Advent 2: Time

“Time, time, time
See what’s become of me
While I looked around for my possibilities
I was so hard to please
But look around
Leaves are brown
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter

Hear the Salvation Army band
Down by the riverside’s
Bound to be a better ride
Than what you’ve got planned
Carry your cup in your hand
And look around you…”

Songwriter: Paul Simon

A Hazy Shade of Winter lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Universal Music Publishing Group

Advent is all about time, the time of waiting for the coming again of Jesus. There are many that believe Jesus’ coming again will be like the conquering hero the Jewish people expected in the first place. Actually, I am not so sure that the people of the time expected the conquering hero for the Messiah as-much-as Christians have placed that expectation on the Jewish people. Consequently, I am not sure that Jesus’ “coming again time” will be significantly grander than his first coming. Still, the question of the years continues to be, “When?”

Advent is that season of the year that allows us to consider our own presuppositions about time. First, do we live in a world of circular time or linear time? Thomas Cahill posits In the Gift of the Jews that linear time is the consequence of Abram leaving home with Sarai and Lot for the Promised Land. It is the journey of Abram with the hope of God’s promise being fulfilled that introduces our ability to plan and think in linear time. Expectation, which is based on previous circumstance, is the product of circular time while hope is linear. Before Abram, and in many cultures yet today, circular time continues to be the primary product of time thinking.

Then, of course, there is the difference Paul Tillich introduces as the difference between chronological time and kairos time, that is God’s time. Chronological time plods on in its own second-by-second manner quietly measuring the distance between where we have been and the moment of now. Kairos time, on the other hand is that time when humankind recognizes the cross-roads moment when God’s way leads one way and the way of the world is goes another. (Many place the way of the world on the lefthand side of the divergence because it is sinister, but I find that thinking unhelpful. I think it is enough to know that God’s way and the world’s way are not always the same way.)

There are some who believe that the current era is one of those kairos points in history. Will the people of “project democracy” seek the justice and justification of God’s leading in this moment during the coming elections or will the people follow the ways of power, position, privilege, and protectionism? Will the country promote the needs of the people, the impoverished, and the dispossessed, or will it continue to give its favor to the wealthiest of the nation?

Lastly, Advent calls people to consider the balance between the events of our lives and the remembered time of our lives. Some might speak the romanticized memory of “the good old days” while ignoring the time of struggle that existed during them.

All of these considerations of time come into play when we read these opening words of Mark, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, [the son of God]”. Paula Fredrickson and others, including Peter (not the disciple) have pointed to the in media res (fancy language for starting in the middle) beginning, but she and most others are not helpful in connecting the need for the middle start. Peter (not the disciple) discussed the beginning of the book of Mark in Currents in Theology and Mission, View of Vol. 41 No. 6 (2014): Scripture for Christ's Time: Reading Year B (currentsjournal.org).

In short, Peter maintains that the book of Mark is written in epic form, a format where the beginning is the middle, the middle is the end, and the end is the beginning. (Does that make your brain hurt? It really pushes me.) It all has something to do with the fact that the last sentence of Mark in Greek is incomplete, something like this, “They were fleeing from the tomb, terror and amazement had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone for”.

My English teacher, Mrs. Murphy (Remember her? She was referenced in the 23^rd Psalm, “Surely good Mrs. Murphy will follow me all the days of my life.” I continue to have nightmares over that.) Anyway, Mrs. Murphy would have given Mark a failing grade for that conclusion, but Peter argues that Mark’s conclusion to that incomplete sentence is the first sentence of the book of Mark.

Like Genesis which begins, “In the beginning of”, and God speaks the cosmos into being, so now, Mark’s Gospel begins the good news which is God speaking the new creation of resurrection into being. This of course means that the Gospel of Mark through 10:52 is the Easter proclamation. Then in 16:6-7, the young man dressed in a white robe, set to start the story again, says, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him…. he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.”

At the end of this week’s reading, we see Jesus coming from Nazareth in Galilee to be baptized. This coming from Galilee is not an expectation (circular time) but hope and promise (linear time). Although it took place in historic, chronological time, it is also an historic moment when all creation witnesses God’s inbreaking with the Word (of promise and hope) made flesh and revealed in the person of Jesus. It is also that time of suffering that we can now remember with a memory of resurrection, new creation and a new vision for the world.

How does this new resurrection life begin? It begins with the prophetic work of making the rough places smooth. It begins in accountability and repentance. It begins in the waters of death drowning and new life rising with Jesus into new ways of living, new relationships with God and one another, and new ways of engaging the world.

This introduction to Jesus by John does not introduce us to Jesus his cousin, but to the risen Christ, the Easter Jesus, and it this risen Jesus, the risen Lord, who wears the sandals that John is unworthy of untying. Here in these opening days of Advent, we are offered a different way to think about time. These are not the times where “the skies are a hazy shade of winter”. They are days of new life, of promise and hope.

Indeed, “Down by the riverside’s bound to be a better ride than what you’ve got planned. Carry a cup(chalice?) in your hand….” In the confluence of all the streams of Advent time we are going to embark on a journey that will lead us into a world where the marginalized become the center of wholeness and where the blind can see the way of the cross and follow (10:52). Then when the way of resurrection discipleship is recorded, and the story is ended, Mark tells the story of the one who was crucified and is raised from the dead that we might live in this time of good news, the good news of Jesus Christ, the son of God.

When? Now!

CORRECTION--JESUS LOVES! Retrospective Roominations

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CORRECTION--JESUS LOVES!

