Beginnings....

Mark 1:4-11

John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. He proclaimed, "The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit." In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."

Beginnings--whatever they are--are important.  They tell us who we are, and they often tell us where we are going in this life. Think of a time in your life when something important happened…when you encountered a new beginning; the birth of a child, buying your first car, moving into your first home, meeting your first grandchild. We know that there is something sacred and holy about beginnings.

The Bible has a story about the beginning and some of us know it by heart. We heard it read as part of the readings appointed for today:

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.  The earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God* swept over the face of the waters.

I love that scene, that image! I love to think of God getting up close and personal, going into the midst of the formless void, the darkness. God looking into the storm tossed waters, the chaotic waters and making sense out of chaos. If we pay attention, if we listen carefully we hear of a God who is personally connected to the creation, not a God that is removed, and far off, but a God who is intimately close at every beginning. In this story of beginning we hear God parting with a part of the divine self in order to bring forth something new, something beautiful and good. This story of beginning speaks a truth to us that is beyond the simplicity of this story.

I often hear friends of mine who are not into Church complain that they can’t believe in a literal creation of the world because it is not scientific, it doesn’t make sense to them; it doesn’t fit with our understanding of evolution and geophysics. Well it’s not supposed to. The Bible is not a scientific text book or a geophysics compendium; it was never meant to be. This story and the bible, are meant to convey a deep truth that is beyond the “facts”.

The thing is the people who wrote these ancient books we have put together in one volume and called The Bible didn't think they were writing textbooks and they certainly weren’t concerned with the facts. They were writing about the experience of the holy in their life and what that experience was like in the life of a whole people; how that experience changed who and how they were. They were trying to make sense out of their common experience of encountering God as a people.

What they wrote down wasn’t a detailed account of God but rather how they came to experience God. Like us they tried to make sense of their world in the only way they knew how; in poetry, ancient stories, angry letters, legal documents, prose. Even a couple of old love songs wound up there. These stories, encounters, these writings were an attempt to capture a truth about God.

Even in the book of Beginnings –Genesis -we see the people of God struggling to make sense of the creation, to make sense of their beginning. Genesis may be the first book in the bible but it is the youngest Old Testament writing. The people of Israel believed themselves to be created at the Red Sea, in the escape from Egypt. Genesis was written while the people of Israel were in captivity and needed to be reminded that God was with them, that God created them that God was an intimate part of who they were from the beginning. This beginning story was a story to reassure the people that when their lives and the world around them was in chaos –it was not meant to be the facts of the creation because no one was looking over God’s shoulder taking notes.

I think we need this story of beginning because it is the most important kind of beginning, a story that shows us God staring down chaos and making beauty.  Because when the world feels like chaos, when we find ourselves trapped in the formless void, in the deep waters of loss or grief or despair, when God seems to us to be nowhere...in that time when we are desperate for a new beginning, we have this story.  We have a Creating God who reshapes the chaos into order, even into beauty.

You see beginnings are important.  They tell us who we are and they tell us where we are going.

One of the mistakes that most Christians and our culture often make when we read the Bible is that we think that the Bible only has one beginning.  In fact, the bible is a book that has dozens of beginnings, maybe hundreds, and many of them echo this same theme.  God creates order out of chaos. 

That is where John the Baptizer comes in. John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness shouting, demanding that people rise up to take responsibility for their lives and for the state of the world.  John didn't show up in a world where everything was going just fine.  It was a world scarred and disfigured by the oppression of the many by the few, by state-sponsored violence, by greed, by the exploitation by the powerful of the powerless.  John showed up there, standing in the waters of the Jordan calling the people to see the chaos around them and to make a change. 

And then Jesus wades into the water next to John. And just as before, in Jesus there was light in the darkness.  God proclaims “You are my son, my beloved, with whom I am well pleased”. As it was in the beginning, here God was in the world, creating order from chaos.  This time it was by proclaiming good news to the poor and release to every captive. 

God was in the world to speak peace to the world's strongest army, to feed the hungry as others hoarded their excess, to restore dignity to all in a world that afforded dignity to some and stripped it from others, to forgive us our sins and free us for love.

When John and Jesus arrived, the earth had again been covered in darkness.  But when God's Spirit moved on the face of the waters, God was making order from chaos through Jesus.

There's not one beginning in the Bible; there are so many.  But they contain echoes of the same theme:  when the earth was a formless void, God ordered the chaos and made a good creation. When injustice reigned in human life, God gave us Jesus to reorder lives from the inside out.  When the earth was dark and its Savior had been laid in a tomb, on the third day he rose again from the dead to show once and for all time that there is no disorder that the love of God cannot remake, there is no chaos that God's love cannot turn into something beautiful.

The same is true for us –there is no chaos in our lives, in our world that God is not able, through Jesus, to make new. We are always and everywhere given a chance at a new beginning. Beginnings are important because they tell us who we are, where we are going and remind us of whose we are.  God is calling your chaos into a new beginning. Thanks be to God. Amen. 

The Rev. Deon K. Johnson

Preached at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Brighton MI January 8, 2012

Jesus born at K-Mart

Luke 2:1-14(15-20)

In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for see-- I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger." And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!"

I have to admit that I love Christmas. Christmas is one of my favorite times of year. Not because of all the gifts and cards and chocolate cookies that get baked this time of year. I love Christmas because at this time of year everyone seems to be just a little bit nicer, a little bit smile-ier, a little bit more hopeful. We get into the Christmas Spirit this time of year…

I was reading about the Layaway Angels online the other day. In case you haven’t heard about this there are a number of people who have been going around to department stores, particularly K-Marts, and paying off the lay away balance on people’s accounts in time for Christmas. I don’t me just paying off a dollar or two here I mean paying in-full the entire account.

