Author: harryjheintz

 

On January 24, a fifteen-year-old student at the Marshall County High School in western Kentucky killed two other students and wounded over a dozen in school. This made the national news for a day or two and not much more has been heard.

 

As of January 24, barely three weeks into the month that begins the new year, there were 11recorded shootings at schools. My brief research finds three homicides, two suicides, and at least 20 woundings in these 11 incidents, which were in eight states, scattered around the country. Most were not reported nationally.

 

Then comes one that seems more notorious, like the killing of two and wounding of over a dozen one day on one campus just over a week ago and we are saddened again. Saddened, but hardly shocked. Through my life of 71 years, there have been terrible shootings on campuses (like the Virginia Tech shooting of April 2007, which left over 30 dead, and University of Texas tower shooting of 1966 which killed 13), but nothing prepared us for December 14, 2012, when at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown CT, 20 young school children and six school staff members were killed during a school day just before Christmas. Twenty children aged six and seven were suddenly dead in their classroom. Their innocent young lives were snuffed out in a flurry of gunfire.

 

Perhaps there was a time when certain places were thought to be off-limits for shootings, like schools and churches. We now know better. The killing of nine people at Mother Emanuel A. M. E. Church in Charleston SC on June 18, 2015, and the killing of 26 and wounding of 20 at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs TX last November have taught us that there are no safe places.

 

This is not a Democrat vs. Republican matter. This is an American matter. Every statistical report of gun violence in advanced and prosperous nations like ours puts us off the charts for the most gun violence per capita. Why? Are we a savage country? Have we jettisoned our lofty ideals about all people being created by God with intrinsic merit? Our history sadly witnesses that we have rarely if ever lived up to those ideals, but we still hold them at some level. Those ideals call us to do better and be better.

 

If we are a good country, which I believe we are, filled with good people, which I believe is true, then why do we allow this human carnage to go on? Does our historic love of freedom, which I value and affirm, mean that we allow this to continue as if it is the new norm and the acceptable price for our freedom? Why is our congress unable to move us in a better direction? Why is the White House silent about these acts of violence, unless they are done by immigrants (which most are not)? Does American exceptionalism (a phrase to which I take exception) mean we are exceptionally violent?

 

I understand that human nature means that we will not fully eliminate such acts of violence. I understand that even in the countries with the lowest rates of violent acts, some acts of violence still happen, whether by guns, knives, or other means.

 

In my lifetime we have made great strides in making driving automobiles safer. In my lifetime we have made significant strides in lowering the use of cancer causing cigarettes. We have not eliminated automobile accidents or smoking, but we have moved in better directions with measures that are making positive differences and more will come. Can’t we do the same when it comes to gun violence?

 

We seem to be at a place where we are numbed to gun violence, even in our schools, unless the numbers of the dead and wounded in any one incident are pretty high. I am pondering such matters and questions.

[This sermon was delivered on January 21, 2018, at the Community of the Savior in Rochester, NY. The main text was Jonah 3.]

 

Certain Bible stories invoke warm, fuzzy images. What do you think of first when I mention Noah? What do you think of first when I mention Jonah? Neither of those stories is warm and fuzzy. The story of Noah and the ark is dark with destruction and judgment. The story of Jonah and the great fish doesn’t have a Disney ending.

 

It is always a danger in religion and among people of faith that we divide the world into us vs. them. It is equally a danger in national and global politics. When I was a child in Los Angeles, people were building bomb shelters in their back yards. Soviet missiles were pointed at us. Survivalists were selling kits of water and freeze-dried foods to carry through the apocalypse that was imminent. Five decades later I was in Russia for the first time on a teaching and preaching mission. On one trip we were flown to a city halfway from Moscow to Siberia. It was deep winter, colder and snowier than we have in western NY. On a bitter cold night, we flew on a crowded Soviet era plane to Perm. Our host packed our team into two little cars and directly took us to a park. We saw these long tubes reaching into the early morning sky. Our host told us that these are now used by children as slides. But once they were missile silos aimed at the United States. “Twenty-five minutes,” he said, “and those missiles would have reached your major cities. And now children have fun climbing ladders and sliding down them.”

 

The way I felt toward the Soviets as a child may have been how Jonah felt about the city of Nineveh in the great power of Assyria. But while his issue wasn’t weapons of mass destruction, his issue may have been greater. Those Assyrians were the godless enemy of Israel. When God commanded Jonah to go to Nineveh with a word from God, God was asking Jonah to cross a chasm of cosmic dimensions, with global implications.

 

The book of Jonah is four short chapters, a total of just 48 verses. It includes a psalm of praise, but no classic prophetic utterance. All the other prophetic books primarily address Israel; Jonah does not. Rather, Jonah is a narrative, a story in four movements. I can tell it in one minute.

 

God calls Jonah to bring a word from God to Nineveh to the northeast. Jonah goes the opposite direction, booking passage on a ship to Tarshish, which is at the western edge of his world. God brings a violent storm, which endangers the ship and its Gentile crew. All the pagan sailors are praying, while Jonah is sleeping. They wake him and ask him to pray. Nothing helps. They draw lots and the short lot is drawn by Jonah, so into the sea he goes. A great fish swallows him and after three days spits him up on an Israeli beach. Jonah praises God. God gives Jonah a second chance. Jonah goes to Nineveh, speaks God’s word, and Nineveh repents. God shows mercy to the people of Nineveh, while Jonah rages with anger at God for being gracious to his enemies. Jonah sulks, filled with self-pity for being God’s person bringing good news to the wrong people. God sends an object lesson which is lost on Jonah and the book ends with Jonah sulking. It is the only book in the Bible that ends with a question. “And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?”

