and moral leadership, and the rise of cynicism, we must listen carefully and respond faithfully to the invitation of Jesus.
He continues, “I hope I am not stretching it too much when I say fishing can teach you a lot. There are three requisites about fishing. You have to go where the fish are. You have to offer what the fish want. Your have to present your offering in a way that is attractive and inviting, not scary or threatening. Doesn’t this say something about evangelism? He says that, even more basic, you have to have confidence, you have to have hope, you have to have a sense of expectancy that the fish are there, that you are offering them good stuff, and that you can catch them. Frequently, he says, I have seen evidence of fish. Often I see others catching fish. Sometimes I have caught a fish. Even so, the ratio of cast to fish is very low. There are other benefits to fishing. Perseverance is important. Keep trying. I have gotten to know a wonderful guide on the river. Jerry sometimes comes over to me and suggests I cast to a different location, try a different fly, or with a suggestion to improve my casting.
This friend has some wise learnings:
- be inviting but not scary or threatening
o no “brother are you saved”
o no “you better mend your ways or you will go to hell”
(who am I to make that decision?)
- we need to be caring and compassionate and have lots of patience in all we do. We need a good, positive attitude – remembering to
follow Jesus’ example in reaching out to people.
- we need to meet people where they are, not where we want them to
be. (not “why the heck is he homeless – the point is he is homeless and needs our help).
- Don’t go it alone – be open to support and suggestions from others.
Maybe my way isn’t the best way – my fisherman friend was open
to suggestions that made him a better fisherman.
And so, this Jesus, this guide, comes to Simon and Andrew, James and John, and to each of us, and says “come here with me, watch me, try this…I will make you fish for people.”
“Give us grace, O Lord, to answer readily the call of our Savior Jesus Christ and proclaim to all people the Good News of his salvation…”
Amen.

Sunday January 18, 2009
The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa
II Epiphany
I Samuel 3:1-10

A boy, rabbinic scholars tell us probably 12-15 years old, living thousands and thousands of years ago, is slumbering warmly in his bed, protected from the elements of the outside when he is rudely interrupted by a voice calling him! Samuel, Samuel! Thinking wrongly the voice is but a rude interruption or even a call for help from his mentor Eli, who he shares the space with, he rises from the warmth of his bed, and travels through the dark house and asks, What do you want! It’s not me calling, go back to bed! Good news! We all love to go back to bed. Three times that voice comes and three times the young boy finds himself confused and yanked out of bed! Finally Eli, the mentor discerns the voice must be coming from God and with simple wisdom and some fear for his own place in the world, Eli says, it is God, Just lay there and listen! Imagine the twelve year old boy and the context of his world. These were ancient times where the people of Israel in their journey with Yahweh have not yet developed into a nation governed, ruled, and protected as other people’s were at the time. Many of their powerful neighbors were established as a monarchy, ruled by a King. Israel at this point in their history are more of a confederacy of sorts, organized as tribes scattered throughout an ancient land, worshipping a unique God. This people would daily be challenged by influences of competing for “prosperous” and generous farm lands. They would compete with a diversity of people’s and nations for the same land, and would be influenced by other customs, ways, and even Gods! How do these tribes stay unified, protected, and how do they make for themselves an “economy”? For Samuel, the young boy, he will be called by God to stand in line as a “JUDGE” and a Prophet”. A Judge as is the name given to those “holy men” called to be leaders of this “confederacy” of tribes, to hold them together, unified in purpose, in devotion to Yahweh, and as competitors to foreign influences and challenges. For Samuel, the young boy, you have to wonder as he contemplates the complex enough question of who he is becoming as a young man, how he might identify himself as a young man in complex world. If he is to Listen to God, what could it all mean for his life? If he is to listen to God and even make his way through the complexity of his context to discern this call, he has to be asking what difference can he make at all should he respond to this call?


I don’t know about you, I don’t know how you listen to God’s voice. I don’t know if God’s voice wakes you from your sleep, or slips into your daily conversations, or comes to you in prayer. I know what wakes me these days is the stark contrast of the cold outside and the blessed warmth of my bed. What wakes me these days is the strange juxtaposition of life that puts me in the warmth why others are on the street in the cold. I know what wakes me is the middle of the night is the thought and challenge of waking my way to the next piece of my daily routine, how and when the juggle of schedule will lead to all that needs to be done get done. I know that at times when I am awakened in the middle of the night I give in to the bad habit of turning on my television and there I see the complexity of the world I live in. I know you see it too: war, economic tenuousness, disease, famine, crime; you know the list. These things of my context I confess I sometimes get a helpless feeling, as I consider what it is that I am to do about any of it.
The complexity of the pace of life and our place in it is a challenging enough task. We consider our place and future in our vocations, employment, our relationships, and in our household. It is plenty complex as rise and face our own identity, strengths and weaknesses in the human condition. It is even more complex when we consider the struggles of our local governments, our nation, and the world.
I suppose what I mean to say is that when we start each day, just trying to figure out who WE ARE, What we will BE, WHO we will be in the everyday, this seems like enough of plenty, BUT when on top of it then we may find ourselves reflecting on a world and even struggling to pray for a world that is war torn in many places, where there is suffering and hunger in so many places, where there is financial and economic tenousness and even ruin in so many places, this sometimes seems overwhelming!
We listen for God’s voice the scriptures reveal to us, yes Lord, but How can we even consider taking our place in this sometimes overwhelming world? Where do we look for that voice? How can we hear that voice? Most importantly, if we do hear that voice, that call, and if we get to a point of responding, are you sure its going to make any difference at all?
Sometimes in it all we may find ourselves caught up at times in history, where the smacking of justice catches up with the ticking of history. We may see glimpses of calls heard and responded to that break in to our daily lives in tangible and significant ways. I pray we note the significance of his profound historical moment in our country as we witness an African American being sworn in as President of these United States. This is particularly poignant as this act occurs just a day after we recognize the life and witness of Martin Luther King who, having heard God’s voice of call, responded in such a way that led to the sacrifice of his very life in the name of Justice and equality for all of God’s people. I pray this sacrifice by not only Dr. King, but so many ordinary people who marched and sacrificed and died in dark remote forests in the middle of the night, to public streets in cities like Memphis, Birmingham, Atlanta, and Chicago. These brave actions made so such a moment in history possible. Regardless of our political positions and persuasions all of in this moment of history want what is best for our country. We hope against hope that the difficulties of our country and the world can be faced with integrity and faithful action by those we elect to help lead and invite us into faithful actions of resolve in the face of our challenges.
Thank God for such a witness and response to God’s vision for equality that would lead us to see tangibly that equality is possible.
Yet still, for you and for me, trying to figure out our place in this world, even so, we may be wondering how we take our place in this equation of life in a way that can make any difference at all? Let’s face it, for the majority of us here today, and certainly with some exceptions, we will not be the ones sitting at tables of influence charting forward a plan for economic recovery, or for finding resolution to peace in the middle east, or creating a systematic approach to eliminate hunger and disease, around the world. Its complex enough isn’t it, trying to figure out how we will stay alive in our marriage, Be alive as a parent, sustain ourselves and provide for ourselves and our families.
So as we rise in the darkness of each day, grateful we pray for the gift of another day, but I confess as we engage the boy Samuel and the story of his calling, perhaps each us deep down asks the question, so if I can after all Listen for God’s voice calling me, what difference will it make anyway even if I figure out how to respond?

