Year C
\u00a0Isaiah 52:7-10
\u00a0Psalm 98
\u00a0Hebrews 1:1-4
\u00a0John 1:1-14<\/p>\n\n\n\n
May the words of my mouth O God\u2026 speak your truth\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I didn’t want it to be John’s Gospel tonight\u2026 not on Christmas Eve\u2026 I wanted the familiar stories about Mary and Joseph… and inns\u2026 and mangers\u2026 and oxen and sheep\u2026 and a baby\u2026 and shepherds in the fields\u2026 and angels\u2026 and wise men\u2026 and snow\u2026 I wanted there to be snow\u2026 not for my sake as much as for yours\u2026 but we don’t have much of a white Christmas\u2026 instead\u2026 it’s 47\u00b0 and rainy\u2026 I hope this doesn’t make it harder for Santa tonight\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I didn’t want it to be John’s Gospel\u2026 John’s Gospel is dense\u2026 it’s cryptic\u2026 it’s full of mystery\u2026 it’s meaning is difficult to unravel\u2026 but\u2026 if we can understand something about it\u2026 if we can understand some of what John wanted us to know\u2026 then we can understand something more about God\u2026 and our relationship with God\u2026 and our relationships with each other\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Still\u2026 John’s Gospel seems convoluted\u2026 seems to turn in on itself\u2026 it tells us about the Word\u2026 and about God\u2026 about how the Word was not only in the beginning with God\u2026 but that the Word was God\u2026 and\u2026 In the beginning<\/em> isn’t linear\u2026 it doesn’t mean the first thing that happened in a long list of things that happen\u2026 it’s like Genesis 1:1\u2026 in the beginning\u2026 before God spoke creation into being\u2026 and the uncertainty of whether one came before the other\u2026 brings to mind Elizabeth asking Mary\u2026 why has this happened to me… that the mother of my Lord comes to me<\/em>\u2026 it brings to mind what Jesus asked in the synoptic Gospels\u2026 when he asks the Pharisees\u2026 How is it then\u2026 that David\u2026 by the Spirit\u2026 calls him Lord, saying: The Lord said to my Lord\u2026<\/em> it brings to mind one of those mind-boggling M.C. Escher paintings where the stairs keep going up\u2026 but somehow they end up right where they started\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n And another John\u2026 Fr. John Shea\u2026 explains that\u2026 In the beginning<\/em>\u2026 is a code word that means eternally<\/em>\u2026 it tells us that time and space itself\u2026 is undergirded by the Divine realm of no time and no space\u2026 and this matters\u2026 because it means that God’s nature\u2026 God’s essence\u2026 is always being revealed here\u2026 that God ought not be conceived of as self-enclosed\u2026 or self-absorbed\u2026 but ought to be understood\u2026 as always being about relationship\u2026 in the first few verses of John’s Gospel\u2026 as in the first verses of Genesis\u2026 God’s Word\u2026 who is also God\u2026 and is therefore infinite\u2026 creates finite reality\u2026 and like passing over a threshold\u2026 God passes over a mystical boundary between God’s realm and ours\u2026 and incarnates\u2026 is enfleshed\u2026 becomes one of us\u2026 God opens God’s own doorway\u2026 and the Word is revealed as the foundational source of everything and everyone there is\u2026 out of the One comes the many\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n And so every one of us\u2026 are like so many little wave caps on God’s ocean\u2026 and instead of looking down\u2026 instead of looking into our depths to see where\u2026 and how\u2026 and that\u2026 we are all connected\u2026 the mistake that some of us make is that we look only across\u2026 and remain on the surface\u2026 and believe that we are disconnected\u2026 and alone\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n Have you ever gone into the kitchen at about 8:00 in the evening\u2026 and you want something\u2026 but you’re not sure what\u2026 and maybe your spouse or partner calls out from the living room and asks\u2026 what are you doing<\/em>\u2026 and you say\u2026 I want something but I don’t know what\u2026 but I’ll know it\u2026 when I see it<\/em>\u2026 or else they say\u2026 even though it’s dark and snowing outside\u2026 what I’m looking for isn’t here\u2026 would you please go to the store<\/em>\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n We always want more\u2026 something more\u2026 but we are too often fooled into thinking that it’s something like a new house\u2026 or a new car\u2026 or a boat\u2026 or the latest smartphone\u2026 or pair of designer shoes\u2026 or a set of professional cookware that we really want\u2026 or the perfect snack that’s not in our kitchen but is on a grocery store shelf somewhere\u2026 on the surface\u2026 it might be greed or hoarding or conspicuous consumption that’s driving us\u2026 but if we look deeper\u2026 what we’re truly hungry for\u2026 is exactly what