 

 

Jonah is both a reluctant prophet and a religious nationalist. He doesn’t want God to be gracious and merciful to the wrong people. Nineveh is an Assyrian city and good Jews should hate all Assyrians. It is us vs. them. Again. With a religious subtext. Israel first! There are limits, it seems to Jonah, as to when and on whom God may show mercy. Jonah hears God’s call and runs the other way. God rescues him, probably to Jonah’s chagrin (how heroic he would have been if he died in the mouth of that great fish). Let’s admit it: this kind of thinking is alive today, both in the Church and outside of it. There is something reassuring about knowing that we are the right people and those not with us are the wrong people.

 

We seem to forget that God originally made a covenant of blessing with Abraham that extended far beyond Abraham’s tribe: “…in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Gen. 12:3) The biblical story of redemption is one of ever-widening circles of grace and inclusion. Psalm 145 exhorts us, “They shall speak of the glory of your kingdom, and tell of your power, to make known to all people your mighty deeds, and the glorious splendor of your kingdom.”

 

 

Christmas and Epiphany remind us of the scope of God’s redemptive mission. Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus includes four women, one of which was a Moabite, another country not liked by Israel. When the baby Jesus was taken to the Temple to be dedicated to God, the old man Simeon held him and said, “for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.” (Luke 2:30-32) And there were the Magi, pagan visitors from a pagan land, that traveled all the way to Bethlehem to worship Jesus and give him lavish gifts.

 

There are some parallels between the story of Jonah and the story of the Magi. In Jonah, the pagan Gentile sailors are more ready to honor the God of Israel than Jonah is. And then king of Nineveh declares a city wide fast, while Jonah sulks. The pagan king trusts the God of Israel to be gracious to Nineveh, while Jonah pouts. When the Magi reach Jerusalem, Herod, whose title was king of the Jews, himself a convert to Judaism, is filled with fear. His little kingdom is threatened by a toddler in Bethlehem. He calls on the religious leaders to find out from scripture where the Messiah was to be born. They find in Micah that he is to be born in Bethlehem. Little Bethlehem is five miles away from Jerusalem. Neither Herod nor his high-ranking religious counselors make the five-mile trip to see Jesus for themselves. Yet the pagan Magi go all the way to Bethlehem to find and worship Jesus, still a toddler. When their Epiphany party ends and they leave for home, God’s angel tells Joseph to gather Mary and the young child and go to Egypt, for Herod will be unleashing his jealous fury on the boy children of Bethlehem. So the holy family becomes a refugee family and seeks and finds refuge in Egypt, another country the Israelites didn’t much like.

 

“The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time….” Isn’t that good news? God gives us second chances, second opportunities. We are in no place to condemn Jonah, for God has granted all of us second chances when we have failed to be faithful the first time. Who of us ever gets anything totally right the first time? (I have even messed up with Ikea furniture assembly instructions!) “The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time….” Jonah did the right thing the second time, but, alas, without the right heart. His hope was that his eight-word sermon would result in the destruction of his enemies. In the Hebrew language that sermon was five words: my paraphrase: “In 40 days, you’re toast.”  I am always for doing the right thing, but with the right heart. Without the right heart, our right deeds are empty. God looks on the heart. “And if I have prophetic powers,… but do not have love, I am nothing.  If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.” (1 Corinthians 13:2-3)

 

 

The call to repent is good news, whether from Jonah, John the Baptist, or Jesus himself. It means God hasn’t given up on us. “Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God; and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’” The call to repent, to turn from our old ways to God’s new ways, is always good news. God hasn’t given up on us; God is giving us second chances. And third chances.

 

Last week Edwin Hawkins died. A black gospel singer and arranger, he is best remembered for the recording he had the Edwin Hawkins Singers make of “O Happy Day.” I love that song. “O, happy day, when Jesus washed my sins away….” That day Nineveh repented and received mercy from God, Jonah may have been singing, “O Happy Day.” Instead of sulking at the abundant mercies of God, like Jonah, we can be singing, “O, happy day, when Jesus washed my sins away…. He taught me how to watch and pray, and live rejoicing every day. O happy day!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“But she (Mary) was much perplexed by his (the angel’s) words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.” Luke 1:29 (NRSV)

 

As 2017 was yielding to 2018, a friend, Peter Englert, posted a gentle challenge on his Facebook page: what will be your word for the new year? I hadn’t heard of any such custom—and I tend to avoid such things—but his challenge worked on me for a day and more. I pondered what word I might identify. I pondered whether I should even name one, lest it fall aside like so many new year’s resolutions.

 

In my pondering about this, I realized that my word should be ponder (and a form thereof, pondering). I looked up ponder in one dictionary and found this:

 

“to think about (something) carefully, especially before making a decision or reaching a conclusion. Synonyms: think about, contemplate, consider, review, reflect on, mull over, meditate on, muse on, deliberate about, cogitate on, dwell on, brood on, ruminate on, chew over, puzzle over, turn over in one’s mind.”

