Connected, Empowered

 Mark 1:4-11; Acts 19:1-7

The Episcopal Church starts every calendar year, more or less, with the stories and remembrance of baptism.

So today we heard the story of Jesus, baptized in the Jordan, and launched into ministry as God’s Beloved Son, full of the power of God, as witnessed by the Holy Spirit. And the story of the disciples in Ephesus baptized with the Holy Spirit, the baptism John promised us Jesus would bring, who immediately speak with the power of God.

Both of those stories remind us that baptism – Jesus’, Paul’s, yours and mine – is not a simple cleansing, with forgiveness. And it’s not a protective shield to keep us from getting worn or dirtied or injured by the evil in the world.
Instead, baptism is the sacrament that creates us – and keeps re-creating us – as children of God, connected to Jesus and one another in God’s nurturing, unbreakable love. And baptism empowers us with the Holy Spirit, to speak and act and live as part of Christ, God’s hands and feet and heart active day by day in this world. 

I need that reminder right now. Maybe you do, too.

Right now, it can seem like many protective shields we’ve counted on – whether masks and distance, or tradition, or the US Constitution, or anything else – are thin and fragile. The coronavirus gets closer to us, our friends and family. The familiar rituals of church can’t be in church. The US Capitol building was overrun by a mob intent on disrupting our constitutional process and overturning a democratic election – and who succeeded in committing national security breaches, theft, selfies, and trashing the place, if nothing else. 

Many of us feel vulnerable, feel a betrayal of trust: new or renewed disappointments in elected leaders; familiar resentments and the bitterness of division with our fellow citizens; the echo of ages of injustice and oppression in the strikingly different ways Washington responds to the “protests” of privilege and the protests of the disenfranchised.

Some of us feel unprotected, many of us feel isolated, in the face of COVID cases that rise and rise.

We all need that assurance of connection, that experience of empowerment that Jesus demonstrates at the Jordan river, that Paul conveys in Ephesus, and that God offers each of us in our own baptism.  It doesn’t matter whether we’re baptized as infants, children, or adults: we who are baptized are marked forever as children of God, connected by love to God and to every other one of God’s children at the root of our souls. We who are baptized have been given the gift of the Holy Spirit, the opportunity to transform the world, to heal betrayal, resist evil, not with our own strength, but with God’s, in the simple actions of our everyday lives. 

I know it doesn’t always feel that way.

I know it’s easy to feel powerless in the face of the news. Easy to feel disconnected from one another.

I know there are days, or hours, or years, or moments, when the love of God, the community of faith, the transformative power of the Spirit seem unreal, or completely missing from our lives.

I know there are times when our baptism doesn’t really seem to matter.

That’s why the church calls on us to actively renew our “Baptismal Covenant”, as you and I will do today in just a few minutes.

When we renew this covenant – in worship together, or in our personal prayer – we repeat the Creed as the story of God’s love: in creation, in the coming of Christ, in redemption and resurrection and eternal life and forgiveness and our connection with the whole communion of God’s people, now and to come.  

We repeat the promises that describe the way we live in response to knowing we’re beloved children of God: living in community of faith and prayer; loving all God’s children as ourselves, or as Christ; trusting God’s forgiveness enough to seek it when we get tangled up in the ordinary evils of the world; inviting others to share the good we’ve been given; and sharing in God’s work of building a world where justice and peace come naturally and human dignity is universal. 

As we repeat all that we sink our soul’s roots deeper into the love of God we need in the face of evil, despair, confusion, disconnection or indifference.

When we affirm that we live this way with God’s help we accept all over again the gift of the Holy Spirit that has empowered us to use God’s strength, not just our own, and remember that we are part of God’s work of healing and transforming the world.

I need that now; maybe you do, too. 

In a statement responding to the events of this week our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry anchors us in the history of our faith as we face this historic moment, and asks us all to “make a commitment, a renewed commitment, to live the way of love as Jesus has taught us.” 

That is exactly what we do in renewing our baptismal covenant today.  

And Bishop Curry asks us to act on that by “go[ing] out and bless[ing] somebody. Bless somebody you disagree with. Bless somebody you agree with. But to go out and bless somebody by helping somebody along the way.”