Madeline L’Engle in her book “Glimpses of Grace” quotes a poem her Grandmother used to recite to her:

“Little drops of water,
Little grains of Sand,
Make the mighty ocean
And the pleasant land.

She goes on to say, “ I believe the Kingdom is built on little things that all of us do. A single drop can’t even make a puddle, but together, all our drops and God’s planning can make not only a mighty ocean but a mighty difference”.

It’s easy to be overcome by the bigness of the complexity of the world’s needs and easy to be in a place to wonder, if we are able to hear God calling, What difference will it make anyway. It’s understandable that we may stand afar and be thankful that Samuel answered his call to Yahweh and became a prophet of integrity and a Judge who would lead the tribes of Israel strongly against foreign invaders. He would call people into faithful relationships with Yahweh, and he would “begrudgingly” give in to the cry for a Monarchy and anoint Saul as the first King of Israel.
Its understandable that we would stand grateful that a young boy from Atlanta would hear a call from God that would lead him to lead a movement that would work toward equal rights and we would give thanks for that sacrifice for justice.


But given most of us will not lead a nation, or a movement, though indeed I am banking on the fact that some out there may, we still ask the question to God, what difference can we make.
Sometimes God’s opportunity to “make a difference” begins with a simple email naming small realities. For example this week, an email came from across the river, It’s cold outside, dangerously cold, and the small but deserving homeless population in Bethlehem have no shelter. Like drops of water combining together to make a mighty ocean, or in this case, like grains of sand coming together to create a pleasant land, the pieces of a puzzle began to come together in response to a call! Here on Thursday night, blankets and pillows began to arrive, soup and cereal, bread and water, bodies and souls, coming together, and with heart and soul, the basement of Sayre Hall was transformed into a sanctuary from the cold for a number of God’s people who otherwise would have been on the street. The next night St. Andrew’s in East Allentown followed suit, and a van ran from the Cathedral transporting folks, lastnight the Unitarian Church became that pleasant land, tonight St. Andrew’s again, tomorrow back here at the Cathedral.

What difference does it make? I wonder if one of our guests after a night off of the street might help us with that answer.

1 Epiphany ~ The Baptism of Jesus

January 11, 2009
The Ven. Richard I Cluett

“Today the Lord comes to be baptized, so that humankind may be lifted up; today the one who never has to bow inclines himself be-fore his servant so that he may release our chains; Today we have acquired the kingdom of heaven: indeed, the kingdom of heaven that has no end.” (excerpt from the Orthodox Liturgy, Feast of the Theophany, with thanks to Suzanne Guthrie)

And so it came to pass long ago and not so far away…

One sunny, early summer morning on the bank of a lake in western Massachusetts where my parents lived, our family was gathered for the baptism of my brother’s firstborn son. My brother had asked me to baptize him in that place where we all had been together so many times as a family. We had some pre-baptism conversations that sufficed as instruction.

We had also spent time discussing the theological ramifications of blessing the water of baptism – that would be … the lake. From that time forth would all those who dipped themselves into those waters be… Well, you can carry on that conversa-tion yourselves.

I stepped into the lake water with the parents and Godparents and the child. The prayers were offered, the blessing of the waters invoked, and I took the child in my arms and immersed him in the cold, dark waters.

At which point my brother lunged forward with a look of abject terror on his face, as I raised the sputtering child. Three times he was plunged into the dark depths and lifted into the light in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

And my brother saw that his firstborn son was not sputtering, he was laughing, giggling, burbling with joy, with pure, utter joy! That day he acquired the kingdom of heaven that has no end. And, by the way, so did my brother.

But, there is a reason why the lectionary begins this day with the description of the very beginning and the dark chaos when the wa-ters covered the face of the earth, and then God brings forth -- Light!

Today we celebrate “God’s will to flood the entire world” with Light. We celebrate God’s will to bring each and every creature out of chaos, out of darkness, out of the depths, loosed from bind-ings into the light of life and love and freedom lived in God.

That is what we celebrate today and every time a person comes through the waters of baptism into the light of a life lived in God. [and that is what is going to happen with these 3 young children who will be baptized today.]

+ + +

James Weldon Johnson says that before God started creation, eve-rything was “Blacker than a hundred midnights/ down in the cypress swamp.”

Have you ever visited that dark place? I have. I have even inhabited it -- for quite some time. So did Jesus. In a time of wondering and confusion, his wandering brought him to the bank of the river where he was drawn into the dark, swirling waters, in the midst of the chaos of humanity drawn there for the same reasons. Down he went into the water, plunged by John under the waters, and lifted up into the light of God’s presence, now knowing that he was God’s Beloved Child.

Herbert O”Driscoll has told the story this way:
“And so he came to the place, a stranger as all Galileans were in this hot blazing valley leading to the Dead Sea. Their eyes met and the longing for certainty in Jesus eyes is mirrored by the ambiva¬lence in John's. … they move into the water...

“When he comes up from that transitory burial under the water, it seems as if his world ignites and shines with validation and certainty. He is right! The journey has brought him home! Wave upon wave of peace and wholeness descend on him, calming, resolving, dovelike. Thundering in his consciousness are the intimations of the truth about himself and his vocation. He feels the affirmation and the terror of being in the presence of him by whom he is called My Son, my Beloved.”

A short three years later, he again found himself in that dark place when he was in the Garden at Gethsemane. Darkness and chaos and the evil powers of the world surrounded him, and he ques-tioned, he agonized, over all that he had held so dear, for which he had labored so hard, given so much, travelled so far.

And again, from that darkness he was lifted up, high upon the cross, so that you and I and all who come to God in some sem-blance of faith, with some miniscule modicum of hope, but who come nevertheless – he was lifted up so that we can live in the light of God’s kingdom. Now He lives in the presence of God, He reigns in the kingdom of God, and He lives in the hearts of God’s people.

