December 30, 2007 at Saint Mark Church in Norman,OK

I grew up with images of the Holy Family that always made the Boyers look like the Clampetts. There were those images of Mary and Joseph on holy cards. There was a picture hanging in my school classroom in which Mary was always weaving something. Joseph had obviously been out picking lilies because there was always one in his hand, and I guess he cut it with a carpenter’s square, because that was in the other hand.

The boy was always gazing at his holy parents, waiting to obey their next command. They were the Waltons of Nazareth! They didn’t live in Norman. If they did, they belonged to some other parish.

That image is a perfect recipe for discouragement. It is one more crushing blow to the single parent family. To many mothers it is an invitation to resentment because it would be so wonderful to raise only one perfect child with the help of a perfect husband, the model of chastity, hard work, gentleness and consideration. And in front of that image stands every father, frustrated, defeated, tired, and anxious looking at that perfect family and left to feel defeated, inadequate, and guilty.

That image is like the hundreds of Christmas card photos I have just received. I have a family too, and on several occasions I have taken that photo and I remember what it was like moments before the flash captured one moment that was carefully posed. For just that moment, everyone stopped talking, giving orders, and complaining.

The Gospel writers would have us understand that it was no different in Nazareth. We must keep the whole story in mind as we celebrate this day called: “Holy Family.” Their life was not a Christmas Card photo. What makes that family holy is not some kind of perfection, but perhaps some kind of fidelity. Do not forget that this family’s beginnings were a bit rocky and uncertain. Joseph had to make a tough decision about whether or not to keep Mary as his wife. The silence of the Gospel writers suggest Joseph’s early death. In the public part of Jesus’ life there was not a nuclear holy family, but a whole village. The evangelists portray a large, extended family, most of whom are unsympathetic and downright hostile to Jesus’ vision Mark even writes that some of them thought Jesus was crazy. Today’s story suggests not a perfect family, but one on the move for the sake of safety.

The family whose story is told in this Gospel had its ups and downs. The family whose story is told in this Gospel lived through confusion, strange journeys, dealt with disgruntled relatives and people who did not understand. We are not here to celebrate the ideal family with a perfect mom, an honest dad, and an impeccable child. I think this feast is for my Aunt who was never blessed with children and now lives alone after the death of her husband last year. No children to care for her. I think this feast is for a woman I passed in a nursing home earlier this week sitting by the door looking for someone, anyone to come for her. I think this feast if for a mother I know whose son is waiting for a bone-marrow transplant; she stays with him constantly while her husband simply cannot visit because of his fears and disappointment. I think this feast is for gay people whose lives never quite fit in and never really will. I think this feast if for single parents who just do the best they can, and it never feels like enough. I think this feast if for families torn apart by divorce, and because of it all cannot find their way to church anymore.

This feast is for all of them and for all of us because we are God’s chosen ones, holy, and beloved. What we all have in common is the power of the Gospel and the pain of living close to or distant from those we love best.

It seems like a lot of pain sometimes. But in the end, there is nothing quite like a family, however it is composed. After all, it is in family that we learn to be sensitive to the presence of others, the needs of others, and the rights of all human beings. Family is the ultimate school where one learns to love, to forgive, to be responsible, and to respect. It is also the first and best school of holiness.

December 25, 2007 At Saint Mark Norman, OK

It is beginning to dawn on me that as long as we keep celebrating the birth of Christ in the way we have for the past few weeks, we are never going to get it right. Nice as it is for our economy to shop until we drop or run out of money; wonderful as it is to receive cards and family photos from friends with those letters that tell us way more than we need to know, and thrilling as it is to travel and spend some time with our families, if you get there at all with luggage, it is getting more and more difficult to get the point. Our children grow up thinking this is a birthday party for Jesus, and never get deeper into the mystery, the wonder, and the power that lurks in the reality of this festival.

The Incarnation is not something we celebrate.

It is something we must become.

What is beginning to dawn of me then is that as long we simply stick with the celebration and all its trappings and customs, enjoyable as they really are; we may never become anything. We are getting so trapped in all of this that the only thing we are becoming is greedy, guilty, depressed, and exhausted. I don’t think that is what we are supposed to be become because of the Incarnation!

The wonder of this night does not stop in Bethlehem. There is no point in celebrating the birth of Christ without wondering and asking “why?” “What was God thinking?” This Gospel we proclaim in a story both familiar yet strange, does not simply speak of God and what God does, it also speaks of what has happened to humanity.

There is in this story a marvelous cast of characters, a whole parade of people touched by this birth: an aging priest and his childless wife; a young woman called to give birth in a way unheard of in human history;

the dark night sky shining with God’s glory and shepherds hearing “Good News of Great Joy”; an aging couple living and waiting for God’s anointed. And Matthew gives us an anointed king who is really a brutal killer, a young and bold prophet who ends up in jail for his courage beheaded while his “messiah” runs around helping everyone else, a young man full of dreams and hopes whose fiancé comes up pregnant, wise men from afar who follow a star and kneel before a child. It is in the end, an affirmation of humanity in all its brokenness and its glory. It is a story told again and again in countless unnamed people among whom God’s Word continues to become flesh and dwell among us.