 

Ponderous has a different tone; it suggests slowness and heaviness, like a 300+ pound NFL lineman who plugs a hole in the line with his massive frame, but without much agility. That is not what I mean. I am thinking more of Mary’s wonderful response of pondering God’s words and works to find deeper meanings. That provoked me to look at other references, like these:

 

“We ponder your steadfast love, O God, in the midst of your temple.” (Psalm 48:9)

 

“All who heard them pondered them and said, ‘What then will this child become?’ For, indeed, the hand of the Lord was with him.” (Luke 1:66)

 

“But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.” (Luke 2:19)

 

On the front page of my journal for 2018 I have written: Ponder. I want to ponder things great and small, things lofty and mundane, things ordinary and extraordinary. I want to ponder the fullness of life that God has granted me, the abounding blessings that have marked my journey, beyond anything I could ever earn or merit, and the continuing opportunities to grow, learn, serve, and minister. I want to ponder the mysteries and glories of the Lord.

 

Thanks to my friend Peter for provoking me to ponder much in 2018—and beyond.

 

“But she (Mary) was much perplexed by his (the angel’s) words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.” Luke 1:29 (NRSV)

 

As 2017 was yielding to 2018, a friend, Peter Englert, posted a gentle challenge on his Facebook page: what will be your word for the new year? I hadn’t heard of any such custom—and I tend to avoid such things—but his challenge worked on me for a day and more. I pondered what word I might identify. I pondered whether I should even name one, lest it fall aside like so many new year’s resolutions.

 

In my pondering about this, I realized that my word should be ponder (and a form thereof, pondering). I looked up ponder in one dictionary and found this:

 

“to think about (something) carefully, especially before making a decision or reaching a conclusion. Synonyms: think about, contemplate, consider, review, reflect on, mull over, meditate on, muse on, deliberate about, cogitate on, dwell on, brood on, ruminate on, chew over, puzzle over, turn over in one’s mind.”

 

Ponderous has a different tone; it suggests slowness and heaviness, like a 300+ pound NFL lineman who plugs a hole in the line with his massive frame, but without much agility. That is not what I mean. I am thinking more of Mary’s wonderful response of pondering God’s words and works to find deeper meanings. That provoked me to look at other references, like these:

 

“We ponder your steadfast love, O God, in the midst of your temple.” (Psalm 48:9)

 

“All who heard them pondered them and said, ‘What then will this child become?’ For, indeed, the hand of the Lord was with him.” (Luke 1:66)

 

“But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.” (Luke 2:19)

 

On the front page of my journal for 2018 I have written: Ponder. I want to ponder things great and small, things lofty and mundane, things ordinary and extraordinary. I want to ponder the fullness of life that God has granted me, the abounding blessings that have marked my journey, beyond anything I could ever earn or merit, and the continuing opportunities to grow, learn, serve, and minister. I want to ponder the mysteries and glories of the Lord.

 

Thanks to my friend Peter for provoking me to ponder much in 2018—and beyond.

 

[This sermon was given on January 14, 2018, at Parkminster Church, Rochester NY. The text is 1 Samuel 3:1-10, for the second Sunday of Epiphany, and the day before Martin Luther King, Junior’s birthday.]

 

Voices in the night. Do you ever hear voices in the night? I am sound sleeper. When I dream, the dream is often forgotten by morning, though not always. Being a pastor has an on-call component to it. Emergencies don’t keep office hours. Once in my time of pastoring in Brunswick, a phone call came in the wee hours of the morning. I was sound asleep. My wife is not as sound a sleeper, so the phone was on her side of the bed. She answered this call in the night, then roused me and handed me the phone. Someone in the congregation had just been taken to the emergency room of a hospital. Could I be there shortly to meet the family? Yes, of course. I threw on some clothes and asked Rachel, what hospital? She had handed the phone to me; how would she know? I didn’t know. Memory is fuzzy at this point, but I think I started calling the area hospitals (or had Rachel do so), starting with the closest one, and asking something like, “Do you have someone in the ER that is waiting for me?” Somehow I managed to find out the right hospital and get there to see the family. The person survived the night and, perhaps more miraculously, my pastoral credibility survived.

 

God sometimes speaks to us in the night, even in our sleep. I have learned to pay attention to the dreams I do remember in the morning. I have learned to count on my wife to orient me at times of calls in the night. If God really wants my attention, I humbly suggest that God call me in the daytime, preferably during office hours.

 

We have just completed our annual Christmas season, that season of angelic visits with pregnant messages. At least one came in the night, through a dream, to Joseph: “Don’t be afraid Joseph. The Holy Spirit is at work in all this. Stay with Mary and the child she will bear.” I expect that Joseph was more attentive to the details of that message than I have been to voices in my nights.

 

A young boy hears a voice in the night. The backdrop to that night is fascinating. Elkanah had two wives. One bore children; the other, Hannah, was barren. That was a heavy burden for a married woman back then, a matter of public disgrace. She earnestly and desperately sought God for a child. The high priest serving at the holy place was Eli. He was a godly old man, now failing of eyesight. He had two sons and both were wicked. They will follow their father as priests, but they are immoral and unethical. Meanwhile Eli sees Hannah praying and his heart is moved.

 

In those days the word of the Lord was rare; there were not many visions. I can’t describe it more vividly than that. It was a time of moral darkness. Eli is nearing the end of his days and knows that his sons are corrupt. Eli offers a blessing to Hannah: “Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of him.”

 

God granted that prayer as Hannah desired. She bore a son and immediately dedicated him to God. Hannah responds with a song of praise that will one day inspire a young woman named Mary when an angel visits her with earth-shaking news.