From the Daily Mail Online:

A Californian man is the latest layaway angel to embrace the spirit of Christmas charity by paying off $16,000 still owed to one shop for presents.

David Wilson, a car dealer from Laguna Beach, contacted the K-Mart in Costa Mesa…he asked the manager to tally up the balances on all the accounts with balances of $100 or less, then wrote a check for $15,919.61 to pay off the whole lot. The manager of the Costa Mesa K-Mart, Tricia Lawrence, then spent the whole weekend calling customers to let them know that they could come in and collect their presents.

‘The funniest thing is that I haven’t been called a liar so often in my life,’ she said…
Read more:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2077521/Christmas-layaway-angel-David-Wilson-pays-16k-accounts-K-Mart-store.html#ixzz1hTMXbxHh

We don’t often expect miracles, or random acts of kindness but at Christmas we don the spirit of possibility. This weekend people all over the world will hear the Christmas story once again, a story in which angels brought “good news of great joy” to a young woman, her betrothed, her cousin’s husband, and some shepherds. They will listen once more to the song of the angels and the greetings of the Wise Men.

The story of that night became far more than a story. For over 2000 years many have been inspired to live and walk in the light of that story and its subject, Jesus: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” [From John 1]

What Jesus’s birth reminds us is that God’s messengers are everywhere, in everyone who lives the message of the Jesus story, in anyone who finds a way to make light shine in the darkness.

Christmas reminds us why God came to us as a child weak and helpless. Because as we go through our regular everyday lives we don’t look for random acts of kindness, we don’t expect miracles but God reminds us that the best miracles, the greatest joy, the lights that shine brightest in the darkness are the ones unexpected. There is so much for us to be cynical and sad about in our world right about now; the economy, our job security, the environment, political gridlock, famine, war, heartache, broken relationships, loss…the list goes on and on. But at Christmas in the Child of Bethlehem we recognize God’s greatest miracle.

A few weeks ago one of our kids here asked me “Why did God come as a baby?” And I have to admit that I was at a loss for words for a little while. I could explain the incarnation and all that goes with it theologically but how do you make all that make sense for a 4 year old? So I said “God comes as a baby because everyone loves babies.”

And therein lies and eternal truth: God came as a baby because we love babies and needed a bundled miracle.

How many of you have held a new born baby? Whether it’s your child, grandchild, Godchild or a stranger’s baby you know the feeling you get when you hold a new born baby in your arms for the first time. They are so tiny, so frail, so fragile. But in that little squirming tangle of feet and fingers is a world of possibility, a long road ahead that is turned towards hope and love. You can’t help but smile when you hold a new born baby. You’ve been there, you know what I’m talking about. I remember holding my oldest niece for the first time. She was born premature and she was tiny. I was almost afraid to hold her in case I did something to hurt her. But once that little bundle found the nook of my arm it was over; your heart races, your breath quickens and smile breaks across your face because in that little tiny child is all the possibility in the world. I have seen the biggest, burliest of men reduced to tears the moment you put a baby in their hands.

As weak and helpless as they maybe, babies how the power of miracle; the power of possibility. That is why God came to us as a child, that is why we needed a savior that shared our life and our world because in a child we see possibility, we see hope, we see love made real. The coming of Christ into the world announces the wonderful news that God loves each one of us as if there were only one of us to love.

There is indeed something special about this season and how it inspires people to do good, to help others, to care for the poor, the weak and the sick. It is the season when we acknowledge that God draws near to the earth to be with and for all of us. It is the season when perhaps we understand most clearly that we are the new messengers, living God’s story in home and school, in work and world. Even at the layaway counter in K-Mart.

In that child of Bethlehem we are told in no uncertain terms that miracles happen! That God loves us deeply and dearly! That Christmas is not just a moment in time a few millennia ago but every day we draw breath. Christmas doesn’t end tomorrow. Christmas doesn’t end with Epiphany, or Lent, or Easter; Christmas is God’s continuing gift of God’s presence with us, and Christmas is our challenge to prepare room in our hearts, and in our lives.

And do you know why? Because as much as we hear about taking Christ out of Christmas what’s important is that Christ can’t take YOU out of Christmas… you are the reason there IS a Christmas- you’re the reason that Jesus was sent here the first place- because of God’s great love for you…because of God’s love for US! “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son!” For God so loved each one of us… because God loved, Jesus came to earth- bringing with him the foundations of everything he knows- love, joy, hope… and possibility.

And truly I tell you- that God loves you so very much- that tonight, and tomorrow and every single day that you are willing, (and even when you’re not willing…) when you’re singing carols, or heading back to work, or just watching the game you will be reminded that in you God sees infinite possibility and tremendous hope.

So as we pack up our ornaments for another year, fill the garage with boxes labeled “Christmas,” think about how your life in January and February can continue the work of Christmas. As you pull the tinsel off the tree and put away the Frosty the Snowman videos, imagine who is lost, who is hungry, who needs peace in March and April. When the shepherds are back with their flock in the box, remember their surprise and joy, and find someplace to offer the song of the angels to someone who needs it in June. As Santa Claus makes his way back to the North Pole, think of how you can carry the giving of Christmas to those in need of Christmas miracles in July and August. Christ is the Christmas baby for all seasons in you.

As Howard Thurman puts it this way in his poem “The Work of Christmas”:

When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among brothers,
To make music in the heart.

So just remember…if we can find the love of God’s birth at the layaway counter in K-Mart how much more can it be found in you? Merry Christmas! Amen.