My Sunday Sermon

I'm posting my sermon from last Sunday, a small part of which is taken from an earlier entry. Our priest, Fr. Charlie, was on vacation, so we had morning prayer and a quiet time instead of a usual service with music and Eucharist. The talk is still appropriate as we head into the last days of December, and the shelves at the stores are pretty bare with just scraps of Christmas sales left. At least here in Chicago, we have some snow on the ground, and people still have their lights up to make things a little more cheerful in the 17 degree weather!

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Opening Prayer:

Lord, we bring before you our hearts and minds in thankfulness that you came to us as a human being to share life with us and to save us from sin and death. Open us to your message and love. Amen.

Isn’t our church beautiful this season? The garlands, poinsettias, bows, wreaths and candles all help us feel festive. We all get excited seeing the lights in our neighborhoods, the shiny decorations in stores, the silly antlers and red noses on minivans. There’s always a charge in the air as Christmas comes closer. People smile more, chat in the long lines, and are happy to check the mail knowing there may be more than just bills tucked in the box. I love the season for all these little things. And I am okay with putting all the cards and bows and ornaments away knowing how happy I’ll be to see them again in about 11 months.


We’ve all heard the clichés about keeping Christmas in our hearts all year long and remembering what and who Christmas is all about. Some churches, including ours in past years, use the title "Christ-Mass" which is closer to the Middle English spelling and is probably used as subtle reminder to us to remember where our priorities should lie. There are magnet bumper stickers about "Keeping Christ in Christmas," and people who lament that Christmas has become all about gift giving and getting the latest toy or cell phone. Even Lucy in the Peanuts comic back in the 1960s noted that Christmas has become a "big commercial racket." It's nothing new. And all those sayings about Christmas lasting all year are just clichés, overused phrases that have come to be almost meaningless. Some people even say that Christmas shouldn't be a holiday. That’s just silly. The word “holiday” comes from the words "holy" and "day." But that word, too, has lost its meaning.

It doesn’t help that now, just a few days after Christmas, we are back in the first few verses of John’s gospel, and through the rest of the winter and spring we’ll follow Jesus’ adult life in Luke’s gospel. Christmas is a time of birth and all the joy that comes with welcoming a baby into the world. But we’ll be jumping pretty fast into Jesus’ preaching and gathering disciples, and before we know it, it will be Palm Sunday when we walk with Jesus to His crucifixion. I don’t mention all this to put a damper on our festive celebration of Christ’s birth, but that is part of why we celebrate his coming to Earth, isn’t it? He came not to live a long life and die after years of preaching and building communities of faith, but to get things started, and then to die to save the world from sin.

That might be part of why it’s so hard to keep the spirit of Christmas going for long after the decorations have been put away. Epiphany will last only six short weeks, and then Lent will be here. Easter barely gets us through May, and then it’s on to the longest season: Pentecost. By the time we reach the fifth Sunday of Pentecost, we’re halfway back to Advent. I don’t say this to get everyone in a panic that 2010 is over before we’ve celebrated New Year’s Day, but just to show why Christmas is so hard to hold onto. We only get two Sundays after Christmas day to celebrate, while all the other seasons are minimally over a month long.

This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to keep the joy and peace and love of Christmas with us through the rest of the winter, spring and summer. My mom used to break out her favorite Christmas album on June 25th as a mark that we were halfway back to the holiday. If I hadn’t grown up in the hot Tucson desert, she probably would have turned the oven on and baked a batch of spritz cookies. But even the Muppets singing “Silent Night” in the middle of summer vacation, it wasn’t easy to keep remembering that Santa, and God, were always watching to see how we were behaving.

I encourage everyone to live beyond the clichés, to just smile more and be happy knowing God is in you and in everyone. Know that we have to put away the decorations so we can be excited to see them again next year. Know that all the people who needed help and charity won’t cease to need those even when it’s not dark and cold out. Know that every baby who is born will grow up to suffer, laugh, live, love and die. And that’s okay since one baby came to save all the rest of us and give to us the best gift of all, one that’s with us every day of the year— life everlasting in Him.

Ending Prayer:

Lord, we thank you for all the gifts of this life, gifts that can’t be wrapped and opened, broken or lost. Help those who seek your blessings, light the flame in their hearts that illuminates all good things. Keep this light alive us in all. In your name we pray. Amen.

Looking back on the year

I started 2009 praying about whether or not I should work toward being ordained as a deacon. Just after New Year's Day, my discernment committee met for the first time, and the journey was officially on its way. But, like any trip that starts out without a map, an itinerary and a plan, there was no way to know exactly where I'd go or where it would end. I started the year feeling pretty uncertain, but open to whatever lay ahead.