 

This setting sounds like the Temple, but it is before the Temple. Likely it was the Tabernacle, which preceded the Temple. Young Samuel hangs out there, the way some kids hang out at the mall or the gym or video game shops. His mother has instilled in him a sense of calling, of belonging to God in an uncommon way.

 

The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the house of the Lord, where the ark of God was. Then the Lord called Samuel. The lamp here is both literal and figurative. The law given through Moses called for a lamp to burn continuously in this holy place. People would bring oil to keep it burning. It is burning low. Eli’s sons are gone, causing him shame and heartbreak.

In those days the word of the Lord was rare; there were not many visions…. The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the house of the Lord, where the ark of God was. Then the Lord called Samuel.

What follows would make good TV comedy viewing. God speaks to Samuel. Samuel thinks it must be Eli and goes and wakes him and says, Here I am. Eli says go back to sleep, boy. God speaks to Samuel. Samuel thinks its Eli and goes and wakes him and says, Here I am. Eli says to go back to sleep and let this old man sleep in peace.

Then comes this surprise: Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord: The word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him. How do we understand that? Samuel is doing everything right in honoring the commitment his mother made of his young life. He is at the right place and he is saying and doing the right things. Except he doesn’t understand it yet. This is prevenient grace at work. Prevenient grace is one of my favorite understandings of God’s ways. This simply means that God is working before we know it. Before we can acknowledge God, God is working in us. God was working in Samuel before Samuel knew it.

And yet a third time the Lord speaks to Samuel in the night. And yet a third time Samuel goes and wakes us old Eli. Then Eli realized that the Lord was calling the boy.  So Eli told Samuel, “Go and lie down, and if he calls you, say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’” Samuel’s responsiveness revives Eli’s soul and he speaks a word of wisdom,

 

Two irresistible prayers emerge from this night of voices and confusion. The first is addressed to Eli, but perhaps through Eli to the Lord: Here I am. That is not a prayer of location but of vocation. God knows exactly where Samuel is. God’s positioning system, GPS, was working just fine. But Samuel must identify himself to God in availability. This is a prayer than occurs many times in the Bible.

• Abraham prays it to God in Genesis 22:1 and to the Lord’s angel in 22:11. Here I am.
• Jacob prays it after a long night of wrestling with God’s messenger in Genesis 31:11. Here I am.
• Isaiah prays it after receiving a stunning vision of God’s glory in Isaiah 6. Here I am.
• When God was converting Saul the persecutor of Christians into Paul the Apostle of Good News, God called on Ananias of Damascus to bring God’s word to Saul becoming Paul, and Ananias said, Here I am.
• Mary prays it when the angel told her that she, a virgin, would bear a son, the Messiah, Here I am.

This is one of those prayers that is always appropriate. Before we roll out of bed in the morning, we might simply pray: Here I am, Lord. That is not a prayer of location but of vocation. God knows exactly where we are. The original GPS was in place and working, the God positioning system. But we must identify ourselves to God in availability.

The second prayer follows: ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’ Eli, again, shares God’s wisdom with young Samuel. In the biblical languages, listening equals obeying. We have created gaps in our time and in our language. We can listen and not hear. We can hear and not obey. We can listen and hear and still not obey. The biblical understanding is that listening is hearing and hearing is obeying.

 

In a time when the word of the Lord was rare, when there were not many visions, when the lamp of God was flickering, God raises up a boy named Samuel. He prays two simple prayers and goes on to become one of the giants of the Old Testament. He becomes a prophet and more. While not officially a priest, he serves in priestly ways. While not a king, he serves in political leadership. He serves as a judge. He serves as a sage. No one in the Old Testament serves God in more ways than Samuel. And it all started with two simple prayers: “Here I am… Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”

When Jesus calls people to become his disciples, he doesn’t give elaborate plans and projections. More commonly, he simply says, “Follow me.” That is how he calls Philip. In turn, Philip tells Nathanael about Jesus. When Nathanael hears that Jesus is from Nazareth, a backwater town in a backwater region, he exclaims, “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” You’d think he may have been talking about some holler in Appalachia or Haiti or some poor African country. And before the day is over, Nathanael is following Jesus.

This weekend we remember the birth and prophetic ministry of Martin Luther King, Jr. He was a newly installed pastor of the Dexter Ave. Baptist Church in Montgomery AL when Rosa Parks got on a public bus after a hard day’s work. She sat toward the front. When more whites got on the bus, she refused to yield her seat and go to the back of the bus, the section reserved for non-whites. The Negro community joined together to start a boycott of the buses. Young pastor King was chosen to the speak for the black pastors. Two months later, On January 30, 1956, while King was speaking at a bus boycott rally, a bomb was detonated under the front porch of his home, while his wife, Coretta Scoot King, and young children were home. (No one was ever charged for that horrendous crime, to this day.) No harm was done to them, but that made Martin think about the cost of leading the civil rights movement. Shortly after, he had a voice in the night experience while sitting alone in his kitchen. He answered the voice in the night, “Here I am… Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” And the movement went forward. Martin is gone, but the movement continues, as needed today as it was then.

 

Two irresistible prayers and an irresistible command: “Here I am… Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” “Follow me.” And how the world keeps changing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You have been waiting for this annual treat. Actually, I have never done this before! It’s a new year, so I do a new thing: thinking through and sharing some of my bests and favorites of the year just completed. The first title listed in each category was my favorite. The others are not in any order.

