March 1, 2006

Joel 2:12-18; 2 Corinthians 5:20-6:2; Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18

There are no ashes without fire. What we shall use in a few moments to mark our foreheads comes from fire. Ashes are a startling reminder that fires have lit our age: Hiroshima, Auschwitz, Vietnam, Baghdad, and even New York. The image of ash covered firemen in New York City is set in our minds and memories. We are citizens of a world aflame with hatred and violence that rains down embers upon the innocent and the guilty alike. Yet now and then we experience a miracle through these ashes. New cities arise. People are restored by hope and by faith. Repentance and forgiveness may fan embers of hatred into flames that warm hearts and cast golden light upon the faces of those who dare to gather around to brave darkness together.

We are a people of fire, the fire of the Spirit. The tongues of fire that gave birth to this church leave a mark on our faces. Year after year, we gather around a fire and carry its light into our assemblies to proclaim the Risen Christ and fan into flame again the fire of faith, the fire of the spirit, the fire of love.

Throughout this long winter, the land around us has burned. The smell of smoke irritated our eyes. The news of destruction saddened our evenings. Even the fear of local fires disturbed our security, and as the dry wind blew, we looked anxiously for rain. But I’m told in the pine forests after a fire, something happens to pinecones that pop open in the heat spilling seeds on the bare ground that quickly sprout and in time bring new life. We know how much more quickly our grass greens up through blackened ash when rain comes in the spring. This fire and the ash it leaves is not all bad. With a little water life returns.

We are working here with powerful ancient symbols that have everything to do with the Paschal Mystery celebrating the victory of life over death. We have and we will again stand around the Easter Fire. We have once and often sprinkled and immersed ourselves and our children in the living waters of baptism.

What’s a little ash in between times except a reminder that we are a people of fire,

a people of the Spirit, a people of Pentecost who know, believe, and live in such a way that even though we are dust, we shall rise again if the power of God’s love

leads us to turn away from sin? Even though we are dust, we shall rise again.

February 26, 2006 At Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

Hosea  2:16-17,21-22 + 2 Corinthians 3:1-6 + Mark 2:18-22

This is about fasting, not about wine skins old and new; and by using the image and the words “wedding feast”, the controversy heats up; because to the people of his time, that image had direct reference to the messiah.

As we assemble here at the threshold of Lent, this is a great Gospel to proclaim.

Written by Mark in the earliest days of the church’s struggle with Judaism, it reflects what has happened as the Good News which Jesus proclaims brings a rift, a tear in the fabric of old Israel as the community of the resurrection struggles to identify itself as rooted in yet now apart from Judaism. That early church had to center on the new way of Jesus now including tax collectors, sinners, the poor, the outcast, the sick, and otherwise marginalized in the messiah’s nuptial wedding banquet. This inclusiveness pushed them away from the exclusive community encouraged by the Pharisees, scribes and chief priests. This inclusiveness remains a challenge for us today both as a people who are still today excluded if we live clearly with Gospel values, and as a people who sometimes to our shame do the excluding.

What prompted this controversial discussion was that already (it is only the second chapter of Mark’s Gospel) Jesus has

• disturbed a synagogue service by casting out an unclean spirit,
• been in touch with outcast lepers,
• and sin-filled paralytics, and then if all that wasn’t bad enough,
• he has just come from dinner at a tax collector’s!

The people in charge do not like this behavior. It calls into question their own behavior, and with it, their prestige and respect. There is clearly something new here and it does not have much offer them.

The Good News proclaimed by Jesus is still new even though we know the stories that convey it. The consequences of the Good News are the same for us as they were for the Scribes and Pharisees, the marginalized, the lame, the lepers and those considered unclean. Those people we consider unfit, unclean, lazy, and crazy are headed to the front of the line when it comes to the Kingdom of God.

What must distinguish us from the Scribes and the Pharisees is that we can recognize that God is nearer than we think. Through the words and works of Jesus, we can learn that the poorest, the weakest, lowliest are God’s chosen ones.

We can also learn that God cares, that God sees, that God hear and answers prayers. From the Good News, we can also learn new things about our world:

that it is God’s gift and we are its stewards and caretakers. We can learn that we have no right to any of it, and it isn’t ours to consume and waste.  We can learn from Jesus what those Scribes and Pharisees just couldn’t get: that salvation is not a reward of the scrupulous observance of rules and laws, but it is God’s gift to sinners who receive that gift by faith. Those unyieldingly rigid scribes, Pharisees and chief priests had it wrong. Only humility and gratitude, service and sacrifice put us into the company of saints. The forty days to come are our time to remember these things; to get it right, to soften our hearts, to seek forgiveness and give it, to remember that we are stewards and caretakers, to consume less because we take too much of everything, and waste nothing because it isn’t ours to discard.

