The Numinous Presence of the Living God: a sermon for Year A, Easter 3

Preached on Sunday, May 4, 2014 at the Church of the Holy Trinity on Manhattan's Upper East Side. The Scripture readings this sermon is based on can be found by clicking here. 

Philosophers, sociologists, psychologists and theologians have talked about and written about, and sometimes even experienced, events which they have described as ‘numinous.’ The numinous. The etymology of the word itself is interesting and gives us a clue to its meaning... Its Latin root numen, is taken from the verb nuere, which means to nod. In Greco-Roman times, a devotee would seek the guidance of a god by offering a prayer or incantation at the shrine of that god, and waiting to see if perhaps the statue of the god might be seen or suspected to nod as an indication of the path to take.

We’ve come to use the term numinous to mean an encounter with the divine, or

the supernatural. The American psychologist William James, author of Varieties of Religious Experience, referred to the numinous as “a sense of reality, a feeling of objective presence, a perception of … something there.” The Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist Carl Jung described numinous experiences as inexpressible, mysterious, sometimes terrifying -- and always pertaining, in some way, to the divine. Jung believed that our main task in this life was to discover and fulfill our individual potential. This individuation as he called it, is what lies at the mystical heart of all religions. The task of life, according to Jung, is to meet the self and thereby to meet the Divine.

You can find an account of a numinous experience in the Southern writer Flannery O’Connor’s short story Revelation. In it, an arrogant, judgmental, faultfinding woman named Ruby Turpin, has a vision, a numinous experience that is one of those that proves quite unsettling. After a day during which Ruby finds lots of confirmation that she and her class are so much more superior to the unwashed and uneducated poor of her town, which encompasses all the black folk, of course, and the white trash, as she calls them, Ruby gets her comeuppance. At sunset she witnesses a vision in which all those she absolutely despises and knows herself to be far superior to -- the poor, the simple folk, all black folks -- are being led gloriously into heaven across a crimson highway through a lavender light. And at the very last of this parade of the saints she sees her peers, in last place, and stripped of what they consider to be their virtues; on an equal plain with, even behind, all the unwashed humanity she detests. Ruby’s rather vacuous virtues -- race, class, social prowess, proper behavior -- are not reckoned to her as righteousness as she supposes, but in fact they are worthless in the face of God’s freely offered, freely given salvation.

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Our gospel reading this week contains another account of a numinous experience. Two people, called ‘disciples’ by the evangelist Luke, are journeying from Jerusalem after the astonishing few days of the Passover that they’ve just experienced. A fellow traveler joins them, and asks them what they are discussing. They give an almost perfect précis of the highlights of the passion, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. And then they share their disappointment. They had hoped that this Jesus would be the one to redeem Israel. Then their fellow traveler challenges them, and recounts for them how, all that they have been told about their God has led to this very outcome. That, in fact, beginning with Moses, the words of Scripture and prophesy can be interpreted in such a way as to lead to just this result: not a great king, but a suffering, seemingly vanquished servant is, in fact, the messiah.

Then as the traveler is about to continue on his journey, the two disciples invite him to tarry a while with them -- and to share a meal. This strange and challenging traveler is invited in. Then as one does at table, the traveler takes bread, blesses and breaks it. Nothing special here; much as you do at the beginning of a meal. But this simple act proves both reminiscent and prescient. Because in that moment, that numinous moment, they experience the divine. It is Jesus that is with them, in the breaking of the bread, and since the beginning of their journey.

And notice; they come to this unutterably mysterious and joyous moment, only after having traveled the road, taken the journey to a place called Emmaus. They have been through an ordeal in Jerusalem. They have hoped and then lost that hope. Yet in the face of disappointment and loss, they remained open, open to a presence of a fellow traveler, welcoming to such a one, inviting him in to partake of a bit of simple roadside hospitality. Though let down, perhaps even heartbroken, yet still open to the possibilities inherent in every journey, any journey, the numinous breaks in upon them. And they come face to face with the glory of God in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In an instant, they find they are in the presence of none other than the living God.

And that is why, week after week, Sunday after Sunday, we revisit Emmaus. We join around this table just as they did. And we break the break just as they did. And we put ourselves in the presence of the living God, once again. Because here, God is present in our coming together and breaking bread.

Now not every Eucharist will prove to be as numinous as that supper at Emmaus. But the potential for that kind of experience is ever present, always possible; in this sacred rite, and, I believe, in every walk of life. The numinous experience of the living God is imminent in all of creation. Putting ourselves in the right place, in the right frame of mind, to avail ourselves of, to really welcome, the numinous experience of the living God is… well it takes work. Learning to set aside the really vacuous virtues that we, like Ruby Turpin, can be so proud of. The cultivation of a willingness to continue on our journeys after disappointment, even despair. The spiritual maturity to allow that the messiah we thought we were promised is not quite the messiah we are given. All these learnings and growings are part of what ready us to experience the numinous. The willingness to be wounded, to take the risks that will in some cases lead to hurt. It takes some of that too.

So, start out on the road to Emmaus. Begin your journey. Welcome those whom God might send to travel with you. Share your dreams and your disappointments with those who journey alongside you. Listen to what they might say, to how they might interpret your shared experiences. Listen to what they have to say about what you think you might already know. Be hospitable on the way. Give and accept the gift of time with one another, the gift of being in one another’s presence; for such presences are really the most valuable things we have to share with one another. 

And when it’s time to refresh and renew yourselves, break bread together. Share a meal, a glass of wine, a celebration, some pizza and beer and birthday cake after a long day of MayFair, for instance. And see what happens. And don’t be surprised if in the most mundane of moments, in the simplest act of sharing, the numinous, mysterious, surprising, fleeting, frightening, shattering presence of the living God doesn’t find you, doesn’t break into your life, and change it forever.  +Amen.

© The Rev. Mark R. Collins

Thy Kingdom Come: a sermon for Year A, Lent 1

Preached on Sunday, March 9th at the Church of the Holy Trinity on Manhattan's Upper East Side. The Scripture readings this sermon is based on can be found by clicking here.

In our Advent and Christmastide Book Group, we read John Dominick Crossan’s The Greatest Prayer about the Lord’s Prayer and its origins, its sources and its meanings. If you read the inside cover of your service leaflet this morning, you’ll see that we’re using the Lukan version of the Lord’s Prayer during Lent this year, in part, due to what we learned in our book group.