Retrospective Roominations

by Jack D. Sypal

Dateline: Rome, April 13, 13:01:38

In this year of the double nickels, as our new emperor, Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, continues to fiddle with Senate relations, foreign policy,  and social welfare inequalities at home; as cases of heartburn increase because our beloved emperor refuses to give up his music career and accept the responsibilities of governing the empire like an adult; as our most excellent emperor releases his Greatest Lyre Hits with original rap lyrics under the tag NC CAG & the Luminaries and fires up the crowds with his roof-top concerts (featuring hits like Nero, My God is Me; I Walk in the Garden when Stoned;  Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire; his Consort concert tribute to an old flame, Ablazing Grace; and the original groove of, Burning Down the House), this reporter thought to look back at some of the events that have helped to shape our world today.
One of the most consistent challenges to Roman authority continues to be The Way, that Jesus movement that gained great traction after the Jesus crucifixion event over twenty years ago. It has spread from a minor public execution site outside of Jerusalem to major urban centers throughout the kingdom including Rome itself. Six years have passed since Emperor Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus attempted to eradicate the insidious, insurrectionist movement by edict. That act failed; today, the movement seems to be alive and doing fine.
I originally hoped to interview some of the earliest Jesus followers before their stories vanish like smoke on the morning breeze, but did not expect to be able to interview a first shaper of what we have come to know as the Christian movement. I caught up with Brother Simon, aka Cephas, aka Peter (Bro’ Pete), in a little wine bar down the street from the Aetna Mountaineering Outfitters, Persian Rug Emporium, Ye Olde Turke Coffee Shoppe & Frank’s Sensible Perfumery owned and operated by Prisca and Aquilla.
After I bought a skinful of wine for Bro’ Pete, he started to regale me with some of the amazing fish stories of his life with Jesus of Nazareth and afterwards. Don’t let him get started on the tuna story. Following is his account of the sequence of events that led to what he affectionately calls The Rolling Stone GenExt.
Bro’ Pete claims, “It started one night when the bunch of us had reserved this private dining room above our local hangout in Jerusalem. All of us were there. There was Nate the Great (Nathaniel); Drew (Andrew); the bag man (Judas); Phil the Pill (Philip); Ditto (Thomas); me, of course (they called me Rocky in those days); and the Jam-Man. Most people thought we called him J.C., but he preferred Messiah. I know, Messiah means Christ, but Messiah was what he liked. J.M. was too hard to say, so we did what all good Jewish guys do with consonants, we added a vowel. Once the a got put in there, man just seemed a natural extension. And it really fit because he was always riffing on some old teaching and finding new ways of saying things—like jazz you know?
“Anyways, the Jam-Man and the rest of us guys were waiting for the servant girl; I think her name was Mandy—yeah, that was it, Mandy Tirsveh. She was supposed to come in and wash our feet, but nothing was happening. All of a sudden, the Jam-Man got up and started curtsying and was taking off his robe and stuff. It was pretty hilarious actually. Then he took a towel and tucked it into his waist band, took the basin of water and knelt down to do the washing himself.
“(By the way, do you know the difference between a bison and a buffalo? You can’t wash your feet in a buffalo. Pretty good, huh?)
“Okay then. When the Jam-Man got to me, I thought that I would yuck it up a little. I said, ‘Not just my feet. Wash my face and my hands, too.’ That’s when things got serious. It had all been good times up to then. We all knew the serious stuff was happening the next day, what with Passover and all, so we were just blowing off a little steam.
“Anyways, Mandy eventually showed up. She served the food, and supper was going along until the Jam Man said that one of us was going to betray him. Really, it would have been more accurate if he had said that we all were going to betray him because, you know, we all did. But when he told us that one of us was going to betray him, we all said that it couldn’t be one of us. Then, the Jam-Man dipped bread in the dessert wine and gave the first bite to the Bag Man. Then the Jam-Man said, ‘The betrayer has dipped his bread in the wine with me.’ And that was that. The Bag Man looked at all of us, and then he ran out of the room.
“I was feeling pretty large at the moment—a good meal, good wine, in the midst of my bros, and I had just dodged the bullet. Yeah, I was feeling pretty large. I said, ‘Now that that’s done, you know you can count on me. I’d never betray you. You know I’ve always got your back, don’t you?’
“That’s when he told me that I would deny him three times before the cock crowed. I told him that I would lay down my life for him! I meant it, too! I never intended to leave him in the lurch! I just got scared. Know what I mean?
“After the Bag Man left, the Jam-Man sat back and got all reflective. He kept looking at the door the Bag Man had left by, like he was waiting for him to come back, but he didn’t. Then he said, ‘You know I love you guys, don’t you? Well, I need to tell you this. You guys have some hard times ahead of you. My time is now, but your time is still coming. It’s important that you find ways to continue to love one another. Your love for one another is how the world is going to know you. So, remember to love one another.’
“And then, he looked even more distant than ever, like he’d had one glass of wine too many, and, in this far-off voice, he said, “Even Judas.” That shook us because he called him Judas and not the Bag Man. We all thought, like we wouldn’t love the Bag Man? The Bag Man was irritating and odd at times, but he was our little oddity, and we never doubted that he was one of us. How things can change…how things can change. We really didn’t know.
“Anyway, we got done with supper, and we went to the Garden. The Jam-Man got arrested when the soldiers and the temple police showed up.
“We started out following at a distance, and so we saw where they took him. One of us, Beloved, we called him—he was the secret disciple that kept us informed of stuff going on in the Jerusalem priesthood set—convinced the servant girl keeping the door that night into letting me in to the courtyard of Annas’ house.
“That’s when everything hit me. I was surrounded by all these soldiers and Jerusalem elites. I knew that they could have me arrested too by just raising their voices. So, when they asked if I was a disciple, I said, ‘No way.’
“So much for laying down my life, huh? It wasn’t bad enough that I denied being a disciple of his once, I did it three times. and then the rooster crowed.
“You know, the Jam-Man kept saying that his time was not up, his time wasn’t up, and then he suddenly changed his tune. Then it was, “My time is up. My time is now, and it’s going to be great, glorious, revealing.” We didn’t have a clue.
“Now, of course, I know what he meant. So much is clearer today. But back then? I didn’t have a clue. So many of us sat at that table that night, and none of us had a clue. But afterwards we got it—got it well enough to say that we could lay down our lives, not for the Jam-Man, he laid down his life for us—but to lay down our lives for the sake of those that come next.
“That’s why I like to call this movement The Rolling Stone GenExt. It’s all about making the difference for the kingdom today and preparing the kingdom for those who come next.
“I gotta tell you. The supper we had that night was great. Whenever I sit down with friends to a meal like that, I always remember the days of the Jam-Man, and it’s like he’s really there with me. It’s a little spooky, but it feels good. You know what I mean?
“Somehow or other though, I just can’t eat chicken anymore.
“Well, thanks for the wine. I gotta go. Luv ya, man,”
With that said, Bro Pete put the bota skin on the table, got up and walked away. He seemed to vanish in the crowd. Reports continue concerning Bro Pete’s activities in the area. Rumor has it that he will soon be a papa.