Most of us will be back here on Wednesday. In fact, there will be more on Wednesday for Ashes than there are today: an odd fact that raises a lot of questions among those of us who are here. Even more strange is that last year 1,274 people were here on Ash Wednesday. 625 were here forty days later for Holy Thursday and even Less on Good Friday. What’s wrong with this picture, I have asked myself. What’s the point of starting Lent if you don’t know how it ends? Are burned palms more important than the Blessed Sacrament and the Passion and Cross on Good Friday? It might be worth thinking about that before you get you get here on Wednesday and stay home during the Triduum. It is time to begin the journey that will lead us to the wedding feast and the coming of the Bride Groom – and so we shall fast until the feast begins on

Holy Thursday April 13.

February 19, 2006

Isaiah 43: 18-25 + 2Corinthians 1:18-22 + Mark 2:1-12

On Wednesday February 22 at noon there will be a meeting of religious leaders and a press conference at the State Capitol. I will be away from Oklahoma attending a different meeting of priests for the week; but I want to call this meeting to your attention in the hope that some of you can be there to represent this community along with the Archbishop and other Roman Catholics. At that meeting, the Archbishop will present a Declaration already signed by thousands of Catholic people from across the state. The Declaration will be a statement from faithful Catholic people that we believe violence against women to be clearly wrong and indeed sinful.

There is more to this effort than simply signing a piece of paper. It is a signal that we have awakened to some startling facts that cannot be denied; that we have embraced the Gospel as the revealed word and will of God for us; and that wish to live in a society without such violence where respect, love, and security for the most weak and vulnerable is the cause of everyone.

The Archbishop has written a pastoral letter which was published in the February 12 issues of the SOONER CATHOLIC. I urge to read it carefully. I want to quote from it for just a moment. “Violence against women is never an accident. It takes the form of physical, psychological or emotional abuse. This includes rape, date rape, sexual assault and other exploitation that reduces women into sex objects. Around the world, one in every three women has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused during her lifetime. Within the United States, one out of every four American women will experience violence by an intimate partner sometime during her lifetime. One out of six will be raped……To assert that violence against women is unacceptable is in harmony with our religious tradition and Sacred Scriptures…….The root cause of the problem lies in the ever-present inequality of and discrimination against women that exists in the world today. A basic refusal to see women as inherently equal with men, as mandated by our religious tradition, creates the environment for violence against women to flourish. As a Church and as a culture, we must take the elimination of violence against women seriously……We cannot and we must not remain silent any longer (says the Archbishop) Accordingly, I call on all Catholics and people of faith to raise their voices, renouncing all forms of violence against women and, further to commit to teach their children to reject this violence in all its forms. To ignore the call mandated by our Church tradition and the Sacred Scriptures, or to assert otherwise diminishes God’s love, care and compassion for some of the most vulnerable of our times.”

As your pastor I want to add some facts that might motivate you to pay attention to the Archbishop’s letter. Domestic Abuse reports in Oklahoma have increased 31% between 1994 and 2003. There were 23,773 domestic abuse reports in 2003. In this country, 4 million American women experience a serious assault by a partner during an average 12 month period. On average, three women are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends every day. 1 in 5 female high school students report being physically and/or sexually abused by a dating partner. 1 in 3 teens reports knowing a friend or peer who has been hit, punched, slapped, choked, or physically hurt by his or her dating partner. Parents cannot afford to think that this will not happen to their child.

The declaration as been placed in each pew. There are more in the narthex. Please pass them along the pew and add your name if you “condemn unequivocally all violence against women both inside and outside of marriage.” Add your name if you “support legislation to eliminate domestic violence in all its forms”, and if you “believe that violence against women is a grievous sin with no biblical or theological justification, and you want it eliminated from our society.” You may do it now and leave it in the pew. It will be added to the names already presented to the Archbishop on Monday.

