The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple

Would you like to see me struggle? Well here is a sermon I wrestled with. I think it works better as something you read rather than as something I preached. It is a little heavy on the incarnational theology, and a little light on the communicating clearly and well. 

Here are the readings for the Feast of the Presentation. 

            This morning our feast of the Presentation takes us back to Jesus as a baby. If you’ve been a regular church goer since Christmas, you’ve been with us on a journey from the birth scene in Bethlehem to Jesus’ baptism in the River Jordan, and last week he began calling disciples. This feast celebrates the moment in Jesus’ babyhood where his observant Jewish parents take him to the temple to be purified. Reflecting on this trip to the temple and the two righteous, devout and prophetic voices that Mary and Joseph hear there, I have been thinking a lot about what the incarnation means. Simeon and Anna’s commentary on the child expand on what Mary, Joseph and us have heard in Luke’s gospel from angels up until this point. Mary is told by the angel Gabriel: “He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David.” And the shepherd’s seem to get a similar message that they convey when they visit the manger. They hear from the angels: “to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.” The messianic and salvific aspects of Jesus are revealed early on.  Jesus is going to be great, and he is the Son of God.

All through Advent into Epiphany we are focused on what the incarnation is, and what it means to be incarnational people. Most of our understanding of the incarnation is that God sends God’s Son Jesus to be with us, to live and die as one of us as a sign of love. Maybe in considering his death on the cross, we are able to enhance our incarnation definition to connect it to salvation. But we tend to focus on the love aspect. It is a simple, true message that preachers tend to focus on. Especially when they are confronted with the big crowds around the time of Christmas. We tend to want to tell those big crowds the incarnation means a simple thing: love. But the opportunity we have this morning is to reflect more deeply on the incarnation at the behest of Simeon. A word of caution: I am not saying the incarnation is not about love but I do want to delve deeper into our understanding hoping to find some specificity about the nature of that love that God has for us and for all humanity reflected in incarnation. In order to do this deep delving, I want to spend some time looking closely at our passage from Luke this morning and examine three additional aspects of the incarnation.

Luke tells us that Simeon is righteous and devout, that the Holy Spirit guides him, and that before he dies he will see the messiah. When he encounters the baby, he says to God, “Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen salvation.” The connection of death to new life is important here, because it is the first instance of someone knowing that Jesus’ life changes what death means. Before Jesus dies for the sins of all humanity, his presence as God on earth already changes death. We see death changed later in the Gospels too, when a young girl is brought back to life, and when Lazarus is raised from the dead. The incarnation of Jesus allows Simeon’s death and connects his death to Jesus’ saving power. Incarnation changes life by having life be something that God enters into, and by changing life, it also changes death. There is a warning in Simeon’s welcome for death, which is that before he ever starts making his way towards Jerusalem much later in live, Jesus will die since he is living. The specter of Jesus’ death is raised along with the transformation of Simeon’s death.

The second aspect of incarnation presented in this interaction is that the incarnation itself opens up the relationship between Israel and their God. Simeon says Jesus is going to be revelation to the gentiles, but also bring glory to Israel. Jesus invites others into the promises made to Israel. The idea that God willingly taking on humanity is what makes the God of Israel relevant and available to all humanity is fascinating. It is as if through participating in human life, God is now open to all human life, and that openness means the promises once made to Abraham and all his future offspring apply to all. God the creator had been a particular God to a particular people, but the unity of humanity means that when Jesus takes human life, he makes God universal. In Paul’s letter to the Hebrews, we hear this same sentiment “Therefore Jesus had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect”—Jesus being human is too like everyone to possibly limit God to Israel any longer.

The third aspect of the incarnation has to do with the rather haunting thing Simeon says to Mary after he blesses them. Simeon says, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.” Whoa. That’s intense. What does it mean? Certainly it suggests that it is not an easy thing that the Messiah comes. We understand it will present challenges to rulers in the world. The child himself, his presence will make people rise and fall. Jesus is here to skate up the established order. The physicality of Jesus as God and as human will in and of itself change the lives of those at the bottom and at the top of society.

