What am I if not a child of God?

 

What am I if not a child of God? We all have our identities that we cling to – roles, positions, authorities, relationships – that seem to tell us who we are. But every Christmas we can come home to a sense of our true selves, our true identity – as child of God. I am beloved and you are beloved. There is no question whom God loves best: he loves, you and me, all of us, beyond comparison.

What are we to do with this knowledge? Knowing that we are loved, we can carry a light – it may be small, but it is the light of the world – the beginning of faith, of trust in God and God’s love, renewed this year at Christmas. Love came down and dwells among us.

We cannot offer perfection: we can only offer ourselves, knowing that God will make even our imperfections a way for the light of Christ to enter into our lives.

Welcome beloved Child of God. Welcome all. Welcome to the household of God. Welcome to the church of Saint Alban. You are always welcome here.

What am I if not a child of God? I know that I am a child of God because I know that He is the Son of God.

Jesus, Lord at his birth, the one we celebrate this evening – the Nativity, the Incarnation, of God’s own Son, the one who brings into our world light and life, hope and love.

Through him we receive life. In him we live life to the full. Because this Child was born we know we are in God’s hands.

This Christmas Eve we are drawn together by one simple hope, one simple promise: that the love of God has shone into the world, and through this little Child, the abstract becomes real, the divine, incarnate.

The love of God becomes personal.

Because he is the Beloved Child of God, we know that we are God’s beloved children – all of us – and that is a rock-bottom identity that no one can take away from us.

God loves the world so much and the people in it so much that God freely chose to become human – to be born among us as one of us – and live in the universe, fully human and fully divine. Because God became incarnate in Jesus all creation is made holy.

Knowing Jesus is God with us, in the flesh, we know that we matter – eternally – and that what God made when God made human beings is good – good enough to be born into, good enough to live in, suffer in, and to die for; good enough to make, redeem, and make holy.

This good world was made by God, redeemed by God, and sanctified by God – made holy by God – the God whom Jesus taught us to call Abba, Our Father.

This night may we live into the mystery of the Christ Child and the joy of Christmas, knowing that we are his beloved children.

So tonight bring your gifts – the joys of your hearts, the fullness of your sorrows, the fruits of your labors, and lay them all at Jesus’ feet, and know that he will bless them and bless you – as you take up your lives again – and bless others through you as you share the love of him with them.

I can hardly wait for Christmas … but I’ll try.

 

I can hardly wait for it, for all it means to me: festivities, family, friends, now and remembered, here and far away. I want Christmas morning to arrive. But – it is not here yet; I am still waiting, waiting for more than Christmas presents can provide, more than wassail or caroling.

I am eager in anticipation for something greater than these – deliverance (and not just from holiday sales and canned Santa songs). Deliverance into the new kingdom Jesus comes to begin – the new order of the ages John told us was just around the corner.

I want to hear the story of our savior. The one of whom the prophets sang. The one “Messiah” is all about – wonderful, counselor, almighty God, prince of peace – though I know this is only Part One and we will not get to the end of the story until after Holy Week, after Easter, after Ascension, after Pentecost…

I can hardly wait for the celebrations, the holly, the ivy, (the mistletoe), the wassail, the carols, and the candlelight. I want to walk up the path to church between luminaria and into the hall for song and into the sanctuary for communion and into the stillness of night, stars, hidden or shining, waiting above, signaling…

I would like to see the world released from darkness. I would like to see the dawning of the light. And so I can hardly wait to see the beginning of his promised peace.

Still I eagerly await the coming of the King born at Christmas – because with joyful anticipation I prepare my heart. There is certainly room, if I let him in. And so—

I can hardly wait for Christmas … but I’ll try.

Christmas Season at St. Alban’s

The celebration begins at 5 o’clock on Christmas Eve, just after dark – we couldn’t imagine waiting any longer – with caroling, communion, and, yes, candlelight.

The next service is the next morning, Christmas Day, at 10:30 a.m.

We will have the Eucharist at the usual times (8 & 10:30am) on the First Sunday after Christmas.

The twelve days of Christmas season continue until the Eve of the Feast of the Epiphany – Twelfth Night.

Come join us in celebrating the Nativity of Our Lord – and the birth of the new possibility we find in following the way of Jesus.

