Fish Stories

Jonah 3:1-5, 10; Mark 1:14-20
January 25, 2009
We had a houseful last weekend. More than 25 people dropped in at some point over the weekend, and eight of them spent at least one night somewhere in our house.
It was great fun; a non-stop party from Sunday into Wednesday, and by Wednesday morning we were tired. But we still had three extra kids; young adults, actually, 22, 23, 24 years old, whom we’ve gotten to know through my summer work down at Camp Hanover. There they were, just hanging out in our living room chatting. Eventually, we went out to lunch and got them on the road back down I-95 sometime close to 2:00.
Cheryl and I were laughing together in a bemused bewilderment that these three great young adults would choose to hang out with a couple of old fogeys for way longer than good manners required, and wondering just what was up with that.
Then I read again our passage from Mark, “follow me, and I will make you fish for people.”
And it struck me quite powerfully that such fishing is at once incredibly complicated but also remarkably simple. People, unlike fish, want to be reached out to. People want to be drawn into a net of care and concern. People want to be caught by something bigger than they are. And, well, people want Barackalate Chip cookies.
The kids who were staying with us over the weekend are just like thousands upon thousands of young adults in this culture: they want to be reached out to, drawn in, and caught up in something bigger than they are.
But they don’t want to be trophies hung on the wall of an old sports club.
Enough with that metaphor! They don’t want to hang out in a church that does not speak to their lives, and that feels like their father’s Oldsmobile. Neither do I. Neither, I suspect, do any of you. They don’t want to gather with judgmental people who don’t accept their friends, and they’re not interested in religious leaders pushing old dogmas. Neither am I.
I suspect our young friends – two of whom are wrestling with their own sense of call into ministry – see in me a model of ministry that is not like so many others they’ve encountered, and maybe they find it compelling, or, at least curious.
Why am I sharing this?
It’s not to toot my own horn, but rather to invite you to toot yours. Back to the fishing metaphor: it’s not to show off the fish I snagged or to tell you a whopper about the one that got away, but rather to encourage you to go fish.
People want to be reached out to; people want to be drawn into a net of care and concern; people want to be caught up in something bigger than they are, especially during difficult times.
I love these Biblical fishing stories because I can so easily find myself in them. Jonah? I understand him well. I know what if feels like to be called somewhere you don’t want to go, and I know some fine strategies for avoidance, too – although none quite so creative as spending three days in the belly of a great fish.
And, then, when you finally do relent and heed the call? I know just what it feels like to be disappointed in the results, and to pout when God’s notion of outcomes does not match up to my own.
That is the great, and frankly hysterical result in the tale of Jonah: he preaches repentance, the people repent, God forgives, and Jonah is ticked off because there are no fireworks, nobody going to hell! Imagine that. God extends grace and mercy, but the religious leadership gets upset because that grace is extended to people they don’t approve of!
On the other hand, imagine taking that message of grace into the world of Ninevah while Jonah is sitting by the side of the road pouting. Do you think those people might be open to hearing a word of grace?
We have just such an opportunity in the progressive church these days. For a generation, the religious loud have voiced a message of intolerance in the name of a narrow reading of scripture.
But increasingly, even in some evangelical circles, God’s constant voice of love and mercy is resounding. Among the folks crashing at our house last weekend was a young man, Andy Marin, who spoke at the Olive Branch Interfaith Peace Partnership event at All Souls church.
Andy is writing a book called Love Is An Orientation and it comes out of his own experience of growing up as a self-described Bible-thumping, gay-bashing evangelical whose three closest friends in high school all turned out to be gay. When he prayed to God in lament, asking why his three best friends were gay, God answered saying, “Andy, you’re asking the wrong question. You should be asking, how do you think your friends feel when their closest friend condemns them because of who they are?”