In the book Crossan, deals extensively with the scene we see unfolding in our gospel reading this morning. It is, after all, the first Sunday in Lent, and our focus for these next 40 some days will be on sin and temptation and repentance. It makes sense, then, that as we begin to look at our own sinfulness and need for repentance, we look to the example Jesus sets for us in dealing with temptation.

Here’s a hint, he handles it a lot better than we can ever hope to.

Jesus is led into the wilderness by the Spirit. This journey occurs immediately following Jesus’s baptism in Matthew’s account. It’s as if Matthew is saying that trial and temptation are to be part of the life of faith for baptized Christians. It seems as if, for Matthew at least, this is part of the proving of our faith, its tempering and strengthening.

Jesus journeys in the wilderness for 40 days fasting, at the end of which he is famished. Sure enough, Satan appears and tempts Jesus to turn the stones into loaves of bread. Crossan points out that both stones and loaves are plural. Why so many loaves for just one person? A single loaf would be bread enough and then some for one man. It was an expectation in the time of Jesus that upon the dawn of the messianic age, that God would miraculously provide food for everyone, through the offices of the Messiah. As in the desert of Sinai, all Israel would be fed with bread from heaven.

And it’s worth noting the parallels between the trials of Jesus and Israel in the wilderness. 40 days for Jesus, 40 years for Israel. Both become hungry on the journey, so hungry, in fact that the faith of the nation of Israel wavered until God delivered the manna from heaven. Not so Jesus’s faith. He needs no miracle to reinforce it. And he notes, quoting for Deuteronomy, that it is God’s Word that feeds us, that is essential for our lives, not bread alone.
From this private temptation, we move to a very public one. Satan tells Jesus to throw himself from the pinnacle of the Temple, because, it is written, God’s angels will rescue him and preserve him. But Matthew and Jesus both know that the way in which Jesus’s life will unfold is not the way of grandiose demonstrations of his authority, sure to marvel the whole nation. Nor is it to prove his authority through acts of folly.

Jesus’s way is the way of the cross, of humble suffering, even unto death. Of small miracles that feed not a nation, but a few thousand who have given their ear to an itinerant rabbi and carpenter. Small miracles like the healing of the mother-in-law of his disciple, the raising of Lazarus, the brother of his friends Mary and Martha.

Jesus saves on a personal level, not a national one, or even a global one, as we shall see. He heals by touch, by contact with those who suffer. And though those who witness these interventions are often brought to faith, that’s not the point. Rather, they are caring, loving, person-to-person acts of mercy for those who suffer. Little moments of grace. These are not billboards or ad campaigns or membership drives, they are plates of food for the hungry on Saturday nights, and warm beds for homeless men, and companionship for the lonely. 

Since tempting Jesus with the acclaim of a nation doesn’t seem to work, Satan offers Jesus the whole world. Notice here how there is no dispute over who is, to quote Leonardo DiCaprio, ‘the King of the World’. The kingdoms of the world are in Satan’s gift, his to administer, it seems, and he tempts Jesus with all the power and glory that, in Jesus’s time, was enjoyed by only one earthly person, the Roman emperor. But Jesus refuses it, and sends Satan away.

Following these temptations, Jesus will call his disciples; teach them about the justice of the kingdom of Heaven in Matthew’s extended Sermon on the Mount. Then he will teach them how to pray, telling them to pray that God’s kingdom may come, and God’s will be done on earth, as it already is in heaven.

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In the Lukan version of the Lord’s Prayer that we’re using in our liturgy this Lent, we say, “save us from the time of trial”, rather than “lead us not into temptation.” I must say, I don’t much like the idea of a God who leads us into temptation. But in Matthew’s gospel this morning, that’s exactly what the Spirit of God does to Jesus, leads him into the desert to be tempted. But even so, it is Jesus himself who teaches us to pray that such will not be the case of us, that we will be spared temptation and the time of trial.

But I don’t think that we can. We are in this world and subject to the temptations that this worldly kingdom so readily offers. I took a break from writing this sermon yesterday, to read the NY Times. We’re Weekender subscribers in our house -- that’s the cheapest way to get the online version of the Times, by the way, so we get some of Sunday’s sections a day early. In this Sunday’s Times, there’s a special section with Sherlock Holmes on the cover. And by Sherlock Holmes, I mean, of course, Benedict Cumberbatch. It’s the semi-annual men’s fashion magazine, and I glanced through it while ‘working on my sermon’. There are articles and ads that feature shirts that cost hundreds of dollars, pants that cost thousands of dollars, and in one feature, a watch that costs more than $50,000. I would imagine if you kitted yourself up for Spring upon the advice of the NY Times you’d need to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more. Such are the temptations of the world we live in.

Yesterday, as some of you know, was International Women’s Day. I remember another International Women’s Day 10 years ago, when some colleagues and I were visiting refugee relief programs in Sierra Leone. In a refugee resettlement area near Koidu, Sierra Leone, International Women’s Day was celebrated with a ‘march-past’, a British locution left over from colonial days meaning a parade. The devastating regional war fomented by Liberian despot Charles Taylor had not long been ended, and there was a great effort afoot to rebuild civil society.

(Folks, I want to give you a bit of warning... This next part is a bit hard to hear.)

As is often the case in wars -- in every time and place, not just recently in Africa -- gender-based violence exploded during the conflict. The march-past on this International Women’s Day was focused on combating gender-based violence.


The lead banner urged both men and women to work together to create a peaceful society in Sierra Leone that revoked the license to rape, abuse, and exploit that had been granted, it seemed, during the days of chaos and violence just ended.

In such an atmosphere, young women, girls really, often became pregnant against their will at too young an age to successfully bear their infants. And in such a place, they had no other choice than to carry these pregnancies to term. Often these girls were injured in childbirth. The injury they were most prone to was a tear in the barrier between the utero and urinary tracts, resulting in great pain, and an inability to control their bladders. Other women, who had been particularly brutally raped during the conflict suffered similar injuries, with the same painful result.