When Bishop Curry says that, I’m reminded that we don’t have to solve a national crisis or cure a deadly illness or produce miracles in one fell swoop. 

We do it little by little, in the face of crisis, and in the day to day.

The actions of the way of love, of the baptized life, are usually small: a little stretch for us on our own, within reach because we’re empowered with God’s love and Spirit. 

Things like saying “I think it would be wrong to do that” or “I want us to do the right thing” when it would be easier to stay silent and let it go. 

Being generous in some small way with a stranger you don’t know; being generous – repeatedly – with a co-worker who irritates you or a friend who can’t keep up. 

Admitting our failures and asking forgiveness, one small thing at a time.

Letting someone know you want to pray for them. 

Praying, even when you don’t feel like it. 

Praying – even just a little – for those who feel like our enemies.

When I do one of those things, I can actually feel God’s love just a little more closely. I can feel just a little more strength, the power to do one more thing, fueled by God’s strength and spirit. 

And that makes it just a bit easier to resist the evil in the world that tries to use fear or isolation or resentment to pull us into hate or despair. Just a little bit easier, each time, to face a world that can be dangerous, disappointing, oppressive, or lonely. Just a little bit easier to recognize and be part of the healing, generosity, renewal, connection, grace and love that God has built into us, into all creation. 

Our baptism is a gift God gives us not just for weeks like this one, but for any of the weeks or hours or years when we wonder how to respond to betrayal, loss, exhaustion, or evil; when we need transformation, hope, trust and joy.  

In those times – and also, maybe especially – in the times when nothing seems to be happening and baptism feels irrelevant, God and the church invite us to renew ourselves in this unbreakable connection of God’s beloved children, in the power of the Holy Spirit washed into our everyday lives.

So let’s practice that now.

Let’s receive God’s gifts of connection and power again today, renewing our baptism in God’s love and strength, for these days and all the days to come.

True Light

 John 1:1-18

A week or two ago, I picked up the last string of white Christmas lights on the shelf at Target, and spent an hour or so rigging a way to hang them in my street-facing window downstairs. 

I’ve never been especially enthusiastic about hanging Christmas lights before, but this year I really felt the need to put up lights that other people could see; a need to reach out in the dark evenings and mornings with a little light of seasonal cheer.

And judging by the scarcity of holiday lights available online and in stores, I’m not the only one.

The light shines in the darkness, John says, and the darkness did not overcome it.

That’s the promise of Christmas, that the light of God can come into any dark place, and cannot be extinguished. 

Not just any light, though. The “true light”. The light that gives life.

You and I, here at the end of 2020, probably have a very different relationship with light and darkness than John did. 

A different experience of darkness and light than John’s first hearers, or most of humanity for 1500 years or so after John wrote those words.

Because we live in a world of artificial light, and have to go far out of our way to find serious darkness – wilderness camping, mostly. Occasionally, though, we might find ourselves in a place where the stars are extraordinarily visible, but can’t help you place your feet, or tell if the person next to you has moved. A place and time where the darkness feels deep, textured, and strong.

Instead, you and I are immersed, most of our days and nights, in a flood of artificial light: streetlights, house lights, TV and phone and computer screens. We live in a world where, most of the time, natural darkness can’t even gain a foothold and light seems to be at our beck and call. 
There’s so much light it’s actually hard to see, sometimes. 

The power of light and darkness is different for us now, but we can still understand the one thing about darkness that’s most important to John. 

It’s not that darkness by itself is bad. Or that light itself is good.

It’s just that, in the darkness, without light, you can’t see.
And for John, seeing is believing.

Now, John doesn’t care whether we “see” with bifocals on our nose, or braille on our fingertips, or average eyeballs.  What John cares about is that we have the direct experience of God that Jesus brings, the experience of our “eyes being opened”, of the reality of God being revealed directly to our senses.

John uses “seeing” and “sight” to describe that experience of the closeness, the realness of God, which transforms our sense of the world around us, so that we perceive the glory of God here and now, well up with living water, and notice miracles and love in what used to be ordinary.