The Peoples' Court, Matthew 25:31-46

To everything there is a season: a time to reflect and a time to dream. As we stand on the threshold of 2017, reflecting on the past year and looking forward to our time together in the future, we are called in today’s readings to pause and consider Christ’s judgment of where we have been and challenged to think about where we are going. We are called to take time to contemplate our place in the world and our place in God’s Kingdom. We are encouraged to take some time to dream about the possibilities of what God’s good creation and goodness means and what a world of mutual care and support might be like.

Here, near the end of Matthew, tucked in between Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem and his arrest, crucifixion and resurrection, is this amazing and disturbing scene of the end time. It is not presented as a parable, “The kingdom of God is like…”; rather, it is set in apocalyptic literary form in the great judgment hall of heaven. Here the son of man comes in glory to sit upon the throne of glory to judge the nations.

In this heavenly courtroom, we are called to look around and notice where we are. We are called to remember the other times we have been here. Noting this space, we remember the other words that have come down to us from this judgment place. We hear the words of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the other prophets declaring God’s words of judgment, forgiveness, and reconciliation; and we remember that this scene of judgment is not the final statement of Matthew’s Gospel.

So, as a people of the nations, as people of the United States of America, let us sit in the gallery of the heavenly courtroom and witness the judgment of the world. Let us sit in anticipation of our nation’s judgment. Will we be among the sheep or the goats?

I can imagine myself sitting in the gallery, not being surprised to discover that there are no sheep, only goats. And yet, in this heavenly courtroom, Jesus tells us that the picture of the world is not as dismal as it first seems: indeed, the nations wonder how they were chosen as sheep. Indeed, Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty, a stranger or naked, sick or imprisoned?

2016 has been one of those years that will probably have historians scratching their heads for many years to come. Crises throughout the world have raised the specters of fear and hate, death and despair, arrogance and oppression, and, in response to these specters, many nations have turned to isolationism, preferring to pull into themselves like a turtle into its shell, withdrawing from the problems of the world.

Yet, the problems of the world do not go away. More than 4300 people have been shot this past year in Chicago alone. Of them, more than 700 died. There was the shooting massacre at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, the bombing and the attempted bombings in New York. This is without mentioning those who have died in our area due to violence and drugs.

Many of those who have been entrusted with the duty of protecting and serving us have been captive to racism and power. In the performance of their duties, law enforcement officials have killed more than 950 people; more than 40 of the victims were unarmed, and many were mentally ill. In response, people have shot and killed 64 innocent police personnel without cause. These 64 deaths account for almost half of the 135 police officers who died in the line of duty.

“Then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him and he will separate the peoples, one from another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.” Other than the fact that I am blind, is there something wrong with my vision? I am not seeing any sheep! I am only hearing the bleating of goats.

Internationally, we were already reeling from the bombings in Paris, when Brussels was bombed in February. Then there were the truck attacks where more than 80 people were killed in Nice, and most recently, 12 killed and 48 injured in Germany. Let us not forget the tens of thousands of men, women and children who died in Aleppo.

In the meantime, we held an election that included the selection for the highest office in our country. During that process, some of the most vitriolic language was used by our two major parties. Threats of imprisonment and charges that parts of our society are irredeemable were made. Indeed, Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty, a stranger, or naked, sick or imprisoned?

But there are sheep. They are gathered at the son of man’s right hand. He has called them to recognize their blessings and to enter the kingdom that has been prepared for them from the foundations of the world. But where are the sheep coming from?

If this heavenly courtroom scene were the last statement of Matthew, I would have nothing but dreadful words of condemnation for you today. With the disciples, I would throw up my hands and say, “So who can be saved? I know that there was a plan that was good and strong from the foundations of the world, but remember? Humanity screwed that one up years ago. We have proven time and again that we are more interested in ourselves and our personal relationships than we are with you, God, or anyone outside our personal zones of influence. We are a selfish, stiff-necked people. We are interested in our own sense of honor, our own privilege, our own homes and our 401K’s. Okay, we give to what we consider to be good causes, but really Lord, the dead-beat jobless? The sick? The imprisoned? Illegal aliens? The naked? The hungry? And thirsty? Why don’t you just ask us to clean up the air and the water, to give up our scenic vistas so that endangered species will thrive again? What do you mean, it’s not about us?”

And as the Gospel of Matthew continues, we are confronted with a hierarchy that wants to arrest and kill Jesus; disciples who begrudge Christ’s anointing; the Last Supper that leads to Jesus’ arrest, trial, renunciation, crucifixion and death. Jesus will be hungry, thirsty, called a Nazarean stranger, stripped of his clothes, sickened by oppression, and imprisoned. Throughout this time, his closest disciples will betray and desert him. It will be left to just a few—Pilate’s wife, Simon of Cyrene, a centurion and those with him, Joseph of Arimathea, and some women—to be the sheep, the ones who cared enough to recognize Christ for who he is. The rest of the world are goats who deserve to suffer eternal punishment.

