Between noon and three

This sermon was preached at 8am and 10am on December 7, 2014, at S. Stephen’s Church.  It is written for Advent 2, which is traditionally associated with themes of Judgement, and which more recently has focused on John the Baptist.  Both themes present an opportunity to reflect on Scripture, and about we understand God to speak within it and within the lives of those who read it faithfully.

Collect: Merciful God, who sent thy messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Readings: Isaiah 40:1-11, 2 Peter 3:8-15a, Mark 1:1-8

But, in accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness dwells.

One of the classic ways Christians have approached Scripture is to read it prayerfully, paying attention to the many layers of meaning present within it.

Traditionally, there are four such layers: the first, and the foundation of the others, is the “literal” level:  What does the text say?  Who are the main characters?  What are they doing?

The second layer is the realm of analogy and various other kinds of literary devices:  What metaphors are in play, with what kind of symbolism?  Does this verse or that verse build on foreshadowing from previous chapters or previous books?  Does it look forward to promises yet to be fulfilled?

The third layer of meaning is that of morality: How do we interpret our moral lives based on the prescriptions or illustrations from this book or that episode?  How do we articulate the kinds of things we understand God expects of us?

The final layer of meaning is often labeled the “anagogical,” or the mystical.  It is the summit of the other layers, and it is a way in which we are brought out of ourselves into closer union with God himself, through the Scriptures his Spirit inspires.

Every subsequent layer builds on what came before.  They are cumulative.  We cannot have one without the other.  In all our Bible reading, we have to begin with the first layer, with what the text says, in order to get to the others in their turn.  (Incidentally, I think a lot of trouble in the church comes from the mistake of elevating one particular layer of scriptural meaning over and above all the others.)  All of them work together as a complex whole: teaching us the purposes of God in the world, instilling in us more and more the holy fear of God, exhorting us to put away sin and be made holy, bringing us out of ourselves and setting us on a track further up and further into the mysteries of God, as we move from this world to the next.

Reading Scripture this way is not an easy project, however.  There are plenty of seeming contradictions in the text between one layer of meaning and another, between a particular passage and a similar one later on.  In those circumstances, the Church has learned a very practical solution.  We cannot simply dismiss Scripture out of hand, particularly when we place so much stock in the Holy Spirit to speak within it.  In circumstances of difficulty, contradiction, and paradox, the Church has learned not to skim over or ignore, but to sit up and take note.  From at least the time of Origen in the second century, and perhaps earlier, the Church has understood these moments as essential clues: clues that the most apparent meaning in the text is not the final one.  In places where Scripture seems not to make sense, or to contradict itself, classic Christian wisdom has seen a sure-fire clue that the Holy Spirit is drawing us further into a deeper mystery.

One of the clearest examples is John the Baptist.  At the beginning of John’s Gospel, the Pharisees ask him point-blank if he is Elijah — whom Scripture promised would come again to prepare the way for the Messiah.  John the Baptist replies — equally point-blank — that he is not Elijah.  At the beginning of Mark’s Gospel, however, which we’ve just heard chanted, all the imagery indicates that John the Baptist really is the second Elijah: living in the wilderness, preaching repentance, calling people to return to the Lord.  At another point in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus himself seems to indicate, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that John the Baptist was indeed Elijah: in chapter nine, he says that “Elijah has indeed come,” and that people treated him just as badly the second time as they did the first time.

What do we make of this?  Is John the Baptist really Elijah, or isn’t he?  This seeming contradiction points us to a third way.  Both possibilities are true, and are meant to show us that the prophetic word, the promise that God would forgive, redeem, and save his people, is not just hot air, not just so much rhetorical imagery, but that it will be fulfilled in a flesh and blood person — who is the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ.  The question, “Who is John the Baptist?” points us to God’s answer in Jesus, leads us towards the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and incorporates us into the mystical body of Christ, the household of God.

If all this sounds a little far-fetched, or a little too complicated, all we have to do is look at our own lives.  You and I are full of many of the same difficulties and contradictions that we see in Scripture.  We say one thing and do another.  We have ideals for our lives and hopes for our society, and our weaknesses and sins keep us from achieving either of them.  Everywhere we see good intentions for better futures; everywhere we see self-interest and human flaws contributing towards destruction and chaos instead.