If you suffer from such a condition, and you live in a one-room or two-room mud hut with an extended family, it’s not long before you are shunned and expelled. I’m proud to say that the organization I worked for then, the International Rescue Committee, undertook a program to help these women. A minor surgery costing around $150, including transportation to a hospital in the capital Freetown, solved the problem, and allowed these women to live completely normal lives without further urinary, sexual or reproductive issues. It was good work to be engaged in.

The reason this particular part of Sierra Leone had been a target of Taylor and others is because it is rich in diamonds. The kind of diamonds you might find in a $50,000 watch. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the cost of the watch in the Times fashion section today could have provided the surgery I described for more than 300 women, and there were many more than 300 in need of it.

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The temptations of this world are myriad. And as I warned you, Jesus does a better job at resisting them than do you or me. I most certainly am guilty of enjoying more than my fair share of bread, and well, just about any carb. And who among us wouldn’t mind the angels rescuing us from our follies. Some of us might even aspire to the kind of power and glory that comes to emperors and rulers.

But we follow Jesus. And Jesus rejects the temptations of this world. Jesus rejects the kingdoms of the world. He rejects the throne of an emperor for the cross of a savior. He rejects the kingdom of $50,000 watches and women and girls as the spoils of war; probably because he understands the ways in which the two are linked.

We can’t hope to be as resistant to worldly temptations as Jesus is, but we can try. We might try to carry out a simple kindness or two, or seize an opportunity to practice small mercies and person-to-person graces, in imitation of him. Or we might have contact with, or just give an ear, to the voices of those who suffer. We won’t save the world as Jesus did; we probably won’t even change it. But perhaps those who see our good works might give glory to our Father in heaven. Perhaps someone somewhere might come to faith or a deeper faith through our imitation of Christ, pale as it must be. Perhaps that someone might even be ourselves.

Thy Kingdom come, they will be done. +Amen.

It Is Good That We Should Be Here: a sermon for the Last Sunday after the Epiphany, Year A

Preached Sunday, March 2, 2014 at the Church of the Holy Trinity on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Scripture texts that this sermon is based on can be found by clicking here. 

Today is the last Sunday of Epiphany – this Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, and we begin our weeks-long journey thought Lent. The passage we read this morning is always the account of the Transfiguration of Christ on the mountaintop.

The Transfiguration appears in Matthew, Mark and Luke, and it comes just after Jesus has predicted his own passion and suffering. Peter was so shocked to hear Jesus’ predictions of his crucifixion that his response was a memorable one. “God forbid!” Peter exclaimed, to which Jesus offers his famous rebuke, “Get behind me, Satan.” Jesus is aware that what is coming for him, his suffering and death, which is also what is coming for us in the culmination of Lent at Holy Week, what is coming is going to be hard on his followers, the very idea of it is too hard for Peter even to contemplate.  

In our account from Matthew’s Gospel, we find a transfigured Jesus accompanied by two major figures from the history of the Hebrew people. There on one side of Jesus is Moses.  Of course, Moses is a great hero of Salvation history. Moses parted the Red Sea and brought the children of Israel out of captivity, he fed them manna from heaven in the desert and led them to the Promised Land.  It was through Moses that God gave the law to the people of Israel, detailing for the first time in human history how a people of God would relate and interact with their God and with one another; in a reflection of God’s love for them. 

In Jesus’s day, many expected Elijah’s return, which they believed would herald the imminent coming of the Messiah. The gospels speak of John the Baptist as Elijah come to herald the Messiah’s arrival. Elijah healed the leper Naaman, and raised the son of the faithful widow. And of course, it is Elijah who goes up on a mountaintop like Moses, and encounters the living God, not in the earthquake or the mighty wind, but in the still, small voice. 

In first century Judaism, it was widely believed that Moses and Elijah were taken to the very presence of God at the end of their lives and resided with God in the heavenly habitations. So it’s not surprising that they should appear with Jesus when Jesus puts on the glowing countenance of a heavenly being. But what’s important about these two figures in the context of the Transfiguration is that they testify to Jesus, to his place in Salvation history, to his coming glorification. Both the law and the prophets, in the persons of Moses, giver of the law, and Elijah, progenitor of the prophets, stand as witnesses to Jesus’ glorification on the mountain. Jesus stands as their more than worthy successor, having shown his authority over the sea and his ability to feed the many -- like Moses, and having cleansed the leper and raised the dead, as did Elijah. And as at his baptism, the voice from above – speaking the exact same words -- proclaims to us all that this transfigured Jesus is the very Son of God. 

Transfiguration is at the heart of our faith, it is at the core of what it means to be a Christian. We are the heirs of the people who walked to freedom on dry land in the midst of a transfigured great sea. It was to a daughter of these ancestors in faith that a miraculous message was brought by an angel, and she too was unexpectedly transfigured, made great with child though yet a virgin. And it was her child who became the miracle worker who was able to transfigure water into wine, to heal the sick, to quite the minds of those pestered by demons, to conquer death. This carpenter’s son, this synagogue loudmouth, this rabble-rouser, was revealed to be none other than the Christ, the anointed one, the Son of God. This lowly Galilean, from a forgotten backwater of the Roman Empire, who suffered the most ignominious of deaths, nailed to a tree by the side of the road out of town, left to die in the noonday sun. This broken, lifeless body laid to rest in a borrowed tomb that would be transfigured into our resurrected Lord. This Jesus whose transfiguration was not his alone, but who, through his own death and resurrection has transfigured our humanity and made us little lower than the angels, transfiguring our mortal life into everlasting life in him.

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But you might have guessed the verse, the phrase, the few words in this passage that are my favorite. I usually repeat them at announcement time when I thank you all for coming. They are Peter’s words, spoken in the midst of his awe at the vision of the ancient prophets and the transfigured Jesus before him. He says, rather simply, “It is good that we should be here.”

I can’t know why you came here this morning, what you are seeking, or what you’re seeking refuge from. But nonetheless, it is good that we should be here. 

Maybe you came here today to experience some of this transfiguration. Maybe you hope to be transformed here. Or maybe you came here to escape transformations. Maybe you’re here to find something solid to cling to, in a world that seems to be transfiguring and transforming itself daily, if not hourly. Maybe it’s a bit of both. In either case, it is good that you should be here.  