But wait! The throne of glory for the son of man is not a royal throne but a cross. The judgment of the world is not based on merit but grace. The verdict is not about who we are but whose we are. The decision of eternity is not based on our lives but the resurrected body of Christ. God’s judgment does not end at the tomb. He goes ahead of us to Galilee; and we are called to follow and find him there to baptize and teach, to gather at Christ’s table to feed and give drink, to welcome all into our midst in Christ’s name, to be clothed in Christ’s righteousness, to support them in sickness and in health, to lift them up from the prisons of those things that attempt to separate us from the love of God, and to walk in Christ’s ways.

To everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven: a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to despair and a time to hope, a time to die and a time to rise from the dead, a time for reconciling peace. I swear it’s not too late. Through Christ’s death and resurrection, I am beginning to see a lot of hopeful sheep. Thanks be to God!

Light, in the Darkness, Shines John 1:1-14

During this Advent season, we have been talking about time. We have talked about discerning God’s time of coming, the wilderness times of our lives and the assurance of God’s presence, times of transition in new community in Christ’s healing presence, and time to love and to know God’s justice in the world. Today our time of waiting is over. It is now time to begin the conversation of how God has come to dwell among us and what that means for us in this time and place.

Many scholars think that the opening words in John shift our sense of time. No longer do we think of the day beginning in darkness, at sunset, as our first covenant Jewish ancestors did. Rather as Christians, we think of creation and our days as beginning with light. The gift of light is so great that we now order our lives with the event of sunrise.

Yes, all the Gospels push us in this direction. The Easter tomb is discovered by the women in that very early time of day when the dawn is just occurring thereby shifting Christian Sabbath from sunset Friday night through Saturday to sunrise Sunday morning and the rest of that day. Yet, with this focus on light, we lost something of God’s activity in our lives. In the Genesis account of creation, God’s work is done in the darkness of night, and then it is revealed in the light of day. The emphasis of time starting with light alters our thoughts about God’s activity in our lives and our relationship to creation.

This new way of thinking—that the day begins with the light and ends with the darkness—allows humanity to think that the gift of dominion means that we are the primary workers in the world. The world should bend to our will. This new way of thinking pushes the consideration of God’s activity in the world from being the initiating creator to being the janitorial service. God, like our parents when we are little, will come behind us and pick up the mess we make.

This thought of light being the most essential thing has dominated our thoughts on the Gospel of John so much that it has even influenced our translation of the text. Today in the NRSV we read, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” (1:5) As life and light have already been connected in the verses before, so now, the light shines into the darkness revealing the subversive machinations of an already corrupt world that has the potential of overpowering the light.

Though this understanding of creation can appeal to us today, it really appealed to Christians of the late first century. When the Church was under persecution, when Christians were being imprisoned for their faith, when Christians were being used as entertainment in the coliseum as cat food for leopards and lions, the world certainly appeared to be a particularly depraved and evil place. If good was going to come out of it, goodness would need to be injected into it. God’s goodness would need to come from outside creation to effect change. Right?

This way of thinking, that the world and all of creation was totally corrupt, was so popular and widespread among early Christianity that early Christian leaders gathered together to say that this is not how God works. God does not work from outside the world as a master puppeteer manipulating the strings of creation. Since the beginning, God always has and always will work within God’s established relationship with creation. God works through vulnerability not strength. God works in the midst of the poor, the disabled, and the disenfranchised, not the wealthy and the powerful. God does not show up like some Superman character who is “faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, who can leap tall buildings in a single bound.” We do not raise our eyes to the heavens saying, “Look! It’s a bird, it’s a plane! No, it’s SuperChrist!” No, God does not work like Superman or any other super hero.

A careful reading in Greek of John 1:5 shows that our desire to have God work from the outside in has influenced how we translate this verse. The Greek does not say “The light shines in the darkness”. It literally says, “And the light, in the darkness, shines, and the darkness has not overcome it.” As long as the light shines, darkness, the absence of light, has no power. And it is in this place of darkness, of powerlessness, that God continues to create.

Through birth to Mary, God, in Christ, enters our lives. From a place of the absence of light, the darkness, God’s life-light shines out as a beacon to the world. From the darkness of the womb, a child is born. In the darkness of the world, a son is given who is the light and hope of all people. From the darkness of the tomb, new life begins, a wonderful counsellor, mighty Lord, prince of peace. Thus, we come to understand that our being and the being of all creation is life that proceeds from darkness with the Word of God; that the Word of God is revealed to us in the person of Jesus Christ; and that his life is the light of the world.

As light is the first thing created from the universal darkness of Genesis, so in John’s Gospel, light is created amid the darkness of the world. This light is not to expose the evil so much as it is to reveal the goodness of God’s work—the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. With John, we come to be a witness to that light and hope.

We, ourselves, are not the light, but we can bear witness to the light that is coming to the world, not from outside the world, but from within; not as the ultimate goodness conquering our evil, but as the illumined work of God’s handiwork. We can bear witness not just of a place in the future kingdom of God but of a place to live, in light and hope, here and now. This here and now place is not of our own will and making. It is not the will and making of governments. It is the foundational will of God that we should live in a just and peaceful world.

“And the Word became flesh and lived among us.” (v. 14) This simple English translation of “lived” does not quite capture the more complex Greek idea of “tented”, nor does it help us remember that God’s presence among God’s people was first recognized in the tent of the tabernacle in the wilderness. It does not help us imagine the wilderness times of our lives when we travel with God and how God travels with us. It does not really help us understand that God’s love for us and creation is so great that God comes into the midst of our communities to share in all of the problems of the world. Indeed “the Word became flesh and tented among us.” Christ does not come only to the privileged cities and wealthy neighborhoods. He comes to live among us with alcoholics, drug abusers, arthritics, the injured and the blind; knowing our joys and our sorrows, continuing to show us the light of hope to come.