But what about these inner thoughts of many that will be revealed? Looking carefully about how Simeon talks about Jesus here, we hear him describe Jesus as a sign. And not everyone will like what the sign suggests. Some will be opposed to this sign, this incarnate God, and the thoughts of those people will be revealed. In the opposition we see that people are challenged by incarnate God, because it has town down walls previously established, walls between rich and poor, between rulers and the oppressed, between Israel and the rest of the world. Incarnational love is a barrier breaking love, that challenges human distinctions.

I now feel like we have a deeper grasp on the love we see being present in the incarnation. We see that incarnational love shown for us in God becoming human in the form of Jesus is about transforming the meaning of life and death, transforming God into a universal God no longer limited to Israel, and finally that the incarnational love shakes up the established order and breaks down human barriers. This has been a good opportunity to think and examine more about the incarnation and that in and of itself is a very good thing. But perhaps at this point of the sermon you might be wondering why is this important? That’s a good question and I am sorry I haven’t properly addressed it up until now. The incarnation, the idea of God with us, tells us a lot about the nature of the relationship between God and humanity and reminds us (time and time again) of the continued relational aspect of God’s presence. It is also a propulsive idea—that is, because we have God with us, we are also sent outward to all of humanity to be in relationship with them, and to show them God’s love through our words, actions, prayers and persistence. Our outreach committee has done some really excellent work this last year or so giving us greater ways to connect to the needs in our community and communities around us. Our Sandwich Program feeds hungry homeless folks in East New York every Sunday afternoon. Providing them with a meal, on a day the drop in center called “The Gathering Place” has no other food for them. And more recently our monthly outreach projects have connected to the need of homeless folks in Park Slope, by a small group of volunteers from our church going to a soup kitchen to help prepare and serve a meal. Now, I am terribly excited about both of these developments, and very grateful to our outreach committee leaders, Rosanne and John, but friends, I want to say in the most gentle way a priest can from a pulpit, I think we still need to do more. And I think part of the more we need to do will have to include more willingness to go out and interact with people who are in need. We have connected well to needs by bringing items into church for other organizations to give out, and this is very good and very important. But the relational aspect of God, and our call as disciples is to go out and have relationships that reflect God in them. This isn’t an easy thing to do. I am aware of it. And it is not an easy thing to ask. But I do know that with God’s incarnational love, the love that changes our life and death, that makes God available to all humanity, and that shakes up the order of this world and breaks down barriers, we are able to do this. 

Epiphany 2 Year A

Here  are the readings for this Sunday. This Sunday was also Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, so I feel compelled to also make a link to his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail Cell" that I mention in this weeks sermon. The letter can be found here.

“It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” God puts a lot of pressure on this servant in our passage from Isaiah. As I was thinking about how it might have felt to the servant in Isaiah to be told Israel’s salvation was too small a thing for them to tackle, I started thinking about super heroes. Stay with me for a moment, if you can. Because I promise I will get back to Isaiah, and even make it to talking about Jesus, but I want to spend a few minutes with the idea of super heroes and their role in American culture.

On Friday afternoon, while not getting a whole lot done on my sermon, I was reading some movie reviews in the New York Times, even reading reviews for movies that I will surely never see. I read the review of Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit. It’s an action movie staring Chris Pine—he says in the preview for the movie (which is probably as close to the movie as I will ever get…) that he thought it was going to be an office job—but it seems to turn out that he is soon battling bad guys and the fate of America seems to lie in his hands. Manholia Dargis writes in her review, “Like many action flicks, “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit” starts fairly modestly with one man struggling in the world and morphs into an increasingly complicated, finally outrageous tale of one American saving the world.” This is kind of what happens in a lot of action and super hero flicks isn’t it? It starts small, and relatable, and then amazing sorts of things start happening. Sometimes the main character discovers incredible powers, other times, like seemingly in this movie, they get caught up in an amazing series of events. The end goal for these sorts of characters is usually? Always? Saving all humanity.

