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Immediately
when I started looking into this Sunday's texts, the Holy Spirit sent me two
things. First, it sent me that great old 1960’s song by the Youngbloods, ‘Get Together.’
If anybody remembers that song, in some senses, it has beautiful, innocent
words about what it means to live into the Gospel, what it means to love
neighbor and to put on the New Nature. I also, at the same moment, thought of
The Blues Brothers scene where James Brown’s figure who's playing the minister,
is shouting out to the congregation and John Belushi's in the background, he
asks: have you seen the light?! Then he asked the congregation again and then
again. And if anyone remembers that funny movie Belushi’s character starts
cussing and he says yes! He does his cartwheels and joins in dancing with the
rest of the church.
The time of Christmas is the time to
realize and renew that story of God coming down to be with us, through the
flesh. God incarnates and is born to an ordinary person, Mary. He comes into
our world in order to save it, as I said, in more ways than one. In more ways
than one, are we ever in an age that needs saving. Those are not really
encouraging or hope-filled words, but currently we are in an age of not feeling
much hope with where the world is turning how we're treating one another and
where things are moving. We made our
world hinge upon the wheels of money making it go around.
The beautiful gospel we have today
is sort of one of those “day-in-the-Life” scenes that only Luke presents from
Jesus's childhood. Today’s Gospel is the scene where Jesus is formally getting circumcised
and going through the rites and rituals of the Jewish faith. There's always
going to be issues with what we do to express ourselves with faith. Piety
carries us into ourselves, whereas faith carries us beyond ourselves. Christ
challenges us always to live beyond ourselves. St. Paul saw this as divesting
the self of the Old Nature, those old clothes of the self, and putting on the New
Nature. The wonderful commentary from Barclay said you must: “let the peace of
God be the umpire in your heart.” I knew of a pastor who loved using sports’
trivia in nearly all of his messages.
I’m sure he’d just love the thought—“Let the peace of God be the umpire
in your heart.”
There's been a battle going on in my
heart and the umpire’s been pretty busy. But then that's what happens when you
live through a lot of valleys and go over a lot of mountain tops. Sometimes as
well, you are on the mountain top and find a cliff over a chasm... Simeon and
Anna had lived very long and full lives. They were both old people. They were
old people of a great faith that had wavering hope. Wavering hope… you can see this as a healthy skepticism or
an unhealthy cynicism. I don’t think
they experienced that, but this is how we balance our spirits when we are on
this journey. It wasn't until they literally saw and held the infant Christ
that they saw the light. They had that revelation and understood that their
efforts of service were never in vain but that they saw salvation, redemption
enabling them to become New.
The Old Testament lesson today is
really footnoting to the rituals that were important for the Israelites. This
was not only in remembering how God brought them out of Egypt but that they
needed to realize, sacrifice in order to continue to be renewed by God's saving
actions to preserve the remnant. Sacrifice is a funny thing, when you take it
too literally it becomes law. It becomes an image that doesn't necessarily
exemplify what it should mean for us to spiritually grow, be renewed from. I
never forgot a couple of years, back when I went with my cousin to one of her
Roman Catholic churches to see a larger than life crucifix with a bloodied and
tortured Christ. This rendering of Christ was in the form of a very
realistically painted sculpture upon the cross. I started thinking to myself,
since we were right there, in the first pew very near to this cross… if he
comes off of it, I am out of here! If I see any blood starting to drip, I am
out of there! It is a moment of time frozen, but it is missing the story of its
completion with the triumph of the Cross. The triumph of the Cross, which we
will begin to understand when we move forward into this Greatest Story Ever
Told, is the Resurrection. You can't freeze time, however. Time most unrelentingly moves forward. You
can have moments of time that are frozen remnants of your former life, however.
They can either remind you of death or they can remind you of the Chrysalis
shell that you broke free from at one point in time or another in your life.
Simeon and Anna needed to realize
the freedom of the Word, the freedom of the Gospel and it was in seeing the
Christ child. Through seeing the Christ
child, they had a glimpse, revelation of the Messiah and their Hope was
renewed. Some people like to challenge Christians by saying that we are fools
for being or relying upon hope. The scandal of both a God who came down to us
and became our crucified Lord. Hope could be an empty promise, if the heart is
not fully turning to God for healing and forgiveness. This past week, the Grace
Hub only had the Blue Christmas service, on the eve before Christmas Eve to
encourage people to see that page-turning and to see beyond themselves into the
revelation and hope that Christ is for us what He has done and how He is always
with us. One of the songs we sang
alongside a few Taize songs was Noel Nouvelet.
It is a beautiful French Christmas carol that uses the same music of the
hymn, ‘Now the Green Blade Rises.’ ‘Now the Green Blade Rises,’ is an Easter
hymn. It is an interesting coincidence
if you ask me. The French carol sings
the joy of Christ coming into our world whereas the other speaks of love is
come again like wheat arising green. Both talk about rising…
Paul's beautiful letter always goes
to the spiritual head of what we should think about and be encouraged about.