It is good that we should be here, just to be here, to spend time here. Really, what else would you be doing with this hour or so? Spend the time here. You may hear something read, or preached or said or sung that will resonate within you, kicking off your transformation and your own transfiguration. I hope so. But if not, it matters not; it is good that you should be here. The more often you are here, the more likely that morning when something here, someone or something, will spark your transformation. 

I’m using those two words interchangeably – transfiguration and transformation – and really, I probably shouldn’t. Transformation is about change, usually. But, for Jesus at least, transfiguration is not about change so much, as it is about revelation. Jesus is revealed to be the successor to Moses and Elijah, he is revealed to be both a heavenly being as well as a human being; he appears to be and is called the Son of the Living God. 

At his Transfiguration, Jesus doesn’t become something else, rather he becomes his true self, his essential self; and his essential reality is revealed. That can be what happens to you too, in this place. For here we come to believe that the truth about us, our true selves, our authentic selves, is that regardless of who we are in the world, here, we are none other than the beloved children of a loving God. 

Divorced, over-weight, out of work, broke, brokenhearted, neurotic – and blessed and oh, so highly favored children of the Almighty God. 

It is good that we should be here, to give worship and praise to the awesome God who grants unto us salvation, and eternal life, and the glories of heaven. It is good that we should be here, to witness the transfigurations around us, as we journey together, through life, with its victories and losses. It is good that we should love each other here, for in that, we become a more perfect reflection of the God who created us in the divine image, and who loves us so. It is good that we should be here to offer ourselves, our bodies and our lives, to be transformed and transfigured by service, and worship, and community membership, into good and faithful servants of God, of each other, and of God’s beloved poor. 

It is good that we should be here. We might not be transformed or transfigured today, or even tomorrow. But we might be the one smile that breaks through the loneliness of our pew mate. We might offer the first true word of welcome to a wounded Christian who has not found welcome in her church community. We might see the transfiguration of one of our elderly fellow worshippers, as old age begins to take its toll, and this might be the day we offer to walk them home, maybe share some brunch and hear the story of their faith, before they are gone from among us, bound for the glory that awaits. 

Or maybe we’ll not hear, or see, or feel anything particularly worthy this morning. And we’ll go home wondering why we bother. And then maybe we’ll come to realize that most things leave us feeling this way, and we’ll finally realize that it is our resistance that keeps joy at bay, and we’ll begin to tear down those walls of resistance, and come more fully into relationship with our community and with our God. 

In any case, in every case, for whatever reason or for none, for the first time or the last, carrying a heart full of joy, or sorrow, with great expectations or seething with resentment, no matter why, or from where you come, or what you seek or seek to avoid here; it is good that we should be here. Very good, indeed, that we should be here, together in the presence of the living God, and in the sacred company of one another. Amen+

© The Rev. Mark R. Collins

Diving Into The Wreck: a sermon for Year A, the Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany

Preached on Sunday, February 16, 2014 at the Church of the Holy Trinity. Scripture readings that this sermon is based on can be found by clicking here.

As many of you know, this year, this liturgical year which began on the first Sunday of Advent, is the year of Matthew. We’ll rely on Matthew’s gospel on most of the Sundays this year, to tell the story of Jesus, his life, his preaching and teaching. In our gospel reading today, Jesus is speaking to the crowd that has gathered at the foot of the mount to hear him preach the Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew’s gospel the Sermon on the Mount is much more than just those Beatitudes. The Sermon on the Mount comprises three whole chapters in Matthew’s gospel. Luke’s similar Sermon on the Plain takes up several verses only. Matthew groups together many of Jesus’s teachings in this one discourse, and it makes for a rich, but also dense and comprehensive composite of Jesus’ message to us
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So, on this mount, Jesus has intoned the beautiful Beatitudes to the same group of people he’s preaching to in today’s gospel. And from this same spote he has called his listeners the salt of the earth, and a light unto the world, as we heard last Sunday.

It was in our gospel reading last Sunday that Jesus reminded us that he came into the world not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. So, this Sunday, in the passages of Matthew’s gospel that immediately follow that pronouncement, not too surprisingly, we find Jesus expounding upon the law as it has been received through Scripture and tradition.

And just what does Jesus say to the crowd? What is his interpretation of the law? He starts with the sixth of the Ten Commandments, the injunction against murder. Not only does Jesus tell us that murder is wrong, but he says even anger, or any enmity between ourselves and our brothers and sisters is wrong. It’s not only a literally murderous rage we should worry about, but any rage or anger that impairs our relationships is subject to God’s judgment.

Next up is the Seventh Commandment, the injunction against adultery. Adultery was a crime that was very well articulated (maybe even over-articulated) in Jewish law in Jesus’ day. Adultery was defined as a married woman having sexual relations with a man other than her husband. It was considered a violation of the husband’s rights to his wife as his exclusive property and his right to the assurance that any children born to his wife would be, in fact, his own.

But Jesus focuses his opprobrium not so much on the act of adultery but on what proceeds it. This is the famous ‘Jimmy Carter’ confession -- Jesus says it’s wrong even to lust for another’s wife, not just to carry that lust to its physical fulfillment.

Next comes the divorce section of the passage. And here, Jesus goes a bit off the rails. There is no Scripture in the Old Testament, nor any law in the tradition that Jesus inherited, that prohibits divorce. Divorce was legal. And the law said that any married man -- and only the man, not his wife -- could seek a divorce for almost any reason.

Though it seems that this passage deals with divorce specifically, it’s really a continuation of the pronouncement against adultery. If a man divorces his wife for no good reason (that is for anything other than unchastity, the only ‘good reason’ in Jesus’ opinion), he is guilty of sin because he causes his wife to sin by dissolving her legal marriage. And the man who takes up such a woman as his wife is guilty of sin as well, because she has been deprived of her marriage with no say, perhaps deprived of it unwillingly. Not only is adultery within one’s heart a sin, but Jesus calls it adultery when the legal strictures of divorce are exploited unfairly and without good reason.

This passage is steeped in the patriarchy of its time, and some of the patriarchal attitudes we find here are still with us today. And Jesus’ teaching is not essentially anti-patriarchal, much as we might wish it were. But it is worth noting that in these teachings about adultery and divorce, it is the men that Jesus is calling to account. The divorce and adultery laws and customs favored men, and often left women vulnerable to social and economic ruin, to punishment, penury, starvation and death. The system in Jesus’ day already dealt harshly with women involved in adulterous relationships. But here, Jesus is saying that men who participate in adultery, through lust and through the male-privilege ensconced in the divorce laws, are just as guilty.