We have seen his glory, and that glory continues to challenge and perplex us, to guide and lead us, teach and model God’s love for us and the world, full of grace and truth. With this grace and truth, we gain the persistence we need to continue telling our story of life through dying and rising in Baptism and receiving our sacred food of forgiveness and reconciliation with God. We continue to proclaim God’s word of grace-filled love and care for the world: God’s message of hope for the world.

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messengers who announce peace, who bring good news, who announce salvation, who say to all the people: “God reigns; listen, lift up your voices and sing with joy for the world; the Lord is come; let earth receive her king!”

Time for Loving Matthew 1:18-25

Okay, I have to admit that I have always thought of this passage as being lame. It’s sort of like spending a lot of time on the genealogy that precedes this text. Yes, there are some interesting names and situations that arise from the genealogy, but really not that much. Or is there?

We really don’t give Joseph much time. He is the almost contender. He is the guy that God beat out. He is the guy that I never wanted to be or hoped to be. Maybe that is why Joseph doesn’t get much time. It just may be that Joseph makes us nervous. As a matter of fact, aside from this story in Matthew and the second chapter story of Joseph taking Mary and Jesus to Egypt and then returning after Herod has died, nothing else is said about Joseph in Matthew at all.

Yet the imprint of Joseph continues to influence the story of our faith in interesting ways. Tradition says that Joseph is a carpenter and that he passes the trade of carpentry down to Jesus. In some of the non-biblical stories of Jesus we hear that Joseph and Jesus build a cabinet together, and, when they get it finished, it is too big to go through the door. Jesus shrinks the cabinet enough for it to go through, and then he expands it to its original size so that they can deliver it as ordered. Another time Jesus cuts a board, and it is too short so he lays his hands on it and stretches it to the right length. (There have been a few times in the shop when I’ve wished that I could do that.) No, we don’t get this information from the Gospels, but there is a long tradition that says that Joseph is indeed a carpenter, and, because of that, Jesus is a carpenter too.

So, who is Joseph? From the genealogy given in Matthew we learn that Joseph is the son of Jacob. Really? Wasn’t there another Joseph who was the son of Jacob? Wasn’t Jacob the father of twelve sons who became the leaders of the twelve tribes of Israel? Wasn’t Jacob’s son Joseph the one who was sold into slavery? Wasn’t Joseph the interpreter of dreams? Wasn’t Joseph the one that the Pharaoh went to with the dream of the fat bullocks and the skinny bullocks? Wasn’t Joseph the one who saved his family in the time of famine and gave them a place to live in Egypt? And wasn’t that first Joseph the ancestor of Moses who led God’s people out of slavery into the wilderness and then to the Promised Land?

We may not know much about this Joseph, but there is a great deal that we know about the first Joseph who was the son of Jacob, and Matthew wants us to remember these things when we begin to think about who this Joseph, the father of Jesus, is. Therefore, we are not surprised when the angel comes to him in a dream and tells him he needs to take the mother and the child to Egypt. We are not surprised when they return from Egypt because of a dream. This is the pattern of freedom and learning to walk in faith with God. The difference this time is that we learn what it means to have God walk with us having faith for us.

So today the outcome of so much depends on Joseph’s decision and actions concerning his betrothal to Mary. We are introduced to him with these words: Joseph is “a righteous man”. For many of us, we might easily translate righteous into good and therefore think, “Joseph is a good man.” And, because he is a good man, we might think he will naturally do good things. Joseph is righteous because he follows the law, not just the 10 commandments, but all of the laws found in Leviticus and Deuteronomy including Deuteronomy 22 which prescribes the consequences of being pregnant  while engaged. By law, both the woman who got pregnant by someone other than her betrothed and the other man were to be stoned. If the woman was taken (raped) in the fields, the man was to be stoned, but the woman was to be unpunished. Still that engagement was ended, and the woman was shamed. This is what the righteous man should do. He should end the engagement and walk away. Although he could be generous by doing this quietly, people would probably still talk.

When the angel comes to tell Joseph that the baby is from the Holy Spirit, Joseph is caught in a dilemma. If he walks away from Mary, he will dishonor God, but, if he honors God, staying engaged to Mary, then he states to the community that he is the father of the child, taking the shame of Mary’s pregnancy upon himself. Joseph is confronted with the other side of righteousness. The first definition of righteousness is to follow the law, but the other is to do justice. What is a guy to do?

Joseph’s decision pushes us in a new direction. His decision marks the beginning for those who will follow this child, this Jesus, our Emmanuel. For from this moment on, when law and justice do not walk hand-in-hand, justice will be the part of righteousness that will win out. This decision of Joseph’s marks the beginning of Christian thought that says to act with concern for the other is sometimes more important than personal appearances.

And so, Joseph makes the decision to choose unrighteousness in order to become righteous for the sake of the world. Doing this, he claims Jesus as his son with all of the responsibilities that go along with that decision. As a righteous man, he teaches his son his trade. He passes on his love of his work. In the process of living, he passes on his understanding of the law and the need for justice that goes beyond personal honor, a justice that lifts up the dishonored and the shamed as having value. He passes on his love of God’s people in a way that claims the need of God’s people to live in relationship together is more important than living by the letter of the law. From this decision, learned and appreciated by his son, we will hear, “You have heard it said,…but I say,….”

In the deserted wilderness place, Joseph’s son will feed thousands. In the midst of the world’s suffering, the outcasts (the blind, the lame, the unclean, the deaf and the poor) will be lifted up into new ways of living. From this righteous man, Jesus will learn to care for the needs of those around him even to the extent that he will suffer death, even death on a cross, taking the sins and the shame of the world upon himself, for the justification and justice of the world.

