Sunday, January 12, 2025

Where's the Dove?

Luke 3:15-17, 21-22; Acts 8:14-17

How many of you saw a dove descend when you were baptized?

Or, if you don’t remember your own baptism, how many of you have seen a dove descend on someone else newly baptized?

 

If you didn’t, did you ever feel a little…cheated? Or shortchanged?

Like you didn’t get the full baptism experience?

 

Because after all, we keep hearing and repeating in church these gospel stories that tell us how Jesus saw a dove (or, the form of a dove) at his baptism.

And we’re supposed to try to be like Jesus.

And also we just heard John the Baptist promising us that Jesus will baptize us with the Holy Spirit.

And the gospel writers and Christian tradition closely associate the Spirit with the appearance of a dove.

(Or fire.)

 

And then the Episcopal Church comes along and insists that yes, we all, each, receive the gift of the Holy Spirit when we are baptized in water in the sacrament of the church.

 

But I remember nearly every detail of my own baptism, and not only did I not see any doves but I sure didn’t feel like I got the Holy Spirit dropped down on me.

I did get a very nice gold cross from my grandmother. But I didn’t feel empowered. Or holy. Or close to and filled with the presence of God.

 

Did you? Right away, or for always (or as long as you remember) after your baptism?

 

So maybe we’re more like the early Christian converts in Samaria. We’re pretty sure, as scripture readers, that they didn’t see any doves when they were first baptized. 

The whole point of the little snippet of story we read today is that the Samaritan converts somehow didn’t get the Holy Spirit descending on them when Philip baptized them in water and the name of Jesus.

 

So off Peter and John rush to fix this for the Samaritan converts. To pray and ensure that these newly baptized Christians DO receive the Spirit. 

Because before we ever even were a church, really, the followers of Jesus clearly understood that when you are baptized, you are supposed to get the Holy Spirit.

 

But we’ve never been sure exactly how it works. We’ve got the story of Jesus’ baptism.  We’ve got that little story we read today – just three sentences – about missing and recovering the gift of the Spirit and another little snippet of story about people getting fired up by the gift of the Spirit and the infant church rushing to catch up to their baptism.  And we have thousands of generations of biblical scholars (amateur and professional) struggling to define just how the gift of the Spirit and the washing of water are linked for us. And how we’re supposed to manage it in the church.
Does one have to come before the other?

How do we ensure we actually get the Spirit?

Do you need a bishop to pray the Spirit into you??

 

Luke even gives the emerging debate a little fuel because, in the way he tells the story of Jesus’ baptism, the Spirit doesn’t come on Jesus in the water. The heavens open and the dove of the Spirit descends “after he had been baptized, and was praying.” Maybe privately.

 

But whatever the questions and answers the scholars come up with, we only have those conversations at all because we know that baptism in water and receiving the Holy Spirit are deeply and essentially linked.

 

And reading our scripture stories this week, I’ve started to wonder if the story of Jesus, and these other fragmentary little stories of the arrival of the Spirit and the baptism of new Christians found in our scriptures, are not meant to be models for the church to copy so that we ensure the Spirit comes with the water all these generations later. 

Rather, I suspect these stories are all told to affirm that our own baptism is not one moment, but two or more, or most likely many.

 

And that the fullness of our baptism may come in moments and hints and bits that don’t involve water, are hard to recognize as the Holy Spirit, and rarely feature doves or pigeons, either.

 

Sometimes that Holy Spirit comes on us less like a dove, and more like the sweet scent of baking that stirs desire and draws us to a kitchen. Or like a toddler or puppy attached to your ankle and unwilling to let go, hampering our lives until we give the Spirit what she wants, and turn to and claim God’s unremitting love.

 

Sometimes the water of death and resurrection in baptism come as an unexpected wave tumbling us helplessly into the ocean, and rising to grateful air. Sometimes the Holy Spirit comes like a slow, forceful tide, pushing you back up the beach until you’re against beach cliff and have to dive in to the water to find your way home.

 

Sometimes the water of renewal comes from the splashes of a child in a tub, or in the drenching shower that washes guilt or grief or emotional pain and makes us ready to try again.

Sometimes the Spirit comes in a rush of unexpected confidence, or anger that burns out injustice, or love that cannot keep silent.

Sometimes it’s more like a tiny rock you finally have to get out of your shoe.