JRL+

For the Gospel Grapevine (December 2012), parish newsletter of St. Alban's Episcopal Church, Edmonds, WA.

in the city of the shepherd-king

One Christmas I got something unexpected in the mail – a shoebox, for women’s pumps, black, size 7-1/2 B.

Inside the box were three half-pound packages of coffee from Old Bisbee Roasters in Arizona.

There was a note, from my friend Colleen. When she bought the coffee for me, as a Christmas gift, she’d told the roaster that I was a minister. So he’d said to make sure to tell me that he ‘wants to have a personal relationship’—with me.

There was also a Christmas card. The outside had a cartoon of a little boy, presumably in a Christmas pageant, with a blanket on his head. It was captioned “What Christmas is really about.” Linus, Charlie Brown’s little brother, was reciting from the 2nd chapter of the Gospel of Luke:

And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them… And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us." So they went with haste…

The shepherds are not passive viewers; they take an active part in the story. And this is their action moment, when they speak, “Let us go down to Bethlehem…” and move toward the promised Child.

What did they go into the City of David to see?

Was the Child a nascent hero, like Hercules? Children’s books say that when Hercules was a baby he was already a super-hero. He strangled snakes in his cradle. And who knows what he got up to when he began to walk – but:

The Christ Child was not Superbaby—he was a real baby. He was vulnerable and soft. His surroundings, warm and fragrant from the animals, were none of his choosing. He was dependent on those around him. Joseph and Mary looked after him. But as we know from the story of the shepherds, he was already drawing toward him those who sought the peace of God.

There in the City of David the Shepherd-king of old, not in a wayfarer’s inn but in a stable, there the King of all shepherds in a manger lay, offering himself as manna, bread of heaven, bread in the wilderness, bread of life – offering himself in obedience and offering that obedience as savior of all; and offering that obedience, to all, as the way that salvation led.

He was the promised Child, the shepherd-king of Isaiah 40:

Comfort, oh comfort My people, Says your God.

Like a shepherd He pastures His flock: He gathers the lambs in His arms

And carries them in His bosom; Gently He drives the mother sheep.

(Isaiah 40:1,11 JPS)

Long ago and far, far away another shepherd abiding in the fields was keeping watch over the flocks by night: Cuthbert, a young man of 9th century Northumbria in northern England. He used to sing the psalms to the sheep at night.

And then one night, at the age of eighteen, he had a vision, or perhaps a dream, and the next morning he went down the hills to Melrose, where he became a monk. The story goes that that was the very night when Aidan, founder of Lindisfarne Priory on Holy Island, had died.

After some years as a monk, Cuthbert was sent to take Aidan’s place. And so he traveled on Cuthbert’s Way, over the hills again, to the Holy Island. There he found behind the priory a beach and across a small inlet of the North Sea a very small rocky islet. At night when the tide was low he would wade out to it, gaze back across the water to the priory where the monks were sleeping, and as they slept he would sing the psalms. “Like a shepherd he pastures his flock…”

The call to Melrose and the call to the priory were moments of decision for Cuthbert. He took action, and got involved in the story. He became a shepherd of men. In doing so, he recalled to mind the Lord that he served – that we serve: Jesus, the Good Shepherd.

The same Lord calls each of us – from field or from home – to come witness the coming of the Christ Child, to adore him, to receive him into our hearts, to share in his life – the obedience, the innocence, the hope – and to bring to the world hope and peace, joy and love, justice and mercy.

The shepherds of Bethlehem went into town to see if Jesus really was the Messiah they’d been waiting for. And they found him:

The Shepherd King,
Who calls each of us by name,
Who watches over his flock,
And sings to them of Paradise.


JRL+

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

A Christmas Carol
Christina Rossetti

Before the paling of the stars
Before the winter morn
Before the earliest cockcrow
Jesus Christ was born:
Born in a stable
Cradled in a manger,
In the world His Hands had made
Born a Stranger.

Priest and King lay fast asleep
In Jerusalem,
Young and Old lay fast asleep
In crowded Bethlehem:
Saint and Angel, Ox and Ass
Kept a watch together
Before the Christmas daybreak
In the winter weather.