No, we do not know much about Joseph, but, through his ability to interpret dreams, he discerns the way to go. He claims and protects the one who will free us from our slavery to sin, who will lead us through the wilderness of our lives into the relationship of God’s grace and mercy that lifts up all of creation into God’s own kingdom of justice. With his decision, Joseph claims a time for loving judgment rather than punitive vengeance. By his decision, Joseph initiates a time and a season for loving that will only grow through the life, death and resurrection of his adopted son.

Now the birth of Jesus took place in this way, learning of God’s love and sharing it in our time and Advent season of loving.

Transition Time Matthew 11:2-11

So much of what we do each day is based on our expectations, and those expectations give order to our lives. Over the years, we have developed specific tools for keeping our expectations in check. The most common tool is our calendar. As the days go by in our lives we know what to expect by those all too common symbols—year, month, date, hour. With this simple device, we manage our life expectations.

Just a test. What year is this? What month is this? What day is this? Now for the trick question. What season is this?

Because of the answers you gave to these questions, I can know some of the expectations that determine how you live. Now the expectation that you are going to hear a good sermon today may not be realized, but I’m guessing that many of your other expectations will be.

For instance, you probably came expecting to participate in the liturgy, to confess our sins and to hear the words of forgiveness. You probably expect to profess your faith using the creed. You expect to come to the Lord’s table to be nurtured and strengthened in your faith. You also expect these things to happen in a usual and orderly manner. And these expectations will probably be met.

But when our expectations are not met, our emotional, psychological, and spiritual sense of well-being may be upset. We may feel disappointed, tense, off-balance, wronged, even angry. In general, we may just feel out of sorts. That sense of unbalance will continue until the old order is restored, or until we become accustomed to the new way of doing things.

This last week, Sue had eye surgery. Because of her overall eye condition and eye sight and because she is getting to that age when cataracts begin to inhibit sight anyway, the doctor thought that it was probably time for lens replacements. Because of her extreme astigmatism, the doctor recommended a new and improved type of lens called the toric lens.

We were expecting better vision after the surgery, but no one could predict exactly how much better. We were pleasantly surprised Friday afternoon when Sue read the 20/20 line without any trouble. Now she is looking forward to the next surgery to be done on her other eye. By Christmas she may have a whole new outlook on life.

Of course, there are times when our expectations are not met. Some of those unfulfilled expectations are going to be devastating, life-changing events. When we encounter these expectation challenges, we usually describe them with words like: disease, possibly terminal illness, addiction, mental illness, divorce, death, maybe bankruptcy. In those times, other expectation systems may come into play. We may expect to be shunned or shamed, or we may expect our circle of friends to gather around us. Hopefully, in those devastating, life-changing times of failed expectations, we find support, and, in those times of severe loss, we continue to know Christ’s presence in our lives. The knowledge of support and Christ’s presence can make all the difference between being able to make the transition from what our old expectations were to what the new reality is.

Our texts today address this world of expectation and transition. Let me briefly frame the context for these passages.

Isaiah 35 talks about the transition time between leaving the captivity of Babylon and returning home on the Holy Highway to Jerusalem. It anticipates the road God’s people will travel from Persia (modern Iran) through the wilderness of new life in the land God gave them after the first exile in Egypt.

Echoing the joy of this return, we hear the words of praise in Psalm 146. “Happy are those whose help and hope is in the Lord God, the maker of heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, who keeps faith forever, who executes justice for the oppressed, who gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets the prisoners free. The Lord opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down. The Lord loves the righteous. The Lord watches over the strangers and upholds the orphan and the widow, but the way of the wicked, God brings to ruin. The Lord, our God will reign for all generations, that is forever! Praise the Lord!”

In James, we are cautioned about over-exuberance and to be patient, discerning God’s work in our lives, to wait with expectation for God’s justice to be done.

As-much-as these texts talk about the dreams and expectations of God’s people, they are greater dreams than the reality of their world will admit. The Holy Highway will lead God’s people home, but there will be some who are lost on the way. The desert won’t bloom more gloriously that year, and, as-far-as I know, the leopard and the lamb are still having issues. The justice spoken of in Psalm 146 continues to be a dream of what is possible in God’s kingdom rather than the reality we live in so we hear these words from James with a certain amount of sighing and irritation. Patient? How long, O Lord?

Part of our difficulty in seeing God’s Holy Highway, of seeing God’s creative work among us, is that we want the big picture. We want the great acts of God—those Bible movie special effects acts that make the bad guys shake in their boots, witnessing God’s righteous people being saved from whatever it is that assails them—but God continues to work without considering our expectations.

I know I have said this before, but how we think of God determines what we think about God. If we think that God created the world and everything in it and then stepped aside to watch the world from a distance, or maybe God went off to create something else and left the world to be on its own because God was bored with the last project, then what we think about God is going to be limited to God’s initial work and fascination of the new world things but not the maintenance of the world. If we think that God is involved with planning every detail of creation and the lives of all the creatures including humanity, then God is not only responsible for all the good things that happen to us, but all the bad things too. God caused those bad relationships and our suffering. God wanted the car accident to happen so that people would die or be crippled for life.  If we think that God is always going to take care of us and keep us safe, then, when things don’t go the way we think they should, or when we find ourselves in dangerous places, we wonder whether God cares about us or whether we are being punished for something we did wrong. So, you see, our expectations of God determine whether we can even know God’s work and presence in our world today.

This is the situation John is in when he sends his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the one? Or, are we to wait for another?” John’s problem in today’s reading is that his expectations of God and how God will act do not match up with what Jesus is doing. John is living in a world that is thinking, “If God is going to come and be one of us, and God is all powerful, and God’s preference is towards God’s chosen people, and God’s chosen people are being oppressed by the nasty Romans, then God should have a certain amount of power and authority to defeat the Romans and establish God’s chosen people as the rulers of the world.” Right?