Next comes the prohibition against swearing oaths, which might seem somewhat curious to us today. It might be time to look at just how literally Jesus meant this and his other pronouncements in our passage from Matthew to be taken.

As we heard, in the section dealing with anger, Jesus says that it is a sin even to speak in anger, specifically to call someone a fool. He says that anyone calling another a fool is subject to the fires of hell. Well, just a while later in Matthew, at chapter 23, verse 17, Jesus is debating the Pharisees, and in anger he says to his adversary, “You blind fool!”

And then a bit later in Matthew 23, verses 19-22, we’re still involved in the same argument with some Pharisees, and the subject of swearing oaths comes up. In this later passage in Matthew, Jesus responds to a legal opinion of the Pharisees about swearing oaths by saying that any oath one swears, by heaven or by things on earth, is, in fact, binding -- directly contradicting the teaching on swearing oaths we have in our reading today.

So, clearly, it’s not the products of these preachings of Jesus -- not new regulations or interpretations of the law -- that are the point of our gospel reading today, but rather it is the process Jesus is engaging in that commands our attention.
 

What Jesus is doing in today’s reading from Matthew is reaffirming the ancient law, which he said, just last week that he comes not to abolish but to fulfill. And most importantly, Jesus is radicalizing that law. Now, when most of us hear the word radical, we think of something that is extreme that is on the outer fringes, something that is way, way beyond the pale. But in fact, radical means not the outer edge of possibility, but rather the inner core, the root. In fact, the root of the word radical is the Latin word radix, which means literally ‘root’. In this sense, the opposite of radical is not traditional or conservative, as we might think based on how the term is often used in our political discourse. No, the opposite of the word radical, in this sense, is superficial.
 
Jesus is radicalizing the law by leaving behind the superficial, legalistic interpretations of the law, with all its various cases and applications and interpretations, and looking to see what lies at the heart of the law, and by doing so, he invites us to look into our own hearts when we transgress God’s law, when we sin. Jesus goes deep into the law that defines sin, and invites us to go deep within our hearts which commit sins.

Jesus is saying, ‘Dive in, dive into the deep end. Dive into the wreck of your transgressions and find what lies deepest within your heart, what lies under the surface of your actions. For therein lies the cause of your sin -- and your pathway to salvation.’

‘Thou shalt not murder or kill’ is not an injunction against war or bodily harm, it is, at its root, at its heart, an injunction to live in love, to seek harmony and concord -- with everyone else everywhere else. And in the example Jesus gives, we might take his teaching about leaving the altar to make peace to mean that, even more important than our duty to God, is our duty to love one another. After all, we know it is our God who can forget our callousness and disregard of him; it is our God who can readily forgive us, much more readily than we can forgive each other.
 
The injunctions against lust and adultery and divorce are not so much injunctions against sexual thoughts and actions, or about how ironbound the strictures of marriage are or should be, rather they are a call to intimately love one another in a respectful way, in a healthy way. We are called to help one another, to strengthen one another in our intimate relationships. We should not be predatory; we should not take advantage of each other. We should not make one another more vulnerable or weaker or more dependent; but rather our committed relationships should make us safer and stronger. We should build each other up, not tear each other down. We should join in true partnerships, not take hostages. And the sum of our coming together in intimate love and committed relationships should make us greater than we are individuals, greater than the just the sum of our parts.
 
And when we endeavor to make assurances, when we are called upon to tell the truth, we should do so simply and honestly, regardless of what the consequences might be. We should be believed, not because we swear on the Bible or on our mother’s grave, but rather we should be believed because our “Yes, Yes” or our “No, No” comes from deep within us. When it really matters, we should go deep down, to the root, and speak from the deepest part of our selves and our hearts, and tell the truth.

The poet Adrienne Rich wrote a poem about scuba diving into a shipwreck. She called the poem and the collection that contained it Diving into the Wreck. One of my favorite lines in the poem reads,

I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail.

If we as Christians are willing to, if we choose to, we can dive deep into the wreck of our sins and transgressions to see what lies at their heart, at their radical root. 

At the root of our anger, do we find old resentments we’re unwilling to let go of? Old injuries we’re unwilling to allow to heal? Do we punish with our anger those around us for wrongs that lie elsewhere, in our past, or wrongs done us by other people? In our committed relationships, are we true partners, or do we cling to one another out of fear of being alone? Do we hold our partners hostage, rather than hold them deep within our hearts? Are we willing to let our partners grow and change, even if that growth and change feels threatening?
 
And what about the little lies we tell? Underneath them, are their bigger, darker lies we tell ourselves? We tell our little lies to keep from hurting someone’s feelings or to keep the peace, but do those lies really protect us, keep us from the conflict that we are so afraid of, hide the truth from one we think might disapprove of us if they knew the real truth about us? Is that person who would disapprove of us most, if we really faced the truth, actually ourselves? Is our mendacity nothing more than a smokescreen we hid behind because we don’t really believe what Jesus told us, that the truth will set us free?
 
If we dive deep into our sins and transgressions, to the radical heart of our wrongs, we’ll learn a great deal about who we are. And if we are willing to do so, if we choose to do so, we can dive deeper into God’s law, into God’s love for us, for there we will find true treasures that prevail.
 
We’ll find laws that seek to draw us into greater love with one another and with God. We’ll find commandments that seek to draw us down deeper, below the surface, beyond the superficial, to the root of who we are, who we all are, as God’s children.
 
So, dive in deeper, move beyond the surface, dive into the wreck. For the wreck is none other than the cross of Christ -- and on it is found not just pain and suffering, but a healing grace and forgiveness, and a compelling, strengthening, unfailing love – all of them treasures that prevail. + Amen.

 

© The Rev. Mark R. Collins

These Eyes Of Mine: a sermon for Year A, the Feast of the Presentation

Preached on Sunday, February 2, 2014 at the Church of the Holy Trinity. The Scripture readings that this sermon is based on can be found by clicking here.