 

Movies (some of my choices were released late in 2016, but I saw them in 2017)

Hidden Figures. Moved me at every level. Best movie of 2016.

Loving. This movie didn’t get enough notice. It deserves to be widely viewed.

[Note: the above two could be paired. They both deal with American racism in my lifetime.]

Lion. A thrilling story of a young man’s search for his past.

Wonder. This story about bullying at the middle school level spotlights something happening at every level of society. Bullying needs to be called out and challenged, no matter where it is practiced, from local schools to the highest offices in the land.

Dunkirk and Darkest Hour. These two were not made as a pair, but they inform each other. This preacher and teacher of preaching in me loved the power of the spoken word through the instrumentality of Winston Churchill.

 

[Note: All my choices, save one, were based on true stories (Wonder is the exception). My favorite movies don’t always work out that way, but my love of history telling is evident in this list.]

 

Books

Just Mercy, by Brian Stevenson. A lawyer from Philadelphia gives his life’s work to freeing innocent people, mainly black men, from Alabama’s death row. See my first two movie favorites above and know that I believe that racism continues to be an American reality and tragedy. My wife and I listened to the audio version on a long trip. At times, we had to stop listening and drive quietly for a while, so powerful was its impact. I heard Stevenson speak, remotely, a few months ago. He needs to be read and heard.

On Living, by Kerry Egan. Egan shares insights from being a hospice chaplain. I first read it too quickly (it’s not a long book), then read it slowly during last Lent. This should be read slowly.

The Road to Character, by David Brooks. In a time when personal character seems not to matter much for many, this book looks at the character, including flaws, of some notable people.

Saving Calvinism, by Oliver Crisp. Being a moderate, and often struggling, Calvinist, this book was a wonderful surprise. Crisp brings an openness that Calvinists need and don’t always have or admit.

The Preaching Life, by Barbara Brown Taylor. In my teaching of preaching, I read a handful or so preaching books most years. Taylor is a poet, an artist with words, serving the Good News. It got the highest evaluation from my last class of students. I agree.

The Sin of Certainty, by Peter Enns. Enns messes with our categories, as he did in his first book, The Bible Tells Me So. He makes me ponder and think about what I believe and why.

 

TV

Vietnam. Burns and Novick did a brilliant piece of work. The final hour was documentary story-telling as its best.

The Unabomber. Didn’t get much notice, but deserves a wide viewing.

West Wing, season 2. Such writing. Such acting. I know it’s fiction, but it reminds me that a president can be literate, witty, caring, and human. Every episode grabbed me at some level.

 

Stage performances

The Agitators. This play about the friendship of Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass, both of whom lived in Rochester, premiered in Rochester. It was a friendship that included sharp disagreements. In the nineteenth century, they made our nation deal with its deficient view of women and blacks. I hope that this goes on the road and gets national exposure and acclaim. This year, 2018, marks the bicentennial of Douglass’s birth. It will be a good year to read at least one book by or about Douglass.

In the Heights. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s first musical, before the acclaimed Hamilton, also won Tony awards, deservedly.

Little Women, the Musical. We went because a friend played one of the women. Based on the classic book (which I have never read). I am glad that our friend was in it, because it was that good.

Fun Home. Not fun, but a compelling drama touching sensitive issues.

 

Best bucket list trip. Adult Sunday School class at Maranatha Baptist Church, Plains, GA. Yes, the teacher was President Jimmy Carter. The experience was wonderful and unforgettable.

[I preached this message from Luke 2:22-40 at Community of the Savior, Rochester NY, on the first Sunday of Christmas, Dec. 31, 2017.]

 

In his daily blog a few weeks ago, Richard Rohr ago told of a four-year-old girl whose parents just welcomed a baby boy. She tells her parents, “I want to talk to my new baby brother alone.” They closed the door to baby’s bedroom, leaving it slightly ajar, and listened to hear what she might say to this little baby. They heard her clearly: “Quick, tell me who made you. Tell me where you came from. I’m beginning to forget!”

 

With all the passwords we try to memorize and have ready, we do tend to forget important things. (Since I have trouble remembering passwords, does that mean I remember to ponder the great matters?) Important matters like who we are and where we are from and who made us. This Christmas story tells us that the key to who we are is found in another. And how could that other come to us as a baby? Tis the stuff of this season, this season of wondering and pondering great and glorious mysteries.

 

Who could explain the impossible words an angel brings to an old man and then, six months later, to a young virgin woman? And who could explain how old Elizabeth is pregnant and then young Mary six months after her? And who could explain how the promised Messiah’s first bed would be an animals’ feeding trough? And who could explain that his first visitors would be humble shepherds with dirt perennially under their fingernails? And who could explain that sometime later a star would hang in the sky above Bethlehem—not just any star, but a star so luminous that it could lead mysterious star-gazing visitors from far to the east all the way to little Bethlehem? And who could explain that these mysterious visitors brought even more mysterious gifts for a toddler?

 

I dare not try to explain all this. No preacher dare try. If you hear of a preacher who tries to explain these matters, don’t listen to that preacher—he or she is seriously deluded. We simply tell the story. Over and over we tell it. Not because our hearers are dense, but because we need to tell over and over what we cannot explain. As we tell it and hear it, we get caught up in it—and finally we find ourselves in it.