+ + +

Before God’s Incarnation, before God’s Epiphany, the world was sunk in deep darkness, and so it is again in our day and time. I will not afflict you with a litany of the darkness of the world today. You know it well. You live it, too. You contend against it, too. You want to rise from, as well. It is ever before us on CNN and the nightly news: local, national, and international. We know it in our neighborhoods, in our circle of friends, in our families, in our own selves. Darkness abounds. Darkness abides, Darkness would cling to us forever.

It seems to me that from the very beginning of beginnings, and from our own beginning coming through the waters of birth and the darkness of the birth canal into the light of life, from before time and forever, the journey toward light has begun in darkness.

But we don’t have to live there. It doesn’t have to end there.

What we read of Jesus’ baptism; what we observe in the baptism of an infant; what we dream of in those long night hours is true. God is in this life. God’s spirit is upon us. God’s love is constant. God’s power is ours. And God has given us a reason, a purpose, a life to be lived.

It is possible to live in this life, missing the light of God, missing the presence of God, missing the empowering, comforting Word of God's love, missing the light of God’s love. It was possible for Jesus to have stayed in Nazareth; he didn't have to go down to the Jordan.

We have those choices, too. We can decide to stay in our anxiety, to stay in our ambivalences, to remain trapped in uncertainties, to live in darkness. Or we can decide to leave our Nazareth, and make ourselves available to the word, the light, the love of God and to let God’s spirit work in us.

All of us are, each of us is, Beloved of God – the God in whose love and by whose power shown to us in Jesus – life can be lived, purpose can be discovered, hope can be found, and love can be known.

As the Orthodox liturgy affirms, “… we have acquired the king-dom of heaven: indeed, the kingdom of heaven that has no end.”

Amen. And amen. And amen.

The Feast of the Epiphany Observed
Sunday January 4, 2009
The Cathedral Church of the Nativity
The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa
Matthew 2:1-12

At my house, the star that shines atop my Christmas tree has been dimmed! How quickly we have taken the journey of ritual that by its very definition as ritual invites us into an opportunity to become aware of God’s presence in our lives as miracle, hope, light, justice, peace. Our journey has led us from the expectant waiting in darkness to the rejoicing of God’s promise in flesh! The rituals of songs, prayers, symbols we participate in through our church year cycle bring awareness to my soul of my God who is my Companion, lover, friend, and strength.
The Christmas tree is my nod to the adoption of pagan symbolism and ritual into my own spiritual life. The Christmas tree that bore the light of a star on top of it, in the corner of my living room has now become a fainted symbol. The star, once beautifully and brightly lighted atop of that tree has come down. The victim of a golden retriever’s curiosity and wicked tail, the star could not survive the fourth tumble of the season to the floor. The needles of a dried out tree and a broken bulb signaled perhaps it would be best to remove the tree. The tree removed indeed and not lost on me is the reality that with the removal comes full recognition that in such simple symbolic things is great investment of emotion! The excitement of the promise of God’s hope and light is wrapped up in such symbols for me! I hate to take down a Christmas tree because it indicates to me the end of the full immersion in the season that leads us from our great expectations as we wait in darkness to the hope and promise of God’s “Emmanuel”! It was not lost on me that as I removed a broken star from the top of a dead Christmas tree, recognizing the removal of such also indicates the transitions that occur in my home! Back to school, back to the regular rhythms of work schedules, school schedules. That “special time” of rejoicing with family and friends, giving way now to the regular rhythms of our daily lives! But more than that, it was not lost on me the challenges of our spiritual journey in a difficult world as I also listened as CNN described yet one more unfortunate chapter of Middle East violence and dis-ease! The contrast of the promises of the season with the events all too familiar unfolding once again before all of us! When? When O Lord will we glimpse the fullness of your promise? Arise, Shine, your light has come, the prophet announces to us! “The glory of the Lord has risen upon you, nations shall come to your light!” O Come, O Come Emmanuel! Be with us God of peace, of compassion, of Reconciliation! Surely, the symbol of star I pick up from my living room floor is a star that leads the people he has made to the potentiality of something different than one more chapter of violence and despair! Shall we put away our things from this season, count it as over, and move on?
Not so fast! Let’s live into the fullness of the ritual that is set before us! The star on top of my Christmas tree may be dimmed but a star is followed today curiously by three strangers of the East, who catch a glimpse of it! This is the Epiphany journey we are invited to follow today! This is a story for the poet’s heart, the artists rendering! Our primary actors in this story today are in the scriptures nameless! Who might they be? Visitors Matthew tells us, Magoi! Though scholars throughout the years have tried to decipher just who these Magoi might be, “magician’s, or Zoroastrian Priests, it seems a reasonable conclusion that these “wise men” of the East at the least dabbled in astrology, and capturing a glimpse of the skies find themselves on a journey toward something clearly compelling enough to warrant a plan of action to embark on this journey!
Most importantly for Matthew’s Gospel, they are gentiles, and their recognition of this new born “King” tells us of God’s plan of salvation for all of the world and sets the stage for the drama that Matthew desires to tell of those within Israel struggling to accept the fullness of God’s Kingdom promise and God’s longing to shine a light of salvation for all of the world!
The scriptures do not tell us who these men are, but Christian tradition would name them, Melchior, king of Persia, Gaspar, King of India, and Balthazar, King of Arabia! Their following of this star would lead them to the presence of a new King, unlike any they had ever encountered! They would bring gifts worthy of a King, Gold of course! Frankincense and Myrrh, fragrance and oil worthy for the anointing of a King!
The promise that lies under this star is unlike any other King these brave travelers would know! This promise is clothed in humility and would stand in stark contrast to the “powers of oppression and abuse” of worldly monarchs, and instead declare a Monarchy whose powers would seek to transform a world through the powerful tools of forgiveness, reconciliation, and compassion! These powers are a far cry from missiles of provocation and devastation, and ground assaults of doom and blood.
And so it is for us! Our ritual pulls us into the fullness of what lies under the star! Particularly as the symbols of the season are slowly packed away and the world continues to present its challenges to another way of living, perhaps Epiphany is the ritual that rightly leads us with certainty back into our daily lives! THE EPIPHANY is God manifesting God’s light and goodness in the world through us. We stand in stark contrast to the darkness of the world and know that peace and reconciliation begins in an individual’s heart. Who full of God’s presence finds their fingers on a trigger? Who full of God’s presence finds in themselves an order for missile attacks? Who full of God’s presence can help but respond to violence with prayers and pleas for peace?
Lest we put away too quickly the symbols and rituals that invite us to the “isness” of God, let us become actors in this Epiphany drama! Like our main actors in this drama, shall we be compelled to follow a star? Let us bring gifts to the one we find there. Let us discover in our following that perhaps the gifts we bring are the same gifts given to us: forgiveness, reconciliation, and compassion.