This is an auspicious day, an auspicious date, February 2nd. There’s a lot going on today, in church and out. Today in the ecclesiastical calendar, we celebrate the Feast of the Presentation of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Temple. Now, this isn’t exactly one of the major feasts of the Church; this isn’t Christmas, Easter or Pentecost. But it’s not exactly a minor feast either. It’s one of only three special days in the Christian calendar that take precedence over the regular readings and propers and observances for Sunday when they happen to fall on a Sunday.

It’s called the Feast of the Presentation, but it hasn’t always been known as such. For a very long time, it was called the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin. As Luke tells us in our gospel reading this morning, “The time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, the parents of Jesus brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord.”

There’s actually two requirements of the law being observed by Mary and Joseph in our gospel passage today. It was a requirement, since the time of the Exodus, when God sent a plague upon the first born of Egypt, but yet spared the first born of the Israelites, that the first born son of every family would be ‘presented’ to the Lord in thanksgiving for the redemption of the people of Israel from bondage in Egypt.

 

And then the purification; according to the law, a woman was considered unclean for 7 days after birth, and the time of her purification was to last an additional three-and-thirty days after that. A long time to wait to be made clean again. Mary would have attended a service of purification on the 40th day after her son’s birth, and today, February 2nd is exactly 40 days after Christmas. The law required the sacrifice of a lamb and a turtledove at the service of purification, but for the poor, two turtledoves was sufficient. Luke tells us that the sacrifice of Mary and Joseph was indeed two turtledoves, giving us an idea of the economic conditions Jesus was born into.

We also call this day Candlemas, and there is an old tradition in Western Christianity that all the candles to be used in the church for the coming year are to be blessed and hallowed on this day. That tradition is anchored in the words we heard this morning from the prophet Simeon, who upon greeting Mary and Joseph and their first born son in the Temple proclaims that Jesus is, “a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.”
But as is often the case, the Christian emphasis on light on this day may well come from an even older tradition. This eve of this day is the date of the Gaelic festival Imbolc, an ancient Celtic celebration of the beginning of spring. And aptly enough, today, February 2nd is the exact midpoint between the winter solstice and the vernal equinox. So, the hours of daylight are, in fact, getting more plentiful, noticeably so. And this year, in particular, we can rejoice in the coming of spring because the temperature is finally out of the single digits, thanks be to God.

 The increase in sunshine that makes us anticipate the coming of spring is also part of the reason that a certain groundhog is being harassed by the media in rural Pennsylvania this morning. There are many weather prediction traditions throughout Europe associated with the atmospheric conditions on this date, February 2nd.

And there’s something else about today that I can’t quite remember… Another important event today… Something on television later today… What is it? Oh, yes! Downton Abbey is on tonight. (nb: Feb. 2nd was Super Bowl Sunday) 

So, today is an auspicious day. A day on which we look forward to what is to come. The promise of soft spring days and long, languid summer afternoons. Today we prepare to say goodbye to the long, dark, freezing winter.

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Simeon and Anna, in our reading from Luke, also are saying goodbye to the past and welcoming a new light, a new revelation, and a promise kept by God.

Luke tells us that Simeon is a righteous man, and devout, and that the Holy Spirit rested upon him. God has promised him that he would not die until he had seen the consolation of Israel in the coming of the Messiah. And on this auspicious day, the Spirit calls him into the Temple, and he sees Jesus. He takes Jesus into his arms, and recites his prophetic blessing upon him.

Can you imagine such a thing? Coming into church with your six-week-old baby, and an old man comes up to you and takes him from you to say these strange and yet familiar words taken from Isaiah. And then Anna, a woman of great age, and great devotion. She takes up the song, and praises God and proclaims to all who long for the redemption of Israel that this child has come.

Simeon’s song, known by its Latin name, the Nunc Dimittis, is one of the great canticles of the Church; chanted by monks and nuns at Vespers for centuries, and still is done today. And too, it is one of the pieces of Scripture that we read at funerals. Just as the body is born from the church, wrapped in its pall, a reminder of an infant’s christening gown, the priest intones Simeon’s words: “Lord, you now have set your servant free to go in peace as you have promised; for these eyes of mine have seen the Savior, whom you have prepared for all the world to see: a Light to enlighten the nations, and the glory of your people Israel.”

+++++++++

Simeon and Anna knew something, something that was only just dawning on Mary and Joseph; just coming into their minds, dimly. And that is this: with great joy, often comes great sorrow. With the coming of the new, also comes the loss of the old. Simeon knows that he is about to be set free, to go in peace, because that which he was promised has now come to pass. A welcome of great joy, but also a goodbye.

And Mary, full of joy and tenderness, and perhaps great pride, at the birth of her son, hears from this prophet who lauds her child, that, “a sword will pierce your own soul too.”

+++++++++++

It’s a funny day, this February 2nd, this Feast of the Presentation. An auspicious day. A day on which the chill of winter is just a bit less chilly, a day on which the weak winter sun will shine just a little bit longer. But it is a day on which we are reminded that just as spring must come, so will another winter. And with the new, comes the loss of the old.

But the new will come, no matter what. And with the new, comes the consolation of a nation, and the redemption of the whole world. The life of faith is not a life free from loss, or free from sorrow. But always in the end comes consolation, the outcome is always redemption and salvation and peace; for we can say too, that our eyes have seen the Savior, the glory of the people, and the light of the world. Amen+

© The Rev. Mark R. Collins

The Cross of Christ: a sermon for Year A, Epiphany 3

Preached on Sunday, January 26, 2014 at the Church of the Holy Trinity on the Upper East Side. The Scripture readings that today's sermon is based on can be found by clicking here. 

Today is Annual Meeting Sunday, and we gather here on this day, as one community at one service of worship. And after this offering of praise and thanksgiving to our God, we’ll retire to Draesel Hall to vote for new Vestry members, have a nosh, hear a bit about the year just past and the year to come.

All the while, we’ll be reminded of what a gift we have in this parish, what a blessing that the Church of the Holy Trinity is to each of us. We’ll see old friends, and new friends, and those who will perhaps someday be friends.

A parish church is all about relationships. Many of you have known each other for years. Others of you have seen each other for years, but haven’t yet become friends, really. But chances are an activity or service project here will bring you together at some point and the season for your friendship will dawn, after knowing of, but not really knowing, each other for some time.

