Prologue Beginnings

A Reflection for 1st Sunday After Christmas                 All Saints’ Church, Southern Shores, NC 

December 27, 2015                                                         Thomas E. Wilson, Rector

Isaiah 61:10-62:3 Galatians 3:23-25; 4:4-7 John 1:1-18

Prologue Beginnings

An p;d Calvin and Hobbes strip

I want to focus today on the Prologue to the Gospel of John, that part of the first chapter of John’s Gospel which is a poetic introduction to the themes of the Gospel. Introductions… some of my first introductions to music as a child were to simple tunes and I was invited to sing along with them, to take them into my life. Then I started to see that the music could tell a story, as in a musical or operetta, where the songs were mileposts of the relationships between the characters in the story. Unfortunately, I saw overtures as inconvenient noise until the real show began - until I realized that overtures were actually the show in miniature, with the themes bouncing off of each other as they told the story that was to follow. I remember when I realized that the 1812 Overture was more than a bunch of music thrown together but a reflective re-telling of the story of the Battle of Borodino during the Napoleonic Invasion of Russia. That explained why the French National Anthem, La Marseillaise, was playing against the Russian Imperial Anthem, God Save the Tsar. Tchaikovsky took those two pieces (neither of which would have used by the armies at the time - Napoleon had banned the use of La Marseillaise because it was a battle cry to overthrow tyrants, and God Save the Tsar had yet to be composed in 1812) and creates this tension in the listeners’ minds decades later in 1880 Russia.

The Gospel lesson for today, the Prologue to the Gospel of John, is not just an introduction but is a kind of overture to the Gospel of John. The writer of the Community of the Beloved Disciple, sixty years after the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, expands on a favorite hymn that the community uses in their worship and uses phrases and themes in dynamic tension that will be repeated throughout the Gospel. The Community of the Beloved Disciple is not at all interested in telling a standard history of facts, but in the creation of a work of art which reaches back to the beginning and beyond to give meaning to the present and hope for the future.

The experience in the Community of the Beloved Disciple was based on the Jewish thought that God was unseen, unknowable, and beyond our imagination, so far beyond the ability of humans to understand, but somehow the very heart of God became known through the person of the Christ Jesus. However, there is some confusion. The writer of John is a poet who uses words that mean two to three things at a time as a way to say that we cannot fully understand. There are times the Gospel reads like a version of the old vaudeville routine, “Who’s on First, What’s on Second, and I Don’t Know’s on Third”, to show that in this life the very words we use and trust without thinking are shaken from their moorings unless we use the Christ experience to come to a new vision of the world. The Greek word Logos was a word that meant that which one said out loud in the past (e.g. “He said the word.”), or the plan on which one bases all action (e.g. “That’s the word coming down from the top.”), or the promise that one gives as assurance for the future (e.g. “You have my word on this.”), or an audit of continuing action (e.g. “The word on the street is good on this project.”), or a philosophical discourse (e.g. “We shared some words.”) 

 

The poet does not say that “The Word” has only one meaning, but when it is used, it contains all the possibilities at the same time. God is before there is a past, before the beginning into the past, present, and future, and is the freedom to enter into dialogue with us for a deeper life. The Prologue reminds us of all of that. For centuries the Roman Catholic Rite of the Mass ended with the Priest giving a blessing to the people and then facing the Altar again and saying the Prologue to John, in Latin, as part of the blessing - a way of saying that God is present in the church, but the God of past, present and future continues with us wherever we may go as we leave this place and enter fully into the overture of life.

Prologue Beginnings (poem)

Before there was the beginning, there is Being

in relationship within the dynamic of Being Self

Energy flowing, moving, receiving and freeing

Complete satisfying, solely within the one self.

But Love’s community making risky expansions

reaching within Oneself imagining an invention,

a new art, stirring up building of new mansions

of same being but free in new creative tension

with an ability of being able to say to love, “No”.

Knowing hurts may happen; Love spoke a “Yes”

Which shuddered into a wind; a hovering blow

of banging Spirit, growing and bringing a Bless

evolving into lives when we, returning to Word,

finding new freedom when Love’s Being heard.