Clothing ourselves in the beautiful things that are a part of that New life
through Christ. Jesus Beatitudes highlight these virtues Of Hope that we find
ourselves at time challenged and striving for. We need to clothe ourselves with
compassion and kindness humility and meekness and patience we should be bearing
one another not “tolerating” one another but accepting each other, forgiving each other especially the self. We
need to be like those flower children in the Youngbloods’ song. For we need to
get together, and we need love one another right now, not later. Luke,
the Gospel writer was truly someone who understood the Holy Spirit's work for
his Book of Acts is nothing but talking about the Holy Spirit's journey through
the disciples. We are Guided by the Spirit sometimes it's not the Holy Spirit,
but it is of the Evil One shading our hearts with doubt and speaking through
other people to pierce the soul. Not necessarily something for the better, but
something to make us feel death.
We will all die an earthly death,
but a spiritual death is something that will challenge you to your core. I once knew of someone who experienced a
spiritual death but did not rise like the Phoenix from the ashes. Sam was a promising young man when he first
started off on his own from his adopted family in the early 1980’s. He went to junior college and then went off
to move into the far northside of Chicago.
He was a pioneer into what would become the mean streets of the
Northside. The family he left were
independently wealthy and had children of their own. The eldest son became a stockholder and the
youngest became a lawyer. No one
however, guided Sam. After junior
college, he found himself draw between two worlds. The first world being his desire to become a
musician and the other, to survive the world through selling eyeglasses. He soon became a bar fixture at the Blue Moon
Bar late afternoons and a cocaine addict by night. No one could reach out to him for he was lost
and, in some ways, didn’t want to be found.
During this time, he started to drift into the local poetry slams that
were going on at all times of the night.
The hours disappeared alongside his faith in anything ever
changing. The last memories I have of
him was hearing his tragic poetry and somber guitar playing. The following year, he was found dead in his
apartment due to a drug overdose. Sam
never made it out of his valley.
The world we live in can truly
become an ugly place. It could be a distant place where people aren't listening
to one another anymore. Where the
hurting and suffering ones, fall between the cracks. We rely so much on
technology to answer things for us, to speak for us and to even interview
people. We can't even make the effort or have the energy to speak to people in
person but rely on machines to sort and define who we think people are. These
are barriers, barriers that are “old clothes” that are more than ragged and
dog-eared. These are clothes that barely cover us, that barely console us that
do not make us whole. Simeon proclaimed a revelation and insight, a
prophecy to what Jesus would become for us. Christ Jesus would become for us the
falling and rising of the battles we would face as human beings both an actual war
and one within ourselves as well.
St Paul saw that spiritual battle
that we need to pull the reins in upon. And in regard to his journey of
preaching to many Gentile churches, he was battling the heresy of Gnosticism
where they challenged the fully human and the fully divine nature of Christ and
what he is to mean for us. It's not always just remembering, ‘The Greatest
Story Ever Told’ and learning new things from each and every time we hear it,
but it is realizing what a saving grace truly is. This saving grace is how
Christ dwells among us, God with us. It is His Holy Spirit who leads us to clothe
ourselves with the virtues of the New Nature. The New Nature is planted within
us just like Christ was planted into our world through the Theotokos, the God
bearer— Mary the Mother of Our Lord. God with us, God growing among us— The
Story begins!
The Greatest Story Ever Told is one
that we need to live. We need the restorative Word of God to live within us in
order to be disciples. To be disciples
that become strong and filled with wisdom that only God can give our hearts
through faith. Let the Peace of Christ rule in your hearts. I wish Sam would
have found that peace… Do we let ourselves feel that reign as Christ ruling our
hearts? Do we realize this when we are in the midst of the rising and falling
due to war, due to transition that we are struggling with? Do we allow God to
be the umpire bearing peace and Good News to make us whole once again?
It does take us to be retrospective
about how our lives have moved forward. We should never cover up the past as
well as we should never delete the past. We need to look at how the world has
turned in our lives in order to not have the world revolve around us but see
beyond ourselves. Even when we are in
the darkest valley, we need to see beyond ourselves in order to begin reaping
that New Nature, letting that New Life clothes us with the reality of Grace in,
with and through us. Sam never had any
peace within his heart, his family let him fall through the cracks.
Sometimes the foolish have the greatest advice. Disciples are fools for Christ in
a growing Godless world that the challenges us to our breaking point. What we
must sacrifice is sometimes too great for our spirits to handle. What we expect
from others is often cruel, not understanding and frankly not open to hear
where people are. We need to lift our lives to God in prayer. We need to live our lives in prayerful
service to others for a continual healing that helps us grow and develop that
wisdom.
Let us Pray,
Loving and Gracious Lord Jesus
We look to Your life coming into our
world, being in our world.
You became our greatest sacrifice
Taking with you all of our sins,
transgressions to that cross
We realize as we come together as Your
Body in the world
The love that we must clothe our
hearts with
That New Nature, we must fully
invest ourselves in.
Help us to Faithfully be Your
children of Grace and promise
In this new world that we must bring
forth
Amen
December 30th, 2018; 1st
Sunday of Christmas; Year C; SOLA Lectionary
Sermon by: Reverend Nicole A.M.
Collins
Psalm 111;
Exodus 13:1-4, 11-15; Colossians 3:12-17; Luke 2:22-40
The link below is to this sermon's delivery at the Grace Hub Church at 12:30pm
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