As you do this, sharing pens or pencils you may have with you or find around you, give some thought to the scene of today’s Gospel, and as I often suggest, there are different positions or role within it. It is not only about Jesus. It is also a story about those who stand around, criticize, and do nothing except scoff. There is someone helpless and vulnerable, but not without friends willing to help. There are people on the roof, tearing a whole and carrying the paralytic. And, there are those who go away giving glory to God. We would do well today to choose carefully what role we shall play in this on-going, life giving, sin-forgiving, healing word. For us in Oklahoma today individually it is time to let our faith get us up on the roof and do something for the helpless. For us Catholics, it is time to collectively continue the work of Jesus, who as risen Christ still looks into the eyes of those who long for help to see their need, and respond with the power of love regardless of what some may say about us or about what we do.

February 5, 2006 At Saint Mark Church in Norman. OK

Leviticus 13:1-2,44-46 + 1 Corinthians 10:31-11:1 + Mark 1:40-45

Understanding the law from Leviticus and hearing it again this morning is important for the understanding of this Gospel, because the point of this Gospel does not come with words. The leper was not just physically ill with a contagious disease. This was not a simple quarantine act. Lepers were considered unfit to be part of the pure and holy people of God. The suffering of these people was not confined physical pain. Their suffering was greater than that. It was the pain of isolation, loneliness, and the lived experience of being abandoned or cast away.

There are two sides to this story: two movements or actions that speak to every one of us. The movement of the one who was suffering is just as significant as the movement of Jesus. That leper comes forward in faith! He does not choose to sit back and feel sorry for himself. He is not content to live cut off and alone. He comes to Jesus even though he risks rejection again and even punishment.

We know this experience, all of us at some level of intensity. Whether it is shame or guilt or embarrassment, too many never come forward. They fail to hear the power of this story and be motivated by this man’s courage and the consequence of it. The movement of Jesus too speaks to us all at another level. He touches that man! He touches him while he is untouchable. The issue is not simply that Jesus disregards the law. That has nothing really to do with it. He does not wait till the man is clean, acceptable, or perfect. He touches him while he is in his present state unclean. Imagine, Jesus, God, affirms, accepts, embraces, TOUCHES, this imperfect, sinful, unclean, person who dares to approach grace with enough faith to say: Help Me. What he hears is not: “Come back later when you clean up.” “I’ll touch you after you are healed.” or “Say you’re sorry, then I’ll think about.” None of that stuff here. Just a simple touch because Jesus is moved with pity. Do not miss the fact that it is not enough simply to feel badly for that man. Feelings must yield to decisions and action, sympathy to authentic caring that does something. Moved with compassion, Jesus touches that man uninterested in what anyone around him might have to say by way of caution or by way of judgment.

The two of them take risks: one by reason of faith, the other by reason of love It is a stunning thought that leaves us to wonder about our own faith and love.There is a deeper story of healing here that has little to do with Hanson’s disease or anything like it. It is the story of healed relationships that penetrates the isolation that keeps people apart. Whenever a person experiences recognition, acceptance, and value from another; healing take place.

Our lives, our days for that matter are filled with the movements of this Gospel: our need to ask for help and risk that even though we may not be perfect, may not be whole, or healed, God, the Church, those who truly love us will not turn away nor abandon us. We celebrate that movement sacramentally with Confession and personally by a life of prayerful conversion. At the same time, the movement of Jesus must become our own as well. We must reach out and touch each other in love and compassion. The addict whose life is a ruin, The person who lives fearful and hiding with positive HIV status, The adulterer, the liar, the compulsive depressed, and handicapped, and more all wait to be touched. It makes no difference how they got that way, or what they did. Jesus did not say to the man: “What did you do to get sick?” He didn’t think: “You probably had this coming.” That kind of thinking never enters the mind of someone who loves and has compassion and pity. All they think about is: “What can I do to help.?”

So, it must be with us as we sit in this holy place in the presence of God today. Ours is a God who does not turn away from any of us no matter how bad things seem to be. Our lives lived in Jesus will never allow us to turn away from anyone God embraces and calls to life. No matter what anyone else thinks, nor whatever the consequences.

January 29, 2006

Deuteronomy 18: 15-20 + 1 Corinthians 7:32-35 + Mark 1:21-28

There is grave risk here. There is already evidence of it.

An assembly that stands, sits, or kneels in silence while a few others lift their voices in song reveals the hold that this risk has in this place.

It is odd that spoken words are louder here than words sung.

These are not lullabies we sing to induce sleep.

These are victory songs of praise and shouts of thanksgiving.