The appeal of this kind of story is clear of course: Jack Ryan is an every man. A man who thought he had an office job. When suddenly fate thrusts him into this salvific role and only he, an ordinary man, has the skills and the timing to be able to take on all of the evils in this world. The evils are often Russians, or some kind of ambiguous “Arabs.” Most importantly they are not other Americans. But these stories speak to something in our culture, we like the idea of the common-ish person battling the world, and even the common-ish person achieving great success, becoming rich and powerful. These stories appeal to us because we are able to see ourselves reflected in them. Jack Ryan sure did save the world, and so might I. If he could become rich and famous having started from humble beginnings like I did, so could I. It’s of course something more than the American Dream, the idea that with hard work, will come home ownership, job opportunities, a wife and two kids. It is larger than that because the saving of the world, fame and fortune cannot possibly be tied into our hard work. These also involve extraordinary circumstances. No one could have predicted the moments that lead to this extraordinary event—and then the common-ish person’s ability seems to rise to the occasion. See, it’s possible that the extraordinary event could happen to any of us, really, and it could just be that the ordinary life we have been living will have actually prepared us for greatness in this particular moment.

Perhaps you are seeing why this movie review got me thinking about Isaiah, even as I was sort of goofing off taking a break from thinking about Isaiah. The coomon-ish person is like the servant, they don’t really mean to be caught up in a situation where they are suddenly saving the world. It seems like the servant was on board with the idea that they had to restore Israel, but suddenly God has added onto this the idea that they also must be a light to the nations, and reach out to the ends of the earth.

When we hear this passage from Isaiah this morning, as Christians we naturally interpret the role of the “servant” to being about Jesus. For us indeed it is. Jesus’ mission was about bringing salvation, light, to the ends of the earth. But Jesus, unlike Jack Ryan and other American super heroes, was not a common person—in fact he was and is our savior and redeemer, fully human and fully divine. So all of this I have said so far is now confusing and complicating to me. The problem becomes for me, where are we—the common-ish people, the common-ish Christians in these scriptural passages today. And how are we to understand how our call to be God’s people, in the words of our collect, “illumined by God’s word and Sacraments, shining with the radiance of Christ’s Glory that he may be known, worshiped and obeyed through the ends of the earth.” The words of our collect suggest to me that we are going to need to go from being the common-ish people that we are, struggling with the small things of our life, but that we are expected to bring salvation to the ends of the earth. What skills and abilities do we have now that will prepare us for that? How are we possibly able to do any of that? Why is so much expected of us? And hasn’t Jesus done all of this? I mean, wasn’t that the point of his life, death, resurrection and ascension? So can’t we just sit back, relax and come to church every now and again to see some old friends, and be fed spiritually?  

As Christians, we have just been witness to some extraordinary events. First was the birth of a child, who was from the Holy Spirit. Then was the arrival of shepherds who saw an angel and followed a star.  Two weeks ago wise folk from the east showed up bearing gifts. Last week that baby, no longer an infant, but a full grown adult, was baptized in the river Jordan by John the Baptist, and the voice of God broke forth proclaiming “this is my son.” These events have taken us up to the events in our Gospel text this morning. John recounts the story of Jesus’ baptism, and then some of John’s disciples are asked by Jesus what they are looking for. Jesus tells them to “Come and see.” The disciples then the end up remaining with Jesus. Disciples are always useful in these passages, in part because it is easy (and often right and good) to interpret their actions as being similar to what our actions should be. So this interpretation makes a good case for us becoming disciples, followers of Jesus. Hey friends, I think we are doing pretty well. Look at all of us here this morning. And all of us, in some way or another a follower of Jesus. But being here, while very important of course, is only a part of the activity we have to do here. Being here, in the company of Jesus, seeing those who Jesus is with, interacting with other followers, and being in relationship with Jesus is what this coming and seeing the disciples do is. Our coming and seeing as part of this community also has to include the bit where Andrew finds his brother Simon and says to him, “we have found the Messiah,” and then brings Simon to Jesus. We too are asked to invite others in and to tell them to “come and see” with us.