We hear promises like in today’s reading from Isaiah: in which the glory of God is revealed, the rough places are smoothed, the valleys raised, God’s justice spreads abroad, and he cares for his people as a shepherd for his sheep.  We hear these promises and we look around: we do not often see evidence of God’s justice, we rarely see gentleness prevailing in anything; and the glory of God often seems drowned out by bombs and poverty and dishonesty.  How do we read our lives?  How do we read our world?

One option is to dismiss the promises of Scripture, and say they cannot be true.  Too many choose this option, and it is always sad.  Another option is to live in denial about the suffering of our world, and to throw ourselves into the glittering images of a future utopia.  Too many choose this option too, and it always misses the point.

But there is a third option, the difficult option: to see in all of our present difficulties and contradictions the working of the Holy Spirit of God, guiding us through our current thorny ways, pointing us towards a higher truth, a greater promise.  The Holy Spirit neither dismisses hope nor denies suffering, but redeems them both in the person of Jesus Christ.  Whenever we are most confused, most pressed into a corner by the tension between our faith and our world, it is a sure sign that God is near: working his higher purpose, working to draw us nearer to him, to incorporate us all the more fully into himself and his purposes for the world.

How do we take hold of the promise?  How do we find forgiveness for our sins?  Heed the teaching of John the Baptist: repent and be baptized; ask forgiveness, and be washed in the water of new life.  Above all, love him whose way John the Baptist came to prepare.  Love him in whom are met the hopes and fears of all the years (as the Christmas carol puts it).

Soon we will meet him today again at the altar, in the Sacrament of his Body and Blood.  It is the Sacrament of death and sacrifice, of resurrection and new creation.  It is the sacrament of love: his love for you and me, poured out upon the cross.  All contradictions, all paradoxes, all conflicts of meaning, come together there, in one person, Jesus Christ.  Let us love him.  So may our confusion and our dis-ease find their answer.  So may our mission be made clear.  So may we be made ready to meet him when he comes again.  So may we rejoice in his kingdom, where righteousness finally dwells.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

This sermon was preached at 8am and 10am on 23 November 2014 at S. Stephen’s Church, for the feast of Christ the King.  Music at the 10am solemn mass was Domenico Scarlatti’s Messa breve “La Stella”

Collect: Almighty and everlasting God, whose will it is to restore all things in thy well-beloved Son, the King of kings and Lord of lords: Mercifully grant that the peoples of the earth, divided and enslaved by sin, may be freed and brought together under his most gracious rule; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Readings: Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24, Ephesians 1:15-23, Matthew 25:31-46

In the Name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Well we’re fresh from election season, and there seem to be a few more sound bites than usual.  Commercials too, with Thanksgiving and Christmas not too far off.  Most of these have the character of an “elevator pitch” — short, pithy statements, meant to communicate what you’re about in the time it takes to ride an elevator.

They’re used for more than just ads and politics.  Some of my students tell me they’re encouraged to put this kind of statement at the tops of their resumes or on cover letters.  Elevator pitches are the kinds of things we might say about ourselves when first meeting a new colleague, or when catching up with a friend we haven’t seen in a long time.  In all these instances, the “elevator pitch” is a way of presenting a narrow, highly organized slice of ourselves such that it opens onto more, and invites people further in to whatever it is we’re offering.

Today’s passage from Ephesians is an elevator pitch.  The whole thing is rendered in English as only one sentence.  Phrase piles on phrase, clause on clause, as Paul sets forth his chief points right at the beginning of the letter.  It’s as if Paul were breathless with the urgency of it all, and finishes with a grand cosmic statement of the unity of all creation, and the Kingship of Christ over all.  The rest of Ephesians is an expansion of this elevator pitch, and Paul develops these statements into a thorough argument about the nature of grace, the mission of the church, and the scale of the Gospel: encompassing every aspect of the heart, every category of human relationship, and all things in heaven and on earth.  We’ll hear an even shorter version off this elevator pitch a little later on this morning, when the choir sings the Te Deum: “Thou art the king of glory, O Christ, the everlasting Son of the Father.”