From that prayerful passage, Andy began a two-way ministry of outreach and reconciliation between young gay, lesbian, transgendered and bisexual women and men and the evangelical wing of Christianity.
Andy just might be a contemporary Jonah, except that he is not pouting at the discovery that God’s love and mercy and grace are extended to the marginalized, oppressed and excluded. He repented – turned – from fear and loathing toward mercy and loving. Do you think there might just be people out there these days open to hearing such a message? And we don’t have to do nearly so much translating of our own recent history as do our evangelical sisters and brothers, for we have a story of love and mercy and grace extended right here for many, many years. Do you think there might just be people open to hearing such a message?
People, unlike fish, want to be reached out to. People want to be drawn into a net of care and concern. People want to be caught by something bigger than they are.
We are called to go fish.
Of course, fishing is not always easy, and Jesus’ invitation in Mark suggests some of the difficulties that would-be fishers of people will encounter. To begin with, the enigmatic phrase, “fishers of people,” has some challenging Biblical overtones that Jesus’ listeners would have heard. Both Amos and Ezekiel employ the term “hooking fish” in speaking a word of judgment against the wealthy and powerful. Amos says this to “those who oppress the poor, who crush the needy”: “The time is surely coming upon you,
when they shall take you away with hooks, even the last of you with fish-hooks” (Amos 4:1-2).
Over at All Souls Church where Andy told his own fishing story last Monday, I noticed a plaque on the wall dedicated to the Rev. James Reeb. Reeb was an associate pastor at All Souls when, in 1965, he answered the call to join the outcasts of Selma, Alabama, as they marched to Montgomery to demand the right to vote. On March 9, Reeb and two other ministers were beaten. Reeb died two days later from the injuries he suffered.
No, the call to fish for people is not simply a matter of inviting the outcast, the lonesome and the searching to come to church. It is a call to join the outcast, the poor and the oppressed in their struggle for justice, as well.
It is also a call to us to repent. Jesus called to fisherman who had businesses, and to follow him they had to repent of working merely for their own security in order to cast their nets more broadly and work, instead, for the salvation of all.
In the end, it does come down to salvation and how broadly the net of salvation will be cast.
I know that we in the progressive church often have difficulty with the language of salvation and its undercurrent of “who’s in and who’s out,” “are you saved,” and “who’s your savior.”
Set that discomfort aside for a moment and ask yourself, do you find in this place a sense of wholeness, of healing, of well-being, of communion with God and community with one another? Do you find in this community some deeper trust in something larger than yourself? Do you find here a clearer sense of who you are? Do you find, in the stories of Jesus that we share here, a clearer sense of the way of God?
I know that I do. Sisters and brothers, this is salvation as scripture describes it. It is living into the kingdom of God – not fully and completely, to be sure, but one step at a time, day by day, as we draw nearer to God and to one another in our effort to follow Jesus.
Wholeness, healing, well-being, communion with God and community with one another. Deeper trust in something larger than ourselves. A clearer sense of who you are. A clearer sense of the way of God.
Don’t you think that other folks long for such experiences, especially these days? Might such experiences have something essential to do, also, with building a community of love and justice in the midst of a society rent by economic upheaval and injustice?
We have such incredible good news to share in this place: that in a time of economic insecurity we dwell in an economy of gracious abundance; that in a time of global unrest we rest in the loving arms of God; that in a time of widespread fearfulness we know ourselves to be loved.
The world aches to hear such news.
People, unlike fish, want to be reached out to. People want to be drawn into a net of care and concern. People want to be caught by something bigger than they are.
We are called to go fish. Let us go fish. Amen.

