Labyrinth

At the start of this new year, I walked an outdoor labyrinth as a way of focusing on the path set before me – whatever it is – in the days of 2012. It was a cold day but not bitterly so, warmed some by the thin winter sunshine. The trees were all bare and I could see the wounds from the damaging October snowstorm. As I turned the circle around and around, I was sometimes facing forest and sometimes glimpsing a row of houses through a bare thicket.

The path of the labyrinth was edged by stone blocks and covered in pea gravel. I could see the footprints of others who had walked the same way, and I knew I was joined with and to them in prayer. Among those footprints were the tracks of a large dog and a small one, sometimes on the path and sometimes not. Did the dogs walk with their owner or did they come on their own? I also saw the prints of deer in several places, and some small tracks that I could not identify – maybe a raccoon.

I loved the act of walking the labyrinth with the wild things. It was as the psalmist said: “Let everything that breathes praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord!” (Psalm 150:6) There we were, all of us creatures made by the breath of God, walking and praising in our own God-given way – me and the dogs and the deer and the others.

Baptism of Jesus

Getting the Word

Genesis 1:1-5

Psalm 29

Mark 1:4-11

We live in a world awash in words. Always in the background, there is talk radio, 80 gazillion channels on TV, magazines, electronic bill boards, email, text messages, cell phones – a never-ending barrage of words. With words so common and present, is easy to forget how powerful they really are. We say “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me,” and forget that words can wound and wound deeply, and that they can also bring healing and joy.

If you doubt the power of words, think about what happens as a result of words like these:

“I love you. Will you marry me?”

“The biopsy was positive. You have cancer.”

“I’m sorry. Your job is being eliminated.”

“Oh look, you’re having twins.”

Just words, but getting words like these has the power to change everything.

Another danger of the overload of words in our world is that we often tune out; we may be hearing but we stop listening, we stop paying attention. And in the midst of all our daily noise, the word we most need to hear is in danger of being drowned out, or we are not in the right place to be able to hear it. As the poet T.S. Eliot wrote in a much quieter time: “Where shall the word be found, where will the word resound? Not here, there is not enough silence.” (Ash Wednesday) You know the old question: If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one to hear it, does it make a sound? A parallel question for us might be: If God speaks in the world and no one pays attention, does it make any difference?

Well, the Bible has a very clear answer to that, and the answer is yes. Yes, words are powerful; yes, words make a difference, whether we are paying attention or not. The Hebrew term for “word” – dabar -- is also translated as action, thing, or deed. To speak is to act. And that is especially true for God’s Word (the one with a capital W).

Consider this: In the beginning, the world was created not with a gesture or a planning document or a coincidence. The world was created with words. In the first chapter of Genesis, there are 14 times when God speaks. As we read this morning: God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God spoke into being and named day and night; the sky; the waters; the dry land; plants; stars, moon, and sun; living creatures of every kind; and finally human beings, us.

Out of the chaos of nothing, when there was only a formless void, wild and waste, God’s Word brought order and life. The Word changed everything.

And that has been the pattern throughout all of holy history. When God’s Word comes to the people, things will be changed. The Word disrupts the status quo. Where there is chaos, the Word brings order. And the reverse is equally true: Where there is complacency, the Word stirs things up. As the psalmist said: “ The voice of the Lord flashes forth flames of fire, shakes the wilderness, causes the oaks to whirl, strips the forest bare.” (from Psalm 29) We may have a nice little spiritual routine but then the voice of God thunders in our lives and what was routine is seen as the rut it has become, and our comfort and boredom are stripped away.

I suspect that when we seek a word from God, though, it is not that kind of word! We long for the easy way. It is hard to pray as medieval preacher John Donne once did:

Batter my heart, three-person'd God ; for you

As yet but knock ; breathe, shine, and seek to mend ;

That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend

Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.