That closeness of Jesus in our senses transforms our sense of self so that we can never again experience ourselves as alone, or disconnected, but rather as one with each other, part of God’s heart.

“Seeing” God among us, in us, moving into our neighborhood, is believing: living a life that is full of the joy, forgiveness, service, love, and abiding peace that Jesus lived and shared.

That’s what John means, that the light came to give us power to become children of God. That experiencing God in the midst of this world transforms us so that our connection to God can never be broken, cut, or shaken.

That’s why God comes into the world.
The baby comes, the fully human Jesus comes, to put a face on God, make it easier for us to imagine the realness, the concrete presence of God.  The eternal light comes, the true light, to help us “see”: to show all of our senses the evidence of God at work in the world.

To show us love and miracles in Christmas gifts and masks and vaccines and lights in the window. To show us the best of ourselves and of our co-workers, family, neighbors, and even politicians, in spite of all the frustrations and errors and irritations and general sins of everyday life.  To show us joy when the world around us insists on anxiety; trust when the world shouts doubt; possibilities and power when the world insists on zero-sum answers.

The noisy light we live with here and now can obscure the true light just as much as darkness can.

But just like darkness, artificial or noisy light cannot overcome the true light.

Instead, the true light gives life; life abundant, vibrant, and unstoppable, in the midst of strong darkness or bright noise.

In a Zoom meeting, where the artificial light shows the shadows under your eyes or the mess on your desk, the true light shows the life-giving human connection that can be built in spite of distance and distraction.

When stress or fear, conflict or pain, darken our lives, the true light keeps shining love into us, until we perceive it and can respond. 

When the noisy light of news and entertainment, of alerts and stories, show a world of urgency and competition, the true light shows the solid foundation of trust and peace that God builds for us in the midst of it all.

When boredom, indifference, and distraction close our eyes to both human need and human capability, the true light keeps showing us compassion and wonder, strength and hope, woven into every human life, and every human question.

The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. … And to all who received him, he gave power to become children of God…who believed in his name.

Not Normal

Luke 2:1-20

It’s not the same, is it?
Christmas church at a distance is just…odd.

Family isn’t gathered as usual, or we’re gathered with lots of new precautions and stresses. We’re missing folks around the table and tree – and some of us are actually seeing more family on Zoom than we would with usual holiday travel.
Parties, shopping, decorating, caroling are all changed because of job losses and social distancing. The Christmas rituals of celebration and love are just different this year. 

For some of us, it just doesn’t quite feel like Christmas. 

For some of us, it’s actually better this way. 

Either way, we don’t need to pretend it’s the same.

Because disruptions, change, difference, and the disorientation that comes from all of that, is exactly where Christmas starts.

Nothing was usual in Bethlehem, after all, in that particular season and year we remember today.

They weren’t in the middle of a pandemic, staying home and separate out of care for one another. They had a global tax census forcing people to leave home, travel across the country, and crowd together where there’s not enough room. Mary and Joseph are out of their element, in a makeshift guestroom – maybe with more extended family around them than ever before – and now holding a brand-new infant: an adorable, unpredictable bundle of disruption and change. 

Everything’s just as different in first-century Bethlehem as it is in twenty-twenty New Jersey. Nobody’s ready for what’s happening, we’re all off balance, and – right in the middle of that – God shows up!  In a manger.

I wonder if that detail about the manger – which Luke repeats three times in telling the story of Jesus’ birth – is meant to be a signal about the disruption, the change, the not-the-way-it’s-supposed-to-be-ness of God’s coming.  Putting a baby in a feed box draws our attention to just how not-like-we-planned it this whole arrival is.

And if that’s the case, then everything that is wrong with Christmas this year is actually right.

Maybe we’re really not supposed to be prepared for how God really comes.

Maybe things aren’t supposed to be “normal’.

That’s great news. Let’s be honest, we’re never going to be really prepared for the coming of God, no matter how predictable things are.  So thank God we don’t have to “get back to normal” to receive and share all the blessings of Christmas; to experience the peace or joy or hope or love we long for.

