Transforming Love

A Sermon preached on Christmas Eve 24 December at St. Augustine’s, Wiesbaden

Isaiah 9:2-7, Titus 2:11-14, Luke 2:1-14

May these spoken words be faithful to the written word and lead us to the living word, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

Robert and I have once again divided up the Christmas Eve and Christmas Day service between us. Tonight, he is the celebrant, and I get to preach, tomorrow we swap roles. That means I get the first part of the gospel readings, which focuses on the angels, and he gets the second part with a focus on the shepherds. So I get the heavenly beings, and he gets the smelly, scruffy herders. Seems fair to me …

But seriously, Christmas would be nothing without the shepherds. We would have no one to hear the angels’ “good news of great joy for all the people that to you – to us - is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.” (Luke 2:10.12) And we would have no one to pass the message on to others as the shepherds will do. We need angels and shepherds, heaven and earth. We need Christmas to be grounded in our lives. And we need Christmas to have the potential to change our lives on earth, and not just in heaven.

There are several reasons why Luke begins the chapter about Jesus’ birth with all sorts of details about the Emperor Augustus, and the governor Quirinius, and about the journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem to take part in a census as ordered by the Roman occupying power. First, he wants to show us what Jesus is up against. The Roman imperial power on the one hand, and an outwardly powerless, dependent infant on the other. The Roman Catholic New Testament commentator Luke Timothy Johnson writes, “Luke’s manner is to show how God’s fidelity is worked out in human events when appearances seem to deny his presence or power.”

Secondly, his background information is meant to highlight that a number of Old Testament promises are being fulfilled at this time, including the one we heard a moment ago in Isaiah (9:6-7)

“For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. His authority shall grow continually, and there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom.”

But most important, I think, is that this grounds God’s actions in the framework of human time and place, in human lives. Christmas is identified as an event in history, as that moment when God becomes part of God’s own creation. At Christmas, God opens a door to what we call “heaven,” and sends God’s Son through it to become human. In his person, Jesus connects God and human, heaven and earth. Jesus is Immanuel, God with us, always. It is a connection that we cannot sever, however much we try.

The incarnation, to use the technical term for becoming human, literally becoming flesh, stands for many things. But first and foremost, it is a sign of God’s love. God, the creator of all, cares for us, for the world, and for all of creation. It’s a huge claim, but that’s what the Christmas message says: God became human in Jesus to share in our joys and sorrows, to share in our triumphs and disappointments, to share in life and death. That’s what the angels are celebrating in their hymn of pure praise, not some martial triumph, not some military victory, but an act of self-sacrifice, of giving up power, of becoming vulnerable. After all what’s more vulnerable than a baby, soon forced to be a refugee in Egypt, before – not finally – dying on a cross. It all stands in complete contrast to the powers of the world, as represented here by Emperor Augustus and Governor Quirinius, and to their agendas.

The incarnation also stands for the possibility of transformation. In our Epistle, the extract from Paul’s letter to Titus (2:11), we heard that Jesus, “the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all, training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and in the present age to live lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly.” In the 1^st century Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons wrote: “He (Jesus) became what we are so that we might become what He is.” That is another massive claim: God, who is love, became a human being, so that we might become like God, that is loving beings – loving God and loving our neighbour. It is God’s hope and desire that we humans should embody the presence of God’s love in the world.  The angels sing (in the Authorised or King James version): "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward all.” God’s glory is most served by peace on earth and goodwill from all people to all people. In that sense we are still a long way from giving God the glory God desires. There is currently no peace in Ukraine, no peace in Sudan, no peace in Georgia, no peace in Syria, and definitely no peace in the Holy Land, in the West Bank and in Gaza, where instead what Paul calls impiety and worldly passions reign: revenge, intolerance, ambition, lust for power, greed ….

Achieving peace and goodwill to all may therefore seem impossible, but for God nothing is impossible. (Luke 1:37) For many people, both the beginning – the incarnation – and the end – the resurrection – of Jesus’ earthly life would be seen as “impossible” – but we believe in them and in their power to change and transform us. And that is what you are here to celebrate, with angels and shepherds: The good news is that this day, Dec. 24, 2024, is born a Savior who will transform us and the world, the Messiah, the one sent by God to connect heaven and earth, and the Lord, the only one we should really serve. And so, together with the angels and shepherds let us sing: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward all.” And then let us go out into the world and make it happen.

Amen.