But here is the truth: Unless God breaks, blows, and burns within us, we are just the same old stuff. The act of making new, the act of creation -- in the world, in the church, in our hearts – means a break from the old, a powerful blowing of the wind of the Spirit, and flames of fire that destroy all that gets in the way of our holiness. It means change.

And that is what happens in baptism. Baptism is not just about sweet babies, antique christening gowns, and family gatherings. Baptism is not just a nice little ritual of dabbing some water on someone’s head. Baptism is the powerful act of God’s Word, changing everything.

When Jesus came to be baptized, the heavens themselves were torn apart. It was an answer to an ancient prayer from the prophet Isaiah on behalf of the people: “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence— as when fire kindles brushwood
 and the fire causes water to boil!” 
 (Isaiah 64:1-2)

In Jesus’ baptism, the barrier between earth and heaven has been torn open. God has spoken. And God’s creating, powerful voice has named a new reality. God has said to and of Jesus: “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” There is an echo here from “in the beginning,” when God spoke and all was changed, and God saw that it was good.

And we are baptized, that voice descends on us, too. We are created as God’s own children and God is well-pleased; God sees that we are good. Everything is changed. The power of sin is broken. The old life is gone, destroyed, stripped away.

We get God’s word, and it is a word, the word, that became flesh. And getting the Word in baptism means we become part of the Body of Christ; we, too, become the Word. And we may be the only Word of God that some people every get.

The world will not always pay attention to the Word that we speak, to the Word that we are. But that does not lessen our power. It does not diminish our calling to create something new.

God speaks and everything, including us, is changed. God speaks and something new comes into being – in the world, in our church, in our hearts. And God sees that it is good, and God is well-pleased. And in God’s house all say “Glory!”

© Martha C. Highsmith

Third Sunday of Advent

Pointing to the Light

Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11

Luke 1:46-55

John 1:6-9, 19-28

We are deep into Advent. The days are short because there is so much to do to get ready for Christmas –yes – but also because the sun sets so early. December 21 is the day of the year with the least amount of total daylight but today is one of the days with the earliest sunsets. The sun will go down today at 4:20vand we will be wrapped in darkness for almost 15 hours – 14 hours, 48 minutes to be precise.

A very long nighttime. A lot of darkness.

Except…. There are lights everywhere now: twinkling white lights draped over the eaves of houses,big colored bulbs on outdoor bushes and trees, tiny candles set in the windows. One house that I pass on my daily commute has dozens of giant lighted snowflakes hanging all over the surrounding trees. It is so magical; I’ve seen it over and over and it is still making me smile.

I think part of the beauty of all the lights is the kind of brave statement they make. When the world is shrouded in night, literally and figuratively, it is an act of courage to let in the light. In a way, when we string up our Christmas lights, we are symbolically doing what God has done – causing the light to shine in darkness.

That is how the gospel of John tells the story of Jesus’ coming -- not with angels and shepherds or wise men and mangers. This gospel starts long before any of that: “In the beginning (it sounds like Genesis, doesn’t it), was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1-2)

The Word is God’s holy act, made flesh in Jesus. At creation, God’s first act, God’s first word was about light: “God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light.” (Genesis 1:3) And God is still speaking the Word that brings light into the world: As the gospel tells us: “What has come into being in him – this Word which is the Christ – was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” (John 1:3b-5)

And John was the one who was called to point to light. He understood his role to be like that of the prophet Isaiah: “’I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness,’ he said, echoing the ancient scripture:
 ’Make straight the way of the Lord.’” (John 1:23)

But what exactly is this “way of the Lord,” this way of light and life. Isaiah tells us that, too, in prophecy fulfilled in Jesus. The way of the Lord is good news to the oppressed, healing for the broken-hearted, liberty to the captives,
 and release to the prisoners. It is an era marked by God’s favor for those who seek God, and God’s judgment of separation from love for those who do not. It is comfort for those who mourn and God’s praise to encourage faint spirits. That is the way of the Lord, the way of light, and we, like the prophets before us, are called to point to the light.