The year went by pretty fast. Just looking at the discernment process, we finished meeting in May, and the group felt that God was calling me to move forward, but that I also needed to keep praying, and keep working on some things. In May, I started meeting with a spiritual director. By July, I had taken all the tests I had to take and was waiting for further news. By the end of July, I was feeling something was not going right, and was praying for sight to see what God wanted me to do. By August, I had decided to stop and wait and not go forward with the meetings, tests and retreat. And by October, when I met with my friend Deacon Debbie Harrington, I had become so focused on my work in Trinity and at school, felt so at peace within myself, that when she asked me if I was having any regret about withdrawing from the process, I had to stop and think. No, there was absolutely no regret, just a feeling of abiding peace and happiness at the direction my life was headed.


I am looking forward to 2010. I have two new projects at Trinity that will start in January. One is a weekly Bible study group and another is a quarterly book group. Both will use my talents as a teacher, talents others have seen in me as my true calling from God. And Bible study will hep me fulfill one of the weak areas in my spiritual life-- having a good understanding of and familiarity with God's Word.


I've also made room in my life for more peace and less stress. For the past few years I've taken on more and more administrative tasks at my work and been teaching less. The admin. stuff is not where my heart lies, and while I'm good at it, it's stressful and not fulfilling. I'll go back to full-time teaching this spring while letting most of the admin. work slow to a trickle. By the summer, I plan to be a teacher alone, with minimal committee work. This also fills my heart, knowing I'll be connecting with my students even better and without the burdens of the other work on my back.

The past year has also been fulfilling with my family and friends. I grew closer to my sister as her wedding approached, and it was wonderful to see her and her husband so happy on their big day. I also reconnected with my dad this year, and continue to have a great relationship with my mom. All three of them were very supportive as I went through the discernment process. This journey also opened up new conversations between my husband, Paul, and I, and even with my other family members as I kept them updated on what was happening with my tests and meetings, and asking them for prayers and advice.


I've made wonderful new friends through Trinity this year, and been with new and old friends through good and bad times. I've prayed with friends who have lost close family members and continue to struggle with those losses. I've celebrated as old friends have safely returned from far places and dark places. I've reached out to newcomers who have become close friends, and let go of some people who were ready to move on. All of them have been blessings to me, and I pray that I've been a blessing to them.


A lot of people take stock this time of year, looking back at the events of the past, and looking forward into the dim light of the new year. This year I know I'll grow and change and have good and bad experiences. I'll make mistakes and learn from them. I'll help people and try not to hurt anyone, although that's probably bound to happen, too, no matter how hard I try. I might move forward with the ordination process, or I might find that my work in the church and world is just where I need to be. Every new year is a mystery. But what a wonderful mystery! I pray for all the best for all of you, and the understanding that no matter what happens, God is always with us all.

Christmas

I'm soooo excited! Tomorrow night, Paul and I and our friends will meet at church at 10:30 p.m. We'll sing carols as more people gather, and we'll have the accompaniment of our choir, and the organ, and a brass section helping out. We'll get bulletins and candles from the ushers, and hug people and smile at newcomers, and wish them Merry Christmas. And at the end of the service, around midnight, we'll light our candles, the church will go dark, and we'll sing Silent Night as we kneel in the circles of light that glow from our candles.

I'll probably cry, as much from the feeling of being surrounded in God's love and the love of those we gather with as from knowing that this baby boy who was born, and is born in each person, came for me. I can barely remember most of the people I went to high school with, but God knew all of us before we were ever conceived. He came for me, and you, and all the people of the world. People who don't know Him and maybe have never heard of Him. People who have forgotten they once knew Him. People who know Him, but are in pain looking for Him, or worse, ignoring Him. He came for me even though I was a pain-in-the-ass kid who lied constantly and ruined a Christmas snooping for presents with my four year-old sister. He came even though I'd spend years thinking He was no more real than Greek gods were to the Greeks. He came even though I still sometimes act like a stupid kid, or don't do what's right out of some sense of spite. He's here with me now and always, even when I forget it. And it's that way for everyone.

I'll cry because this event is so run-of-the-mill and yet so special. Babies have been born for thousands of years, and His birth was no different. Mary probably cried and screamed and moaned and wondered what the heck she was thinking saying, "Yes," to an angel. She couldn't blame Joseph, but did she get a little mad at God for choosing her, giving her so much pain? Jesus was born in the same mess as all of us, cleaned up and wrapped in fabric. It's normal and ordinary, and yet every mother will tell you that birth is a miracle. He would later perform miracles, but isn't this the biggest one of all? God and man? Wow.

I'll cry because of the times I missed Christmas, when I was an angry teenager, when I was in college searching for something that was already there, when I was too drawn up in myself to care about what was going on with other people in the world. I'll cry because of the joy that those times are behind me and I can go ahead in life with my head up and aware and full of prayer. Most of the time.

I'll cry for the people who don't have all that I do, who aren't surrounded by love and friends and family, who don't have a house or apartment or a room, who don't have enough to eat. I'll go home to a warm house with barking dogs greeting me, and a bed and a shower and blueberry french toast after opening a few presents in the morning. There are people who give a finger for a good candle to light their way in whatever darkness they have to live with, and all I have to do is move my finger to be surrounded in light.