Pondering in Our Hearts

A Reflection for Christmas Day                                 All Saints Church, Southern Shores, NC December 25, 2015                                                            Thomas E Wilson, Rector

Isaiah 52:7-10                         Luke 2:8-20

Pondering in Our Hearts

Isaiah sings “How beautiful on the Mountains are the feet of the messenger bringing Good News!  There is a painting by 17th Century Michelangelo Caravaggio Death of the Virgin that was meant for an Chapel in Rome and is now in the Louvre in Paris; it was rejected by the clergy of the chapel because the Virgin's feet were depicted as swollen and dirty. Chaucer in The Canterbury Tales has the Wife of Bath’s Tale where one of the themes is that Beauty is as beauty does. I am always embarrassed by my feet when we do a foot washing on Maundy Thursdays; I don’t have beautiful feet and I bet you the shepherds hearing the angels didn’t either but what we do with our feet is beautiful. 

From Luke’s Gospel passage for today; “The Shepherds said to one another, ‘Let us go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place which the Lord has made know to us.’  . . .  Mary treasured all these words in her heart and pondered them.”

The shepherds pondered in their hearts what they had seen and heard and then, placing one non-beautiful foot in front of another, they made a pilgrimage to see what God had done. When they arrived they told Mary all that they had seen and heard, and Mary listened and took all the words into her very self. Did you ever wonder what Joseph pondered in his heart?

This story is the archetype of how the early church connected with each other; people had spiritual experiences and shared them with each other.. It is a four part process of ponderings of the heart;

(            1)    Be open to experience God’s presence

(            2)    Move out of comfort zone

(            3)    Share that experience

(           4 )    Listen and reflect in order to live into a changed life..

That four part process we have seen in the Advent lessons leading up to this visit of the shepherds It begins with the story of the vision given to Zechariah. He is a Priest in the Temple and is used to doing all sorts of religious work but he can’t be open to an experience of talking with an Angel. He can talk to God but he does not feel open enough to hear God’s messages outside of the tradition. Therefore, he does not share the Good News he has received. He ponders them in his heart and only when the birth of John becomes fully evident does he have the courage to go outside his comfort zone and sing the Song of Zechariah and raises his son John the Baptizer in a different way to prepare him to be open to experience God’s presence in the Wilderness 

The Story of Mary’s visit from the Angel Gabriel is a bit different from the Zechariah’s encounter with Gabriel because Mary is open and says “Here I am, the servant of the Lord, let it be to me according to your word.” Mary then moves out of her comfort zone to visit her cousin Elizabeth, the wife of Zechariah. There the two women share their experiences and they become the church; people sharing spiritual experiences. Notice there is no checking out of theology; only two or more coming together to share their experience. They are called to listen to each other and begin leading a new life.

In the Hebrew Testament lesson from Isaiah, the Prophet is singing a song starting with the ponderings of his heart about the time when the exiles in Babylonia have just received the good news that they will be free to return to Jerusalem after decades of waiting to return. He sings that they will follow that four part process; to be open enough to hear the good news, move out of the old way of being, sharing it with others and to reflect on how life is to change for them.

I would suggest that today is a day of Good News; Are we open to hear it? This last week I have heard a lot of both Good and bad news and that is the way of life and I take them into my heart and ponder them and I keep making a decision that I will search for something over which to give thanks. I’m lucky in that today is Christmas and all I have to do is look at faces of people and I see their Good News.

 Thank you for coming here, coming out of your comfort zone, putting one beautiful or non-beautiful foot in front of another, to share your Good News, pondering them in your heart and announcing that all Our God Reigns.

Joseph’s Ponderings

“Unlovely your feet, but love you anyway”,

she says in half laugh. But I will take one

half laugh rather than no laugh as I may

for when all of the love words are done

and said it is “Beauty is as beauty does.”

The feet walk on pilgrimage proclaiming

that peace that passes understanding twas

found in moments when love is claiming

all of me, not just one or two parts but all

of the depth to march through all nights

of dark and days of light. These poor feet

will walk one step at time until last rites

are said, treading not again on earth street

with you but holding you in a soul’s heart

which never ending Divine’s work of art.

Preparing for Christmas 2015

A Reflection for Christmas Eve                                      All Saints’ Church, Southern Shores, NC December 24, 2015                                                         Thomas E. Wilson, Rector

Isaiah 9:2-7 Titus 2:11-14 Luke 2:1-14(15-20)

Preparing for Christmas

Each worship service I post a question for meditation for members of the congregation as they prepare to enter into a sacred time and space. I do it because I need to center myself, and I make the assumption that there are many other people like me who have been rushing around and whose minds are filled with all sorts of things chattering away inside our skulls. 