But what does that mean? How do we do that? Isaiah tells us this, too. Those who live in God’s light “shall build up the ancient ruins,
they shall raise up the former devastations;
they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.” (Isaiah 61:4)

Isaiah was likely speaking of the aftermath of the siege and war and occupation of Jerusalem and the need to rebuild all that had been destroyed. But 2500 years later, the instructions still apply, and they apply to us. We, too, witness to the light by rebuilding what is ruined, raising up what is broken down, repairing what has been devastated. The rabbis call this work tikkun olam, a Hebrew phrase which means repairing the world.

There is much in our world that needs repairing. There is much that is ruined, broken, and devastated. In the midst of great abundance, children are starving and old men are homeless. The gap between the richest rich and poorest poor is greater than it has ever been in human history. For reasons that are incredibly complex and also simple and completely obvious, violent crime is increasing in our cities. Basic health care is a luxury for most of the world’s people.

This is not the way of the Lord.

And if you think seriously about the brokenness of our world, if you do not turn your eyes away from suffering and devastation, it is all too easy to despair. The world’s troubles are so complicated, its problems so insurmountable, the challenges so great – how are we to accomplish anything? Aren’t all our efforts the equivalent of lighting a tiny candle in the midst of overwhelming darkness? How can we be successful? The work of tikkun olam seems beyond our ability. We aren’t very powerful; we aren’t very rich. We can’t possibility change the world, can we?

I don’t know the answer to that question, but here is the good news of the gospel: we don’t have to. God has already done that. God has changed everything. Isaiah knew it, Jesus knew it, and Mary, his mother, knew it.

Just look at Luke 1:46-55. This is the Magnificat, that beautiful song of Mary. It speaks of the way of the Lord, the straight way, where all inequalities are leveled out. Do you see what God has done? God “has shown strength with his arm;
 he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.” (Luke 1:51-53)

This is the way of God: no one is high and mighty and no one is down and out; no one is eating caviar and filet mignon all the time and no one is starving; all are equal in God’s sight and all have an equal share of the world’s goodness.

But the world isn’t this way, is it? So why did Mary sing as though this had already happened? A little grammar lesson might be helpful in understanding what she was saying. The form of these verbs is what is called the present perfect tense. According to Wikipedia, that is a grammatical construction that is used to express a past event that has present consequences.

A past event that has present consequences. We know what that past event is, don’t we? The light of the world that has come into the world, the light has been present since even before the beginning. And that past event, the coming of the light, has present consequences for us. In it we are called to engage in tikun olam, repairing the world, our beautiful, broken world.

No, we can’t fix everything, but remember that we don’t have to. All we have to do is point to the light. All we have to do is live in the light. All we have to do it light our own little candles and let them shine. Because tikkun olam, the work of repairing the world, begins within our hearts. We don’t have to fix everything. What we do have to do is witness to the light with our own lives, our words, our deeds, our prayers; our intentions and attitudes and actions. What we have to do is let the eternal light shine through us.

A song by the poet-songwriter Leonard Cohen has this refrain:

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack, a crack in everything

That's how the light gets in.

There’s a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in. And in our cracked and broken world, even in our cracked and broken hearts, the light still gets in.

The light still shines. And the darkness has not overcome it. Thanks be to God!

© Martha C. Highsmith

Holy Saturday

It is gray today, cold and wet. It seems fitting somehow.

About Good Friday, Paul Tillich writes of the way the physical world itself responds to the crucifixion. The sky darkens, the earth shakes, the temple veil is torn. He says:

Nature, with trembling, participates in the decisive event of history. The sun veils its head; the temple makes the gesture of mourning; the foundations of the earth are moved..... Nature is in an uproar because something is happening which concerns the universe.

If Friday is darkness, then Easter morning is bright and glorious. Even on those rainy Easter Sundays, there is still that sense of light, the Paschal light.