St. Augustine captured when he wrote: Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord\u2026 and our hearts are restless\u2026 until they rest in thee<\/em>\u2026 until we are united with God\u2026 in this life\u2026 yes in this life\u2026 and in the age to come\u2026 we want to be able to look down\u2026 and see where and how and that we are all connected in deep places\u2026 the divine spark within each of us connecting us to God\u2026 to the Word\u2026 to the Holy Spirit\u2026 and to each other\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n John makes it clear that the community’s ideas about Jesus changed after Jesus’ lifetime\u2026 and he describes this shift as the work of the Holy Spirit\u2026 by claiming that the divine Son of God\u2026 truly “became flesh”\u2026 that is\u2026 was fully human\u2026 John presents the Christian belief that in Jesus\u2026 God entered human history with one goal\u2026 to save human beings\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Rev. Laurel Mathewson\u2026 co-vicar at St. Luke\u2019s Episcopal Church in San Diego wrote\u2026 that one year\u2026 in an Advent devotional\u2026 she read a story that first caught her attention in a sour way\u2026 the author of this piece\u2026 described a Christmas when she was given an unexpected\u2026 overwhelmingly generous gift\u2026 close friends offered her enough money to live on for a year\u2026 to pay for everything\u2026 so she could singularly devote her time to writing\u2026 they believed in her and her work\u2026 and with that gift of time\u2026 Harper Lee went on to write To Kill a Mockingbird\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is the beginning arc\u2026 and the foundational heart\u2026 of the Christian tale\u2026 God’s belief in us\u2026 the gift of the Word made flesh\u2026 the ground of our joy and celebration\u2026 Christmas trees and presents and all\u2026 a new life of deep intimacy with God\u2026 freely given\u2026 as gift\u2026 as grace\u2026 we are worth more to God than we ever imagined\u2026 we are worth the risk and the sacrifice involved\u2026 and yet\u2026 with shocked faces\u2026 many in the world\u2026 and perhaps too many in the church itself\u2026 exclaim\u2026 I can\u2019t believe it<\/em>\u2026 we have such a hard time getting our heads around the idea that God loves us unconditionally and that we are worth it\u2026 as Harper Lee’s friends saw her worth\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n And so when we say\u2026 It is Christmas\u2026 we mean that God has spoken into the world God’s last\u2026 deepest\u2026 most beautiful word\u2026 in the incarnate Word\u2026 and God is not only with us\u2026 God is like us\u2026 Jesus comes again and again to make us and our world better\u2026 and that alone is more than reason enough\u2026 to have\u2026 and to wish you all\u2026 a Christmas of depth and connection\u2026 Merry Christmas\u2026 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Year C\u00a0Isaiah 52:7-10\u00a0Psalm 98\u00a0Hebrews 1:1-4\u00a0John 1:1-14 May the words of my mouth O God\u2026 speak your truth\u2026 I didn’t want it to be John’s Gospel tonight\u2026 not on Christmas Eve\u2026 I wanted the familiar stories about Mary and Joseph… and inns\u2026 and mangers\u2026 and oxen and sheep\u2026 and a baby\u2026 and shepherds in the fields\u2026 and angels\u2026 and wise men\u2026 and snow\u2026 I wanted there to be snow\u2026 not for my sake as much as for yours\u2026 but we don’t have much of a white Christmas\u2026 instead\u2026 it’s 47\u00b0 and rainy\u2026 I hope this doesn’t make it harder for Santa tonight\u2026 I didn’t want it to be John’s Gospel\u2026 John’s Gospel is dense\u2026 it’s cryptic\u2026 it’s full of mystery\u2026 it’s meaning is difficult to unravel\u2026 but\u2026 if we can understand something about it\u2026 if we can understand some of what John wanted us to know\u2026 then we can understand something more about God\u2026 and our relationship with God\u2026 and our relationships with each other\u2026 Still\u2026 John’s Gospel seems convoluted\u2026 seems to turn in on itself\u2026 it tells us about the Word\u2026 and about God\u2026 about how the Word was not only in the beginning with God\u2026 but that the Word was God\u2026 and\u2026 In the beginning isn’t linear\u2026 it doesn’t mean the first thing that happened in a long list of things that happen\u2026 it’s like Genesis 1:1\u2026 in the beginning\u2026 before God spoke creation into being\u2026 and the uncertainty of whether one came before the other\u2026 brings to mind Elizabeth asking Mary\u2026 why has this happened to me… that the mother of my Lord comes to me\u2026 it brings to mind what Jesus asked in the synoptic Gospels\u2026 when he asks the Pharisees\u2026 How is it then\u2026 that David\u2026 by the Spirit\u2026 calls him Lord, saying: The Lord said to my Lord\u2026 it brings to mind one of those mind-boggling