Towards Sunday, Jan 3, 2016 (Sunday of Epiphany)

Reading:  Matthew 2:1-12

What do we do with the wise men?

They don't really belong in the same pageant as the shepherds, do they -- even though we usually manage to squeeze them in?  (What would a Christmas pageant be without bathrobe-clad, cardboard-crowned magi regally bearing gifts up the aisle of the sanctuary?)  They come from a different Gospel (Matthew, rather than Luke) and it's clear that in the story they arrive some time later -- up to two years after the birth of Jesus, rather than the night of his birth.

So ... to be true to the story, how about an Epiphany pageant?

It's a great story, and could be great fun to act out.

On one hand, we have the magi -- strangers and seekers from another country, curious and open to truth and goodness wherever it is found, ready to journey and move into new territory, willing to pay homage and offer their gifts to truth of any colour or creed -- all in the name of greater truth.

On the other hand, we have the king and his Book-keepers -- fixed but insecure in their positions among and above the people of God, guarding the inherited tradition, wary of change and foreign influences, ready to resist and destroy challenges that arise to what they see as the best way for things to be -- all in the name of God. 

Like us, the king and his Book-keepers must have wondered what to do with the wise men, and with the one they were looking for.

This Sunday, we're going to celebrate the story with our first-ever Epiphany pageant -- a simple little thing, and we'll see where we're led as the story plays out.

Sermon from Sunday, Dec 6, 2015 (Advent 2)

Reading:  Luke 1
Sermon:  No way, God!  Yes, Way!  (God)

It takes all kinds of people – heralded and unheralded, doing all kinds of things –mostly ordinary and sometimes extraordinary, to make the kingdom of God happen on Earth, and make God’s promise of good news come true. 

When it was Zechariah’s turn to do and be part of something special, though, the old priest doesn’t think he has it in him.  Nor does he think his wife Elizabeth has it in her either.  I understand that. 

He and his wife are already doing God’s work in the world.  He is a priest to God’s people, and a good priest, helping people be reconciled with one another and with God all through their life.  And she is his wife, doing the things a priest’s wife is to do.  They’ve been good people, doing their part of God’s good work all their life, and surely that’s enough. 

So when the angel Gabriel meets Zechariah one day in the temple, and tells him they will have a son who will help the appearing of God’s messiah in their time, the old man’s first thought is, “No way!  Me – at my age, a father?  And my wife – at her stage in life, conceiving and giving birth to a baby?” 

Zechariah is more mindful of his and his wife’s limitations and the barrenness of their relationship, than he is of the power of God.  He may also be thinking he’s done enough for God already, without this extraordinary thing being added to his to-do list. 

But God has a plan and work to be done.  God will help Zechariah and his wife to accomplish something they have not been able to do themselves, and will use who they are and what they have as part of something greater unfolding in the world.  And there are three stages to this – three stages to how Zechariah comes to fulfill the role he is given in God’s work of redeeming the world. 

The first is silence.  When Zechariah starts off with disbelief, rather than argue with him, God simply shuts him up for 9 months while God goes about the business of doing what is promised.  God silences Zechariah’s disbelief.  And is it a punishment and a curse for questioning and doubting God’s promise?  Or is it a gift and a discipline that help the promise begin to unfold? 

I wonder how many times I have hindered the seeds of good ideas from other people from being sown and then taking root to grow, by the way I often respond to them right away with all the problems about the idea, rather than silencing that impulse and taking time to look first at the possibilities and then sort out the problems later?  In my own life as well, how many good impulses and creative urges have I too quickly and easily said “no” to and laid to rest, just because I thought I couldn’t do it and didn’t have it in me – whatever the “it” is that I thought I needed to have. 

In any process of spiritual discernment I’ve ever learned or read about, silencing our first responses – either negative or positive, is always one of the important early steps because we respond too easily out of habit, or fear, or self-protection, or all kinds of reasons and agendas that have nothing to do with the question or hand and what God may actually be doing and wanting us to do at that moment. 

Sometimes the most important thing God can do is make us be quiet – to silence our first disbelieving thoughts and our instinctive negative response, because God does not need us to completely believe the promise.  Nor does God need us to be able to see and explain the whole picture to others.  What God needs is that we act – that we be willing to take our part as it’s revealed and given to us, that even if we don’t quite see what good this will do, for the moment we act “as if” it will make a difference that’s needed. 