 

When I was a therapist, the hardest time I had was when I was running behind and had to begin seeing a client without being able to reflect on the person that I had just met with. I wanted to be able to write down a summary of initial reactions so that I could walk away from the session without the client “infecting” the next session. I also needed 5 minutes to begin what was called “Reflecting on Counter-Transference”, which meant that I had to understand how I had been affected by the person, what part of my pathology was being hooked, so that I would not carry that into the next client’s session. The client was paying a lot of money for the time and I would be cheating them if I did not give them my full attention.

But centering myself is important for other parts of my life. When I started dating Pat, she lived in Roanoke, VA and I was living in Lynchburg, 50 miles away. The drive over gave me a chance to put aside all of the “my church” work so I could pay attention to the time we would have together that afternoon or evening. Later on in our marriage, I was working at another church and living in the Rectory next door, and without having the time for decompression and meditation, I found that I was bringing the church work toxins home with me.

The suggested question for tonight in the bulletin is “How have you prepared for the coming of Christ into your life on Christmas?” I know that you have done a lot of decorating, finished the shopping, arranged for a bunch of food, got the clothes ready, but how have you prepared your soul for the full awareness that the God of all creation poured Godself out to become human so that we might never doubt that living with God, or what we call “Heaven”, begins here and now?

This meditation question opens up a whole series of other questions. Let me share my further questions and see if they might apply to you.

What part of “Peace On Earth” am I able to live into?

What “hopes and fears of all the years are met in” me tonight?

Are there some people for whom I need to pray?

Is there some one person I need to forgive - especially if they don’t deserve it - because Emmanuel, God with us, is a gift of grace and, despite what they say of Santa Claus, the best gifts come out of unearned love, not from calculated reward.

Do I come with awe of what God is doing in the present moment with hope for the future of an even closer relationship, or do I come with an escape of nostalgia for the past?

Have I stepped outside of my own ego and touched the soul of another?

Am I so focused in on how this service is going that I forget to sing with the angels?

Preparing For Christmas

Plastic on the charge card reforming

melting into solid but is that enough?

Does that completely put on the cuff,

is there even more Santa performing?

Am I longing for this whole warming

of my soul or is it just a kind of bluff;

hopes that deadness might off slough,

so that angels might come a swarming?

Angels come anyway, even ear unheard

songs bouncing off deep soul’s tympani,

beyond filling full till the day Epiphany

turns to reformed theatre of the absurd,

comedy of life living into down upside

hinting heaven can now be to us allied.

Searching for Advent Love

A Reflection for IV Advent                                       All Saints’ Church, Southern Shores, NC December 20, 2015                                                            Thomas E. Wilson, Rector

Micah 5:2-5a    Hebrews 10:5-10     Luke 1:39-55)     Psalm 80:1-7

Searching for Advent Love

We are in the final week of Advent and have lit the last of the outer candles of the Advent Wreath for Hope, Peace, Joy, and this week, Love. On Thursday night, Christmas Eve, we will light the Christ Candle in the middle of the wreath to symbolically remind us that the hope of all the years, the peace that passes understanding, the joy at the center of the universe, and the love which binds us all together is found in the person of Christ Jesus, whose birth we celebrate.

Love is so easy to say but hard to do. Let me tell you a story passed on to me from a friend. She is married to a kind man who has a soft spot in his heart for a couple of outdoor cats who have taken up residence around their house. One of the cats looked like he was sick and the husband was able to corral the cat and take him to the vet. It was a neutered male so at one time had had a home. The vet found the difficulty and started some treatment. So far so good, but like the story of the Good Samaritan, the husband decided to do more than just bind the wounds; he wanted to make sure the cat was comfortable; so he opened up his house as an Inn at night for the two cats. So far so good - except on Sunday night or Monday morning, when my friend woke up and thought that she smelled something. She went over to a pile of Christmas presents waiting to be wrapped and sent out to family members. The sick cat had chosen that particular pile on which to be sicker. After a little while when she was able to look at the whole situation, she comforted herself that she had a few more days to go shopping to try to replace the presents. She did not spend more time being angry with the cat or with the husband, but she continued to love both husband and cat.