Christmas Day 2008
The Cathedral Church of the Nativity
The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa
“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us”

If you have been fortunate enough in your life to have made the trek to London, you of course will have had the experience of making use of London’s fine public transportation subway system affectionately known as “The tube”. You’ll remember riding the tube that as trains begin to make their way into a tube station and you are invited to embark or disembark from a train you’ll hear a lovely accented voice telling you to “mind the gap please”. The voice is there of course as a voice of safety and hospitality bringing you into an awareness of the gap that exists between the train itself and the platform of the station. “Mind the Gap” means, pay attention to it, become aware of it and in this case, try to avoid it!

Christmas day, this day, we celebrate the feast of the Incarnation! And on this day as we greet the words of John’s Gospel, “The word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth”. On this day I suggest that we might “mind the gap”, become aware of it, pay attention to it, and unlike the intent for which is repeated on the tube in London, I suggest that instead of avoiding it we are to open our eyes to living in it and discovering there a companion whose name is Jesus. I believe John’s poetic summary of God’s action in the birth, life, and death of Jesus of Nazareth, is precisely God jumping into the gap with us! The Gap of course is life, its struggles and its possibilities, real life, real lives. For Christian folk, this intersection of God’s presence in our lives is where the rubber hits the road, for we believe, in fact we stake our belief on the truth that God is present with us in our daily lives and that God’s presence took on flesh in the person of Jesus, in a time in history, who acted in salvivic ways and gave birth to a community of faith that celebrates this presence even now in our own day!

Parker Palmer in his recently updated introduction to his original work of thirty years ago entitled “The promise of Paradox” suggests that it is exactly in the Gap that we come to know the fullness of God’s promise for us and to the possibility of that promise taking flesh. To stand in the gap he suggests challenges us to avoid the alternatives of standing too firmly on one side or the other of life. On one side of life we may be too rooted in the harsh and hard realities of it, overwhelmed by its struggles and given to the darkness of cynicism. On the other side of life we may be seduced by the thought of too much possibility defined by irrelevant and unrealistic idealisms more accurately described as utopianism.

Dr. Palmer writes, ““The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.” I believe this poetry describing God’s action in Jesus names what we are called to do, that is wrapping our whole selves around the truth given to us and live it out in our embodied lives.” The first century reader of John’s gospel understood the challenges of life on either side of the Gap. The hearers of this word would easily have been challenged by the dim and corrosive realities of life. Certainly not all, but many of the hearer’s of John’s word knew disease and famine, unemployment and disempowerment, sickness and death, poverty and injustice, not for all of course but for many. Equally available would be the false promise of sanctuary and safety, security offered in a Roman occupier whose image depicted on coinage suggested that all that was needed would suffice in the person and protection of Caesar, “Son of God”. Still other factions promised restoration of majesty and dominion, independence, and self-rule by the promised restoration of a monarchy in Israel. Still other communities of faith promised fullness of life by living apart in the dessert, removed from the challenges of everyday living in first century Palestine, and praying for a new day of Yahweh’s reign.

Overwhelmed by life or hoping for an idealized promised society, into this Gap the word becomes flesh, born of an unassuming virgin peasant girl. Into this Gap the embodiment of God’s word in the person of Jesus, a Nazarene, and he would live, breathe, love, bleed, cry, laugh, celebrate, proclaim, preach, heal, march in civil disobedience, and give his life in pain and sacrifice so that those residing in the Gap with him might do the same and bring new life in real people’s lives, living in real communities as a people of faith! This “word becoming flesh” would physically tap those who would listen and invite them to follow and him and become a new community that would stand for love, forgiveness, justice and compassion! This new community would bear witness to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and their witness would spread throughout the world! Here we are today as a result, real people, living into the Gap with real struggles, real hopes, and living real lives dwelling in God’s presence.

Dr. Palmer asks of us, Can we wrap ourselves, our whole selves around the truth given to us and live it out in our embodied lives? Can we stand in the Gap with the Word that dwells with us choosing not to let darkness and cynicism have its way, and not getting lost in a utopian ideal that robs us from investing our selves, our souls, and our bodies in action to God’s hope for the world?

If one is fighting for their life with cancer, Mind the Gap. Know that God dwells with you and with every tear, every struggle, every pain, every treatment, every fear, God is fighting with you!

If one is fighting for life afflicted with an addiction, Mind the Gap. Know that God dwells with you, with every craving, cramping, impulse and compulsion, God knows and is in your struggle and dares to birth with you something new.

If you are fighting for the justice of individuals or group in our communities, our country and this world, mind the Gap. We must know that God dwells there with you, knows the fears that might hold one back from marching or speaking up, knows the pain of being judged or rejected by the standards of others,

If one’s gifts and abilities are called to build, to feed, or to show compassion to the “least of these”, Mind the Gap. We must know that God dwells with us as our hands put flesh on God’s grace for those as nails are driven to build shelter, meals are prepared for hungry stomachs and hearts, and the lonely are lifted by a smile, a word, and dignity respected.

Finally, if we find our own lives lost too far on one side of the Gap or the other, overcome by the difficulties of life, or removed and lost in a false sense of utopia, MIND the GAP! We have to believe that God knows the pain of despair, and the distance created by promises of magic that cost us nothing. God joins us in the Gap and knows the way bring life out of the darkness and distance.

Bill Llewellis, the diocesan communications officer recently shared a parable told on an episode of the popular television program “West Wing” a few years ago. The program entitled Noel depicts a member of the president's staff who is told he has post traumatic stress disorder. He worries that he will lose his job. Leo, the chief of staff, an alcoholic in recovery, tells Josh this story.

This guy's walking down the street when he falls in a hole. The walls are so steep he can't get out.
A doctor passes by and the guy shouts up, "Hey you. Can you help me out?" The doctor writes a prescription, throws it in the hole and moves on.

Then a priest comes along. "Father, I'm down in this hole. Can you help me out?" The priest writes out a prayer, throws it in the hole and moves on.

Then a friend walks by. "Hey, Joe. It's me. Can you help me out?" And the friend jumps in the hole. Our guy says, "Are you stupid? Now we're both down her."
The friend says, "Yeah, but I've been down here before and I know the way out."

