Full of Grace and Truth

Full of Grace and Truth

Mtr. Nora Johnson

Again, this morning, we hear that God’s Word became flesh and dwelt among us. This is of course the Gospel passage that we read annually on Christmas Day, our annual proclamation of the Incarnation, of the mysterious reality that shapes our lives and our community and the our destiny: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God….And the Word became flesh and lived among us and we have seen his glory…full of grace and truth.” We read it on Christmas morning and we are reading it again today, just two days later.

Those words made us “hit our knees” on Christmas morning, and in the grandeur and joy of our Christmas Masses we could feel that we were going some little part of the way toward honoring their importance appropriately. That’s a crucial part of Christian worship: we consecrate some times and places and words as holy, we set them aside as sacred, and we show them reverence as a way of acknowledging God’s infinite glory.

But what do these words sound like to you this morning, hearing them again as the rush of Christmas is beginning to settle down a bit? Are they getting cold like the leftovers of a Christmas feast? Stale like the cookie crumbs in a tin on a kitchen counter? Dry like a tree that has been decorated and lit for a little too long? It happens to many of us at this time of year. We want to stay in the bliss of Christmas but we gradually become aware that the calendar is advancing and the days are passing and the rhythms of life are inching toward normalcy again. And by the light of day, it seems a little more awkward to be on our knees worshipping the newborn king.

I don’t mean to rush us. It’s only December 27 and Christmas is twelve days long, but we are realists, aren’t we, and we know that Christmas can’t last forever. And if Christmas day was a day of celebration, we know that not every day will be.

And I’d actually like to encourage you to take that view. I’d like to encourage you to hear that glorious, mysterious, Christmas Gospel—“the Word became flesh and dwelt among us”—with the ears of someone who is looking toward a life after Christmas, a life of everyday ups and downs. Just for a moment, if it’s not too soon for you, get your head out of the holidays and into the notion that this is a day just like every other.

Because that’s the kind of day into which Christ was born. He dwelt among us, God dwells among us, in plain, ordinary life. There may be tinsel and ribbons, there may not be tinsel and ribbons, but God dwells with us and we behold his glory, full of grace and truth. All the time. And everywhere. And if we aren’t hearing that word fully, we aren’t really celebrating the Incarnation in Christmastide. It’s not so much about a special thing that happened in a manger one special night. It’s about what’s happening right now among us and within us. Let’s hear those words a little differently this morning.

Let’s hear the word “Word” differently too. Let’s hear it as much more comprehensive than we usually think it is. Not a word but the Word, the eternal word, logos. God’s mind, God’s reason, God’s logic, God’s meaning. The pattern of God’s thoughts, God’s will, God’s very desires. God’s order, God’s harmony. Why stop there? Let’s embellish a little: God’s imaginings, God’s self-perception, all of God’s big ideas and creative projects. What makes God tick. Dwelling among us, in the flesh, full of grace and truth for us to behold. God is holding nothing back from us.

And if this God dwells among us every day, our ordinary life must be unfathomably precious.

And how precious this is, right here: this life we live together as the Body of Christ. What we are doing now, in this church, acknowledging and receiving and worshiping this Word who is made flesh, who fills every moment and every place. The very life of God is among us here. What makes God tick, all of God’s big ideas, right here among us, right down in us. Whatever state we are in this morning, whatever occupies our thoughts, whatever ability we have to stay aware of God’s presence, God is as close to us as our own breathing and the coursing of blood through our own veins.

If you sit with that reality for very long, and acknowledge it the way we try to do here, something changes. It gets harder to hold back. If God has put everything on the line with us, everything in our hands, if God’s will is in us and God’s thoughts are in us and God’s desires are becoming our desires, we may find ourselves longing to respond. We may find that we are vulnerable to God despite our firm determination to remain in control of our own lives. We may find more and more that we seek the rest that comes from resting in God. We may find that we thirst for the living waters that come to us from God. And it may be true, despite our best efforts to maintain some image of ourselves as powerful grownups, that we are more like newborns in the arms of God. Some part of us, hesitant and awkward and frighteningly dependent, may reach out to be held by the one who created us and loves us and wills us into being in every moment.

In this as in all things, of course, Jesus has shown us the way. The eternal Word, made flesh, the fullness of all things, came among us in just this condition: naked, helpless, awkward and uncoordinated, reaching out to be held. At that moment in Bethlehem, Jesus could be nothing but present.