Instead of that powerful, vengeful God, Jesus tells John’s disciples that they are going to need to rethink how they think about God. That the God who created the world is also the one who continues to be in relationship with all of creation and continues to create new things in new ways, with new relationships. Jesus demonstrates another way of knowing how God is present in the world, not as conqueror or oppressor, but as healer and worker of justice, of lifting-up the forgotten into new ways of living. And beyond that, Jesus challenges us all to rethink the roll of prophet. Yes, John is a prophet, but he is more than that. A prophet is called up from the midst of God’s people to speak as an advocate for the poor and the afflicted, to claim justice for the widow, the orphan, and the stranger. John does this, but John also announces God’s presence among us—God’s Word revealed to us in the person of Jesus Christ.

Jesus tells John’s disciples to tell, that is, bear witness, to what you hear and see: the blind receive sight, the lame walk, the lepers (unclean) are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised and the poor have good news brought to them.

This is not a world of power to kill and vengefully overthrow. This is the power of healing presence. It is that other Psalm 146 expectation image of God. It is the vulnerable image of God that walks with us knowing our weaknesses, our disappointments, and hurts. It is the God who gives vision to the blind even if they can’t physically see. It is the God who makes sure the lame travel with the rest of God’s people even if they can’t walk. It is the God who cleanses the unclean in his own blood. It is the God who speaks in the silence that only the deaf can hear. It is the God who forgives us when we were dead in sin and raises us up into new ways of living. It is the God who says that poverty is not divine punishment, but an opportunity for the wealthy to share, for the world to recognize that life is not about us individually, but about the relationship of God and one another as we were first created: in God’s image.

This God of healing also works through the lives of others. The gift of sight that Sue is receiving comes through the gifted hands of a surgeon who is God’s child also. With artificial joints and limbs, the lame can walk and the maimed are given restored abilities. Through medicine and therapy those with diseases are treated and healed. Through our caring, the forgotten and the poor are given value. Do these things happen because Jesus is touching and speaking them whole? Well…?

With John, we are asked, “What are our expectations of God? Are those expectations realistic, or do we need to look for, to recognize, God’s presence and activity in our lives differently? Who is this Jesus? What difference does he make in the way we live our lives together?

In times of transition, we all come with certain expectations. When we are growing up, the times of transition are regular and often. There will be some disappointments along the way, but in general, life continues as it should unless something really big comes along to change everything. That change may be physical or psychological. It could be something that completely changes the way you think of and interact with creation—like finding out that the earth is round; or finding out that the sun is the center of the universe; or that we do not live in a universe at all, but a cosmological multiverse. Or maybe, that God has come to live among us as one of us.

During this transition time of Advent, we come with John in the prisons of our own limited thinking, asking with him, “Are you the one we are expecting?” For the question of who this Jesus is is a question that every generation needs to ask and answer. We have to keep asking the question because our world keeps changing. It is this issue of change that demands us to continue to rethink and proclaim who God is and what our relationship with God is going to look like in the coming years.

As the first week of Advent considered the time of when the Son of Man will come and the second week considered our wilderness time together, so it is that this week we consider the transition time of where we have been and where we are going. Of what in God’s name are we doing here? It is a time to consider what our expectations of God are, and then what are God’s expectations of us?

So, tell what you hear and see. If you aren’t hearing anything, make some noise that proclaims Christ’s presence among us! If you aren’t seeing anything, point out God’s activity to those who are also looking and walk in God’s healing justice ways.

Wilderness Time, Matthew 3:1-12

Do you remember the story of Adam and Eve? Do you remember the story of Moses and the Israelites passing through the Red Sea to freedom? Do you remember hearing the story of the Babylonian exile and how Cyrus freed God’s people to return to Judea and Jerusalem to rebuild the temple? Do you remember the day that Jesus was baptized and how God spoke as Jesus was coming up out of the water? And, do you remember the story of the crucifixion and how the tomb was empty on that first, early Easter morning?

Today I am here to tell you that each of these major faith events was followed by a wilderness experience. The same wilderness that we find John in today.

Last week I told you that Advent was all about time. Well, the time that we are going to be looking at today is wilderness time. Wilderness time in the Bible is really important time. It is the time when God’s people learn more about their relationship with God. It is the time God’s people learn to rely on God and the community God gives rather than relying on ourselves alone. It is an already-but-not-yet time of being released from the old life condition or situation but not knowing the reality of the new world we are living in.

 Adam and Eve, when they leave the garden, are dressed for success by God with leather clothing and then sent out to learn about their new relationship with God and one another. After passing through the Red Sea, Moses and the Israelites need to learn how to be God’s people in the world and how to live with one another. (I must admit that they were slow learners because it took them forty years to cover what should have taken forty days. Today it takes about eight hours in a car with lots of stops.)

After the Babylonian exile, we first hear the words of God’s highway in the desert, “A voice cries out in the wilderness. Prepare the way of the Lord.” From the Babylonian exile, God’s people come home changed, with another new relationship with God and God’s people.

 And when Jesus was Baptized, the heavens opened and the division between God and God’s people was forever changed. Even Jesus went into the wilderness to learn about his relationship with the Father, as the Son of God, and with God’s people, as the Son of Man.

Yes, and just before the Baptism of Jesus, John comes to us in that already-but-not-yet wilderness time. I am sure that you will be surprised to know that theology has a word for this kind of time. The word is proleptic time. In this proleptic time, John comes to us in the wilderness saying, “The kingdom of heaven HAS come near.” This is not some theoretical possibility that John is speaking of, it is already a fact. The kingdom is so near that in the verses that follow our reading today, Jesus comes to be baptized.

What is this Baptism of Repentance that John is talking about?  Repentance literally means to “re-think” or more appropriately, “wrap your mind around this instead of what you have been thinking.” It is a mindful life-changing way of doing things that allows reconciliation to be a reality.