It is strange that somehow many pull back in silence

leaving a few to timidly pick up the prayer we sing.

This is the risk.

If there is an attitude that promotes watching,

then it is going to be an issue with this gospel today as well.

Imagine the scene it presents, and wonder where you fit into it.

There are three positions with which to enter this Gospel:

as Jesus

as one possessed

or as a member of the crowd, the spectators, who just stood around in curiosity with little faith that would allow them to know who was in their midst.

The Church, God, and this whole world for that matter

have little need for any spectators.

We were not called into life by a creator/God to stand around and look.

This life is not a game that finds us in the stands watching, cheering, and applauding winners and losers.

Those of us who have not hardened our hearts

must hear the voice of God in this sacred text spoken to us,

not as though we overheard it said to someone else at another time.

And so, the third option of standing in this story as part of the crowd

is not an option.

Now this is the first miracle in the gospel of Mark,

and it is not about power, it is about identity and relationship.

All authority comes from one’s relationship with God, and that is what will unfold in the later verses of this Gospel,

the mystery of the relationship between Jesus and the Father.

The more Jesus asks, looks, sounds, and is identified with God,

the more authority he has.

He has given us that authority, that relationship; and so it is possible to stand in this story in the place of Jesus

and consider just how it is we respond to evil, and what we do in the face of it.

Stand and watch?

Look the other way?

Call for someone to DO something?

I would propose to you this weekend that Mark is suggesting that people of faith

who recognize who Jesus is and have entered into a relationship with him can do something about evil.

Yet, what about the other position in the story…….

If pressed, many of us could name our personal demons.

We are all possessed in some way.

Yet, it is easier to see ourselves as part of the crowd,

but again, I proposed that this is not an option.

If we can sit with this gospel and acknowledge our demons,

Jesus will say again: “Come out!”

“Come out, all those life destroying habits.

“Come out, all wishful thinking of “If I only had… or “I should have….”

“Come out, short temper and impatience.

“Come out, all you worries about the future or things you cannot change.

“Come out, the drive to keep up with those who seem to have more than me.

“Come out, everything that keeps me from being myself.”

The man in this story has no name, because he is us.

He is one of many, nothing unusual.

Pay attention to how Jesus reacts – both for the sake of courage and for the sake of instruction on how to behave in the face of evil.

He is not shocked nor frightened nor appalled.

He does not turn away in disgust nor throw up his hands in resignation.

He does not judge the man nor condemn him, no name calling here.

To those of us willing to face our demons, this is hopeful.

Jesus faces the darkest side of any human being,

knowing that this is not the true self of that person,

and that the dark side need not control.

There is good news here for us, and a lesson on how to live with authority;

but it is wasted on spectators.

January 8, 2006

Isaiah 60:1-6 + Ephesians 3:203,5-6 + Matthew 2;1-12

It struck me early this week that this Gospel story and the one we shall proclaim next week from John raise a question we have all asked in our lives more often than just once.

Next week, Jesus will turn toward some people who are following him.

He will look at them and ask the question:

“What are you looking for?”

It is a question Matthew raises too with these travelers who are so far from home.

What could they have been looking for?

What are any of us looking for?

I would suggest that getting to that question and its answer

is what shapes most of our lives.

Those “wise men” of Matthew’s Gospel

may have been wise about politics, astrology, and travel,

but at the point in their lives when they made that journey,

they were not very wise about the ways of God.

They went looking, looking for a king,

so naturally they went to the palace

in the capital city, Jerusalem.

If they were looking for power, they found it.

If they were looking for corruption, they found it.

Lies, deceit, betrayal, intrigue – all the stuff that goes with power:

they found it all.

But perhaps once there,

they realized that this was not what they were looking for.

All that power, wealth, and influence did not really get them anywhere.

It certainly did not get them where they really needed to be with their gifts.

Herod did not need their gold, their incense, nor their myrrh.

So, they moved on to look elsewhere – to look in an unlikely place,

a nearly forgotten little place hardly the destination of anyone in the “fast lane.”

Had there been a tourist industry in those days,

I doubt that Bethlehem would have been thought of as the place to be seen.

I does not seem to have had much by way of accommodations at least!

But not until they realized that Jerusalem and all it stood for was not where they belonged, they journey, their quest would have continue.

What were they looking for?

They seem to have found it in Bethlehem,

because they left their gifts with someone helpless and want,

and they went home avoiding Jerusalem.