And so here we are, if we have the grace to know it, in our own Bethlehem, in the place of our own profound vulnerability. Our spiritual infancy. Nothing to offer God but our own need for God. If it’s hard to keep coming back to Church, if you feel embarrassed that you haven’t outgrown being here, if you can’t put all this religion stuff behind you and get on with your adult life, if you haven’t yet found a good explanation for the fact that faith has seized hold of you and brought you to your knees, if you don’t know how to look good doing this, if you really would rather be an unchurched person but you just can’t get in that groove, rest assured. Rest deeply. Your vulnerability to God, even if it’s only fleeting, barely felt, is the sign of a great gift. You have been given power to become a child of God. You are being born, like Jesus, with Jesus, in Jesus. Vulnerability is what it looks like when the Word becomes flesh.

Be reassured by that baby in the manger. Great things happened on that ordinary night in that ordinary town of Bethlehem. And great things are happening in you, with every breath you take, in this Bethlehem on Locust Street in Philadelphia.

No, if you’re like me, being given the power to become a child of God has not given you the power to rise above all suffering or solve all problems (not even other people’s). No, it doesn’t feel like winning at life. If you have answers, it may not be clear to you exactly what they are. It’s messy and a tad embarrassing and almost entirely baffling at times to be a follower of Jesus. But the Word dwells with you and in you. It is becoming flesh in you, as you become one with God in Christ. We don’t know why, but we know that this is God’s big idea. This is God’s creative project. This is God’s desire. Trust it.

Together, almost in spite of ourselves, we are beholding that glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father. It is full of grace and truth. We are full of grace and truth. Thanks be to God.

Preached by Mtr. Nora Johnson

27 December 2015

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia

This Song Is Best

This Song Is Best

Mtr. Erika Takacs

A few weeks ago a friend of mine who is a church organist posted a photo on Facebook of her preparations for Christmas. Not surprisingly, it was a picture of a musical score, an arrangement of a hymn, with all of her expressive markings and organ registrations scratched in in pencil. She posted the picture with the tagline: “Fixin' to be that time again.” Oh. Perhaps I should have mentioned that my friend Jessica is a church organist in Tupelo, Mississippi. But the thing that struck me about her post wasn’t just her fabulously southern use of the word “fixin” – it was the particular piece of music that she posted, or rather the particular part of that particular piece. The piece was Adeste fideles, the hymn with which we began our liturgy this morning. But Jessica’s photo wasn’t of the beginning of the hymn, with a big “full organ” written over the words O Come All Ye Faithful – the photo was of the middle of the last verse. Now, some of you know where this is going, I think. Because in the middle of the last verse of Adeste fideles in this particular arrangement by Sir David Willcocks, very recently of blessed memory, something miraculous happens.

** Musical demonstration by Mr. Simon Thomas Jacobs**

And that, my friends, is the most succulent, most titillating, most anticipated chord of Christmas, no doubt. And that is what my friend Jessica was referring to – that it was fixin’ to be that time again, that time when we get to sing this hymn with that sexy chord and just revel in the extravagance for a moment.

What’s particularly interesting about that chord is where it happens. Sure, it’s in the last verse, when you might expect some harmonic fireworks, but Willcocks was about more than that, I think. For Willcocks placed that wondrous chord on the word “Word” – “Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing.” It’s the place in the hymn where today’s Gospel comes to light – and the Word became flesh, and lived among us. It’s a rare appearance of John’s Christmas Gospel in the hymnody of Christmas, which tends instead to focus on herald angels and midnights clear and little towns of Bethlehem. And no wonder, really. There isn’t much about today’s Gospel reading that sounds carol-y. “He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him.” It’s good theology, but you can’t dance to it.

 Or can you? Because it turns out that the text of the prologue to the Gospel of John was, in fact, an extremely popular carol in the middle ages. Not all of it – just the phrase that Willcocks plays with – the Word was made flesh, or, in Latin, Verbum caro factum est. Verbum caro factum est was, apparently, kind of a hot lyric in the 16th century. Aside from the motets and sacred songs on that text that were composed for Christmas Day by composers like Hans Leo Hassler and John Sheppard, there were popular medieval Christmas carols based on that text, including one famously arranged by a contemporary of Willcocks, Sir William Walton, the refrain of which is “All this time this song is best: Verbum caro factum est.”

