a wedding in Cana

Episcopal Church of Christ the King, Tucson. 
Saturday 18 January 2025, 6pm
Sunday 19 January 2025, 8 & 10:30am

• Isaiah 62:1-5
• 1 Corinthians 12:1-11
• John 2:1-11
• Psalm 36:5-10

Almighty God, whose Son our Savior Jesus Christ is the light of the world: Grant that your people, illumined by your Word and Sacraments, may shine with the radiance of Christ's glory, that he may be known, worshipped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Before the wedding Eric's brother and I drove across town to pick up the keg. Since it was a long drive Lonnie stopped to pick up a six-pack so we wouldn't get thirsty. We made it, there and back again. The wedding ceremony itself was a small affair; one less person and I'd've been best man. The party however was in the front yard of the shop, Blue Ox Millworks. The band set up on the back of a gooseneck trailer. And we made it through the keg. I guess if we'd run out Lonnie and I would've been back across town to get another one. Maybe less expensive. 

Because as we know, everybody serves the good stuff first, and once taste buds are coarsened, you can fill in with Old English 800, Burgie, or two-buck Chuck. 

The point is not the beer, or the wine. Maybe it's the party. We celebrated. Something joyous was happening - and has kept on happening ever since. 

There was definitely something to celebrate in that little hillside town in Galilee that day. And there was no reason to stop, if the refreshments held out.

But of course there was something more going on. Something bigger. But somehow the same... in a couple of ways. There was something to celebrate, and the best wine, held till now, was certainly appropriate.

For at last and already time was coming to its fulfillment. In a simple town, in a small town wedding, among friends, the Messiah revealed himself. This was the first sign he performed in the village of Cana, in Galilee. He'd be back soon, and he'd heal a royal official's son. Who wasn't even there. He was down the hill by the lakeshore, an eight-hour hike away, past Tabgha, at Capernaum. Jesus just said to the man, ‘Go; your son will live.’ The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and started on his way. (John 4:50-51) A second sign.

Is this small-town stuff? A wedding banquet is saved, a boy gets well.

Or are these the beginning of something great? These were the first two signs, in Cana, and eventually, the time for signs would disappear. But before it did, Jesus held up a cup of wine at another banquet, and said something unexpected (or dreaded): This is my blood shed for you, and for many, for the forgiveness of sins. 

And soon enough it would not be a sign anymore, not a pointer to anything beyond itself, for Jesus' blood would indeed be shed, and if it pointed to anything, it pointed to itself, to the outpouring of love by God in that moment, and in all moments.

There was a wedding, a bringing together, a joining of two into one. And then there was a bigger banquet, where we were made one with 

God, in the wine, in the food, in the death, in the resurrected life, of the one who, unexpectedly, became the life of the party, and the reason to celebrate.

In Galilee at that time it was almost an act of defiance to have a wedding. Maybe in some ways it always is: for love is strong as death; Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it. (Song of Songs 8:6-7) And the forces of death will be vanquished, in that very cup and that very bread, shared and broken, that at this first banquet and that last supper showed that in him was life, this life was the light of all people, and the darkness has not and cannot overcome it. (John 1:4,5)

So - extra wine? A second keg? Or a crack in the midst of something ordinary, so that the light got in and shone upon us, showing us the truth that is beyond and behind every occasion of joy: the presence of the joyous one in our midst, hidden or revealed, that is God with us.

***

Of wine and weddings:

A Palestinian winemaker named one of his new wines “Grapes of Wrath”: “The vineyard (in the middle of the West Bank) reminded me of the book by Steinbeck,” he said. “The delusion of opportunity on one hand, the resilience and the transforming of pain into opportunity.”

 

[https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/11/dining/drinks/palestinian-winemaker.html]

One time on the way back from visiting our college mentor and friend Noel King in Watsonville, Imam Bilal Hyde and I took the mountain road over the hill past Mount Madonna and into the countryside west of Gilroy. We pulled up short at a crossroads. There was a Mexican wedding celebration in progress and it filled the intersection … with music, laughter, food, and joy. We gladly pulled over and paused to take in the sights and sounds of the festivities before us. Yes, there was a mariachi band. As a singer friend of mine once said, when you hear mariachi music, you should have a beer in your hand. 