Such is the gift and scandal of the Word becoming Flesh! Mind the Gap!

Christmas Eve 2008
Sermon, Bishop Paul Marshall
Cathedral Church of the Nativity

Merry Christmas to each of you. Some years it is easier to say that than others. This year we are in an anxious time. We are deeply aware of the instability the economy in general. Beyond that, everyone now knows the words “Ponzi scheme,” a knowledge that brings another level of anxiety and even mistrust to some minds. Each of us in this room knows somebody who has lost a job, some of us are that person, and many of us who have been patiently growing retirement funds over the years know we are going to have to work a good deal longer than we anticipated, and that brings a sense of weariness, even betrayal.
What does faith say in times like this? Oddly enough, we say that Christians and Christianity are at their very best when they move heroically and confidently through difficult times. We say that this feast called Christmas celebrates the generosity of God, and entering that generosity is the key to keeping our spirits up when times are down.
Think about it. Why did Christianity grow so fast in its early years? It wasn’t because the emperor Constantine semi-converted in the year 313—Christian numerical growth had already happened and he merely bowed to that fact. It wasn’t because Christians all had one set of clear doctrines—they were centuries away from agreeing about to talk about God [Chalcedon], and centuries away from deciding what books were in their scriptures. Yet in the midst of its religious imprecision, the Church grew. How come?
The top social historians of our day agree that Christianity grew so fast mostly because Christians were known for their unusual compassion for those around them, especially toward those who were not members of their faith. From the Book of Acts on, they raised money on one continent to aid those on another continent, never for a moment presuming to think that mean little thought, that charity begins at home. They knew that charity does not begin at home. It begins with helping the people you don’t know and might not care for, just as the Good Samaritan did, just as Jesus did by leaving his heavenly home for our sake.
The first Christians let the gospel train them, as St. Paul says in our epistle tonight, to be a people who were zealous for good deeds. That’s a religious way of saying that they were really and truly into serving the world, the whole world. They knew that God’s taking flesh in Jesus for the sake of the whole world wasn’t an event in the past. It was the pattern for their own lives every day. What did that look like?
In about the year 250 a plague struck Alexandria, Egypt, and actually killed more than half of the population. People with resources got as far away from town as they could—except the Christians. In a time of panic and danger, they stayed in town and cared for the sick and dying, and some of them paid for that generosity with their lives. People joined the church.
Throughout the empire, Christians were known to patrol the garbage dumps, but they weren’t looking for antiques. Those dumps were where people placed infants they didn’t want, and the church got a reputation for saving lives that others had put in the trash. People joined the church.
Again, in the Alexandrian community, those who lived on the church’s dole would often go entirely without food one day a week so that they, too, would have something to give others. People joined the church. That is why I decided to give the children money instead of chocolate—so they would be able to have the corporate experience of giving to those in need out of what they have been given. It is a way to know the heart of the incarnation.
Let’s leave ancient history. I have seen many, many lives change because of participation in our New Hope project. From the little girl who ran a yard sale of toys she was done with to the retired lady who went back to work so she could make a major contribution, I have shed tears to see love expressed so unselfishly. A fourth-grader recently handed this [a teddy bear] to a friend of mine asking that it go to a child in Sudan.
And let’s come right to your doorstep. I often comment on Nativity’s practice of giving away its Christmas and Easter offerings to care for those in need. Those are the two largest offerings of the year. Many churches count on those offerings to survive, but your vestry puts mission concerns before survival concerns. At this time in history, when financial concerns are acute even for churches, your continuing to send money away from home is a bold statement that you accept Christianity’s mission of being to people what Jesus was when he walked this planet.
In doing so you follow the rich tradition that gave Christianity its growing potential. People in an age of anxiety were attracted to a religion whose adherents could dare not to follow the culture, but to transform it.
The epistle also says that in being zealous for good works we are training ourselves to renounce some things that stunt our souls. When times are difficult, we can overdo our natural inclination to self-protection. What happens then, as Ebenezer Scrooge reminds us, is that we shrivel inside. But when we reach out to others in the midst of our own worrying, we change, we are liberated for the subtle joy of knowing ourselves to be united with Christ. Science tells us we are hard-wired for that selfless giving we call altruism; Jesus shows us how to achieve it, and in achieving it, have life in abundance.
So the opportunity each of us has when anxiety enters our lives on any level is to grow our souls by doing what Jesus did, caring harder for those around us. The opportunity that we have corporately is the same, with the added possibility that what happened in the ancient world will happen again: people around us can be attracted to a community that continuously gives as Jesus gave, sacrificially and out of love.
I think the best Christmas gift we could give ourselves is to double the amount we were going to put in the plate tonight. It won’t go to me, it won’t go to the parish; it won’t even necessarily go to Christians. It will tell some people that the Cathedral Church of the Nativity loves them, that God loves them. And that may be the biggest thrill, the major moment of liberation from anxiety and spiritual uplift for us on this holy night. After all, it worked for three wise men.

Advent IV Sunday December 21, 2008
The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa
The Cathedral Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem, Pa.
Luke

One may recall Andrew Lloyd –Webers musical about an improbable and complicated love story between a young man emerging into adulthood and a young professional starlet, taking place sometime just after the second World War. A young man touched by Love, pursues and entices the woman of his interest, begging her to say Yes, say Yes, to the Love he feels. The headline song of this production speaks something of the improbable, the complicated, the difficult, the irrational, the joyous, the eye and heart opening, the life changing Aspects that saying Yes to love bring…… the truth of the matter stated by the evolving aspect of Love, Love changes everything goes like this, (Maestro, Hit it!)

Love,Love changes everything:Hands and faces,Earth and sky,Love,Love changes everything:How you live andHow you dieLoveCan make the summer fly,Or a nightSeem like a lifetime.Yes, Love,Love changes everything:Now I trembleAt your name.Nothing in the World will ever Be the same.Love,Love changes everything:Days are longer,Words mean more.Love,Love changes everything:Pain is deeperThan before.LoveWill turn your world around,And that worldWill last for ever.

Yes, Love,

Love changes everything,Brings you glory,Brings you shame.Nothing in theWorld will everBe the same.OffInto the world we go,Planning futures,Shaping years.Love,Bursts in, and suddenlyAll our wisdomDisappears.LoveMakes fools of everyone:All the rulesWe make are broken.Yes, Love,Love changes everyone.Live or perishIn its flame.Love will never,Never let youBe the same.

Today we are invited to the miraculous, wondrous, complicated, faithful epic truth of God’s announcing to the world that Love will come into the world anew, and indeed it will change everything!