But what about Saturday? Saturday is the day between, but it certainly must have seemed the end and not the middle. Resurrection was coming but why did it wait another day? After sitting with people in the midst of profound loss, I think that maybe Saturday was like that, even for God. Great loss induces shock and numbness. It is almost impossible to act, to comprehend, to believe. Perhaps this is putting too much of a human face on God, but I think God might have been so numbed by grief and sorrow that nothing else could happen. He had lost his Son, and he had lost his children, too, by giving them the freedom to do what they wanted, even crucifixion. Of course, we do not get the last word -- thank God -- but on Saturday, maybe no one knows that yet.

So today it rains and it is cold. And I think that maybe even heaven is weeping with the tragedy of terrible death, Jesus' death and any other, too. Tomorrow there will be light and lilies and sparkling music. But today there is only the stunned disbelief, only the grief, only the loss.

Building in Stages

Many of the buildings on the Caribbean island of Anguilla are made of concrete. It is shaped and poured and painted sometimes so it looks like wood or stucco-type plaster. And sometimes it is just left gray and plain. One of the interesting things about the buildings, houses in particular, is the rebar sticking out of the top. The builders have prepared for another storey even though they have not been able to build it at the start, because materials or money are too scarce. All over the island, you see these houses, fully occupied, with metal rods decorating the top and extending to the sky in the hope of more to come some day.

I like this as an image for life. We are building our houses at the same time we are living in them. We are also thinking we will be able to add on, enlarge, do more, and we make plans for that. Sometimes those plans come to fruition and sometimes they just stick out and rust in the rain. Sometimes we finish what we start, sometimes others do it after we are gone, and sometimes what we have is all that will ever be. And no matter what, we still go on living in what we have made, making a home with what we have, and not waiting for everything to be perfect and final and finished. And isn’t life just like that?

A Sermon in Lent

Wonder. Bread!

Exodus 16:1-15

John 6: 24-35

Those of you in the Howdy Doody generation – you know who you are – will remember the commercials for Wonder Bread: You know: “builds strong bodies 12 ways.” It was enriched with vitamins and it was soft and white, fluffy almost – in our house the complete opposite of the substantial biscuits and cornbread that were the usual fare. In fact, in my part of the South, white slices from a bag are still called light bread.

But whether our daily bread is soft and white, or biscuits, pita, or pumpernickel – we still call it the staff of life. Even the cruelest diet contains bread and water. And despite all our sophistication and abundance, the prediction of a big snow storm still sends hundreds of people out to stand in line to buy milk and….bread.

If you doubt the wonder of bread, think for a moment about the feeling you have when you smell a freshly baked loaf of bread. If you think bread has become unnecessary, try to imagine all your Sunday dinners with no fresh rolls, Mexican food without tortillas, March 17 without soda bread. If you think bread is not important, consider this Table without it. Bread is essential for life – the life of the body and the life of the soul.

It has been this way for thousands of years, all the way back to the wilderness and even before that. Bread is strength for the journey. So it is not surprising that when the children of Israel found themselves out in the middle of nowhere without any bread, they were anxious, upset, and angry. They were hungry. And they complained about it. In Egypt, they were slaves and they were forced into backbreaking labor, but at least they had known what to expect. At least, they had something to eat. Not like this.

In Egypt, the people were dependent on Pharaoh for bread. In the wilderness, they had to become dependent on God. It was a hard transition.

But just as God had noticed their slavery, so God noticed their hunger and sent manna. It was strange stuff, like nothing they had ever seen before. "When [they] saw it, they said to one another, "What is it?"" (Exodus 16:15a). "What is it," which in Hebrew is man hu. And so this bread from heaven was called manna. It covered the earth like dew in the morning. Moses told them what it was, bread from God, and they ate it.

Think about the courage to do that, the act of faith it took to eat this stuff that they had never seen before, this stuff they could not even name.

But they had no choice, really. They were hungry, they were in the wilderness, they ate, and it satisfied their hunger. It was sufficient. It was enough for the day.