Another friend invited me to their Jewish-tradition wedding service, at the Camp Fire Girls headquarters in San Francisco. Under the shade of the huppah, they exchanged vows, and then stomped on a glass.

The Talmud says, “Mar bar Rabina made a marriage feast for his son. He observed that the rabbis present were very gay. So he seized an expensive goblet worth 400 zuzim and broke it before them. Thus he made them sober. (Berakhot 5:2 )”

In other words, as it has been said, where there is rejoicing, there should be trembling.

[https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/breaking-the-glass-at-a-jewish-wedding/]

We know the trembling as well as the rejoicing. If we have been to a wedding, we know.

The Massacre of the Innocents, ordered by the king soon after Jesus’ birth, was just the beginning, of the suffering that he, and his Mother, would know in his lifetime. 

But weddings are the celebration that reminds us of the Song of Songs, in which we sing that love is strong, strong as death.  

Set me as a seal upon your heart,

    as a seal upon your arm;

for love is strong as death,

    passion fierce as the grave.

Its flashes are flashes of fire,

    a raging flame.

(Song of Solomon 8:6) 

The jars were empty; Jesus had them filled. Israel had come to the end of a long way. John was the last and greatest prophet of the old. New had come. The witness of Mary began the celebration. 

Unpacking Bonhoeffer's Legacy Today: resource list

Unpacking Bonhoeffer's Legacy Today, a conversation with Victoria Barnett,  Wednesday 15 January 2025, sponsored by the Institute for Islamic-Christian-Jewish Studies (https://youtu.be/KPiT9fUON3A?feature=shared) yielded this list... resources mentioned during the program or recommended by Victoria Barnett:

Barnett, Victoria. "After ten years": Dietrich Bonhoeffer and our Times. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2017. Barnett, Victoria. Bystanders: Conscience and complicity during the Holocaust. Westport, Conn: Praeger, 2000. Barnett, Victoria. For the Soul of the People: Protestant protest against Hitler. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Hale, Lori Brandt. “Resource (Fall 2024): A Collection of Public Statements, Movie Reviews, and Essays for Reading, Teaching, and Understanding Bonhoeffer (Links and Pdfs) - Check Back for Updates.” International Bonhoeffer Society, English Language Section, December 23, 2024.  Barnett, Victoria. “There’s No Such Thing as a Bonhoeffer Moment.” The Christian Century. January 2025.  Barnett, Victoria J. “Track Two Diplomacy, 1933-1939. International Responses from Catholics, Jews, and Ecumenical Protestants to Events in Nazi Germany” Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte 27, no. 1 (October 1, 2014): 76–86.  Barnett, “Women’s Interfaith Activism and Resistance: A Case Study from the Holocaust,” in Women, the Holocaust, and Genocide. Carol Rittner, R.S.M., editor. National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education, 2020. Bethge, Eberhard, and Victoria Barnett. Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000. Bonhoeffer’s Works in English  Collegeville Institute. “Theology in Uncertain Times - an Interview with Bonhoeffer Scholar Victoria Barnett.” Collegeville Institute, October 29, 2018.  Housley, Kathleen L. The scientific world of Karl-Friedrich Bonhoeffer: The entanglement of Science, religion, and politics in Nazi Germany. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019. Kessler, Edward, and Neil Wenborn. A documentary history of Jewish-Christian Relations: From antiquity to the present day. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024. “The Collected Sermons of Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Volume 2.” Fortress Press.

What happens next?

Some years ago somebody sent me a screen treatment, a scenario, for a movie about Jesus. The scene I read was set in a trashcan-strewn alley in Hell’s Kitchen, New York. Running down the alley towards us was a teenage boy and he was in a hurry, jumping over trash cans, evidently avoiding pursuit.

When I called the producer and told him I’d been asked to give him my comments, I told him that I had worked for the Jesus Seminar. And so he said, “I already know what you are going to say.”

I could have pointed out the inauthenticity of what his Jesus said and did.