This is a story of love, like the four stories of love in the scripture passages for today. Micah, an 8^th Century BC prophet, tells the story of how, while the Northern Kingdom of Israel is messing up the Promised Land and the Assyrians have taken over the Kingdom, Micah hears God promising to be faithful to keep the covenant of love which was initiated with all the people. For God, love is not based on approval but on commitment.

In the Psalm for today, there is a subscription in the title calling it an “eduth” in Hebrew which means “Testimony”. Psalm 80:1-7 was probably written during that time of the Assyrian Conquest; the 7^th verse, is the Testimony - “Restore us O God of Hosts, show the light of your countenance and we shall be saved”.  This response we sang is the song that the 8^th Century Israelites would have used as their prayers, knowing that they had not deserved that love but that love is a gift, not a reward, even when we mess up. Love is not based on perfection but leaves room for people and forgives and accepts them - not where they should be, not where they could be if they tried harder, but accepts them where they are.

The Gospel story for today has Mary, the young single, pregnant daughter being sent off “with haste”, says Luke, to live with her older cousin in another town. This could be seen as a retreat from shame, but Mary finds love and acceptance from her cousin Elizabeth. Together they find God’s presence in the middle of a confusing time, and together they sing a variation of a thousand year old song of hope – the Song of Hannah from the Book of Samuel. Love means being open to new possibilities and sharing hope with one another that all will be redeemed though God’s presence in their lives. They commit to be vulnerable in the future, that future which they cannot control but only trust, for that is what love is. They do not look for a Deus-Ex-Machina kind of God doing a mind-blowing external miracle that will tie things up nicely, but they look for God in the ordinary things of life, like birth - so ordinary and so miraculous.

The passage from Hebrews tells a story of how Jesus showed Love in his sacrifice. The word “sacrifice” means making something - an ordinary thing - sacred, holy, dedicated to the relationship with God and neighbor. The old Sacrificial system was a series of external events and rituals where people gave things to the religious institution to be used for the worship and appeasement of a vengeful God. However, this whole system is replaced by Christ Jesus when he gives his very self - taking the inconvenience, the pain, the wounds and making them sacred. That is what love is about - making the space between people, neighbors, and God sacred by giving one’s very self. This becomes a model of how we worship, giving ourselves to proclaim that all the world is Holy and Sacred.

Searching for Advent Love  (Poem)

Ruth said she never considered love’s divorce;

murder Yes, but not divorce. Opposite of love’s

not rage, which can to one side be given shoves,

but it is indifference, caring no longer of course

for the commitment of making the space sacred

between the two. It is Holy Ground, where feet

and heart are vulnerable, open to be able greet

the best of hope in others; of a time not wasted

by holding on to all those slights, or resentment

that flesh’s heir to; but giving them up by taking

them to a loving soul and turning over, making

prayer for forgiveness of you both of judgment.

We learn to love by being able illusions to lose,

and by holding on to the lovers giving the cues.

Searching For Advent Joy-- Reflection and Poem for 13 December, 2015

A Reflection for III Advent                                       All Saints’ Church, Southern Shores, NC December 13, 2015                                                            Thomas E. Wilson, Rector

Zephaniah 3:14-20    Canticle 9 (Isaiah 12:2-6)      Philippians 4:4-7        Luke 3:7-18

Searching for Advent Joy

This is the 3^rd Sunday of Advent and the theme of this week is joy; the deepest rejoicing when God is fully present. As Paul says in his letter to the Philippians: “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say Rejoice.” 

The lessons for today have to do with different styles of presenting the “Good News”, and, quoting the old line, “Which do you want first, the “Good News” or the Bad News”? On the one hand, we have the John the Baptizer style that begins with the phrase “You brood of Vipers.” This is the direct thrusting, full-frontal assault on the sin of the listener to move them out of the comfortable rut they are in, move them from facile outward complacency, to where they might find deeper joy. This style is meant to drive the listeners to their knees as they become aware of the fact that they are wallowing in their sins and then, and only then, can they be receptive to hear the words of Grace that help them to rise up anew. It can be a hyper-masculine effective method to try to promote fear, guilt, and shame and is favored by different kinds of people, from Revivalists - usually outsiders who come into town and use highly emotional language to work on feelings - to the religious institution insiders and hierarchy who use highly rational arguments based on theology from people like St. Augustine and Calvin as a way of bringing guilty discomfort with the present way of thinking. Guilt does work, usually in the short term, and can have immediate temporary effects, so it is good for building religious institutions made of people who come together to get a dose of being lectured at in order to make it through the week. It is like going to an authority figure - like a football coach or teacher or drill sergeant - to be prompted to remember the basics. 