All of us looking for something in this life might ponder this story

a little more carefully with this thought.

What we are looking for and where look for it says a lot about us

and a lot about the purpose of our lives.

Where we look for peace;

where we look for love;

where we look for happiness,

even to the point of where we look for someone

with whom to spend the rest of our lives.

I just can’t imagine how we will find peace at the Pentegon or a battle field.

I don’t think we will find love in good looks, a good figure.

I don’t think we will find happiness in the Mall.

nor someone to love and cherish us all our days in a bar.

What you are looking for, asks Jesus to those who follow him.

We can learn a lot about that from these wise men.

January 1, 2006 At Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

Numbers 6:22-27 + Galatians 4:4-7 + Luke 2:16-21

…….”they made known the message” and they returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, just as it had been told them.”

These words and this behavior described by Luke fail to capture our imaginations since CNN and FOX News have taken over the role announcing significant events. But at the time of Luke’s writing, great and news-worthy events were announced in public places and concluded with words of praise for the monarch, or God, or the official issuing the news. The task was an honorable one performed by great orators or celebrated poets. We have a fragment of that history in our national tradition of having a celebrated poet read at an Inauguration. People my age may well remember the stirring image of Robert Frost standing on the steps of the Capital at the inauguration of John F. Kennedy. I was young then. Somehow I find myself not so sure the tradition has continued since then with such class; but perhaps my own memory or imagination has not been so powerfully stirred.

None the less, this is exactly what is going on here in Luke’s second chapter. He wants to capture our imagination by having these shepherds assume the honorable role of being the first to announce important news concluding, as always, with acknowledgment and praise for the source of the news. The point of course, is that it is Shepherds. Our cultural equivalent might be maids, janitors, or garbage workers: in other words, someone doing work that no one else wants to do. Or even perhaps prison inmates, since shepherds were often people who lived outside the law trespassing and poaching off the grass and water of others. By specifying that these were the first to see, report, and then glorify God for the birth of Jesus, Luke was, in dramatic effect, declaring that Isaiah’s prophecy is fulfilled: “The lowly shall have the good news proclaimed to them.”

This detail and implications of it are a problem for us, because we are anything but lowly and shepherd-like. The consequence is that we are left to be spectators and remove ourselves from this divine activity, since this news has little to offer us. We have very little need, and no one ought to call us poor in this country or in this city. For shepherd-like people this news comes with comfort and brings hope. For us, it brings challenge and questions and an opportunity to look again at ourselves and recognize the poverty of our lives in the midst of our riches.

When we assemble here with each other week after week, we cannot afford to stand back and look nor be comfortable as spectators in the divine work of salvation and redemption. The Gospel we proclaim in this place is not for entertainment which is why we do not produce pageants. It is the stirring, powerful, effective Word of God.

It speaks to us in our poverty.

It speaks to us in our helplessness.

It speaks to us in our fear and our sadness.

It speaks to people who cover their interior poverty with pretence and power.

It speaks to people who hide the pain of their loneliness with drugs and excesses of every kind.

It speaks to people whose shame burdens them with anger and resentment.

It speaks to people whose lack of forgiveness fills them with revenge.

It speaks to people whose own self doubt and fear leaves them intolerant and impatient.

We are impoverished.

We lack the gift of peace because we have too little lived faith.

We would rather trust in guns, power and force.

We lack the gift of Joy because we have too little hope.

So we fill our days with trivial stuff that breaks and wears out in a season.

We lack the gift of Trust because we do not keep our promises,

and we quit in the face of sacrifice.

We lack the gift of Love

because we think it’s about feeling good, looking good, and all about us.

Yet, once we see our poverty, the news from these shepherds is more than a nice story to tell at Christmas time.

It becomes an option for change, a hope for peace, a cause of Joy, a reason to trust, and the source of Love.

In her own poverty, helplessness, and fear, Mary heard many things said of her son and heard all of what he said. It never says she understood them.

It simply says she kept them in her heart and pondered them.

But by never dismissing them as impractical, impossible, or simply “theoretical”,

she remained full of grace, and in the end came to understand what she held and treasured and reflected on in her heart.