Sometimes the Spirit sneaks in as a strengthening of your spine, or a yearning for fulfillment, or a renewed commitment as we repeat the covenant of baptism together in church.

Sometimes it’s the overwhelming upwelling of awe and joy as you look toward a mountain, a sunrise, a historic event, the face of a loved one.

 

And in God’s time, all those different moments and experiences in our lives, may be one and the same moment. The same event.

The descent of the Spirit and the declaration of faith, and the washing and renewal and forgiveness of the sacrament of baptism – all may be distinct and separate moments in our lives – and be all the same moment in God’s.

 

Be the moment, the eternity, in each of our pasts, and presents, and futures, when God whispers – or shouts – into any ear that will listen the same thing Jesus heard as the dove descended:

“You are filled with my own self, and breath, and life.

You are my beloved child.

I delight in you.”


Sunday, January 5, 2025

Be The Star

Matthew 2:1-12

Do you remember how you first heard this story?

This one with “wise men from the East” coming to worship the newborn King?

 

For me, it was the Christmas pageant.

Any Christmas pageant, or almost any: While the arrival of magi is not featured in every pageant, it’s woven into a lot of cultural expectations about how we – American Christians and many others – tell and dramatize “the Christmas story”.

 

It wasn’t until late high school or early adulthood that I really understood that, in the Bible, this story is told separately, by an entirely different gospel writer, than the story about the manger and the shepherds and the angels.

 

And that blurring of the lines to put the coming of the magi into our cultural Christmas story may be a good thing, in many ways, since the story of the strangers, the magi “from the East”, bridges and brings together the theology of the birth of Jesus and the mission of Jesus without requiring us to read any dense academic teaching tomes.

 

The theological astonishment of the birth of Jesus is that God becomes a completely ordinary human person – just like us to the point of having an umbilical cord and belly button and needing a place to sleep – and that the whole divine being takes up residence in an ordinary neighborhood of God’s people to grow up slowly like an ordinary kid.
And by having Jerusalem’s scholars tell the magi that the Messiah is born in ordinary little Bethlehem, an otherwise insignificant suburb (probably exurb, at the time), Matthew shows us that without having to explain the theology.

 

We get the mission of Jesus part – the revelation of God’s presence, reality, and love to the entire world– because it just obvious in the story that the travelers, the magi, are so very not from around here.
They aren’t from God’s chosen people. They’re from the hand-wavy “East”, a place full of folks who worship different gods in different ways. And yet they are drawn – personally drawn, by a star that turns up right in the middle of their astronomical studies – drawn to find: to seek, to see, and to worship the one God, Creator of all, in the middle of God’s ordinary people.

 

The official church holiday of Epiphany – tomorrow, on our calendars – uses this story of the travelers from afar to turn our attention for a season to how God is revealed in the ordinary world. And to the people everywhere, at any time, who are looking to find God, meet God, experience and know God. Especially the people who don’t already know all the traditional stories and habits and rituals of our God.

 

Which brings us back to the Christmas pageant. Because while a lot of traditional Christmas pageants are designed by and for people who already know the story and the traditions, for many of us who either grew up in the church, or have “helped” with a “children’s program”, the Christmas pageant could be our first experience of telling the story of God. Of showing the wonder of God, the divinity right in the middle of our ordinariness, so that other people – even travelers, wanderers, seekers – can see it.

 

Some of us – raise your hand if it’s you – have put cloths on our heads and sticks in our hands and represented the shepherds who first went to see the newborn Jesus.

Some of us have been the sheep and lambs, the donkeys or cows or other animals who show us that all creatures have a role in welcoming the God of all creation.

Or were angels, whose job was to tell the glory of God, or at least show that glory with tinsel halos.

Or were Mary, the mother of God, Joseph the father and protector… or the infant Jesus himself.

And some of us might have been robed in “exotic” old church vestments and represented the wise men, the magi, the travelers from the East.

But how many of you – us – were the star?

 

The star of the Christmas pageant, wearing tinsel or lame, and perhaps perching on a ladder to guide those travelers to the waiting divine little King?

 

I never played that role.

In fact, I never even knew that role was possible until I came to Trinity, and found it featured in some preschool Christmas pageants, and I believe one of our church pageants on Christmas Eve.

And I was… star-struck.

 

Because that’s the role I would have wanted.