 

In the 1980s my favorite TV show was Hill Street Blues, a police show with heart and grit. In one episode Capt. Furillo goes home for Christmas. As he greets his sister, my eyes grow wide. His sister is my cousin. Cathy was a fledgling actress, getting supporting roles in movies and TV, but never the star. And there she was, Capt. Furillo’s sister; my cousin. I went to middle and high school with her. I already liked the story line of Hill Street Blues, but seeing my cousin in that family drew me in at a deeper level. As we tell and hear this story of Jesus’ birth, we get caught up in it—and finally we find ourselves in it. We are in the Temple one day when two young parents walk in with their six-week old baby boy.

 

 

And now, between the first wave shepherds and the late arriving Magi, we have two other characters. Some say that Christmas is for children, but don’t use that line on these two. Simeon and Anna might beg to disagree. They were both old, very old. And they hung around the Temple all the time. Maybe old people do that more than young people. Some of us see Simeon and Anna and recognize first cousins, right there in the story.

 

Simeon sees the baby first. Who can explain this? The Spirit whispers to him that that baby is the one he has been waiting for so long. That baby, with the young mother and the silent father. As he looks more closely, they look to be of modest means, perhaps even poor. When they present their baby before the Lord, they do not offer the prescribed lamb, a costly sacrifice, but the hardship option of two common birds. That’s all right. There is nothing wrong with being poor, but now it is the baby that grabs his attention. This baby is not wearing a flowing white silk garment adorned with buttons of pearl, passed down through four generations. Simeon moves slowly toward them and reaches out to hold the baby. Did he ask permission? I didn’t hear that. But there he is cradling a baby. I hear Mary, “Please, sir, hold him carefully. Don’t drop him. He’s just six weeks old.”

 

And this old man breaks out into a song of praise: “Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.” If I am making a movie of this, it is a grand musical, with beautiful solo voices and a great choir supporting them. And the set for the Temple would be spectacular. But the story is more simple, more humble, more authentic.

 

“And the child’s father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, ‘This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.’”

Have you ever said something you regretted as soon as the words left your lips? I have too many times to count. I wonder if Simeon is feeling that way as he says that a sword will pierce Mary’s tender heart. How can he know what that means? How can Mary know how her heart will be pierced one day in the distant future when…?

 

Anna is at least 84. We hear no words from her, but she is a prophet, which means she speaks the word of God. At seeing the baby Jesus, she praises God and tells everyone in sight about him. I don’t think she can be shut up, so full of praise is her heart in this moment. Somehow her old joints are dancing in the joy of this advent.

 

Here in the Temple we see the world. We see a humble young couple, not yet married mind you, and in their traveling clothes for they are far from Nazareth, bringing their newborn baby to be dedicated to God. And they are surrounded by two old people singing up a storm of praise to God. Here we have young and old, silent and noisy, female and male, some waiting expectantly and some not expecting any of this to be happening. This story envelopes the world and includes us, all of us.

 

Anna and Simeon. They seem to be the only ones in this story that didn’t have to travel. Mary and Joseph traveled nearly 100 miles from Nazareth to Bethlehem. The shepherds came from their fields, though perhaps it was only a few hundred yards. The magi would travel hundreds of miles from the east. But Simeon and Anna? They were patiently waiting, perhaps just waiting to die in God’s Holy Temple. And the baby Jesus went to them. Jesus went to them. Yes, they journeyed, but their journey was measured in years instead of miles.

 

Just over a week ago the well-known sportscaster Dick Enberg died in his 80s. Being a sports fan, I long knew his voice and appreciated his skill. One obituary I read told that his family was gathering in Boston for Christmas, where his daughter lives. His wife flew out a few days earlier. Enberg had his airline reservations. When he didn’t arrive on time, his daughter called a neighbor to check on him. The neighbor found Enberg dead in his bed. Then, the obituary said, the neighbor saw that his bags were packed a few feet from the bed. His bags were packed for a long journey. Just like Anna and Simeon. Their bags were packed for a long journey, when a young couple brought a baby to the Temple. Are our bags packed for the next leg of our journey? It doesn’t matter what our age, there is another leg of the journey ahead for us. It is wise to have a bag packed.

 

One of my favorite of newer Christmas songs (which means anytime in the last four decades) is “Mary, Did You Know?” I love this couplet:

“Mary, did you know that your baby boy has walked where angels trod?

When you kiss your little baby, you kiss the face of God?” (Mark Lowry)

Simeon and Anna were waiting at the Temple one day. In walked a young couple with a baby. And Anna and Simeon kissed the face of God.

 

I have used the story below several times in messages at Christmastime, at Brunswick Church and elsewhere. It bears re-telling this Christmastide.

 

 

A Nigerian woman who is a physician at a great teaching hospital in the United States came out of a crowd to say something kind to man who had just finished a lecture. She introduced herself using her American name. “What’s your African name?” he asked. She gave it, in several syllables with a musical sound to it. “What does that mean?” he wondered.

 

She answered, “It means ‘Child who takes the anger away.’”

 

He asked why she would have been given that name. She said, “My parents had been forbidden to marry. But they loved each other so that they defied the family opinions and married anyway. For several years they were ostracized from both their families. Then my mother became pregnant with me. And when the grandparents held me in their arms for the first time, the walls of hostility came down. I became the one who swept the anger away. And that’s the name my mother and father gave me.”

 

That is a simple, yet profoundly lovely story about how a child can change the world. Our world is divided and hurting in so many ways. My country, the United States, is divided in so many ways. Into this world of divisions, need, anger, and struggle, Jesus was born. Therefore, I live in hope. I read the story of his birth. I sing the carols. I hold candles. I pray and I wait in hope.