Blessed are those who hear the Word of God and keep it. (Luke 11:28)

December 25, 2005 at Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

Isaiah 9: 1-6 + Titus 2: 11-13 + Luke 2: 1-14

We are part of the story being told through out the world today While we may tell the story in the past tense,we live it in the present.It is not just about shepherds and angels. It is about you and me.Those shepherds were not the only ones who hear good news in the night.They are not the only ones who get up from what they are doing and go seek the promised one, Christ the Savior, Immanuel.We have heard a message    the Gospel.We are up in the night, and have come here seeking what has been promised. The coming of our God continues, and God still uses the most simple and humble of ways to be with us. That birth in Bethlehem was a way of getting us to look and see. From all its humility and simplicity, we learn to look and see God’s presence not in riches and finery, not in power and palaces, but in that poverty of two homeless refugees and the helplessness of an infant. Christmas is the very beginning of God’s revelation to us, not the end. Our assembly here continues the story being told and the revelation unfolding. The God who once came to Bethlehem in infant’s flesh and blood still comes to this place through bread and wine. Those who can see God in an infant and se God on this altar can discover God in all of life. The presence of God in the gift of the Eucharist is not an isolated event, but the clue to how all of creation is to be seen. So we have no need to go to Bethlehem to discover the Lord. Christ waits here and where ever there is human need and an opportunity for service. There Christ lives as if in a manger. Those who seek the spectacular will not notice. The real presence of God is only revealed to those who know what Bethlehem is really all about. This Christ is not found only at Christmas. He is within reach at all times and seasons for those who can recognize God in the ordinary and the simple. To keep us from losing this vision because it is so common Christmas happens once a year to remind us of how things are. So we come here tonight asking God for a new way of seeing things, and a new way of recognizing God in these times and in the things we do that are so ordinary, common, and every-day. Since the simple humility of God in -Christ is seen most clearly in the sacrifice of the cross, we come asking for the ability to recognize the humble presence of the Lord where ever we encounter suffering, pain, rejection, loneliness and despair. While they are important as a way of showing our love, the best gift of Christmas is not found in brightly colored packages around a tree. There is a gift with no wrapper and no ribbon. It is a gift given to us all, the ability to discover the divine in our lives. and the willingness to offer ourselves to any of God’s daughters and sons who need help, encouragement, and strength. If these things seem too ordinary, too human, too simple, we have missed the message and the truth of Bethlehem. So, we have this day of reminder that comes once each year that our God is Emmanuel, “God With Us.” He was not born in Rome or Jerusalem, but in an obscure village in Judea. His Kingdom for us will not be found in Washington, New York or any of the seats of power. For us it will be found in Norman, Oklahoma one house at a time. Emmanuel was not born in a palace with attending royal physicians. He is born again and again in every human heart when forgiveness restores life to what has been broken or dead. This is the beginning of the Feast of Life itself. Is is the first day of a new creation. It is the hour when light comes leaping into the darkness, and we have been awakened to the dawn of our salvation. The gifts we find as we awaken this Christmas are simple bread, wine, and the work of human hands. If we can see God in a simple new-born baby, then we shall God in the gifts we bring to this altar. Come, Let us adore.

December 25, 2005 At Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

Isaiah 9:1-6 + Titus 2:11-14 + Luke 2:1-20

This simple story, so familiar, yet always so fresh and so new is all about relationships.

The heart of this feast is not the divinity of Jesus. It is not about angels, shepherds, inns, and wise men. It is about God’s radical longing for us. Only those who have grieved the loss of their greatest love in life can understand. This feast is about an end to God’s grieving and longing for us. It celebrates God’s last, best, and final offer to heal what has been broken by sin, to restore the intimacy of that first garden relationshipand close the breach between the divine and the human, heaven and earth  In love with us with a love that we can barely dare to imagine, God places himself in our hands and in the hands of a troubled world. This is the heart of our wonder, the source of our Joy.

This birth is not just the birth of Christ that we celebrate, but our own birth as well.

Jesus was not born at the center of a holy world, but in a tiny remote nation occupied by a vastly more powerful Roman Empire. The population of that land lived under the threat of violence not only from the Roman troops, but from Jewish zealots seeking liberation willing to be terrorists to achieve it.

Our sense of the similarity of these facts with the condition of our world today makes the truth of this feast immediate. Not a lot has changed. There are still poor nations occupied by the powerful. There is still violence inflicted by troops and there are still zealots here and everywhere who madly resort to violence and terror to have their way and expel foreign troops in order to establish a political/religious empire of their own.

In the midst of it all, God still longs for us. We still celebrate Christmas and try to remember why while arguing over how to greet one another respectfully and be grateful for what we have rather than think about what we want.