M.C. Escher paintings where the stairs keep going up\u2026 but somehow they end up right where they started\u2026 And another John\u2026 Fr. John Shea\u2026 explains that\u2026 In the beginning\u2026 is a code word that means eternally\u2026 it tells us that time and space itself\u2026 is undergirded by the Divine realm of no time and no space\u2026 and this matters\u2026 because it means that God’s nature\u2026 God’s essence\u2026 is always being revealed here\u2026 that God ought not be conceived of as self-enclosed\u2026 or self-absorbed\u2026 but ought to be understood\u2026 as always being about relationship\u2026 in the first few verses of John’s Gospel\u2026 as in the first verses of Genesis\u2026 God’s Word\u2026 who is also God\u2026 and is therefore infinite\u2026 creates finite reality\u2026 and like passing over a threshold\u2026 God passes over a mystical boundary between God’s realm and ours\u2026 and incarnates\u2026 is enfleshed\u2026 becomes one of us\u2026 God opens God’s own doorway\u2026 and the Word is revealed as the foundational source of everything and everyone there is\u2026 out of the One comes the many\u2026 And so every one of us\u2026 are like so many little wave caps on God’s ocean\u2026 and instead of looking down\u2026 instead of looking into our depths to see where\u2026 and how\u2026 and that\u2026 we are all connected\u2026 the mistake that some of us make is that we look only across\u2026 and remain on the surface\u2026 and believe that we are disconnected\u2026 and alone\u2026 Have you ever gone into the kitchen at about 8:00 in the evening\u2026 and you want something\u2026 but you’re not sure what\u2026 and maybe your spouse or partner calls out from the living room and asks\u2026 what are you doing\u2026 and you say\u2026 I want something but I don’t know what\u2026 but I’ll know it\u2026 when I see it\u2026 or else they say\u2026 even though it’s dark and snowing outside\u2026 what I’m looking for isn’t here\u2026 would you please go to the store\u2026 We always want more\u2026 something more\u2026 but we are too often fooled into thinking that it’s something like a new house\u2026 or a new car\u2026 or a boat\u2026 or the latest smartphone\u2026 or pair of designer shoes\u2026 or a set of professional cookware that we really want\u2026 or the perfect snack that’s not in our kitchen but is on a grocery store shelf somewhere\u2026 on the surface\u2026 it might be greed or hoarding or conspicuous consumption that’s driving us\u2026 but if we look deeper\u2026 what we’re truly hungry for\u2026 is exactly what St. Augustine captured when he wrote: Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord\u2026 and our hearts are restless\u2026 until they rest in thee\u2026 until we are united with God\u2026 in this life\u2026 yes in this life\u2026 and in the age to come\u2026 we want to be able to look down\u2026 and see where and how and that we are all connected in deep places\u2026 the divine spark within each of us connecting us to God\u2026 to the Word\u2026 to the Holy Spirit\u2026 and to each other\u2026 John makes it clear that the community’s ideas about Jesus changed after Jesus’ lifetime\u2026 and he describes this shift as the work of the Holy Spirit\u2026 by claiming that the divine Son of God\u2026 truly “became flesh”\u2026 that is\u2026 was fully human\u2026 John presents the Christian belief that in Jesus\u2026 God entered human history with one goal\u2026 to save human beings\u2026 The Rev. Laurel Mathewson\u2026 co-vicar at St. Luke\u2019s Episcopal Church in San Diego wrote\u2026 that one year\u2026 in an Advent devotional\u2026 she read a story that first caught her attention in a sour way\u2026 the author of this piece\u2026 described a Christmas when she was given an unexpected\u2026 overwhelmingly generous gift\u2026 close friends offered her enough money to live on for a year\u2026 to pay for everything\u2026 so she could singularly devote her time to writing\u2026 they believed in her and her work\u2026 and with that gift of time\u2026 Harper Lee went on to write To Kill a Mockingbird\u2026 This is the beginning arc\u2026 and the foundational heart\u2026 of the Christian tale\u2026 God’s belief in us\u2026 the gift of the Word made flesh\u2026 the ground of our joy and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1466,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[50,47,48,49],"class_list":["post-1465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sermons","tag-believe","tag-christmas","tag-gods-love","tag-redeemer"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/godsolovedsmaller.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1465"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1465\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1467,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1465\/revisions\/1467"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}