I pray that everyone gets a tear of joy and one of just a little sadness too, this Christmas. I know I'll be busy with friends and family inn the next few days, and I pray that you will be too. But remember there are people, like Jesus, who are huddled and alone, who face living in an uncertain world that is hostile to them, who were babies once, just like you, me and Him.

Advent

Christ is coming!

One of the strange things to me about religion is some of the ritual. Christ is long gone from our world. He was born, he died, he rose. All past tense. But we are awaiting his coming, which is present progressive tense. Remember, I'm an English teacher. And it's not like we talk about this as the second coming during this time of year, but the birth as if it were happening again.

I also have a good imagination, and understand that we are pretending, acting out the coming birth in Advent, just as we will act out his death in just a few months. I can go along with this, but still, it's just a little weird how we Christians reenact the emotions that go along with these events. I'm not saying we shouldn't be emotional, just that...well... God made us into some pretty interesting beings, no?

I am always excited about Christmas coming. I love the decorations. I have trees and Nativities all over my house. I get choked up seeing the lights all over the city. I love the movies, and got choked up last night at the Music Box Theater's annual double feature. My husband, Paul, wrote about it better than I could. I love the music and carols, or most of them, and the way that people get a little friendlier. Midwesterners are pretty friendly folks all year long, but they open up more with the bell ringers, and cold weather and other things that we all share as we go about our days. And I am excited knowing that Christ was born a beautiful baby boy, even as I will grow sad in a few months knowing he must die a horrible death to save all of us.

There are all the cliches about keeping Christmas all year long and remembering what/who Christmas is all about. In past years our church bulletins and announcements have used the title "ChristMass" which is closer to the Middle English spelling and was probably used as subtle reminder to us to remember where our priorities should lie. (Again, English professors love etymology as much as verb tenses.) There are bumper stickers about "Keeping Christ in Christmas" and people who lament that Christmas has become all about gift giving. Even Lucy in the Peanuts comic back in the 1960s noted that Christmas has become a "big commercial racket." It's nothing new. Even the idea that Christmas shouldn't be a holiday is silly. Holiday comes from the words "holy" and "day." We just forget that too.

So this week, I'll be getting the last-minute wrapping done, and picking up the holiday ham, and hoping I haven't forgotten anything. And I'll be smiling at people, like I do all year long. But I'll be adding some "Merry Christmas" greetings in there, and putting some money in the Salvation Army pots. But what I'm really looking forward to is Christmas Eve Mass, feeling that closeness to my family and friends, celebrating the joy of a new baby coming into the world, one who probably smelled of fresh hay and wool blankets, who blinked his new baby eyes and had those cute pink baby lips made for sucking at his mother's breast. One who had such a big job to do, but whose mother and father protected and loved him, even as they wondered what would be happening in his future. Even though we know the story, we can share that wonder too.

Belated Thanksgivings

I just saw that my last post was at the end of October! This is what happens as the semester draws to a close. I'm busy grading research papers, and getting ready for the holidays, and my birthday arrives, and the getting ready for end-of-the-year stuff at church and work, and before I know it, the semester is over and we're facing the Christmas/New Year holidays!

So I missed blogging over Thanksgiving. And since I did, I'm going to have a brief entry here about what I'm thankful for. I heard a story on NPR with Maya Angelou about her being mopey one day about the state of the world, and her son gave her paper and a pen and had her start a list about all that she was grateful for. She went back to that list whenever she started to feel sorry for herself, or bad about all the events in the world she had no control over. I think it's a good practice, and even thought Thanksgiving is over, we should all take time to make such a list.

1. my family, immediate and not-so-immediate, in-laws and those members I adopt
2. my friends at church, work, from writing circles, from past lives as a student
3. all the students whose lives I've touched, whether I knew it or not, whether they realized it at the time or later
4. my opportunities to love others, from the acquaintances who just need a smile, to those who I get to share the most intimate moments
5. my work which changes, challenges, excites, frustrates, teaches, and expands me
6. my talents from writing to cooking to crafts to telling silly jokes and making fun of myself
7. my faith that upholds me when times are tough, and reminds me that I am not and never will be alone or unloved
8. the opportunity to worship in that faith in a country that allows me to do so freely
9. my voice and thoughts which I am blessed to have full use of in the United States
10. my home, my pets, and the food that's in my cupboard and fridge
11. music, art, literature, plays, all the creative ways that people express themselves
12. caring people who will smile back at me, say a word or two, and remind me that God is in everyone
13. the painful parts of life, without which I would take all the good times for granted
14. Christmas lights, chocolate, hot cider and good wine!
15. the people who I pray for each night, people I don't even know and who I will never meet, but who need my prayers, and the prayers of others.

This list could go on and on, but it's a start. I hope in this season when we tend to rush around, you will think about your own list, and what is important to you. Blessings!