Those angels were bending near the earth with their harps of gold (not to heaven). They were speaking to us (ordinary people), shepherds at work no less! It’s all so familiar, yet so strange. Salvation breaks into creation by a birth. What could be more ordinary, common place, and normal than a birth? Yet behind it all for people of faith there is yet something curious. This silent night we find goodness and holiness in a scene so ordinary that we might miss it if it were not for our brothers and sisters who came before us. They left us with a faith that is capable of knowing that in the very ordinariness of our lives and times, goodness is more powerful than evil, faith is stronger than death. A stable can be cathedral. Humanity can become the dwelling place of the divine. Bread can become God. And so, this feast is then, not something simply to celebrate every three hundred and sixty five days, but something we become every day. “What shall we become?” we might ask ourselves in silence as we gaze a baby in a manger. what is it we shall become………………………. and when?

December 23, 2007 at Saint Mark Chuch in Norman, OK

He is the central human character at the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel. He is no stranger to fear, disappointment, confusion, and doubt.

He is the perfect example of what the Old Testament calls a “just man.”

That does not mean he is a “nice guy.” He reminds us that the way we live our lives, the choices we make, and relationships we have make a difference. He could have followed every legal recourse and exercised his rights, but he did not do so. He could have done what was expected of him by others instead of what was asked of him. He could have punished her, taken her to court, gotten even, shamed and humiliated her. Instead he ushered in a new definition of righteousness and nurtured to maturity a new definition of compassion and justice. He could have chosen a different role in the drama unfolding this week. It would have been a role of honor and respectability, security and safety.

Instead, he chose to embrace a role defined by fear and uncertainty, danger and discomfort, newness and change. With a cast of characters that includes Archangels and a murderous king, he claims a bit part in the drama of salvation always knowing that the lead role belongs to someone else, and remembering that at best he is just a supporting actor in this drama. His name is Joseph, and every three years we tell his story. Parents among us would do well to introduce their children to this man. He towers above every other hero this world can produce. First among men and first among fathers, he is role model our children would do well to know. He is no celebrity. He will not show up on the cover of People magazine. He will not be chased around by paparazzi, nor be the subject of comments on Entertainment television.

He stands alone in our tradition as a man of faith, of trust, and commitment. He made a promise and he kept it even though for a brief frightening moment it looked as though he was the only promise keeper. He reminds us today that we are called to listen to the promise of angels, not the promise of power or prestige in this world. He reminds us today that we are called to nurture forgiveness and compassion, not obsess over our rights and privilege. He reminds us today that we are called to a creative love that knows no boundaries; a love that allows us to embrace the outcast and forgotten more than clutch the accepted and desirable.

So, we gather here at the end of this Advent with the hope of Isaiah, the trust of Mary, the passion of John the Baptist, and the courage of Joseph. These are the virtues of those who passed these days in readiness. The shattered hopes of John the Baptist are no less than the shattered dreams of Joseph the Carpenter. Yet both are spirit filled and listen and follow the Word of God.

Wake up! is the message Joseph keeps hearing not because he was sleeping and lazy; but because he needed to wake up to what was going on around him. He did wake up, again and again in the midst of more than one confusing and doubtful moments. He woke up to the power of the Holy Spirit, and the strength of his faith. Hours before we celebrate the coming of God in Human flesh, we would also do well to wake up. Wake up and look around at what is going on, not find fear in it, but find the presence of God and see the divine dimension which calls us to holiness, to courage, to forgiveness and compassion; which call us to stop demanding our rights all the time and look a bigger picture and live a bigger life.

December 12, 2007 at Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

For anyone who has ever entertained even the slightest doubt about their faith in Jesus Christ or God’s promises, this Gospel story is very important, and John the Baptist suddenly becomes very, very real. He is sitting there in Herod’s jail. It is the price he paid for speaking up when something was wrong. He has done what was right, and the consequence was prison, and it will eventually mean his execution. He has proclaimed the Messiah, identified him, and heard the divine affirmation at the Baptism of Jesus. He has called everyone who would listen to repentance and prompted them to be ready for the Kingdom of God. Now he sits in Herod’s prison. What’s wrong with this picture? He has grown up with the prophet’s promise that when the messiah comes, he will set captives free. Yet, he’s in Herod’s jail. We know his confusion. We understand his question and the question of his followers.

Parents know how it goes. You give birth and with dreams and hopes you raise a child as best you can, and suddenly you look at that child and say: “Where did you come from?” “Who is this?” Nothing goes as you planned, and that young adult is nothing like you hoped. Couples look at each other with the same wonder. The dreams of a life together go awry. An infidelity breaks trust, an addiction seizes a beautiful life, a disease strikes at the most happy of moments, and suddenly nothing is the way you thought it was going to be.