But as we interpret this passage this morning, we cannot forget that by participating in the Holy Eucharist, as we do each week, we are not just disciples, but we are transformed into the Body of Christ. Uh-oh. This means it is indeed us who are expected to go out spreading salvation, the good news, and just generally being people of the light willing to share God’s love with others. The good news is, unlike in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, we are not one common man tasked with saving all humanity, but rather we are a community with bonds that are forged in our baptism, and are reinforced each week as we break bread together.

Finally, on this Sunday of Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, I am compelled to say that being a light to the nations we are also called to strive for justice. This is a part of what being the body of Christ means. We are called to be on the side of the oppressed, the downtrodden and those who our society doesn’t value. Dr. King was certainly a prophetic voice that called out against the evils of racism and the Jim Crow laws in the South. But we must remember that as much as Dr. King was a prophet, and maybe even was a saint, he was also a member of the body of Christ, just as we are. And it is our job too, to speak out about the evils of racism and to call attention to it’s persistent effects. It is our job to point to unfair laws, and to work towards greater equality, greater justice and greater love. This activity, this work, will be what makes us shine, and will be what makes others see God’s love transforming our society. And for our church here, when we engage in mission projects, truly trying to bring justice, and love to this world and to those who need it most, this is when people will see God’s work here, and be attracted to this church and find their way to worship and love God. This is hard work, friends. These are big tasks. But we can do this together. We are not alone in our struggle, we have the entire Body of Christ.

Thanks be to God.

Christmas 2 Year A

Here is a link to the readings. This is honestly a Christmas sermon, but since I am the assistant rector I don't (and no assistants do) preach at the really big services. So I get to think about Christmas a little longer. And this one really comes out of the new and exciting being pregnant through Advent and Christmas which felt quite different. 

      

     In his Christmas sermon, Fr. Denaro told us that the thing he had been struck by in the Christmas story was the presence and role of the angels. It was hard to imagine anything else when confronted with Fr. Denaro in angel wings on that high pulpit. But I have to admit there has been something else calling out to me as we have journeyed together through Advent, into Christmas and now as we approach Epiphany. I have been fascinated with dreams. I have been captivated by dreams this season partly because I am a woman in the second trimester of her pregnancy and I have had some truly fantastic dreams. Now, I haven’t reached this place in life with out the realization that no one, not even my very loving husband, no, no one has any interest in my dreams. And it’s not because they’re not fantastic or because they are lacking in any way, it’s just that no one is really interested in anyone else’s dream. Maybe parents are vaguely interested in their children’s dreams. But I just cannot remember any conversation that began with “I had this crazy dream…” and then ended well. So this is to say mostly that I promise I will not bore you with my dreams. So then avoiding the content of my dreams it is enough to say what has been interesting is that the dream landscape has shifted, and  whole new worlds are open to me in the dreams. The subject matter, where they are taking place, and who I am have all been new and exciting. It’s not that they are even all “good” dreams, though many of them are, they are just different. The dreams seem to be preparing me for a new stage in life, they are getting me ready for change. And this change, this shift as my pregnancy has progressed has got me thinking about what dreams are, what they reflect about what has already happened, and what they suggest about what is to come.

            Scientists have found that dreams often are places where people work out problems they encountered during their day. Lab rats, asked to run mazes al day, dream of new and creative ways of solving their maze during the night. But this is a rather mundane and practical use of dreams, there is also something extraordinary that happens in the dream world too. There is the part of the dream world that is beyond the self, beyond our personal day to day lives and struggles. There is the part of the dream world that taps into what psychoanalyst Carl Jung calls the collective unconscious. For those of you unfamiliar with Jung’s work (as I am) it will help to know a tiny bit more about his theory. First of all we each have a psyche—the word means soul—but in psychological terms it is the totality of the mind the conscious and the unconscious. It’s the stuff that makes up who we are whether we know it or not.  Dreams are the time when that unconscious, the stuff we don’t know or have pushed down, comes rising up and we can encounter parts of our selves that we just don’t know. But Jung’s idea of the collective unconscious suggests that there is even more that we take part in—and that all humanity takes part in.