Verbum caro factum est was apparently so popular that it found its way into secular culture – specifically, as so many good lyrics and tunes do, into drinking songs. One such song began with Verbum caro factum est and then continued with, and I’m roughly translating the Old English here, Yo, I’m all up in the club, party people in the house, hold up, who’s got my bottle of bubbly. So how did the prologue to the Gospel of John get paired with a song about pouring out good cheer? Well, most obviously, in its original context, Verbum caro factum est was very cheery news – the best news, in fact. So good news, good cheer, let’s have a beer. But as the song itself began to separate from the occasion, when it became less of a song about Christmas and more of just a song to slosh your tankard too, the scriptural phrase, interestingly, stayed in. The reason? Well, one medieval poetry scholar has suggested that the use of Verbum caro factum est at the beginning of the song was a way of getting people’s attention. It was kind of the medieval equivalent of saying, “The Lord be with you” in a room full of Episcopalians. When medieval people heard Verbum caro factum est, they knew to pay attention to what was coming next.* Because Verbum caro factum est was the money line. That was when your ears perked up, when your head snapped to. Verbum caro factum est was the moment when you hit your knees.

And it still is. Verbum caro factum est is still the moment, the moment that this Christmas Day is all about, the moment that calls us to attention this morning, that had us hitting our knees a few moments ago. Verbum caro factum est, the Word was made flesh, is the moment when Christmas happened, when God’s only-begotten, most beloved Son became a part of this world, of deeply ordinary stuff like dust and microbes and liquid and lint. And this is the most miraculous thing imaginable – that God would choose us, choose us even after all of the mess we’d made, and choose us so firmly and so finally that God would jump right into the thick of that mess to clean it up. Verbum caro factum est.

So it’s no wonder that Willcocks chose such a sensual chord for that moment in the hymn, because that moment in the hymn is all about the sensual. It is all about the gift that because Jesus was born, everything we see and touch and smell and listen to is known deep in the heart of God. Because Jesus knew what it was to feel the scratch of hay on your cheek. He knew what it was to smell the earthy funk of so many sheep and goats in a dark damp cave. He knew what it was to look up and see rocks, hills, and plains, to listen to every stone as it cried out. Everything we see and touch and smell and listen to God also has seen and touched and smelled and listened to. And tasted, of course tasted, like the sweetness of bread on your tongue and the richness of wine as it slides down your throat like silk.

Verbum caro factum est. The Word was made flesh, knew our flesh, and took that flesh, this world, you and me and all of Creation into his arms and blessed it, redeemed it, saved it, loved it, now and forever. And this morning we greet that Word, born this happy morning – Jesus, to thee be all glory given. Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing. What better thing to sing, really? All this time, this song is best: Verbum caro factum est.

*This idea comes from the work Poems Without Names: The English Lyric, 1200-1500 by Raymond Oliver.

Preached by Mother Erika Takacs

25 December 2015

Saint Mark's, Philadelphia

The Force Awakens

The Force Awakens

Fr. Sean Mullen

One, singular piece of information, much discussed in the media, has had a profound affect on the way many people will experience Christmas this year. I first learned this piece of information late last Friday night, and since then I have been trying to figure out precisely what its significance is. Does it make me anxious and worried? Or does it leave me hopeful and expectant? I’m not sure.

Maybe you are wondering too, on this warm Christmas Eve, with so much to worry about in the world, whether Christmas fills you with dread or with hope. And maybe, if you have come across it (and it’s very likely that you have), maybe you are still trying to decide if this single bit of information has contributed to the mystery of this Christmas Eve in a good way or a bad way?

Even if you have not learned it first-hand, you have probably heard from someone else the news that I am referring to. And by repeating it to you I am giving nothing away. This is the news: Luke Skywalker has vanished.

With these words, the Star Wars saga, that began when I was a ten-year-old boy, has continued this year. And many of us have been enthralled to see those words crawl across the screen, as we are once again pulled into the conflict between good and evil that’s taking place in a galaxy far, far away. And we are invited to perch at the edge of our seats as we discover whether the Force, newly re-awakened, will be deployed for the virtuous, the humble, and the needy, or whether it will serve only to advance the cause of the powerful, the rich, and the self-satisfied of the Empire.