When Gabriel tells Zechariah that he and his wife will have a son who will help pave the way for God’s good news to come into the world, Zechariah doesn’t quite believe it.  He and his wife have not been able to have children all their long life.  What’s to make anything different now? 

But between the lines where it says “when his time of service was ended, he went to his home,” and then “after those days his wife Elizabeth conceived,” we know what took place.  Zechariah acted on the promise he was given.  He did his part, as did Elizabeth, and that allowed the work of God to be done through it.

How often do we doubt the value of what we do, but do it anyway when it’s given to us to do?   

Christmas is a great example.  We know that giving hats, mitts, scarves, socks, quilts, gifts and donations to the Wesley Christmas Store, and buying gifts and gathering money for Christmas dinner for a family in Niagara, and making dinner and serving it in the Wesley Centre dining hall do not solve the problem of poverty in the city and in the peninsula.  But we do it anyway – generously and are happily, because these are things we are given to do.  They are offered to us, as our part of God’s work of healing and redeeming the world. 

And there’s what you also do beyond what we do as a church – through your work, with your families, in your neighbourhoods, through donations to other organizations – all of whom are doing their part as well.  It takes all kinds of people and actions to make the kingdom of God happen on Earth, and to make the promise of good news come true. 

And sometimes, as with Zechariah and Elizabeth, there’s the extraordinary – the unusual and above-and-beyond that we are called to embrace as well.  Do you remember the Boxing Day tsunami in the Indian Ocean in 2004, and how just as we were ready to sit back and enjoy a break after all the Christmas busy-ness and charity, we were asked suddenly to care and to pray and to give over-and-above? 

Some feel the same way about the Syrian refugees. It seems like maybe one thing too many to care about and take on at this time of year, but people find ways when the opportunity to do their part is offered to them. 

We even see this in our yearly second-Sunday-of-Advent stint at Wesley Urban Ministries.  Before the dinner at 4, there used to be worship at 3 that we “brought” to the Wesley patrons as though worship itself was a kind of “gift” we were bringing.  The last few years this changed.  Worship was made more participatory for all, with us just invited to share in the time with them – more mutual and collegial, but the divide between them and us was still pretty visible.   

And now this year a new approach.  Instead of worship at the Centre at all, Wesley patrons who like to worship do so in churches in the neighbourhood, and what happens at 3:00 is that the Wesley Centre chaplain will meet with us to talk and pray about the time we will have with them at dinner, and to help us be able to sit and eat and really share dinner-time with them in the dining hall. 

My first thought?  “Oh no!  I can’t do that.”   

But God doesn’t need me believe it can happen and that I can do it.  God just needs me to do it – to be part of living the kingdom of God in our time when the opportunity is given. 

Which hopefully, in God’s own time, leads to the third thing – the stage when like Zechariah, I am aware of being changed within, of being opened in new ways to Spirit, and I open my mouth not with questions and misgivings and hesitations, but with praise of the work God is doing in the world, and that I am happy to be part of. 

May it be so … for me, for you, and for all who are called and given a chance to be part of God’s good work in healing and redeeming life on Earth.

Readings:

Malachi 3:1-4 (There is a day promised when God will save the people from their enemies and give them a place to live free in the world.  But it sounds almost like bad news instead of good, when it becomes clear what kind of deep cleansing and purification of the people this will involve.)

Luke 1:67-79 (When the angel told old Zechariah that he and his equally old wife would have a son who would pave the way for Jesus, Zechariah couldn't believe it and God silenced his doubting oice by shutting his mouth.  When John is finally born, Zechariah is opened to holy Spirit in a new way, and bursts into a song of praise to God's good will and promises fulfilled.)

Zechariah didn't think he had it in him.  Nor did he think his wife had it in her. When the angel Gabriel (Gabriel of all angels!) told Zechariah that he and his wife would have a son who would pave the way for God's messiah to come to the world, his first thought was, "No way we can do that!"  He was more mindful of their limitations and the barrenness of their history, than he was of the power of God.

Rather than argue with him, though, God simply shut Zechariah up and went about the business of preparing and doing what was promised, using and helping Zechariah and wife to accomplish something they had not been able to, to that point in their lives.

God doesn't need us always to believe right from the start.  But God does require our willingness to take part -- and sometimes a hard silence about our doubts and misgivings while we are doing our part. 

And then, when what was promised comes to be, willingness on our part to give credit where credit really is due, is always a beautiful thing.