Inaugurating Hope

1 Samuel 3:1-20
January 18, 2009
I’m gonna sit at the welcome table. Hallelujah! I’m gonna sit at the welcome table one of these days. Hallelujah. I’m gonna sit at the welcome table; I’m gonna sit at the welcome table one of these days. One of these days.
In just a few hours, down on the Mall, Bishop Gene Robinson is going to stand close to the spot where, 45 years ago, Martin Luther King, Jr. gave voice to a dream that ended in a song of hope: Free at last, free at last.
Every January I get out my King tapes and listen to one or two of his speeches. Last week, I listened again to the “Dream” speech and marveled at its prophetic beauty and its call to sing out in hope. But let’s be honest, not even Martin Luther King had the audacity to dream of a day when a partnered gay bishop would open the celebration of the inauguration of an African-American president.
That it should happen well within the lifetimes of many who heard him speak in August, 1963, would, I believe, have shocked King right beyond singing.
So let’s take a moment and give thanks that we have come this far on the way. For though we have not reached that day when every valley shall be exalted and every mountain brought low, when the crooked places have been made straight and the glory of the Lord seen by all flesh together, as King recalled from Isaiah’s words, we have come a long, long way in the past half century.
Now that we are on the eve of inaugurating a new president, well past elections and risks to tax-exempt status, I can confess what some of you just might have suspected along the line: I was an Obama supporter.
As we’ve gotten closer to this historic weekend, I’ve tried to think back to when I first decided to back the man. While I’d like to say I began supporting him when he first entered the race, I think I really fell for him the night of the Iowa caucuses when he and his family took the stage and simply looked so wonderfully presidential.
Why look back at this now, and confess it in such fawning language?
Listen for a word from God in a second reading from 1 Samuel. This one comes when Samuel has grown to be a man, and is charged by God to anoint a future king.
8Then Jesse called Abinadab, and made him pass before Samuel. He said, ‘Neither has the Lord chosen this one.’ 9Then Jesse made Shammah pass by. And he said, ‘Neither has the Lord chosen this one.’ 10Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel, and Samuel said to Jesse, ‘The Lord has not chosen any of these.’ 11Samuel said to Jesse, ‘Are all your sons here?’ And he said, ‘There remains yet the youngest, but he is keeping the sheep.’ And Samuel said to Jesse, ‘Send and bring him; for we will not sit down until he comes here.’ 12He sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, and had beautiful eyes, and was handsome. The Lord said, ‘Rise and anoint him; for this is the one.’ Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the presence of his brothers; and the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward.
The word of the Lord. The word of a sovereign God who has just fallen head-over-heels in love with David, smitten by the ruddy-cheeked, handsome lad with the beautiful eyes.
I know just how God felt: falling for an emerging young leader who looks the part. I think that a whole lot of Americans – the sovereign public – has shared that experience over the past year.
This is, by no means, a criticism or a political comment or a lament or a love song – merely an observation. But it is an observation with implications for the church, and, in particular, for the progressive church.
For while we all hope that the new president will be wise and effective, and that future generations might look back and say that in the early days of the 21st century the country wisely chose a young leader upon whom the spirit of the Lord, the spirit of wisdom and compassion, looked mightily from that day forward – while Americans of all political persuasions hope that might come to pass, we also know that the plans of princes and of mortals are as fleeting as breath, as Psalm 146 reminds us.
In other words, we know that there is a great distance between our hopes and the present reality, and that distance cannot be bridged by any one leader, no matter how gifted, ruddy-cheeked or handsome he or she may be.
Indeed, consider the two passages we’ve read together. In the first story, Samuel is called to level a word against his mentor, Eli, whose family has sacrificed its moral authority and failed to exercise power for the good of the people. Samuel’s difficulty in discerning God’s call may well have lain precisely in his understanding of Eli’s failure and the daunting task that awaited one who would name it as such.
In the second story, Samuel is called to anoint the future king. David’s inauguration, as it were, is full of hope. But the arc of the Eli, Samuel, David story does not end with inauguration. Instead, the narrative continues into the life of another prophet, Nathan, to whom it falls to hold King David accountable for his behavior when the king sleeps with Bathsheba and has her husband sent off to die in battle.
Just as God calls forth political leaders, God also calls forth prophets to hold those leaders accountable when they sacrifice the essential values that qualify them to lead in the first place. Samuel was called to tell Eli that he and his household had strayed from the paths of righteousness. Nathan was called to tell David that he had abused his power and his office.