            As I was thinking about how to understand, and then how to explain this complex concept I realized that in some ways we as Christians have an easy way into to comprehending this psychological lingo. We understand our selves, our souls as separate things, but we also know that we participate in a larger thing as well. We know that our collective faith, our collective souls take part in and transform into the Body of Christ. Could we say we are participating in God’s psyche? Or are we a part of God’s dream as the Body of Christ? Maybe. But we can say that we have dual identities, we are our individual selves and we are a part of the Body of Christ. These identities are simultaneous and also separate. Within the Body of Christ we are not ourselves—we are a unity with all those in the Body. This morning I want to take our understanding of ourselves as dual citizens and take it into a look at how Matthew’s Gospel uses dreams.

            The mention of dreams in today’s Gospel are the third and fourth dreams in Matthew’s Gospel. The first is the dream Joseph has where he is told not to dismiss Mary, because the child is from the Holy Spirit. The second is a dream that the wise men have, where they are warned not to return to King Herod after they have found Jesus in the manger. Dreams are functioning as a way of conveying information in the early chapters of this Gospel. The birth narrative’s plot moves along at the insistence of these dreams. Joseph as a dreamer was never something that caught my eye until this year. The two dreams in our reading this morning each have an Angel of the Lord appearing in them, giving very specific travel instructions. Go here, do this. Such clarity. And after each dream Joseph takes his family and goes there, and does this. The dreams require little to no interpretation. They are straightforward with and Angel speaking on behalf of the Lord conveying information that Joseph and his family would not have otherwise. Matthew’s Gospel is the only one to use the word dream. And his birth narrative focuses not on Mary like Luke’s but on Joseph and these dreams. That God is stepping in the dream world is fascinating. It is not the most direct route. But it is highly effective. Ultimately, and importantly The dreams are productive. They get things done. Like the lab rats trying to puzzle out their maze, or like my psyche coming to terms with what it will be like to be a mother, Joseph’s dreams are full of purpose.

            Maybe it is time to get our heads out of the clouds. I’ll come back down but not before wondering about your dreams. I wonder what they are. And not just that good ones, I wonder what the ones of terror and fright might be too. But more than you, I suppose I wonder about what our dreams, as the community of St. Ann & the Holy Trinity are. What are our good dreams of? What are our recurring nightmares? And then, perhaps after we identify what those things are—what do those dreams and nightmares get us to do? How do we hear God calling us forward and calling us into action? I would like to encourage us all to have a little conversation about our dreams for and as St. Ann’s with each other, and with the clergy here. I know the clergy have some dreams—but a church, and especially this church, is more than it’s clergy’s dreams. So we will need to talk a little together to clarify and dream together. Since we are a growing church, we will also need to make sure we are hearing new voices, and even as we grow, listen too to quiet voices, who perhaps slip out before the gathering of coffee hour, but are nonetheless devoted, regular members of the parish. And our dreams will shift and change. New things may appear to us, or old symbols may fade away. But this mornings Gospel is a call to pay attention to our dreams.

            Since dreams function differently in different cultures it is unlikely that ours will be as clear and as straightforward as Joseph’s dreams were. Though he is rather out of style, Freud and Jung have left us with a legacy that objects and images in dreams are symbolic of other things. So our dreams as individuals and as a community may require a little interpretation. We will need to determine, what does it mean to have this dream? What are the elements suggesting to us about God’s call to us?

                          But importantly we need to hold on to the most important part of Joseph’s dreams: he wakes up and follows those dreams. He takes action. He is productive. He heeds the call of the Angels who spoke to him during the night. And now is a really great time. We are in the season of Christmas. We are living with the concept and reality of God with us. Our long wait through Advent is over, and we are in a celebratory mode. We are in a mode where what was unknown is now made manifest in Christ Jesus, and it is time to both celebrate that and take action as his body in the world. And this is where our function as individuals and as the Body of Christ truly comes into play: we are each responsible for action, for responding to God’s call to us, and the first step of that call is in being willing to be a part of Christ’s body in the world, by being willing to share in his Body and Blood and by taking responsibility for dreaming and entering into that collective unconscious. And then, when we wake up together, when we are dismissed at the end of our service, we are sent out into the world, we are sent out to dream our dreams as the Body of Christ, and to respond to God’s call in our dreams.