Many of you have watched your children grow up together. Or you’ve shared the deprecations of advancing age together. Some of you have faced a troubling diagnosis, and weathered debilitating treatments, sure in the support of your parish friends, and comforted by the prayers of us all. Some of you have grieved together as one or another of your loved ones have departed for those fairer shores that await us all.

And we have all had fun together. At soirees and fundraisers, greening the church or decorating for Easter. We’ve shared a laugh at parties in the Rectory, at Mardi Gras Talent Shows and summer barbeques. And we’ve worked together, shoulder to shoulder, at MayFairs and Saturday Neighborhood Suppers.

We join together today, of all days, with all those with whom we share common prayer and a common life in this very special, very blessed, very precious place.

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Our lessons from Scripture today are all about relationships. But, not everything is going smoothly in the relationships we read about this morning.

In our Gospel reading today (Mt 4:12-23), there is a passing of the torch, so to speak. John the Baptist has been arrested, and after a time of retrenchment, Jesus takes up the task of preaching repentance to the people of Israel. Jesus begins to assemble his own band of disciples to help him in his work. And in today’s reading he calls two sets of brothers. Simon and Andrew, James and John. Matthew tells us that Simon and Andrew immediately leave their nets and follow Jesus. Then James and John do the same, and Matthew says specifically, that they leave their boat and their father and follow Jesus.

Family units were of great importance in first century Palestine. Jesus would have been known as Joshua bar Joseph, i.e. ‘Jesus, son of Joseph’ similarly to all of his contemporaries. Your family was in a very significant way your identity. But here is Jesus tearing apart families, particularly the family of James and John. They abandon their father Zebedee and take up with this itinerant preacher.

And who knows whom Simon and Andrew leave behind. Matthew tells us they leave their nets and follow Jesus. We can imagine jobs, perhaps a fishing business, maybe a family business like that of the bar Zebedee brothers, are left in their wake. Family members, homes, friends, all left behind.

And what of the relationships between these two sets of brothers? Surely these sibling relationships have been, at least, reoriented away from family and fishing and towards a teacher that is yet unknown, and a ministry that is, as yet, undefined.

The Jesus we find in our Gospel reading today is a disrupter of relationships, if not a destroyer of them. It’s hard to imagine Zebedee ever getting over being abandoned by his sons. The world of these four Galilean fishermen is up-ended by Jesus, and they are ripped out of their lives, torn from all that is familiar and comfortable and told to follow. And for reasons we can only guess at, they do just that.

++++++++++++++

Our Epistle reading today details some of the troubles encountered by the fledgling church at Corinth. Paul established the church at Corinth, spending nearly a year and a half in the area preaching and teaching and getting the Corinthian church off the ground. Now he has moved on to Ephesus when word comes to him of divisions within the church at Corinth. The Christians at Corinth have begun to split into separate groups and cliques. They’ve been taught by Paul and Apollos and Cephas, and have started to form factions around the leaders that they agree with the most, that they like the most. There’s some sense that they are aligning themselves according to the leader by whom they were baptized.

They’ve begun to define themselves by their relationships with their leaders and their liturgical life and their like-minded friends, rather than by their relationship with Jesus.

And Paul is not having it. Even though at least one of the factions is aligned around him and his teaching. He asks them, “Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul?” (1 Cor 1:13b)

For the Apostle Paul, there is only one thing that matters, and that is the gospel of Christ. And for Paul, the gospel of Christ is the gospel of the cross. And Paul wants the people of Corinth to remember that gospel, and to heed that gospel, and to make that gospel the center of their common life, the governing, unifying principal that determines all that they do, the principal that defines who they are.

Because if that is not the central point, the only point, of their life together, then, he says, the cross of Christ will be emptied of its power. And if that happens, then it won’t matter whose faction you’re a part of, it won’t matter whose side your on; because if the cross of Christ is emptied of its power, we all lose.

Paul says that the power of the cross of Christ is the power of God. (1 Cor 1:18) The power of the cross of Christ is the power to save. The power of the cross of Christ is the power to redeem. In the cross, we are saved from death; and in walking in the way of the cross, we are saved from selfishness, greed, self-serving, and the neglect of our brothers and sisters. In the cross of Christ, we are redeemed, and also too, our losses, our pain, our suffering, all of it redeemed, and we are again made whole, we again know peace, such a peace that passes all understanding.

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You know, I love you guys. I really do. I enjoy you; you bring joy into my life. You challenge me. You make me a better person, a better Christian and, not least of all, serving you makes me a better priest. And you make me laugh, you’re so funny and so sweet. You make me weep at your tenderness. And there have been times when I have been so warmed by you that I have thought that my heart might melt within me.

And I don’t just love you; I like you too. I really, really like you.

But I’m not here for you. I’m not here because you are all the things that you are, wonderful as they are, or wonderful as most of them are… I’m here because God calls me to be. Just like Simon and Andrew and James and John. I have been called to this work, in this place, at this time.

And I have news for you. You have been too. You and I both are called by God. You are called into relationship with God and with God’s son, our savior, Jesus Christ. And you are called to hear and to heed God’s Spirit speaking to you, leading you, guiding you, comforting you. Some of you will be here for the rest of your lives. Some of you are, even know, being called elsewhere.

Things are changing all around us. Things are changing within us. But God is calling us, all of us, always calling us to deepen our faith, to strengthen our commitment, to stiffen our resolve to see God’s justice done.

The cross of Christ compels us to come together to worship God, and to serve God’s people. And if we allow the cross of Christ to have its way with us, we will find our relationships challenged, even changed.

But the chances are greater still, that we’ll meet some nice folks along the way. We’ll be brought into community, into new relationships with some folks that we’ll come to know, and like and even love. And if we allow the cross of Christ to have its way with us, we’ll have some fun along the way, and we’ll know no small amount of joy.

But it must be the cross of Christ at the center of all we do. And our primary relationship in this place must be our relationship with Jesus Christ; and not just here, but in every avenue of our lives.

Because the power of the cross will never weaken, the light of Christ will never dim, and the presence of Christ in our lives will always abide with us. And though all the world will change, and parishes will change, and priests and parishioners come and go; the power of the cross of Christ will never fail us. 

And when we place the cross of Christ at the center of our lives, in this place if no other, we can be assured of God’s grace, and God’s mercy, and God’s salvation, and God’s favor all ways. +Amen.