To put the question in Biblical terms: will the humble and meek be exalted, and the rich be sent empty away? Or will the mighty maintain their seat, and the proud see the self-serving imagination of their hearts gratified once more? Is this not the question that Star Wars asks again and again?

And is this not the question of Christmas? It is surely the question that Mary sings about when she learns that God intends for her to bear a Son by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit. And if Mary doesn’t know the meaning of Christmas, then who does?

Right versus wrong. Good versus evil. Light versus darkness. George Lucas may have sold the rights to the Star Wars franchise, but the story endures. And it enlists such an immense following because it presents these fundamentally religious matters that are about more than politics, more than justice, more than governance, and certainly about more than the movies. Will goodness prevail? Or will it be eclipsed by the power of evil that so often seems to have the upper hand, the better theme music, and the cooler costumes?

A wise priest I know recently said that we “know that evil is a force in this world because it takes energy to resist it.”[i]

How right he is. And we knew that there was evil in the world even before Darth Vader came marching into our lives with his well-scored entrance music, his menacing mask, and his black cape swooping behind him. We know that evil is a force in this world, not because we have seen it on the big screen, but because we can feel it for ourselves, in our lives – sometimes with all the force of a punch to the gut that leaves you feeling like you may have to throw up. And it takes energy to resist that evil.

You find this, at a distance, when you are reading the paper or watching the news. But you also find it closer to hand when you hear of people you know and love who have suffered horribly – not only from sickness and natural disaster (these are bad enough), but at the cruel hands of a vicious regime, or a thief, or a gunman, or a bully, or an abuser, or system that just couldn’t care less. Or maybe you have suffered yourself in these ways.

And you know that goodness will not prevail unless someone does something about it – unless some energy is spent to resist the power of evil at work in the world, near and far. We know that evil is a force in this world because it takes energy to resist it.

Sometimes the evil is so much more personal, though. Sometimes it is that secret desire that you mostly keep at bay, but that, given the opportunity (which often means sufficient time alone, or enough distance to keep a secret) you will indulge, to the detriment of your own self and your good relationships. Does it come in a bottle, or in a pill, or wrapped in leaf or papers? Is it found online (in great profusion), or maybe even on the dark web? Is it at the other end of a phone number that you are careful not to save on your cell phone? Or is it hidden in a text message that you hope no one will ever see, or that you were careful to delete? Have you become so good at keeping this secret desire a secret that you no longer bother wasting much energy even trying to resist it? That it no longer seems like it really takes on the shape of evil?

Have we relegated evil to the movies, because we ourselves don’t bother spending much energy resisting evil anymore – globally or personally?

Part of the genius of the Star Wars legend is the ambivalence of the Force, which can be mastered either for good or for ill. There is perhaps no more terrifying weapon in any of the films than the bony empty fingers of the Emperor, or the black-gloved hand of Darth Vader or Kylo Ren stretched out in order to dominate an opponent - body and mind – with nothing but the unseen power of the Force; knowing that those empty fingers, that empty hand, will bring the object of their invisible power to its knees! The image speaks to us because we actually know that evil so often is invisible, or all too often it is disguised, made up like something we think we might like to have, or might like to be, or might at least like to dress up as for Halloween.

But still, evil is a force in the world. And in the midst of all this, Luke Skywalker has vanished. Luke, whose virtue and mastery of the light side of the Force may mean he is destined to overcome his dark patrimony, unless of course he is not.

Luke Skywalker has vanished. Perhaps this is an appropriate meme for the 21st century – a century in which so often virtue has vanished, faith has vanished, justice has vanished, truth has vanished. And for so many, God has vanished too.

Of course, Luke Skywalker is no god, nor even a savior, but he clearly represents a best hope for ourselves – a story we would like to be able to tell about ourselves: of the hope that we can overcome the darkness that threatens to eclipse our lives, sometimes from the inside out. But now Luke has vanished. Whither now hope?

Well, here we are on Christmas Eve – full of the questions of the moment, wondering if and when we shall have reason to hope for anything at all. And to begin with, the Christmas story tells us that if there is hope to be found, it will not be found in a galaxy far, far away. The answer of Christmas, to the vexing questions that plague us, begins with this assurance: that hope is to be found right here in our midst, because God is at work in our midst. God is here, with us.