So, in this wilderness time, John is challenging people to change the way that they think about God and their relationships with one another. John is asking them to put their old ideas of what it means to be God’s people aside for something new that is coming.

One of the sins that John is addressing, the reason he calls the Pharisees and Sadducees a “brood of vipers”, is that they believe they are more worthy to call themselves God’s elect by claiming Abraham as their ancestor.

Another sin is the people do not take seriously the laws God gave the Israelites in their earlier wilderness time to care for the widow, the orphan, the stranger, the poor, the blind, the lame, the deaf, and the maimed.

And, since we too seem to have so much trouble learning how to do that, we need to think about a world where God comes to be among us to teach and lead us into these new ways of living. In our wilderness time today, we are challenged to wrap our minds around a way of living which recognizes and names the issues of injustice in the world and of oppressive or abusive behavior we participate in in our daily lives. Then, regretting those destructive behaviors, we listen again to God’s desire for us to live in harmony and re-orient our lives so that our relationship with God and the community around us can go forward in a new direction.

Does this mean that we will be able to be reconciled with everyone? No! Jesus was never able to be, or even willing to be. reconciled with the power of the Roman Empire, but he made it possible for us to be reconciled with the true ruler of our world, this is Godself.

The reason that Jesus could not be reconciled with the Roman empire is that reconciliation is something that has to happen with all of the parties involved. If all parties are not willing to recognize the problem, or regret the outcome of previous conditions, then being able to reorient our ways of living together are not possible. Since the Roman Empire and the temple authorities were not able to recognize Jesus as God’s anointed, no regret was possible, and therefore re-orienting reconciliation could not take place.

Do not despair! We are reminded that the tree of life in our old ways has been cut down before. The temple has been destroyed, and the people of Jerusalem have been taken away as slaves to foreign lands, but, from the stump of that faith tree, a shoot of faith can grow. In this new growth of the stem there is hope, promise and joy.

Indeed, John tells us that the one who is coming, that is Jesus, will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. With this image, we foresee the Pentecost event. We recognize the fire as the purifying fire of the refinery, the fire that sterilizes and makes safe and good. Indeed, the winnowing fork is in his hand that will separate us from our sins and bring us into the granary, the Eden place where God’s relationship with us is made right again and our sins will be cremated and accounted to us no more.

In this wilderness time of Advent, we are called to bear the fruit of the tree from which we have gained new life, that is the cross. We are called to be the new shoot of faith growing up from the stump of old ways. We are called, in the darkness of our world, to be the welcoming light to those who are traveling in the dark.

And so, with the empty tomb, we recognize that God’s kingdom is not only near, but among us, and that we are living in that wilderness time of the already-but-not-yet, the wilderness time before our entry into the Promised Fullness of God’s Kingdom. We enter that world as the seeds of wheat not as the sheaves that have been harvested.  We enter the world as the harvest that is yet to be planted to be the new way of living with God and one another.

So may the God of hope fill you with joy and peace in Christ Jesus, that we will always know hope in our wilderness time together.

Time Matthew 24:36-44

Time. What is it? We talk about time flying, trying to save time, getting a jump on time, that time is money, when we are behind time we try to make up time, we say time waits for no one, that we are in time, out of time, and that things are timeless. We sing about time. Jim Croce asks “If I could put time in a bottle”, the Stones say that “Time is on my side”, Pink Floyd, in its song on time, talks about time running out. From the Bookends album, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkle sing, “Time, time, time, / See what’s become of me.”

From Isaiah, we hear that it is time to “beat our swords into plow shares and our spears into pruning hooks”: a time for nations to find ways of making peace and to learn the arts of war no more. From Romans we hear that we should know what time it is. It is time to wake from our sleep and dress ourselves with the armor of Light, to put on Jesus Christ, to remember who and whose we are.

Time is one of those most talked about things in our lives. One of the most asked questions is, “What time is it?” We run our lives by it, and yet, we still don’t fully understand it. For instance, does time only go from here to there, or is it possible that time can go from there to here? Can we travel in time? Can we go back in time and then come back to what would be the future? Or can we go forward in time and then come back to what would be the past? Can we in some way un-ring the bell that has been rung? Is time circular or is it linear?

With all the questions that we have about time, should we be surprised that our Gospel reading tells us that we will not know the time when the Son of Man will come again? This Advent, as we begin our new liturgical year, we confess that all we do is about time, but the time that we proclaim is God’s time, not our own. And, God’s time often runs contrary to our own.

So, we begin our time together this year burning candles, adding the light of one more candle each week, measuring the time between Christ the King Sunday and Christmas. We print special calendars that remind us that, as the world is getting darker and darker, our spiritual worshipping world is getting brighter and brighter anticipating the Second Coming of Christ. And then, when the Son of Man does not come, we begin retelling the story of Jesus Christ who has come to live among us and to be proclaimed as the light of the world, the light that cannot be overcome.

This time of waiting is not some idle time. We always hope for Christ’s coming, yet we prepare ourselves for his postponed coming again. And so, entering into our Gospel text today, we encourage one another in God’s kingdom work for which we are called, remembering that, in the days of Noah, people became complacent in their faith and did not remember their relationship with God and one another. We remember that Noah and his family were saved from the flood while the others were swept away. We pray that we will not be those people who are complacent in their faith and be swept away to the outer darkness in Christ’s second coming, but that we are those who remain for the coming day of judgment.

Thinking about the time we have shared, let us say with Frank Sinatra, “It was a very good year.” Let us pray with Ray Price “for the good times.” As we look back to the past year, we acknowledge with Bob Dylan that “the times, they are a changin’,”and with Chicago, let us ask, “Does anybody really know what time it is?” And then say, “Yes, it is God’s time.”

Let us walk in God’s light and walk in God’s time.