 

This season we remember and celebrate the birth of the child sent from heaven to change our world. To take away the anger. To bring peace.

 

Merry Christmas, Jesus. Merry Christmas, world.

 

[A sermon based on Luke 1:26-38, delivered at the Community of the Savior in Rochester NY, the fourth Sunday of Advent, Dec. 24, 2017.]

 

What a weighty conversation. Has a conversation ever had more at stake than this one? There has never been a conversation in the Bible, or in all human history, so filled with hope and so fraught with the possibility of failure. What if she said, No?

 

If God had used a typical congregational nominating committee to call Mary, think how they might have approached her. The meeting is called to order with prayer. “Sally, have you found anyone to say yes to that short-term assignment?” “No.” “Let’s think this through. I went through the church directory three times, and I keep wondering about this young woman on page 3, someone named Mary. Why not call her? Team, let’s help Sally. What might she say when she calls Mary?” Here are some lines she might pursue:

–“It’s not that hard a job, Mary. Really. Come on, you can do it.”
–“It’s just a nine-month assignment, then you’re done. You can handle that.”
–“We’ve gone through the church roster three times. You are alive and an official member. We see your picture here in the directory. No one else has volunteered. We’ll help you. Please say yes.”

–We want our youth represented in our leadership. You could represent our youth group.”

 

“Gabriel, you did such a good job with Zechariah six months ago. I love how you took his voice away for nine months. Way to go. Now I am sending you to a town named Nazareth.” “Where is that, anywhere near Jerusalem or Rome?” “You’ll find it. There you will find a virgin.”  “Really?” This makes Clarence’s assignment with George Bailey seem pretty tame.

 

There has never been a conversation in the Bible, or in all human history, so filled with hope and so fraught with the possibility of failure.

 

“Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” What does that mean? Sounds innocent enough, but there must be something behind it, something more. “But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.” And Mary begins pondering. I love the word pondering. With our busyness and electronic toys, we moderns do not do enough pondering. Pondering demands quiet. To ponder is to think deeply about something, usually before making a decision. It is to turn a thought over and over, seeking to plumb its depths. “She was thoroughly shaken, wondering what was behind a greeting like that.” (The Message)

 

“Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.  And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus.” “Oh, that’s all. I am going to have a baby.”

 

Mary breaks her silence; an original silence breaker. “Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I am a virgin?’”  I’m not sure sex education was taught in schools back then (even if it were, girls would not be included), or even talked about much at home, but Mary knew that this isn’t how it works.

 

There are a number of reports in the Bible of women having unexpected babies. But this is different. The others were older women who were barren, who previously could not have babies, which for married women back then was something like public disgrace. Those women desperately wanted babies and prayed fervently. Her cousin Elizabeth was too old; Mary is too young. Sarah, Hannah, Manoah’s wife in Judges, Elizabeth: they wanted babies and asked God to intervene. Mary certainly didn’t want a baby yet and just as certainly wasn’t asking God for one. She still had a wedding to plan. And she and Joseph, her intended, were dirt poor. “Someday, God, but not now. Not in these circumstances. Not now!”

 

“I’m sorry, Gabriel, but there has been some mistake. You’ve got the wrong one. You’ve given me a scare. I have a wedding to plan. Now go back and get your orders straight.”

 

The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God… And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren.  For nothing will be impossible with God.” 

 

A prayer used frequently in the Roman Catholic tradition begins: “Hail Mary full of Grace, the Lord is with thee….”  I would make it, “Hail Mary full of grit….” Protestant Christians and Roman Catholic Christians have had a long disagreement about Mary’s place in our faith. If we Protestants think Roman Catholics sometimes overvalued Mary, then we have undervalued Mary. We can do better than fight about Mary; we can unite in calling her blessed, as she said we would (later in Luke 1). We can unite is honoring her as a model for tenacious faith and gracious submission to the unexpected will of God.

 

“Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Mary knew her scriptures. “Here am I.” That is how Abraham. That is how Moses responded. That is how Samuel responded. That is how Isaiah responded. Now add a poor, unmarried, teenaged virgin to that august list: “Here am I.”

 

In Shaw’s play “St. Joan,” Joan of Arc keeps hearing God’s voice. In her trial, the king asks why he never hears God’s voice. She replies that God is speaking, but the king is not listening.

 

This begins life changes for Mary. There will be stretch marks on her soul, not just her belly. To do her part in this story will mean some adjustments. God calls us to adjust our lives to his ways and callings. Mary understands. Her life will never be the same. There will be a wedding. She and Joseph will make a home. But everything has changed and it will never be as it once was.

 

I was with a friend last weekend in DC. He is retired from the State Department, but he gets called once a week or so on short notice to go the state department and cover a shift, monitoring global events. He said, “It’s not so much my ability anymore, but my availability. When they call me, I go.” In a world in which the foreigner, the alien, the stranger, the other are so often not welcomed, Mary said Yes. There is room. In a prayer in the Episcopal tradition often called “You Are God,” we find these poetic words: “You, Christ, are the king of glory, the eternal Son of the Father. When you became man to set us free you did not shun the Virgin’s womb.” If the innkeeper found no room for Mary and Joseph, Mary had room in her womb for Jesus. She made room in the midst of unexpected and unimaginable circumstances. If Christ did not shun the virgin’s womb, the virgin made room in her womb for Jesus.