Anyone who dares face life with hope and dreams and expectations knows exactly why John sent those disciples to Jesus. Tragedies, disappointments, disasters, and even little things can make us turn to God and wonder: “What’s going on here?” “It’s not supposed to be this way.” If the pain is bad enough people we know give up all together and turn to other gods: drugs materialism, alcohol, sex, gambling, anything to find a fix or make things go the way they want them to go. In the wisdom of Matthew’s Gospel as we hear it today, Jesus only speaks briefly to the disciples of John, then he suddenly turns to speak to us, “the crowd.” To the disciples, he simply lists the work of the messiah as the ancient prophets had foretold in comparison to his own work. “This is what I have come to do. If this is what you have been waiting for, then, yes, I am the one who has come to do it. But if you have been waiting for something else, then perhaps you will have to go on waiting.”

Then he turns to us and asks one of the most important questions: “What is it you expect here?” or “What are you waiting for?” It is a caution not to expect salvation on our terms. We ask for salvation

and God responds in the cry of newborn child. We ask for justice and God speaks of mercy. We ask for forgiveness and God responds as a teacher who refuses to condemn a sinner. We ask for reconciliation and God responds in the conversation of two men on a cross. We ask for life and God responds with an empty tomb. We ask for sustaining strength and comfort, and God responds with tongues of flame. We ask for God’s kingdom to come, and God calls forth the church.

John wanted a political messiah who was going to run Romans out of town, restore Israel to its glory and power. What he got was a lamb. Like John we sometimes want a God who is going to ride in on a white horse and run off all the bad guys and fix everything that is broken. Instead, if we get this season right, God would rather restore us to our original greatness, and using one of our own, fulfill the plan God had long ago for how we might live together in trust, in mercy, and in love.

Isaiah in today’s readings saw this restoration already beginning. Expecting it to continue would be wise. James proposes patience and an informed expectation so that we might wait for what is right and what is in God’s plan. Losing heart or getting discouraged might happen, but only because we had the wrong expectation, not because God failed to act, to love, to be present, and to be with us.

December 9, 2007 at Saint Mark Church in Norman, OP

I love the way Matthew introduces John the Baptist! He just appears, suddenly out of nowhere. It suggests mystery and leads us out of the ordinary and into wonder. You get a sense that something is up, some mystery is about to begin. The setting for this mystery is itself a place of wonder and wildness: the desert. Everything about this scene recalls Israel’s past: the clothing, the diet, the setting. Prophets and Passover are the stuff of this image and message. Something new is at hand, but only for those who themselves are new.

His words are shouted as a challenge to what is old with a promise for those who will turn around from old ways. Pharisees and Sadducees emerge as the old, and they are finished. Gone is privilege and the security of law-keeping. Something new is happening. A new age, a future that fulfills every prophet’s dream, and everyone’s hope; but the way into that future is not the way of the present. Those who will be part of that future will have turn around. They will turn their back on the present and the things that are.

In his desert preaching, he thunders a judgment at those who are content, prosperous, and comfortable with themselves and the way things are. His cry is heard everywhere, and even the curious are drawn to that desert place where things are stark and simple In the desert, there is no noise, no clutter, only the wind and the presence of God. In that desert, the truth is inevitable and unavoidable.

John would have us in that desert where we and everyone who hears his cry can see themselves in truth where pretense, denial, and falsehood are useless. There is nothing soft or easy about the message in that desert. It is a call to purity, to cleanliness, to holiness: a condition that confronts evil and sin for what it is.For a people in that age and this who have grown comfortable and compatible with sin, there is trouble.  We don’t like to talk about sin, and we certainly don’t want to hear about it. But this desert wild man is not afraid to name it for what it is. As I said on the Holy Day we have just observed, and some have not: we would rather try to explain human suffering, failure, and evil in terms of psychological disorders, social change, pressure, tension, depression and anxiety. But none of that talk changes a thing and says nothing about the truth. After all, ages, cultures, psychology, and societies don’t really exist. Only people do. Sin is what it is. All our pretending and denial never makes it go away. Even our absence from the confessional hasn’t made better. It just adds to our moral misery and growing contentment with it.

We face tragedies like the killings in an Omaha Mall as though it is just something we have to live with these days. “What a shame.” we say. “What a poor sick boy.”  We endure bombings and war, poverty and hunger, homeless people on our streets, corporate greed, and the rich sheltered by their precious tax breaks and never call it by name. The longer we pretend it isn’t sin, the more complacent we become.

A wild desert man shouts: “Stop that!” There is sin in the world. It is concrete and real. It is ours. It is not there because society or some system fails, but because we have done nothing and allowed ourselves to become dull and selfish. We even like ourselves that way.

There will be no Silent Night. There will be no “Joy to the World” and nothing for Angels to sing about until we turn this around. There will be no peace on earth until we make it. The coming of Christ that John proclaims is a coming into our hearts and our lives not some pile of straw in a manger. And that coming is going to demand some sifting and sorting. John isn’t talking to someone else. His voice and his message do not come to us from the past. We heard it today.