It is way too soon to suggest anything about the incoming administration other than this: there will come a time when it makes compromises and mistakes.
The progressive church, especially during the administration of a progressive president, is both well-suited and particularly called to that age-old prophetic role of holding the leader accountable to the better angels of his nature, and to the core values that have made him such an attractive leader to begin with.
But the prophetic role is not merely that of critic. We are not the ones charged simply with complaining about the plumbing, but rather the ones charged with calling for justice to roll down like a mighty water. We are not called to complain about the flatness of the bread, but rather to be its leaven. We are not called to note the darkness and be bitter, but rather to be a light in the darkness.
In other words, we are called to give voice to a vision of hope, and to call power to bear upon that vision.
We are not called to complain about the leader’s lack of vision; we are called to provide the vision for where there is no vision the people perish.
It does not take great vision these days to see that we face huge challenges – challenges that strike at the core of the vision of the beloved community that Dr. King cast so many years ago. When we go down to AFAC tomorrow to bag groceries it is because we know that there are hungry people here in Arlington whose numbers increase daily in the present economic circumstance. When we go to the Olive Branch Interfaith Peace Partners witness tomorrow evening, it is because we recognize that God’s shalom is being broken by our nation’s wars. When we stand up for marriage equality on Valentine’s Day, it is because we know that we are still far from that day when all God’s children truly have a place at the welcome table of our nation.
Hunger. Inequality. Warfare. They tear at the fabric of our society and stand as an affront to our God. But God will not be mocked.
When Martin Luther King told the nation about his dream, he spoke of the “fierce urgency of now.” President-elect Obama often used that phrase during his campaign. Dr. King spoke of it in explaining why a people long denied their freedom and equality could not wait any longer for the nation to rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed, “that all men are created equal.” He spoke of speeding up that day when freedom would ring out across the land, and concluded for posterity that “when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:
Free at last! Free at last!
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”
Now, with that same fierce urgency, we are called to give voice to a similar demand that the circle be widened such that, were King to be speaking this afternoon at the Lincoln Memorial, he would urge us to speed up that day when black men and women and white men and women and men and women of every race and color, join with Jews and Gentiles, Protestant and Catholics, Muslims and Sikhs, Hindus and humanists, Palestinians and Israelis, Arabs and Americans, straights and gays, rich and poor, can join hands and unite in the common bonds of our humanity, and sing together a new song of hope.
That is the continuing and animating vision of the progressive church. The prophet Joel promised that there would come a day when God
… will pour out my spirit on all flesh;
your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
your old men shall dream dreams,
and your young men shall see visions.
Even on the male and female slaves,
in those days, I will pour out my spirit (Joel 2:28-29).
That day is today.
That moment is now, with its fierce urgency of economic turmoil and global unrest. Followers of Jesus are called in every time to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with God.
This remains our calling. To live into it requires us to step out in faith, and to engage the powers that be. The stories from Samuel that we’ve read together this morning serve as reminders of the difficulties of that relationship and the traps and stumbling blocks inherent in the dance between power and the prophetic call to justice.
But we have a great gift to offer to the present moment that responds directly to that difficulty: the gift of love. For what else is our ultimate calling as follower of Jesus than to offer to the world our love? Dr. King understood well the difficult weave of power, justice and love. As he said toward the end of his life, “What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.”
Followers of Jesus in every moment are called to exercise just such power as we work to do justice, to make peace, to welcome the stranger and care for the least of these our sisters and brothers, to bind up the broken, to comfort the brokenhearted and to love one another always.
This remains our calling, and our circumstance demands renewed vigor and focus such that we recognize in this moment the kairos time of God’s hope, that we give that hope voice and substance, and that, hearts filled with God’s hope, we lift every voice and sing:
Lift every voice and sing,
'Til earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on 'til victory is won.
May it be so, for all of us. Amen.