Similar to the story found just prior in Luke’s Gospel account, the story of God’s announcing through the angels to Elizabeth in the sixth month of her pregnancy that the child she carries will enflesh part of God’s action in the world for salvation by bearing the Son who will prepare the way, John the Baptist, we hear again that the angels are busy at work, doing what angels do. The angel comes bearing a message that God is up to something big and with a pastoral word, “fear not”! This time the angels’ big news is for a young virgin girl. The news is that she will be what she never could have imagined for her own life, a player in God’s saving action for an entire world and its inhabitants. The young girls response would be to become an obedient servant of God trusting in both the big news and the pastoral word, “Fear Not!”. Well, yeah, right, we all know how that goes, God shows up, we take it on faith, trust in the pastoral word to not be afraid, and move on! All of us love when God shows up!
Perhaps you and I know a it better than this cleaned up version of Luke’s presentation of this story that connects God’s plan of of salvation for the world to the human birth through the most innocent and vulnerable! Indeed between the lines you and I know that God’s showing up is often upending, interrupting, and unexpected and can disorient, and even take us off track for a bit. “Fear not” the angel says, “Fear not indeed”!
The scriptures tell us that Mary pondered these things in her heart!
Ponder indeed!
What will she say? How shall she respond? How could this be? How improbable, How complicated, How difficult, How irrational, How eye opening, How inconvenient!
Certainly she must have pondered, What if I say yes? Can I say No? Either way, Life will never be the same! But how will it not be the same?
For Mary, this encounter with Love will change everything. If she says yes, glory will be brought into the world, shame will certainly come to her from those who cannot see God at work, certainly nothing of her life or the life of the world will ever be the same.

For Mary, this encounter with Love will bring her long days and nights, the words of the angel will take on more and more meaning as she parents the one who grows in her womb, she will know the depth of loving, the pain and promise of sacrifice.

Love changes everything,Brings you glory,Brings you shame.Nothing in theWorld will everBe the same.Love changes everything:Days are longer,Words mean more.Love,Love changes everything:Pain is deeperThan before.
God interrupts and Mary ponders the interruption! Love chooses the most interesting people and places to invite a yes from. Disorienting and disruptive as it may be, a yes to God is a yes toward redemption. A young peasant girl, the most powerless of powerless, is invited to say yes! She would ponder these things and she would say yes, and Love would change everything.
Mary’s yes, would bring God’s plan of Salvation into the world! Freedom! Freedom to Say Yes to Love and dare to accept what Love would bring!
What Mary’s yes would bring would be the word made flesh and the name of Mary’s child would be Jesus. In Hebrew, his name is Yeshua, which means, “Yahweh or 'God' liberates.” Mary’s yes would be a yes to God’s promise of freedom! Freedom from all things physical, spiritual, and emotional that hold hostage!

In our journey toward Christmas, today we join Mary and I ask you to ponder, what is God asking us to say yes to that might change everything? What new thing might we experience when we join Mary in a yes to serve?
I submit to you that when we say yes, when we are willing to serve God and do what God asks of us, we will find that yes is freeing. To say yes, means we have navigated our way to our yes, through the very human questions. “What do I get out of this anyway? How does this help me? What is the payoff? ” Finding our way to the yes by daring to fall in love, promises to change everything. A yes, is indeed a yes to freedom.
In the rear of our very Cathedral sits a resource table with the marvelous book written by Madeline L’engle entitled, “The Glorious Impossible”. This book captures Mary’s moment of yes in these words.
Possible things are easy to believe. The Glorious Impossibles are those things that bring joy to our hearts, hope to our lives, songs to our lips
The birth of Jesus was a Glorious Impossible. Like love, it cannot be explained, it can only be rejoiced in
Mary’s Yes changes everything, how bout yours?

Advent III ~ John 1:6-8, 19-28

The Ven. Richard I Cluett

It's dark these days. It's dark when I wake up about 6:00 in the morning, and it is dark on those rare days I get home at 6:00 in the evening. Some days it is even dark all day long. Those are the days with the heavy leaden, gray skies. No rain, no snow...just dark gray days. Advent takes place in a time that is cold and dark.

Not only the meteorological environment is dark, so is the human one, too. The evening news is full of stories about the natural disasters afflicting humanity. The news, too, is full of stories of human disasters political disasters and diplomatic disasters, both potential and actual. Israel, Palestine, Iraq, the Sudan Afghanistan, Mumbai. The horizon dark gray with possibilities for terrorism. People of the world living in cold terror, their futures dark with the potential for destruction.

The City of New York is sheltering on cold nights more than ten thousand homeless souls. Bethlehem and Allentown and Easton are sheltering more than ever. Food kitchens are feeding more people than ever and more families than ever. Volunteer resources seem to be drying up though. Some neighborhoods are tired of having all those depressing people hanging around all the time. It seems to be going on forever and ever.

Many, too many people live in the cold and the dark. The hearts of others are being turned cold and dark because they are tired and the need never seems to diminish, only increase. It’s Advent.

In this litany, let me mention one more condition of our time, which is that so many of us seem to be in a perpetual "long dark night of the soul." People who are questioning the meaning, value, purpose of their lives. Nothing ahead but more of the same. Futures dark because of past expectations unfulfilled. We live in biblical times.

The fear of the dark begins in early childhood. The child who is afraid of the dark used to be you and me. Afraid of the creak in the floor, afraid of the shadow on the wall, afraid of the nameless faceless one who could come through the window, afraid of the shapeless thing that might be looming in the closet.

My son Tyler as a very little boy went to bed with a volleyball. For months. He said it kept the elephants away. And you know, he was right. Not one elephant came by in the night the whole time he slept with that volleyball.

We grow up. We learn not to be afraid of the dark. We learn that fear is seen as a sign of weakness, so we don’t speak out loud of our fears…even to ourselves. Of course, it is an untruth to say that we have no fears.

There is in most of us some darkness that casts a chill, a shadow onto our adult heart. The telephone ringing at 2 a.m. Fear of the day that the body being lowered into the ground belongs to the one we can’t live without.

We fear being old without the strength or the will to protest being left alone all day in front of a flickering television. We fear being at the mercy of medical machines.

We are afraid of loss, of helplessness, of old age, of abandonment, of adult kinds of dark. Advent begins in the dark.

I once knew a woman who was beautiful, witty, intelligent, with a devoted husband, two fine children and a lovely home, who was so paralyzed by fear that she could not get out of bed in the morning.