Jesus on His Mother’s breast
In the stable cold,
Spotless Lamb of God was He,
Shepherd of the Fold:
Let us kneel with Mary Maid
With Joseph bent and hoary
With Saint and Angel, Ox and Ass
To hail the King of Glory.

Christina Rossetti: The Complete Poems (2001) 564-565.

+

Before the paling of the stars

Notes for a Christmas homily....


This Christmas I got something unexpected in the mail – a shoebox, for women’s pumps, black, size 7-1/2 B. Inside the box were three half-pound packages of Old Bisbee Roasters’ coffee.

There was a note. My friend Colleen made sure to tell me that the roaster ‘wants to have a personal relationship’—with me.

There was also a Christmas card. The outside had a cartoon of a little boy, presumably in a Christmas pageant, with a blanket on his head. It was captioned “What Christmas is really about.” Linus, Charlie Brown’s little brother, was reciting from the 2nd chapter of the Gospel of Luke:

And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them… And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us." So they went with haste…

The shepherds are not passive viewers; they take an active part in the story. And this is their action moment, when they speak, “Let us go down to Bethlehem…” and move toward the promised Child.

What did they go into the City of David to see?

Was the Child a nascent hero, like Hercules? Children’s books say that when Hercules was a baby he was already a super-hero. He strangled snakes in his cradle. And who knows what he got up to when he began to walk – but:

The Christ Child was not Superbaby—he was a real baby. He was vulnerable and soft. His surroundings, warm and fragrant from the animals, were none of his choosing. He was dependent on those around him. Joseph and Mary looked after him. But as we know from the story of the shepherds, he was already drawing toward him those who sought the peace of God. He was the promised Child, the shepherd-king of Isaiah 40:

Comfort, oh comfort My people, Says your God.

Like a shepherd He pastures His flock: He gathers the lambs in His arms
And carries them in His bosom; Gently He drives the mother sheep.
(Isaiah 40:1,11 JPS)

Long ago and far, far away another shepherd abiding in the fields was keeping watch over the flocks by night: Cuthbert, an eighteen-year-old man of 9th century Northumbria. He used to sing the psalms to the sheep at night. And then one night he had a vision, or perhaps a dream, and the next morning he went down the hills to Melrose, where he became a monk. The story goes that that was the very night when Aidan, founder of Lindisfarne Priory on Holy Island, had died.

After some years as a monk, Cuthbert was sent to take Aidan’s place. And so he traveled on Cuthbert’s Way, over the hills again, to the Holy Island. There he found behind the priory a beach and across a small inlet of the North Sea a very small rocky islet. At night when the tide was low he would wade out to it, gaze back across the water to the priory where the monks were sleeping, and as they slept he would sing the psalms. “Like a shepherd he pastures his flock…”

The call to Melrose and the call to the priory were moments of decision for Cuthbert. He took action, and got involved in the story. He became a shepherd of men. In doing so, he recalled to mind the Lord that he served – that we serve: Jesus, the Good Shepherd.

The shepherds of Bethlehem went into town to see if Jesus really was the Messiah they’d been waiting for. And they found him:

The Shepherd King,
Who calls each of us by name,
Who watches over his flock,
And sings to them of Paradise.


A Christmas Carol
CHRISTINA ROSSETTI

Before the paling of the stars
Before the winter morn
Before the earliest cockcrow
Jesus Christ was born:
Born in a stable
Cradled in a manger,
In the world His Hands had made
Born a Stranger.

Priest and King lay fast asleep
In Jerusalem,
Young and Old lay fast asleep
In crowded Bethlehem:
Saint and Angel, Ox and Ass
Kept a watch together
Before the Christmas daybreak
In the winter weather.

Jesus on His Mother’s breast
In the stable cold,
Spotless Lamb of God was He,
Shepherd of the Fold:
Let us kneel with Mary Maid
With Joseph bent and hoary
With Saint and Angel, Ox and Ass
To hail the King of Glory.

Christina Rossetti: The Complete Poems (2001) 564-565.

Christmas Eve 2006 10pm Holy Trinity, Willows
Christmas Day 2006 10am Trinity Cathedral, Sacramento
http://www.trinitycathedral.org/Sermons/20061225jl.mp3

Luke 1:39-49 (50-56)
Luke 2:1-20 The Nativity of Our Lord
John 1:1-14 (15-18)