Standing at the Edge

January 11, 2009
I was going to write a nice reflection on call, spirit, being on the verge of responding, standing at the water’s edge, in keeping with the water theme this morning. It was going to be full of bad water puns; English is flooded with them and there was a rising tide just waiting to burst through the dam of my imagination … but, enough.
Instead, let me offer just a couple of thoughts arising from scripture, and then close with a song.
First point: remember that scripture is full of images of the water’s edge, and the decision suspended in that liminal space where the water meets the land. Think of Moses’ mother, holding a basket in her hands, standing at the edge, wondering if she is doing the right thing, and what will become of her child. Or, years later, that same Moses, standing at the edge of the ocean wondering, “what now?” Having led a stiff-necked people out of Egypt, now they stand at the edge, not knowing how they’re going to get across. Or Jesus, standing at the edge of the river, looking out at that crazy John the Baptist and not knowing where this will lead, and wondering, “what am I getting myself into?”
Have you ever felt that way? Standing at the edge, pondering a decision, not know how it is going to turn out?
Second point: our lives are scripture. They testify to our faithfulness and our struggles. Take a moment, and turn to the folks around you, and share that experience of standing at the edge.

We are standing at our own edge, as a congregation. Session spent yesterday together in a planning retreat, and we talked about the energy and excitement that we have felt in this place during the past year. We feel – and I know from many conversations – that many of you feel as well that we are standing at the edge.
The good news is, as the scriptures that we read and as so often the stories of our own lives testify, we are not at the precipice overlooking nothing all alone about to plunge. No, we stand at the edge of a future that God is calling us into, upheld by that same spirit that descended as a dove over the waters of Jesus’ baptism, promising that we are loved, that we are not alone, and that no matter what the future holds, God is with us.
As I thought about the images and ideas that press in upon us when we combine ordination with the Sunday on which we recall Jesus’ baptism – his own ordination, God’s claiming Jesus for the call that was before him – I realized that my good friend, Noah Budin, had already written this sermon and managed to put it into a song.
So, here’s Edge of the Ocean:
Are we standing at the edge of the ocean
Just to keep our feet upon the land?
Are we holding tight to our devotion
In our grip or is it slipping through our hands?
Have we been brought to the edge never to have crossed?
Had we entered the desert never having gotten lost,
Would we still fight for freedom no matter what the cost

El Emenah, Hineini, I am ready
I know not what may lie ahead upon the road
But I am ready

Have we scaled the slope of the mountain
Just to marvel at its size?
What if he did choose another way around,
Then would our lives have been realized?
What if he’d not taken those first steps from his land?
And what if he’d not followed, scared to heed the command?
Had they not been so willing, might they not have seen the ram?

Does our fate hang suspended in the air,
Like the hand that held the knife?
Is it enough just to say that we were there?
Or to live a righteous life?

We have crossed the sea and barren sands of the desert
And we’ve seen the mountain top.
And we’ve marched the streets of Selma, Alabama
Have we walked those many miles just to stop?

Can we drop our swords and lay our hands upon the earth
And feel the restless waters meet the river at its birth?

He could not find one righteous man, but should we stop the search?
c. Noah Budin, 2008.

The Hebrew – El emanah, hineini – translates roughly as “God of faithfulness, here I am.” Here I am, Lord, standing at the edge, listening for your calling, ready. Here I am; I am ready. Amen.