I once new a man at the top of his profession – doors were opened for him, drinks poured for him, Wall Street bowed to him, women admired him, men feared him. Yet his life was so stunted that he could count on no one but himself as he was faced with the issues of life and health that come to us all.

In his address accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature, Isaac Bashevis Singer said, “No technological achievement can mitigate the disappointments of modern man… his loneliness, his feeling of inferiority, and his fear of war, revolution and terror.”

Meg Greenfield once wrote in Newsweek magazine, “…The desire to follow a charismatic leader, the blindness to evidence that our heroes may be weak…the fantasy of escape into another place… the contained yet real promptings to violence that we have all felt. These are not the vices of some cult. They are the dark impulses that lurk in every psyche…”

Advent takes place in the dark – darkness without and darkness within; the fear of darkness and the darkness of fear.

It was into a real world that John came testifying to light that he saw coming into this dark world. Jesus. It was into the fullness of human life and experience that God came.

And it is only in the reality that is human experience, our experience that we can hear, appreciate, accept, and respond to this incredible act of God that we prepare to celebrate in the Advent season.

If we confine Jesus to the warm glow of a stable birth surrounded by family, shepherds, wise men, lowing cattle; then we will never know, truly, what this birth means to the world, and can mean to you and me. It is in the shadows and darkness of human experience that God would make his presence known to us.

One of the collects following the Prayers of the People says of God, "Almighty God, to whom our needs are known before we ask..." God knows. AND it is through the Incarnation...the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus that we know that God knows. God knows what it’s really like, knows what we really are going through in our lives, knows how much we need to know his presence with us, knows how much we need the assurance of His love and His future.

One of the Eucharistic prayers points out this common bond we have with all humanity when the priest says, “joining with the heavenly chorus, with prophets, apostles, and martyrs, and with all those in every generation who have looked to you in hope..."

It is a paradox that the darkness of human experience is penetrated by the tiniest of lights. Night hovers over Advent, as it hovers over human experience. The coming of the light reveals just how dark the night can be, and it also reveals how powerful that light is. It has prevailed against all the powers of darkness. The light continues to shine, and no darkness – no darkness of any kind – shall overcome it.

Advent II -- Isaiah 40, Mark 1

The Cathedral Church of the Nativity
Bethlehem Pennsylvania
The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa

My father loves a parade. In fact, the love of parades seems to resonate through my entire family. A family tradition of late is to attend the Memorial Day parade in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania where my father lives. Careful preparations are made to attend this parade. The necessary comforts of watching a parade are carefully placed into our vehicles, food, a soft chair, cool beverages. We then navigate the small town of Gettysburg working around a carefully prepared parade route which my Father has investigated with care, driving long ways round carefully carved off streets in order for the parade route to be clear and those in the parade ease of movement. We park our cars and with great excitement wait for the parade to begin to journey over hills, and plains, around the town circle and unimpeded down the cleared off parade route in front of the many gathered to receive them!

My father loves a parade, and the truth is I think most of us do. We in Bethlehem love a parade. I know more than my share this year that planned carefully to brave the confusion and congestion of New York City to attend the Thanksgiving Day parade. Now that’s some planning! Talk about careful planning to make a path straight in that city, to clear things out in such a way that those parading can parade!

Walter Bruggeman, Old Testament scholar, suggests that in ancient times, parade routes were established to create an ease of passage and opportunity for excited greeting of kings and great warriors. Paths would literally be created in the roughest of places! Hillsides would need to be lowered, crooked paths would need to be straightened out, and rough places on the road would need to be smoothed out, so that the easiest and straightest path could be created for the passage of these important figures!

Such is the imagery the prophet Isaiah uses to offer a word of hope to the people of God in the 5th century living under the occupation of the Babylonian Empire.

Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord! Make the paths straight, lower the hills and smooth out the rough places! In essence, let’s have a parade! People get ready for Yahweh has not forgotten you, hope is to be expected.

Living in a time of lost hope and despair, families of Israel have been split apart, many loved ones separated as craftsman and skilled workers are exported to places in the Babylonian empire where their skills could be put to good use. Those who remained home living under the direction and rule of an occupying government would fine a loss of freedoms, and little regard for their religious customs. The people of Israel wait having lost their hope and questioning deep in their being if in their losing their way, they also had led to their losing their God?

Into this reality Isaiah speaks a word, with a preamble that reflects literally the pastoral heart and of God with words of Comfort and promises of Care, Isaiah says, "Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord! Prepare for the arrival of God’s Hope anew."

Certainly we resonate with this theme of Advent, this theme of preparing for and expectantly waiting for a word of hope to crash in particularly when challenging times seem to cry out for it.

A few centuries from the time Isaiah’s words of expectant hope are delivered, John the Baptist is heard delivering a word again to a people living in desperate times under an occupying force. John, son of Zechariah, a priest of the temple, takes on the family business as it were, and proclaims from the desert Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord! One has to wander really how Zechariah may have felt – how he might have envisioned John’s life. If he ever could have imagined John’s ministry would have become what it did, an itinerant preacher with strange mannerisms zealously calling a community of believers into a dramatic relationship with a hopeful God by shedding themselves of hills and valleys, the twists and turns that would interrupt their relationship with their God. One wonders what his Father thought, yet it is John who announces a new word of hope and invites people to take their place on the parade route. He offers a wakeup call for the arrogant, a call for the despairing, and hope for all who would listen.

Well, isn’t this the God you and I rely upon! The God we look to and hope for, the God who bears present in life’s circumstances where redemption can happen at all times and in all circumstances.

The preamble of Isaiah’s message of hope is found is the words of Comfort! Comfort, Comfort Ye my people! Those beautiful words that will come to life this very night in this very place as Handel’s Messiah is offered to us. The beautiful message of hope in the midst of despair, redemption in all things.

Handel himself knew of this hope even as what has now become a valued and assumed treasure of art, it was not always. The beauty of this work came in the midst of one of the darker hours of Handel’s life. What was once a glorified professional life, full of accolades, success, and reasonable financial security, had been challenged by the time Handel was composing this piece of music. Once a prolific composer of opera, the companies Handel was associated with had closed, he himself has suffered a stroke, and in the late 1730’s and early 1740’s he found himself depressed and in debt. Handel found himself holding his breath, wondering if such despair could be transcended, transformed, redeemed, and probably without knowing what was happening to him, the Duke of Devonshire consented to sponsor a new style of music for Handel, and Charles Jennen had written the basis for the story of salvation that Handel would take 24 days held up in Jennen’s cottage to produce what would become what today we hold as the moving musical portrayal of God’s salvation history.