 

Frederick Buechner in his wonderful little book about Bible people, “Peculiar Treasures,” writes about this conversation from Gabriel’s perspective: “She struck the angel Gabriel as hardly old enough to have a child at all, let alone this child, but he’d been entrusted with a message to give her, and he gave it. He told her what the child was to be named, and who he was to be, and something about the mystery that was to come upon her. ‘You mustn’t be afraid, Mary,’ he said. As he said it, he only hoped she wouldn’t notice that beneath the great, golden wings he himself was trembling with fear to think that the whole future of creation hung now on the answer of a girl.”

 

There has never been a conversation in the Bible, or in all human history, so filled with hope and so fraught with the possibility of failure. Everything hinged on the response of a poor, unmarried, teen-aged virgin named Mary. I wonder if God had a plan B.

 

 

In mid-December, I had a brief visit with my daughter and son-by-marriage, who live in Washington D. C. Our few days were packed, but left me with about three hours on my own in the district. I love walking and visiting old and new sites in our nation’s capital. I set out last Friday morning without any clear plan.

 

Because I happened to park near New York Ave. Presbyterian Church, that was my first stop. That is where President Lincoln and his family worshiped while he was president. I took just long enough to sit quietly in the Lincoln pew. All the other pews are newer, but the Lincoln family pew is the one the Lincolns sat in—and it is not reserved; anyone can sit there. There was no one else in the sanctuary, so I freely breathed in Lincoln air. In the mid-twentieth century, Peter Marshall was pastor there, the Peter of the classic, “A Man Called Peter” biography and film. I stopped in the lobby to read the plaques mounted in memory of Lincoln and Marshall. Both have touched my life.

 

Walking a few blocks south put me on the National Mall. I knew that I would try to get in the new African-American Museum. Entrance is still by reservation only, but I stood in line anyway and didn’t get past the checkpoint. I turned to my right and walked along the reflecting pond, now partially frozen, to the Lincoln Memorial, which I think of as the heart of this great city of monuments. It was a cold, gray morning, but plenty of people were there. I mounted the steps, stopping at the tile marking where Martin Luther King, Jr., stood when he shared his dream for the nation in August of 1963. I pictured that vast throng that heard his stirring words. Then I stood before the massive statue of our 16^th president. Traveling alone, I was free to take photos of small groups of people, many from other lands, standing before that towering American. Then I walked to my right and read the text of Lincoln’s Second Inaugural, which I think is the most significant speech ever made by one of our presidents. I have a copy right next to me in my study, where I am writing this, but reading it in that temple is an unparalleled experience.

 

As I left the Lincoln Memorial, I felt a tug to walk alongside the Vietnam Wall. Just a few months ago I watched the entire Ken Burns-Lynn Novick Vietnam War series on PBS. That was a sobering experience. Over 50,000 American lives were sacrificed in a war our presidents—a series of them from both parties—knew was unwinnable.

 

As I walked east I pondered which Smithsonian Museum I would visit in my remaining 75 minutes. I have been in all of them and appreciate each one. The first one on my left was that new African-American Museum. There was a short line, so I gave it one more try. As I reached the checkpoint, I was asked if I had a reservation. No, I said. The two women in front of me turned and handed me an extra one they had. My good fortune!

 

This newest Smithsonian addition has six floor of exhibits. It is massive and architecturally dazzling, while warmly welcoming and subdued. One should take a whole day to walk through it, but I had only 75 minutes. I made a few quick decisions and visited sections on the faith of black slaves and the breakthroughs of black athletes. Both were wonderful.

 

Through all these stops I was often at the edge of tears. In three short hours I revisited some of America’s loftiest and lowest moments: Lincoln, King, the Vietnam War, the American black experience.

 

My walk back to where my daughter works took me right around the White House (her office is just a block or two from the executive mansion). I respect the office of president of the United States. I have been in the White House several times and loved the opportunity to breathe deeply of our heritage. I have been taught to respect the office of president of the United States and whoever occupies it, whether in political agreement or not. My spirit, as I walked by the White House, was as bleak as the ominous gray skies overhead. How can I respect a president who does not respect the office of president? A president who offends and embarrasses me virtually every day? A president who seems bent on governing by insulting, mocking, and bullying others? I cannot respect such a president.

 

I got to Lisa’s workplace in time to meet some of her co-workers. Then I watched as she moderated a panel of international leaders serving in Columbia, Afghanistan, and Haiti. Lisa’s work is focused on countries in complex political and social environments, working with partner countries and local organizations to create more stable, secure, and thriving societies. The panel members, for whom English is a second language, spoke movingly of progress and struggle and aspiration and partnership. That is the kind of America I want again; one that doesn’t fear the other—the foreigner, the stranger, the one who is different—but America reaching out of our bounty to hear and help and work with the other, the foreigner, the stranger, the one who is different. (Much of that good done where Lisa works is financed by the federal government’s USAID, long a force for good in the world. That is now threatened by the current administration, which is proposing deep cuts in the name of America first. I resist. I will not be silenced.)

 

If Lincoln’s party is all but dead these days, Lincoln’s spirit and vision live. Lincoln believed that might doesn’t make right, but that right makes might. Lincoln’s Second Inaugural ended with these stirring words, words I read again on a cold Friday in the Lincoln Memorial:

“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

 

This might be my last post before Christmas day, so I will wish you a merry Christmas. My hope is in the coming(s)—past, present, and future—and reign of Christ and nothing can deter that hope.