And the answer of Christmas continues with a simple thing - a child is born – which is nearly incomprehensible to the dark side of things, because what can a child do? And this great mystery of God’s love – that a child is born – appears to be foolishness on God’s part at first glance, but is shown to be ever more wise, the more we learn about ourselves and about the force of evil.

Try to vanquish evil with military might and you have yourself a never-ending arms race. Try to vanquish evil with fire and you have incited an arsonist more committed to the work than you are. Try to vanquish evil with the strength of your own bare hands, and you find you are up against a fighter who enjoys the fight more than you do. We are tempted to think we should meet evil on its own terms, and beat it at its own game. But this is foolishness. Evil will always be a better destroyer, a better eliminator, and a better murderer than we can be, or ever should be.

God’s wisdom, rather, knows those ways in which evil can never prevail: in weakness, humility, and some measure of poverty – at these, evil has no facility, with these, evil can maintain no equilibrium; and in these, evil can find no power. Which makes a child the perfect hope against evil: an infant savior the kind of redeemer that could only spring from the wisdom of God.

We come running to God on Christmas Eve with the worried meme on our lips that Luke Skywalker has vanished, and the loss of hope that that implies in the real world. We want God to strengthen us, to arm us, and to steel us for battle – after all there is a lot worth fighting for in this world of ours! And a film like Star Wars, that understands our need to be reminded about the possibility of our victory in this struggle, encourages us in our desire to be ready for the fight!

But God knows how things go when everything becomes a war, every challenge is a battle, and every person is called to be a soldier: things don’t go well, not in the long run.

So God chooses weakness; God chooses humility; God chooses poverty. God sends a child to come into the world to be our Savior.

And God calls his people together at Christmas to remind us of this, no matter what the meme of the moment may be, even if Luke Skywalker has vanished.

Put not your trust in Jedi, comes God’s Christmas answer to the vexing questions of our time, nor in any power of men. Turn, instead, your eyes, and your ears, your hands and your hearts, to the manger, and to the Child lying there, sleeping so softly, and see, the power of God to transform all things by his grace, by the power of love, and by the wisdom of his Word. Gather round this cradle, and watch and wait for it. Listen for him; use a baby-monitor if you have to, or stay close enough to hear for yourself if you can. Follow the example of the shepherds, who know that something quite beyond their ken is at hand, but who want to be there to discover it anyway. Remember the wise men who were drawn to this mean crib. Hear the sweet song of the angels singing, hovering as close as they dare.

Do whatever you have to do to be there by his side when his little eyes flutter open, and his little arms and legs stretch out, and his little fingers grasp yours, and his little voice lets out a cry… and the force awakens that has changed the course of human destiny because he gave us again the power to become the children of God that we were always meant to be.

And if there is anything that worries you this Christmas; and if you have the nagging sense that evil remains a force in this world; if you feel quite certain of this because you know that it takes you some energy to resist it, then by all means thank God for bringing you here tonight to show you again that God sent his Son into the world to save it; and to save us. Thank God that the force awakens in its crib, the newborn child: nothing but weakness, humility, and poverty.

The force awakens every Christmas, and every day, and beckons us to believe in him, to place our trust and our hope in him, to align ourselves with that holy force of light and life whose Name is Jesus, and who will teach us that his power is made perfect in weakness.

There is good reason for us to gather tonight, past our bedtimes, when we should be snuggled in our beds; to be here together on this night of mystery and wonder and birth. Because he is only an infant, we know he will not sleep through the night when he comes, and we want to be here when the force awakens, that brings with him hope and salvation, without so much as a rattle to shake.

He is tiny, and he is weak, and he is humble, and he is poor, and he is the Son of God, who brings with him into this world of worry, anxiety, and fear, only his weakness, his humility, and his poverty. And these are more than enough, by the grace of God, to save the world.

So much has vanished: slipped through our hands and just disappeared: so much hope has been lost. Which is why it is good to be here, so that we can sing when the force awakens, and rock him to sleep again till the morning when he awakens again, as he does every morning, to bring us hope.

Thanks be to God!

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

Christmas Eve 2015

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

[i] Fr. Frank Wade, speaking at the Clergy Conference for the Diocese of Pennsylvania, Dec, 2015