This second Sunday of Advent, we welcome an invitation to prepare the way of the Lord, in our lives, in our community and in the world. We light a second candle this day, a candle of hope, a hope that is powerful enough to smooth out the roughest of life’s circumstances. We set about the business of making room at the table, in our hearts, in our institutions, in our workplaces, and in our families for what God may do with those things that hold us down or hold us back from living into the full joy of knowing God’s presence in our lives. We hope against hope, for God fullness in our lives.

Frederick Beuchner speaks of this hope in this way, he says, “hope is ultimately hope in Christ”. The hope that he really is what for centuries we have been claiming he is- that is the hope that despite the fact that sin and death still rule the world, he somehow conquers. The hope that in him and through him all of us stand a chance of somehow conquering them too. The hope that in some time unforeseeable and in some way he will return with healing in his wings!

Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord! Let’s have a parade!

Advent I November 30, 2008
The Very Rev. Anthony Pompa
The Cathedral Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Isaiah 64:1-9; Mark 13:24-37

Harry Pritchett, Former Dean of St. John the Divine in New York City, tells a story of his boyhood, growing up in Alabama, discusses a promised dinner guest. Having an ample fascination with early motion picture shows, he tells of going to the local theatre to pay his 5 cents to watch a famous movie actress, filled with glamour and beauty. It seems as if somehow, someway, his Father had come into the company of this famous actress and she was coming through town! It seemed as if she would be coming to dinner. His Father told his family to be on best behavior, she would be coming this very night. Excited and filled with expectation Harry, began to prepare for the arrival of this larger than life figure he had only encountered on the big screen, and he began to imagine what it would be like to meet her.
The day grew late and Harry grew concerned as there was no sign of the promised guest. His mother sent him to bed, promising that if she actually showed she would wake him. He did everything he could to keep himself awake, listening intently for a car, a door to open, a magical voice embedded in his ears he knew so well from the big screen to bellow from the bottom of the stairs. Stay awake, I must stay awake, he thought to himself.

Today once again the church cycle of calendar has brought us to the season of Advent. Advent from the Latin adventus means .The coming of or the arrival of something promised. You know the advent themes that run through our church and spiritual lives! The Scriptures, the music, the sermons, the prayers, the decorations, all of our “wares” will tell the tale of Advent themes, Get ready; anticipate the arrival of something promised! We’re invited in our lives to embrace a message to prepare with excitement for the advent of something incredible. We’re asked to be like a young boy waiting to meet a promised legend. Like that young boy we may find ourselves with a challenge in our waiting. We must be alert, stay awake, so that we might not miss such an opportunity!

I am guessing you are probably like me this time of year. We’ve rummaged through our attics, or our basements, or our crawl spaces, wherever it is we keep our “Advent stuff”. We are busy clearing out the boxes, dragging out our wares, our ritualistic symbols that lest we forget are there to remind and invite us into the Advent of God’s action in the world and in our lives! We’ve done it here at the Cathedral, looking deeply through our inadequate storage spaces and look what we have found! We’ve put up the Crèche, and we’ll fill it week by week with the figurines that will help us be reminded of what God promises in the birth of hope, justice, and love and Mercy enfleshed in the world. We’ve put our candles in the windows and around our wreathe and each week symbolically with light the way put lights light the way, so that we can easily see and prepare for the coming of that which is promised!
We’ve put on our bright colors of blue with cosmic tone and design that most certainly accomplishes its goal, to grab our attention! These wares Beckon us to be awake, alert, and be mindful that our awareness of God’s presence is not captured only in our quaint remembrances of a beautiful babe in arms warmed in straw suckling at his mother’s bosom, or by a warm and gentle light flowing from a neatly arranged greened wreathe that is worthy of the front cover of any greeting card, But that Advent is the Promise of that which is to come in fullness and with great fanfare, annunciation, and even quaking! It is no less than God’s Kingdom, God’s full on reign that we prepare and wait for, and the fullness of it lived on earth! The promise of God’s tearing down structures and Kingdoms designed to oppress and tear down God’s people and the building up and empowerment of the powerless! This Advent theme is one that clearly Jesus bangs home with apocalyptic flare in his Gospel today, and the Prophet Isaiah proclaims in our Old Testament reading today.

The Advent theme of today is more a wake up call, a stirring and quaking of the might of God’s character advocating intensely for the poor, the helpless, the needy and advocating against the greedy, the power abusers, and the careless. Today’s theme is less captured perhaps in a beautiful quaint remembrance of a boy awaiting a promised fantasy, or a Crèche awaiting a suckling babe, or a Christmas card shining light from a picture perfect wreathe. Today’s theme is more like a Wake up Call that is like discovering for the first time after you’ve settled in a new home feeling secure and safe, comfortable that the fire whistle which screams for action of those in dire need jolts you out of bed. Today’s theme screams for you attention like the God awful sound that comes from a warning siren designed to let those within distance of nuclear power plants that they must pay attention to the delicate and powerful forces that exist within their reaches.

The Advent theme today reminds us that when God’s reign comes in full force it is like a power we cannot imagine! An African American spiritual speaks to this time expected to come among us, “My Lord what a morning! My Lord what a morning! My Lord what morning, when the stars begin to fall!” “You’ll hear the trumpet sound, to wake the nations underground, Lookin to my God’s right hand, when the stars begin to fall!”

The theme of this hymn captures the theme of the first Sunday of advent. Jesus promises the stars will fall, the moon be darkened, and the Son of Man will come with great power and glory. The prophet promises the “heavens be torn apart in a way that would cause the mountains to quake”. In this fashion, the way is made for God’s reign on earth!
I.
This God is not docile and not quaint, this God is bold, and on this day we are asked to stay awake to his dreams coming in fullness and our actions in response to this coming should be no less robust.

Advent is hoping for and preparing for the fullness of the vision Jesus embodied and proclaimed to pronounce good news to the poor, glad tidings, sight the blind, healing for the lame. This Vision is what we hope for in its fullness and it is a robust proclamation for “kingdoms” and ways of being that must fall so that the just may rise.

We begin the advent journey together that will surely land us as witnesses to god’s dream enfleshed in the person of Jesus. It will be the vision lived in that flesh that we are to be alert to, awake to, boldly respond to.

Henri Nouen challenges us to live into this vision in the simplest but boldest of ways:

“Everytime we forgive our neighbor, everytime we make a child smile, everytime we show compassion to a suffering person, everytime we arrange a bouquet of flowers, offer care to a tame or wild animal, prevent pollution, create beauty in our homes and gardens, and work for justice and peace among people’s and nations- we are making the vision come true.
By the way, I believe she showed up!