(c) The Rev. Mark R. Collins

For Love: a sermon for Christmas Day

Preached on December 25, 2013 at the Church of the Holy Trinity, Manhattan. The Scripture readings this sermon is based on can be found by clicking here. 

Well, you can almost feel the calm returning, can’t you? Unlike the last few days, today will be a quite day throughout most of the city. There will be a lot less traffic. Less coming and going. And that’s because it’s almost over, almost a done deal, this Christmas 2013.

Santa Claus has come on Christmas Eve. There’s just the rest of today to get through, and then it’s time to see a bunch of movies, and get ready for New Year’s Eve. A lot of us will have a day or two off between now and then. Time to put our feet up, try on a new sweater or two, crack the spine on a new book perhaps.

Now, of course, if Christmas day is here and almost gone, the season of Christmas is just beginning, and as is our wont in the Episcopal Church, we’ll celebrate the Incarnation of God in the person of Jesus for the next several days, 12 days in total. But this day… This day is Christmas, the feast of the Nativity, the principle day on which the Incarnation is commemorated. And this day is one that is celebrated all over the world, in a wide variety of ways. Different places and times and cultures, in winter in some places and in summer in others.  There will be fireworks in some places, trips to the beach in others, sleigh rides in yet others.

And for all the breadth of people who celebrate it, and the plurality of ways in which it is celebrated in, what this day is about in essence is a very individual and singular event. For on this day, we celebrate the extraordinary fact that God became human, taking on our very flesh, a body just like yours and mine, and became one of us.

The theologians call this the Scandal of Particularity -- that Almighty God should deign to become human in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. And it is a bit of a scandal when you think of it. By what mechanism, for what reason, should the Eternal and Omnipotent God become a poor Jew, born on the edge of civilization, in a backwater of the Roman Empire, born in a stable, no less. The God who created the heavens and the earth has become a weak, vulnerable babe – mewling, whining, in frequent need of a change of swaddling clothes, no doubt. The majestic God has taken on such ignominious circumstances as our own…

Such a scandalous act, such a strange thing, such a literally wonder-full event. The great and glorious God as a single individual, the carpenter’s son, born of Mary, a young girl from Nazareth, born, as it turns out, while they were out of town, born while they were on the road, poor thing.

Why, for what possible reason, should such a thing come to pass?

For love.

St. John says it best, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son…” 

For love, that’s why God became a human being. For love of us, for love of you, each of you.

God loves you, and the miracle we celebrate today is proof of that fact. God loves you – with your sins and shortcomings, and with the kindnesses you do toward each other. God loves you with your 15 extra pounds, and your overdue library books, and your less than admirable feelings toward your ex. God loves you, who shed a little tear at the coffee commercials at Christmas. 

God loves you, when you keep going though you’re tired and your feet hurt and you want to give up. God loves you when you do give up. God loves you when it all gets you down. And God loves you when you get back up again. 

God loves you enough to give you his son, not a grand potentate, but a poor Jew, who taught a message of love and forgiveness and mercy and service. A carpenter by trade who was willing to undergo the most ignominious of public executions to show you the way past death and unto eternal life. 

After all the hustle and bustle, in the quiet that comes as Christmas Day fades into early evening and night. What is left in the quiet is a quite simple, undeniable reality: God loves you. Merry Christmas.

© The Rev. Mark R. Collins

The Gift of Christmas: A homily for the service of Lessons & Carols on Christmas Eve

Preached on Tuesday, December 24th at the Church of the Holy Trinity, Manhattan. The lectionary readings are here. And a brief explanation of the service of Lessons & Carols is found here. 

The point of a service of Lessons & Carols is that you let the Scripture and the song tell the story. There is really not much more to say, so, here’s your first Christmas gift, I will be brief. You're welcome.

But we do repeat this cycle, and tell this story every year at this time and it is worth a moment’s reflection. And the story, the whole story, is basically this. We were created by a loving God, and with that creation, we were given the freedom to do what we willed with the gift of our world, and the gift of ourselves. 

To no one’s surprise, least of all God’s, we misused that freedom, on some occasions. We did some things, thought some things, said some things, we acted and failed to act, in ways that were not worthy of that awesome gift of life and freedom.

But God did not abandon us. Far from it, God came closer. God became one of us, and in that, again awesome, gift of the Incarnation, God took on our own humanity, and lived out a life just like ours, with all the joys and laughter, and all the temptations and troubles that we face. 

And this person who was God yet one of us, Jesus, faced some trials of his own, figuratively, and then in the end, quite literally. He was a worry to his parents, when he stayed behind in the temple. He knew disappointments, as when his family didn’t understand his ministry, and his friends abandoned him. He lost his temper, as some money-changers in the temple can tell you. 

But also, this Jesus was a person who knew how to have a good time, he went to wedding feasts, and dinner parties, so much so that the partying he did and the party crowd he partied with caused some comment from his critics. If they’re saying you’re having too much fun, then you must be doing something right, right?

Then he ran afoul of the powers that be, but that didn’t stop him speaking his truth. He didn’t shut up really, until it was too late to do him any good. Then he was put to death. But then he rose again, and made our creation even more miraculous. For in that act, Jesus showed us how the gift of our creation, the gift of life was actually the gift of eternal life.

It’s an old story, but a compelling one still. And it’s a familiar story. Not only because we recount it every year, but because we live it. We all know, most of us, times when we’ve used our freedom poorly, when we’ve disappointed others, and when we’ve been disappointed. Sometimes we succumb to despair, but if we hang in there, many of us find a path that leads to a restoration of some kind. It’s as if the matrix of sin, repentance, redemption and resurrection leads us full circle to a point where we remember just how special and beloved of God we are, just how awesome is the gift of life, and we resolve to live in ways that are worthy of that gift. 

And maybe too, we lived in such perfect imitation of Christ that on one occasion or another, we’ve had enough fun to cause ‘em to talk. I hope so.

The gift of Christmas is this. Unlike the gift of creation, our creation, the gift of life and freedom -- all these are gifts from God. The gift of Christmas is the Gift of God, God’s self. It is a gift of what the old hymn calls blessed assurance, because Jesus is mine, and yours, and everyone’s. That’s really the first gift of Christmas, and the last, and the only one that really matters. And it is yours and mine and everyone’s, now and forever. Merry Christmas.