 

And it’s the role I think Jesus might invite any of us – or all of us – to play.

After all, he does eventually tell his followers that you are the light of the world. And to let your light shine before others, so that they may see the good work you do and give glory to your Father in heaven.

That’s the job of the star in today’s story. To shine in such a way as to lead others to see and praise the glory of God.

And Jesus invites us  – any of us who are drawn to Jesus, who are adopted into the family of God – to shine. To be the star.

 

There are, after all, a lot of people in the world now who are looking for God; trying to travel toward the presence of God, like those Eastern seekers long ago.
And many of these seekers, questing for where God is found in the world are “not from around here” – who are “foreign” to the traditions, and Sunday morning habits, and assumptions of the church.

People God is calling, who just need someone, or something, to light a way for them.

Who need a star.

 

And you, or I, might be that star.

A glimpse of new light in a familiar scene, a light that beckons and invites adventure – not with a loudspeaker and a spotlight, but with wonder and hope and joy.

 

I know some of us here right now find wonder and hope and joy in short supply in our everyday lives. But together, we have a treasure chest of story and prayer and music holding the joy, faith, and wonder of those who have gone before us, or who travel with us now, to guide us to God’s home.
And if those stories we share seem distant from the daily news headlines or the weary routines of “back to normal”, we can still tap into that hope and trust, marvel and delight, and carry it with us to hold next to, or against, the troubled news and weariness of the world around us.

Carry it with us, so that perhaps without knowing it, we leak a bit of joy, hope, awe, and belovedness to the people around us, the people longing and searching for those drops of promise, the travelers looking for a clue to the next stop on their journey to the heart of God.

 

however strong or fragile your personal connection to God feels right now, you can, and I can, shine with a strong or gentle, twinkling or trustworthy “light”. 

Shine, in the midst of everything ordinary or extraordinary, when we tap into the stories we love, the communion that nudges a little peace into our hearts, the faithful relationships here, and the love and strength that God is always trying to fuel and feed us with

 

You, and I, individually and together, already hold God’s light.

We have been invited, for a minute or a lifetime, to be the star.

Star of wonder, invitation, hope, and joy.

So let it shine.



Wednesday, December 25, 2024

Improvisational Christmas

Luke 2:1-20

I find it an irresistible image, that baby in a manger. It has inspired paintings and songs and stories through the years, and endless reams of theological commentary.  And as soon as I hear even a bit of all that – or just the phrase “laid him in a manger” - my mind’s eye starts seeing all the pictures haloed in shining light, the peaceful (amazingly unsquished) newborn sleeping in a pile of gently glowing straw, and heavenly glory and adoration all around.

 

And then tonight as I read this story for the hundredth – thousandth? – time, I find myself struck not only by that holy glow, but the idea that – while an animal’s feed tray is a very unusual place to put a baby (for many of us, anyway), and is undoubtedly detailed by Luke for important theological purposes – putting a baby in a manger is the height of practical improvisation, under the circumstances.

 

Everybody’s tired after the birth. The baby needs to sleep. There’s no crib, no glider; this isn’t an obstetrical suite or a home nursery. But there’s a manger, and the straw will support him better than the floor and he’s not going to fall out of it.

 

Any number of babies, over the centuries before and since, have slept in improvised beds. Cave hollows and mangers and hammocks and dresser drawers and maybe even Amazon delivery boxes.

Life happens; we’re not in exactly the right place, or at the right time, and we improvise.

(In fact, improvising is the only way many of us get through big Christmas-season events in our families or work or school – or church!)

 

And I wonder if maybe that is part of the whole point of Christmas.

Wonder if that baby in the manger is a deliberate invitation – or provocation – from God to encourage us to improvise.

To take things that aren’t what we were planning for, or hoping for, and to not only roll with it, but – together with God – to improvise something new.

 

Years ago, I took a short crash course in improvisation at The Second City improv theater and school in Chicago.

And the very first thing we talked about is that the fundamental rule and root of improvisation is “Yes, and…”

 

When you are doing an improv scene, and your partner starts with “Wow, the moon looks beautiful tonight,” you might respond “Yes, and it’s so much brighter now we are out of atmosphere”, and now you are creating a story together about a space journey.

If instead you had said “You can’t possibly see the moon, we’re in a windowless classroom right now,” or your partner responded “You can’t afford to travel to space,” the story would fall apart before it started. 