On the other side, we have the inclusive feminine St. Francis style of mystic and poet who use symbols to focus on the grace of God, hoping by example to create a longing for living a fuller life of joy. We usually see St. Francis statues in gardens and as bird feeders and not in office buildings because he is one of the most admired and least imitated saints of God. G.K. Chesterton once wrote that St. Francis “was not a mere eccentric because he was always turning towards the center and heart of the maze; he took the queerest and most zigzag shortcuts through the wood, but he was always going home." These are the “Clowns of God” who are not good for building Institutions that push creeds, but they have a gift of joy.

I think of two books which have titles relating to “Clowns of God”. One is a children’s book by Tomie de Paulo based on an old medieval French legend about a juggler who had no gift for the Christ child except his gift of juggling. There is a line from a character in that old Morris West novel I read decades ago before I went to Seminary:

“Once you accept the existence of God - however you define him, however you explain your relationship to him - then you are caught forever with his presence at the center of all things. You are caught with the fact that human beings are creatures who walk in two worlds and trace upon the walls of their caves the wonders and the nightmare experiences of their spiritual pilgrimage.”

From time to time I vacillate between the three options of pushing emotional shame, of stirring up rational guilt, or of projecting a vision of what joy looks like. The choice of which preference de jour I invoke depends on the mood I am in when I start writing the sermon. If the lessons stir up shame in me, you will be facing a drill sergeant; if guilt, you will face a teacher; and if joy, you will hear a storyteller juggling symbols of joy. Our common faith dwells in the tension of proclamations of the Good News of joy, and Jesus is the dynamic tension between them that we are looking for in this Advent

Listen to two other poets from our lessons for today, the first from the Prophet/poet Zephaniah who sings:

Sing aloud, O daughter Zion;

shout, O Israel!

Rejoice and exult with all your heart,

O daughter Jerusalem! . . .

The LORD, your God, is in your midst,   . .

rejoice(ing) over you with gladness,

The second is from the Poet/Prophet Isaiah:

Cry aloud, inhabitants of Zion, ring out your joy, *

for the great one in the midst of you is the Holy One of Israel.

When I think of that kind of joy, I think of the last line of the book Anne of Green Gables where, before she goes to sleep, Anne whispers “God’s in his heaven and all’s right with the world”. That line comes from poet Robert Browning in Pippa’s Song:

THE year's at the spring,

And day's at the morn;

Morning's at seven;

The hill-side's dew-pearl'd;

The lark’s on the wing;

The snail’s on the thorn;

God’s in His heaven ----

All’s right with the world.

Pippa’s Song is part of a long dramatic poem, Pippa Passes. In this drama, a young silk winder, Pippa, whose life is far from beautiful, on her only day off from work, New Year’s Day, decides to sing her song throughout the town to bring joy. But in the four places she passes by, the people who hear her sing are infuriated because her joy reminds them of the insufficiency of the comfortable rut they are in, wanting to tune God out because it means risking all for something better and therefore the “Good News” becomes “Bad News”. At night when Pippa returns to her bed she prays:

This morning's hymn half promised when I rose!

True in some sense or other, I suppose,

Though I passed by them all, and felt no sign.

(As she lies down.)

God bless me ! I can pray no more to-night.

No doubt, some way or other, hymns say right.

All service is the same with God

With God, whose puppets, best and worst,

Are we : there is no last nor first.

Today, what is the song that you hear to help you find joy?

Searching for Advent Joy (Poem)

Shuddering about the days wilting;

what I had done and continue to do

before and later. All these past due

memories, cloud over with guilting

self-centered actions bringing shame

excused because of “felt good” time.

But all defenses are covers for grime

settling for good not joy. Can’t claim

days to live again; yet thanks be given

for baptizing regrets by water-winging

clowns of God who live of joy singing

of earth’s deep shores being of Heaven

Help me to fully join that troop absurd

as we live into following flesh of Word.