Looking forward

 

A Sermon preached on Sunday 1 December (Advent I) at St. Augustine’s, Wiesbaden

Jeremiah 33:14-16, 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13, Luke 21:25-36

Happy New Year! For the church, today, the first Sunday of Advent, is the beginning of a new year. Advent is of course a season of expectation and preparation, of active waiting. Most of us prefer to focus on the expectation and preparation for the celebration of the Nativity, Christ's first coming as a baby in Bethlehem. Christians traditionally interpret the prophecy from the Book of Jeremiah that "a righteous Branch (will) spring up for David who shall execute justice and righteousness in the land" to be about Jesus’ birth and ministry! Much of what we do here in Advent, the candles we light as a visual countdown, the successive decoration and transformation of the church, the readings that build up to Christmas, are about preparing for that celebration. And of course, the secular aspects of Advent, the Christmas markets, buying presents, sending and receiving cards are also focused on the celebration of a somewhat sanitised version of the events surrounding Jesus’ birth.

But, as the NT readings today remind us, Advent is also about preparing for Christ's return, the second “coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints," that Paul announces in his letter to the Thessalonians (3:13), or the "'Son of Man coming in a cloud' with power and great glory" that Jesus refers to in the passage from Luke's gospel (21:27) that, like a similar text in Mark, is often called the "Little Apocalypse." Do we even want to prepare for that? Is it really something we look forward to? I wondered if making and selling T-shirts with the slogan: "Jesus is coming. Look busy" might not be a good fundraiser in this Advent season? But on second thoughts, no. T-shirts probably wouldn’t sell well in winter, and it is also bad theology!

It makes it sound as if Christ’s second coming is something to worry about and as if his response to us depends on our actions and achievements and not on his nature. Yet our Eucharistic Prayer talks of us “looking for his coming again with power and great glory.” And what Christian would not look expectantly and hopefully for the day when justice and righteousness are established, and God's kingdom of peace and love fully established?

So why might we not want to prepare for the Second Coming? I can think of lots of reasons: fear is one of them, fear of what Christ the judge might say to me. Or fear of loss. Even if this world is anything but perfect, for many of us life is not bad at all and for a tiny few, life is very good indeed! Behind Jesus’ apocalyptic terminology, all the language about signs in the sun, the moon and the stars, the roaring of the sea and the waves, and the shaking of the powers of the heavens is a message of massive change and transformation. Those who are powerful, rich, mighty, and privileged always fear change.

And of course there is disbelief. Although Jesus refers to his return more than once in all of the Gospels, as does Paul in many of his letters, and even if we affirm it in some form every week at the Eucharist, the Parousia, to use the technical term for the second coming, is probably not the most popular or accepted doctrine in mainline Christian denominations. Language such as Jesus uses in today’s Gospel, that “this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place,” (Luke 21:32) was often misinterpreted to expect an imminent and immediate return and deliverance. Which led to great disappointment when that did not happen. And the history of the church is littered with those who thought, and taught, that they had found the key to the timing of the end-time and were proved wrong.

But that does not make the concept as such wrong, harmful or pointless. To be "end-time minded," to look forward to his return, is not to be constantly looking for signs and proof that Christ is about to return, but simply living in the sure knowledge that he will. When faced with a disturbing or frightening present, and a difficult and uncertain future, today’s three readings tell us that our faith should be formed by hope. Threatened by conquest, destruction, and exile, Jeremiah holds up a vision of a new, righteous and just sovereign from David’s lineage as promised by God. The theme of the passage from Luke’s Gospel is also hope, hope for the transformation and redemption of all creation. The parable of the fig tree is a sign of hope. When that beloved tree with its sweet fruit begins to show shoots and leaves, it is the sign of summer. Winter's cold and dark will soon be left behind. We should not focus on the bad, but instead look out for, and nurture the signs of life and love we can find amidst the roaring! Joyful vigilance is our calling, not foreboding.

The late Frederick Buechner, a well-known American theologian and preacher, wrote of Advent: “I think we are waiting. That is what is at the heart of it. Even when we don’t know that we are waiting, I think we are waiting. Even when we can’t find words for what we are waiting for, I think we are waiting.”[1]

Jesus contrasts two approaches for this time of waiting. On the one hand we have a waiting marked by worry and anxiety, with drink or other worldly temptations as a distraction. On the other we have prayerful and hopeful vigilance. Jesus tells us to be "end-time minded," without withdrawing from our current ministry under the assumption that the time is already here. In fact, our current ministry, being as Christ to the sick, the lonely, the poor, the outcast and the stranger, is a key part of being “end-time minded”. It is about bringing some of his love and our joy into the present.

Waiting also calls for patience, lots of it! Anglican theologian Tom Wright refers to the “steady tread of prayer and hope and scripture and sacrament and witness, day by day and week be week. This is what counts; this is why patience is a fruit of the Spirit.”[2]

While we wait, we pray, as Paul writes, that “the Lord will make us increase and abound in love for one another and for all.” (1 Thessalonians 3:10) And we wait without fear, sure in Jesus' promise that his words will not pass away, and that his words are words of love, hope, forgiveness, and grace.

Amen.

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[1] From “Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons”

[2] Luke for Everyone, Tom Wright,   260