 

Beyond the summer camp beginner level, you don’t usually say the “Yes, and” words out loud as you build a story, a relationship, a world to share. But it’s still there: It’s the principle of receiving a gift to build on, and give back, that makes improvisation work.

The taking of something unexpected, and unplanned, and rolling with it, and pulling in ideas and stories and resources to make it work, is what improv, and partnership, and often even faith is all about.

 

It's what makes the Christmas miracle work – in Bethlehem so long ago, and also here and now.

When the sky around them fills with terrifyingly supernatural creatures, the shepherds in the fields near Bethlehem had to choose, “Yes, this is happening, and we should listen,” instead of “No, this is freaky; I’m having hallucinations and should hide under a sheep.”

 

When the angels announced that the Messiah had come, that the kingly superhero God’s people had been waiting ages for was here, the shepherds had to say “Yes, let us go to Bethlehem and see, and be part of God’s salvation,” instead of “Well, that has nothing to do with me except probably raising my taxes again.”

 

And when they got there, and had to realize that there was no fabulous royal superhero ready to knock down the Roman oppressors,

that this ordinary, squished red baby was what God had done,

they had to choose not to walk away in disappointment, or complaint.

They had to embrace the absurdity and tell people that yes, this child came announced by heavenly choirs; and yes, we will celebrate the long-awaited miracle of this ordinary child in an improvised crib, so that the story could go on.

 

The shepherds aren’t the only people improvising with God in this story. Mary and Joseph each had to hear a shocking and potentially catastrophic opening line from God – an unplanned pregnancy that could break their marriage before it got started – and say, “Yes, and we will become co-parents with God. Yes, and this divine child will be our ordinary child, loved and raised to be fully human.”

Instead of “No, impossible. It’ll ruin me; I can’t cope; I give up.”

 

In a world that so often chooses to say “No,” and “but…”, to unexpected news and events,

and “impossible!” to improbable hopes,

the miracle of Christmas absolutely requires us to suspend our disbelief and use our imaginations and get right into the story with God, saying “Yes!” and choosing to act as if the impossible is perfectly sensible, and the absurd is a deep holy truth.

 

Because, of course, sometimes deep holy truths – like the truth that the unlimitable divine being who created the universe would choose to be an ordinary infant sleeping in a feed tray, would choose all the messy, hungry, uncomfortable limits of humanity just to be with ordinary us – is completely absurd.

There are whole reams of potential Saturday Night Live sketches in the ridiculousness God proposes, in heavenly glory coming to be human, with us.

 

It's so ridiculous that the only response of faith is “Yes, and…”

God becomes a helpless infant?

Yes, and we will become nurturers for the divine in every infant. Yes, and we will become playful friends, as the divine child grows, right in the middle of our ordinary twenty-first century electronic lives.

God wants to become one of us, “move into the neighborhood”? Yes, and we will invite God to the neighborhood picnic. We will ask God for recommendations on gardening and contractors, and share our knowledge of the local parks with God. We will lend a hand with God’s home improvement projects (which, we will quickly notice, are always much, much, bigger than they sound when we start).

And yes, we will look for God in the faces of strangers and friends around us, people who show up a little out of place and looking to be at home.

 

Because all along, God is improvising with us. God is picking up the cues of our hopes and longings for the closer presence of God, the healing of the world. God picks up the things we stumble into, the things we were not planning for, and not only rolls with it, but invites us to join with God to improvise something new.

 

God hears our absurd hope and our accidental surprises, and says “Yes, and I will invent this adventure with you, a story in which you will love, and be loved, in ways you have never imagined before.” A story that is absurd, and wonderful, and full of surprise and delight – and wraps holy glows around the most ordinary, utilitarian tools and furnishings and people in our lives. Straw and shepherds and your family car or endless email.

 

Look with me, tonight, in your mind’s eye, or your heart’s, at the holy glow around that unexpected infant, in that improvised crib, so long ago, and hear God’s absurd and joyous and profound “Yes, and more yes” response to all our own hopes and dreams and longings and prayer:

now, tonight, here.

 

Hear God’s invitation to us to say (with the shepherds) “Yes, this absurd, wonderful, long-ago glowing miracle of God is our miracle, too, and we will roll with the unexpected, we will hope and dream and create a new story with God, tonight, and forever.”