My Left Foot

Sirach 24:1-12; Wisdom of Solomon 10:15-21
January 4, 2009
You’ve all heard variations on this joke: What would have happened if it had been three Wise Women instead of three Wise Men?
They would have asked directions, arrived on time, helped deliver the baby, cleaned the stable, made a casserole, and brought practical gifts.
A version of it graces the last page of this month’s newsletter. It’s an oldie but a goodie, and it’s appropriate to this Sunday just prior to Epiphany.
But it makes me wonder – not what would have happened if the wise men had been wise women – but what would have happened if I had been called to be a wise man.
Would I have had the patience to look for a star? The curiosity to wonder about it? The wisdom to follow its call? The courage to defy Herod? The persistence to travel from afar? The piety to worship? Would I have paid attention when Wisdom became “a starry flame through the night”?
The challenge of the Christmas story lies in the fact that these questions – and a host of other similarly challenging ones – are not reserved for misty memories, but instead press in on us right now, in this moment, in our lives.
Why? The readings this morning tell us.
As Michaela Bruzzese reflects in Sojourners this month, these readings from the wisdom tradition, taken along with the gospel reading from John – the word became flesh and dwelled among us – “feature God’s presence as Wisdom and word-become-flesh: Jesus.”
The wisdom tradition, with its feminine image of the divine Sophia, is both a long-standing voice in Israel’s history and also the reminder that God is deeply concerned with this moment, with the here and now and not just with that ancient and not so ancient history. Bruzzese cites Elizabeth Johnson’s reminder that “Unlike the historical and prophetic books, the wisdom tradition is interested not only in God’s mighty deeds in history but in everyday life with the give and take of its relationships.”
Wisdom is the wise woman who brings the practical gifts, and her divine presence, just as in Jesus’ life and teaching, calls us to deeper concern with the place of that life and those teachings in our own day-to-day.
Over the past couple of weeks – with perhaps a heightened awareness – most of our day-to-days have involved the exchange of stuff. That is to say, most of us have bought, and some of us have sold, and many of us have given and most of us have received various and sundry things. And every exchange, and every thing has a history and involves us in various relationships.
And Wisdom demands of us an accounting. What are these stories? What are these relationships? Where is God in the midst of the buying, selling, giving and receiving that marks not only Christmas, but literally every day of our lives?
These questions came home to me in the most mundane way just after Christmas when I went to buy a new pair of running shoes.
As I was checking the size tags on each of the shoes, I noticed happily that the left shoe was made in the U.S.A. I felt good about that knowing that the workers were probably reasonably well paid and treated decently. Then I checked the right shoe to make sure is was the same size. It was; but I also noticed that it was made in China.
One pair of shoes, bought in a store in Falls Church. One of the shoes made in one of six U.S. factories, the other somewhere in China. Welcome to the global economy.
And, welcome to the challenge of trying to bring the deepest values of our faith into the daily transactions of our lives. What are the stories of the workers who made my shoes? How am I drawn into relationship with them? What would it mean to live in right relationship with them?
Literally every step I take implicates me in this relationship.
If I am going to say of myself that I walk with Jesus, that I am trying to follow the way of Jesus, a way of right relationship of compassion and solidarity with the least of these my sisters and brothers, what of my left shoe? What of my right one?
One of the other things that came into our household this Christmas season was the DVD of Chariots of Fire. My favorite scene in that wonderful film about runners, comes when Eric Liddell, a devout Scottish missionary is confronted by his sister, who is concerned that Eric’s running is distracting him from his calling to serve God in the mission field.
Eric acknowledges his divine calling, but reminds his sister that God “also made me fast. And when I run, I can feel his pleasure.”
I love that line, because it reminds me that God does call us all into various ministries, to various types of service to the kingdom of God, to various ways of following Jesus in our daily lives. But at the same time, God delights in our play, in our joy.
It struck me, as I went for my first run in my new pair of New Balance shoes, that maintaining our balance may just be the biggest challenge we face in trying to live faithful lives, and that our efforts to do so – more or less successful, more or less compromised, more or less consistent as they may be – our efforts to do so bring God pleasure. That is enough for the day.
Amen.