But it was not to be hoarded. When they tried to save it up, stockpile against the future, it bred worms and was spoiled. This wonderful manna was food for the present. And if it required an act of faith to taste it for the first time, it also required an act of faith to believe that there would be enough for tomorrow without hoarding what was offered today. After all, they needed this bread to live. And it was hard to leave it there, hard to be confident that there would more in the future.

There in the wilderness, they had to accept what God would offer, on God’s terms. They had to trust that what God offered was life itself.

To be given bread when you are really hungry is to be given all you need. As Mother Teresa once said: "We give dying people bread because they hunger and perish not just for bread but also for love. When we hand them bread, we are also giving them love." ." (Sunday Dinner, Willimon, p 65) That is what God did with those hungry, complaining people in the wilderness. God gave them food – and love.

And Jesus did the same thing, multiplying the loaves, feeding those who had followed him into the desert. They thought they understood the power he had. He had them eating out of his hands, after all. They thought he was a second Moses, sent from God to give them bread. But they were wrong. They misunderstood his power. His power had little to do with their stomachs and everything to do with their souls.

The bread that mattered was not the bread from his hands but another kind of bread, something new and wholly different. It was the bread of life. It was his own life.

Remember: To be given bread when you are hungry to the point of perishing is to be given love. It was true for those in the wilderness, it was true for those with Jesus in Capernaum, and it is true for us, too.

We, too, may know something about the wilderness. It is a place where the fear of scarcity can easily turn to complaining. It is a place of hunger and emptiness, sometimes of anger. The wilderness is a time of being pushed out of all that is familiar, of being uprooted, of having nowhere to turn -- except to God. The wilderness is that experience of learning to depend on God because you can no longer depend on anything else. The wilderness is the place where you live from day to day, and there is enough, just for today. In the wilderness, you have to trust and obey God.

And whether we know it or not, we are praying a wilderness prayer every time we say: “Give us this day our daily bread.” What we are asking is this: God, give us enough for one day. Give us what we need for the present moment. Keep us from hoarding your gifts. Teach us to trust that you will provide.

This is not easy. We live in a world where every message is about being self-sufficient, taking control, maintaining independence. It is a hard transition to move from the message of the world to the message of the Word. It is a hard transition to give up our reliance on ourselves and what we have stored up, and learn instead to rely on God. It goes against so much of what we have been taught: don't be a burden, pay your own way, save for retirement, be responsible. Those actions are worthwhile, of course, until and unless they get in the way of God. We can become so focused on looking after ourselves that we forget to look for God. We can become so intent on saving ourselves that we miss out on life.

Life comes from one source: Jesus, sent by God to satisfy the deepest hungers of the world, for those in the wilderness, for the starving, for those who are afraid and angry with God; Jesus, offering his life to us and for us, and showing us the way to receive the gift. Not by hoarding what we have as a hedge against the future, not by longing for the old days of Pharaoh’s plenty, not by becoming paralyzed with the fear of not having enough. We receive the gift of life by reaching out in faith and obedience, seeing that God in Christ is giving us what we need, but also recognizing that it may not look like anything we have ever seen before.

It may raise more questions than it answers. It may make us wonder. Like those in the wilderness and those around Jesus, when we are confronted with God's strange provision, it will require an act of faith to take it in.

The bread we share here comes from the hand of God – God who gives us all we need for life, God who gives us Jesus Christ. This bread builds a strong body, the body of Christ, in more ways than we can even imagine. And that is cause for thanksgiving, for trust and gratitude, for awe and for wonder.

And Jesus still says to us, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry.”

And may it be so. Amen.

(c) Martha C. Highsmith

Praying

The daffodils are starting to bloom, opening their little yellow faces to this tentative spring. They stand with their heads bowed, nodding gently in the still-cold breeze. I wonder if a flower can pray -- that is what they look as though they are doing. Are they offering obeisance to their Maker? Are they giving thanks for the light after being buried almost all year? Are they just glad to be alive? And whether these are their prayers or not, shouldn't they be mine?