The simple story we tell this day (night) is about relationships: what we mean to God,

what Joseph and Mary mean to one another, what Elizabeth means to Mary, what the birth of John means to Zachary, what we mean to one another. Our God is a God of Relationship: Father, Son, and Spirit, a God who not only loved this world into existence but also “so loved the world” as to become one with and in it.

If we are made in the image of this God, then we are a people of relationship who must resist every day anything that would isolate, separate, or exclude us from another.

We have, all of us, come from relationship and we are made for it. Nothing must disrupt nor diminish the importance of our relationships to one another: no ideology, no political system, no material stuff, no ambition, no job, no language should cloud or dim the vision of the human family that is so tenderly set before us with the story of Bethlehem.

This does not mean that we reject all things or refuse to grace our lives with beautiful

gifts or time-saving technology. These things can enhance the personal world and express our interior lives while bringing us together.

However, it does mean that we must spend as much time and effort on our interior lives and relationships as we do on the things we produce and consume so that these things do not take possession of us. And so, I give you a challenge today and propose a plan for the next seven days, the last seven days of this year. When we next gather and assemble in this holy place, we shall pass into another year of grace and life before God. Each night for the next seven, ponder the mystery, the joyful mysteries of your lives. Speak to friends and family members of the gift they are in your life. Let no one be taken for granted.

Then, when we next assemble in the name of the Lord, we will have refused to let go of Christmas, and what it means will have survived the trash pick-up and next month’s credit card statement. Because it’s about relationships and most of all about how God longs for us waits for us, and wants to feed us with His presence every day, every week, and every step of the way. This is the source of Christmas Joy. This is the heart of our wonder.

December 24, 2005 At Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

Isaiah 9:1-6 + Titus 2:11-14 + Luke 2:1-20

……………..following the proclamation of the Gospel, the children between the first and third grades are called to the chair. This homily is spoken to the children standing around the presider’s chair.

I want to make sure that you heard and that you know the Gospel story our deacon just proclaimed tonight, because there are some parts of it that are very important for you. Listen again to this part of the story.

…..One of the older children who is prepared takes the gospel book and reads:

There were shepherds living in the fields near Bethlehem keeping watch over the flock during the night. The angel of the Lord appeared to them. The glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were very much afraid. The angel said to them: “you have nothing to fear! I come to proclaim good news to you — tidings of great joy to be shred by the whole people. this day in David’s city a savior has been born to you, the Messiah and Lord. Let this be a sign to you: in a manger you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes.”

So, in the first part of the Gospel story, the only ones who know who Jesus is and where to find him are the angels. The angels are very important. Without angels, no one would know one child from the next. Without angels, no one would know that the child born of Mary was the Savior and Son of God. Without angels, no one would know where to look. Probably without angels, the shepherds would never have thought to look in the manger.

I think God made angels to tell us three very important things: The first one is: God wants to be close to us. Very close.  God wants to get as close as possible. So close that he can laugh and cry, and be hurt and comforted, grow and learn, be born and die, just like we do. When you understand that message, then you will begin to wonder how you can be close to God. The second message is about where to find God. Where do you look is what it’s all about. You have to look in unlikely places – in places where you would never expect to find God. Not with the powerful full and the rich and famous, but with the weak and the powerless – with those who need protection, like a baby.

When you understand that message, then you will begin to take care of others who are helpless and left out of life. The third message is about family. When God wanted to come to us and there was no room anywhere, there was room in a family. We all come from families, and every family looks a little different, but every family is a sacred and holy place. When you understand that message, then you will begin to see your church as your family and the place where you family and your home learns about God, about forgiveness, about love, respect, and holiness.

Now these are the things that angels know about and these are the things that the angels came to tell us: God wants to be close and we must find every way possible to be close to God. God is found where ever there are people who need protection, and we must take care of others who are helpless. God makes family holy and in our family we are safe with God, learn to pray and grow to be holy. Now you know who Jesus is. You know where to find him, and you know the message, so in a sense, you are angels – you have a message to tell and people to lead, and I think God wants you to spread the news, show the way, and give glory to God.

Let’s go bless the place in the chapel that reminds us of the message. Here’s the Gift of God to us, the sign of God’s desire, found in an unlikely place, and born into a fragile and troubled family of love.

Process with a wrapped gift containing the image of the Christ child which the children will unwrap and place in the nativity scene.