Maybe the disruption of our habits, our homes, our workdays, our relationships is something that creates a perfect space for God to be born, to become one with us, to be with us.  

I don’t think that God needs us off-balance and uncomfortable to get in to our lives. I do think that when things change, when traditions aren’t the same, it gets our attention and helps us notice God at work. So we’re more ready to see and feel God’s real, physical presence – in a manger of all places! (Or whatever our 2020 version of ridiculous substitute for a baby bed or a heavenly throne would be.)

So, today, as we remember the story of God slipping into a feed box in a crowded hill town, changing everything, look around at your life. Look around your Christmas that isn’t what you’re used to, the things you’re not prepared for, and think about how that might be showing you where God is turning up in your life; or what God is up to, here and now.

After all, in this whole year of worshipping together in so many different places – out of sync with the people who’d ordinarily be in the next pew – new spaces have become sacred, time has become holy in new ways.

Bible study and classes, prayer and worship, visits and friendships are traveling through the electrons and data-packets of the internet this year, as Emmanuel, God-with-us, moves into our disrupted spaces and lives. Required registration has made worship more intentional for some; live-streaming has made it more serendipitous for others. 

This building has become a place to launch prayer into the world, instead of a destination for prayer. 

God-with-us is establishing our homes, our neighborhoods, and even the wilderness of the internet as holy and sacred, filled with power and love and the complete presence of God.

Where else has God become noticeable in the disruptions in your life?

I’ve noticed that the disruptions of our face-to-face life have made phone calls – ordinary, just-voice phone calls – special, holy, and life-giving for me this year. There’s something sacred, a presence of God, in recognizing a voice, seeing you with my ears, whether we are talking about grief or joy or money or the weather.

The changes and disruptions of this year have reconnected many of us to God’s creation. People take up birdwatching from an isolated room; others get rooted in the earth by digging into our gardens. Many of us have been tuning our lives to the demands of walks and kibble and playtime as animal shelters empty and God’s creatures move into more of our homes. 

Disruptive protests have reminded us to notice the face of God in the black lives cut short by violence and neglect. Those disruptions have prompted conversations in boardrooms and legislatures and kitchens and driveways about we can use changes in our habits and assumptions, our brands and behavior and budgets, to help free ourselves and others from a history of oppression and separation.

The economic challenges of the pandemic have revealed the breadth and depth of generosity in this congregation.  Long-distance friendships are getting closer when physical connections are interrupted. The disruption of our offices and schools has made fuzzy slippers into reasonable work wear (okay, that one’s a stretch for the presence of God, but it’s a blessing anyway!)

We do need to grieve what we have lost – people who have died, illnesses that break our hearts, jobs needed that have vanished, work we loved that has changed, opportunities we can’t claim again.  But where the change is painful, when the disruption hurts, where we grieve: that’s exactly – exactly – where Christmas comes most profoundly, where Christmas matters most.

Not in the normal, the predictable, the safe, the well-planned times and places of our lives, but in the manger, in the ways we never would have done this before.

Into the middle of everything not-normal, Luke tells us, comes the entire, all-powerful, presence of God, lying in a feed box, bringing healing into the brokenness, love into the cracks, peace into the changes. 

Love takes advantage of the disruptions, the change, the unpredictability, to show up in places we weren’t looking for love.  Love, lying in a feed box, comes in and settles down with our discomfort; makes a home in our imbalance and impatience; moves in to the mess we’re mixed up in, and embraces it all. 

And that’s how the joy, the peace, the hope of Christmas come to us. Not from perfect timing, polished rituals, unbreakable traditions. 

Joy bursts upon us from love welling up in the mess. 

Peace takes hold of our hearts from love rolling with all the change. 

Hope grows from love that takes up our tired frustration or lonely grief and says: yes, this is real, but this is not the end, this is not all, there is so much more. 

There are angels singing, even now.

The miracle of Christmas doesn’t come in spite of the fact that there’s no crib, and no room. The miracle comes because there’s no crib, and no room: so a baby in a feed box catches hold of our attention, makes us fall in love, and loves us into the joy and peace, the generosity and hope, the holiness of God with us, the sacredness of this unplanned, strange and wonderful now.