Today’s readings are appointed for the same reason we’re singing the Te Deum.  Today we keep the feast of Christ the King.  In itself, this feast is an elevator pitch, and reflects the time it was first celebrated.  You may already have read in your Kalendars, or in last week’s Parish Notes, that this feast was first declared in 1925, as a response to the growth of fascism in Europe.  It asserted the kingship of Christ over all earthly rulers, and reminded Christians that their final loyalty was to Him, and not to any authority this world might claim.

Today, Christ the King might sound somewhat less timely, old-fashioned even.  The doctrine of Christ’s kingship is sometimes offensive, especially to those who hold painful memories of ill-placed imperialism undertaken by Christians who forget that Our Lord’s kingdom does not belong to this world alone.  Similarly it can sound like far too removed a claim, that somehow, from far beyond the stars, Christ rules even over the present, which is so patently full of darkness and pain.  Just like the elevator pitches we make about ourselves, “Thou art the King of Glory, O Christ,” is a narrow statement, which others are free to accept and learn more, or to reject and have no more to do with.  For those outside the Church, and for many even inside, it can appear as a tiny keyhole, extremely difficult to see through to the other side, let alone to pass through with our minds and hearts intact.

And yet this is what we celebrate today: in Paul’s words, that God the Father, having raised Christ from the dead, “Made him sit at his right hand in the heavenly places . . . put all things under his feet, and has made him head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.”  What happens when we unpack that elevator pitch?  What happens when we peer through that keyhole?  What is life like on the other side?

When by faith we manage to pass through, the whole world opens up so exponentially that, on turning around to see where we came from, our whole lives seemed the keyhole.  It was not small after all; we were, our world was.  When we are willing to own Christ enthroned in Glory, we begin to see his glory shot through the whole world.  A painting becomes a window into eternity.  A landscape becomes an icon of tenderness.  Our friends begin to reveal the face of God.  Strangers begin to look familiar, and they appear to us as Christ himself.

In the Kingdom of Christ, our joy increases, but so does our responsibility.  As every thing and every creature and every person takes on added depth of spiritual richness, reflects a greater and greater heavenly light, you and I are more and more duty-bound to love them according to the love of him who sits enthroned in glory, who gave himself up to death for us and for the whole world.  In that death there is a victory to end all victories; for Christ to have conquered death means He is king in deed and not just in word.  But it also means you and I have no excuse for allowing death to retain the upper hand in our lives and in the lives of our fellow human beings.  When our eyes our fixed on the King of Glory, we see that our task in this life is not merely to carve out a pleasant corner for ourselves, doing good where we can and suffering hardship when we must.  Rather our task is nothing less than to strive with all our hearts and all our minds and all our strength against whatever pockets of darkness remain, in our lives and in our world.

This requires that you and I pay attention and notice where we are complicit in sin, where we are culpable for preserving the power of the kingdom of death.  It requires that we name our failures, and ask for forgiveness.  It requires that we stand with confidence on the word of our King, who honors our repentance, and encourages us with the promise that his victory is ours too.

“Thou art the King of Glory, O Christ” is an elevator pitch which opens up the world: under his rule it is a far larger, far more cohesive place than it could ever be under any other ruler.  Under his rule the living and the dead are knit together in one fellowship.  Angels and all the ranks of heavenly creatures share in their company.  All the furthest reaches of the universe, and the tiniest subatomic particles are linked in harmony with one another.  The greatest achievements of art and music, the most stunning feats of courage and valor, the quietest, most gentle whispers of a mother to her child, are the common inheritance of all.  The power of sin and death have been broken, and Life is freely offered to everyone.  Wherever we go in his dominion, whatever our life’s work, whomever we find to accompany us on the way: under the Kingship of Christ, everything is seeded with glory, and we witness it at every turn.

On this feast of Christ the King, let us give thanks for such a king as this.  Let us pray that his kingdom be manifested in full, even as it is now in part.  Let us work, to strengthen the bonds of our fellowship with all the citizens of Christ’s Kingdom: that even as he fills all in all, so he may dwell in us, and we in him, to ages of ages.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.