The Morning After

December 28, 2008(Mary Brennan Thorpe)
“And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth.”
In a few days, on January 2nd, my son Christopher will turn 25. A momentous birthday! And even though it has been a quarter of a century, I remember the moment of his birth as if it was yesterday. I remember the twenty hours of labor and a difficult delivery, I can see him, wiggling in the doctor’s hands, and looking at me and his father with the same skepticism and challenge that is still in his face, 25 years later. And I can remember the joy that filled my heart to bursting, the tears in our eyes, his father’s momentary weak knees, the bliss of the moment, as if it was yesterday. It was a gift, one that remains with me in my memory and in Christopher’s presence still.
After his birth, exhausted and happy, I fell asleep, dreaming of all the possibilities that awaited my little newborn son in the years ahead.
A few hours later, I woke up. The morning light streamed through the window. It couldn’t be possible that it was time for me to wake up – I was still so very tired – but the nurse was bringing Christopher in for feeding. There I lay, sweaty and lumpy and swollen. Parts of my body that I hadn’t even known about before hurt. A lot. My head ached from the spinal block I had been given. As the nurse gave me the baby, and as that baby latched on for his first feeding, I realized that the blissful dream that had filled my head just a few hours before was being obliterated, replaced by the reality of this child, attached like a leech to a tender portion of my anatomy. It dawned on me that this was the start of decades of him being attached to me either figuratively or literally. Oh, my. What had I gotten myself into?
Don’t get me wrong. I desperately wanted and loved this child, but the reality of motherhood suddenly was a whole different thing from my fantasy of motherhood.
There is that moment when we wake up…the morning after the night before. The pleasure of that night-time celebration is replaced by the prickly fact of the next morning, and the work that awaits us.
Those of you with little children may know that morning-after feeling all too well. You may have gone to a lovely Christmas Eve service, put the children to bed as they dreamed of Santa Claus, and were shocked by that five a.m. wake up call. “Mommy! Daddy! Santa came!” You dragged yourself out of bed – you had been up until one a.m. assembling the new bike – and went downstairs, as the children tore through the gifts under the tree. In what seemed like forty-eight seconds, every gift was unwrapped, the children had already had one fight over who got to play with the new game system first, the living room was a shambles of torn wrapping paper and ribbons, and a long day was ahead. There was work to be done. Not just the clean-up of the detritus of the gift-opening, but perhaps a meal for extended family to be cooked, or a long drive to another relative’s house. Before anything else, though, you needed to start the coffee and cook breakfast.
It’s the morning after the night before, and there is work to be done.
For those of you without children, it might be a slightly different story. Perhaps you’re planning a New Year’s Eve party, elegant, with great wine or champagne, delicious food, exquisite decorations, laughter, music…and you will wake on New Years morning with a sour stomach and a headache, knowing when you go downstairs there will be dirty glasses in the sink and the sour smell of the trash you really should have put in the garbage can before you went to bed….a morning of clean-up, perhaps a call to a friend to apologize since you inadvertently offended him with your silly teasing the night before. Work to be done, the morning after the night before.
Once we’ve unwrapped the gifts, once we’ve thrown the party, there is work to be done.
So, too it is with this gospel of John that we are hearing this morning. The remarkable thing about the Gospel of John is that, unlike the other three gospels, John gives us a synopsis of the whole story in just a few verses right at the beginning of the tale. It’s worth repeating:
He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth.
Talk about the Cliff’s Notes version of the entire story of our Lord! Jesus Christ, one with the Father Creator, who came to earth….and those who should have recognized him, the great gift of the incarnate God, did not know him. But some did recognize him, and those who did became the adopted children of God.
This extraordinary Christmas gift, this God made man who lived among us, this incomparable joy. How could anyone not accept him?
Perhaps it’s like the Christmas gift we receive that’s so precious that we put it up on a shelf, for fear we will break it. Or that we want to save for a special occasion – I’m thinking here of the discovery that I made after my mother’s death, when I was cleaning out her home to prepare it for sale, and saw a number of gifts I had given her, beautiful soft nightgowns, silk scarves, lambskin gloves, still wrapped in the tissue paper from the gift box, saved for “good” as she would have said. It saddened me that she never got to truly enjoy those gifts as I had intended when I gave them to her. It felt, in that moment, like a waste of a good gift, even though I knew she appreciated the gift, to keep it wrapped up in tissue paper in a drawer, rather than to feel that whispery silk around one’s shoulders, that soft lambskin on one’s hands.
No, we believe that gifts demand their use, demand a response. When the little girl opens the beautiful American Girl doll under the tree, we say, “Let’s call Grandma and say thank you for that pretty doll.” When the little girl’s cousin comes over for Christmas dinner, we say, “Why don’t you and Hannah play with your new doll and your other things? You know how to share.” And when the little girl grows older, you and she decide another little girl, perhaps not so fortunate, would love to have a doll like this, loved and cared for by one girl, then passed along to another, and you donate it to a charity that will find a good home for this precious gift.
Gifts demand a response, and that is the overarching message of these few verses from the Gospel of John. On Christmas, we received a marvelous gift, Jesus come among us, to perfect our relationship with God by perfecting our relationship with each other. Jesus is a gift who demands to be used daily, vigorously, with the same passion and love with which he was given to us. It is the morning after the night before, and we have work to do with this great gift we have received.
We have a choice. We can be blinded by the brilliance of this gift, intimidated by it, misunderstanding its demand, and so we wrap it in tissue paper and tuck it away in the drawer, forgotten, unused. We can hoard it, not sharing it with others who would benefit from its wondrous light and warmth. Or we can put it to use, in so many ways. We can let the light of the newborn Christ suffuse our hearts and souls, and let the warmth of that light translate into good works, to being Christ’s hands and feet in this hungry and troubled world. We can tell those who do not know the story why that light shines within us, so they too can share the gift, and pass it on.
Gifts demand a response. Gifts should not be ignored. That dishonors the giver as well as the gift. The morning after, having said our great “thank-yous,” we have work to do.
So what will your response be? Will you carry the message of our gift, our newborn Lord and Savior, into the world? Will you share that light, that message, those works that affirm the joy we feel in knowing Christ? Or will you be among those who, in denying the insistent song of the gift, turn away from the adoption that gives us new life?
We have a choice. What will yours be?

Amen.