Of course what I wanted to say was, “I want to know what happens next.”

That is the way it is with Jesus. You never know what is going to happen next… in fact, at first, for most people, it was hard to recognize him for who he was. He wasn’t a kid tipping over trash cans as he ran down an alley, but he was somebody unlikely to be … what he turned out to be.

Even his closest disciples, the ones like Andrew who spotted him immediately, and those on whom it gradually dawned, as they walked with him on the roads of Galilee, were surprised by joy and sorrow at the end.

It was actually after they had endured not only joy but sorrow that they began to understand. And after the end had come, and the end of hope that they had placed in him, that a new understanding, and a new hope, dawned upon them.

In the times when Jesus was born, hope was already a fragile thing. The country had been under the thumb of the Roman power for years, and their own leaders cooperated in the domination system of that imperial rule.

 

His mother was apparently quite young, her husband somewhat older. They had traveled through the cold of midwinter to his ancestral home town, and found some shelter there, in time for the child to be born.

Meanwhile in the capital city strangers appeared in the palace of the king, the local ruler who kept things quiet for the emperor. Three strangers appeared. Magi, wise men, astrologers, or kings, from the East, who had nothing to do with Rome or Jerusalem, showed up and asked a question.

“Where is he who is born to be king of the Jews?” 

And who did they ask? Herod! Who was king, or said so, though he knew his claim was … inventive. Hence his toothy smile, seek for him diligently and let me know when you find him, that I too may go, and…

Today, in the visit of the Magi to the cradle, we are in suspense about what happens next with Herod. What we see is the first great epiphany, revelation, of who Jesus really is.

In coming weeks, Sunday gospel lessons will recount other epiphanies, other God-sightings, as Jesus is revealed in the Presentation in the Temple (“Now let your servant go in peace”), in his baptism by the Jordan river (“You are my Son, the Beloved”), in the wedding-feast in Cana (“You have kept the good wine until now"), in his reading of Isaiah in Nazareth (“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me”), in the miraculous catch of fish (“Put out into the deep water”)...

For now, though, there was a little child. And the strangest of visitors. 

There in a manger, a feeding-trough for farm animals, was a little baby. These wise men from the east, kings of Orient, or simply astrologers, had seen a star at its rising. And so of course they had gone to the capital and introduced themselves. “Where is he that is born King of the Jews?” 

Herod knew trouble when he saw it. He hadn’t stayed in power all those years without some wisdom. The wisdom of the world. He knew that for things to stay the same, things would have to change. But he didn’t want them to change like this. So, he questioned the sages, smiled his toothy smile and asked them to report back to him when they had found him.

“So that I too may go and worship him.”

But they were, after all, wise men, and so they departed by another road.

What happens next? What happened to the kid in the alley, I don’t know. I was curious. What happens next to this little baby, and the other kids his age, we do know. Because after the joy began the sorrow. 

Herod sent his soldiers. They slew all the children they found in that area, of the right age. This is the massacre we remember in the feast called The Holy Innocents.

Of all those children one survived. And improbably he grew up to become the fulfillment of all Herod’s fears.

For as a later ruler of Judea would know, he was “The King of the Jews.”

When they met him, the wise men knew. For others, it took a little time. Some of his home folk, back in Nazareth, couldn’t believe it. It made them angry. But for others, like Andrew by the lakeside, they knew who he was. 

He was the real thing. They just didn’t know what that meant yet.

As we learn throughout the Christian year, the Gospels tell us what following this king would mean.

There was joy, and there was sorrow.

And then, after the sorrow, there was joy beyond imagining. After death, there was life. And after the end of hope, there was hope beyond hope. 

We here may not know, or may not have known, what it meant to be nearly hopeless, in a village surrounded by an imperial enemy, with disciplined troops nearby, always vigilant for signs of resistance.

We may know, through our own experience or that of family members or refugees we have encountered, or aid workers we have known, just exactly what that was like.

There is fear. But there is always hope. There is darkness. And - there is light. 

And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not - cannot - put it out. For in him was life, and this life is the light of all people. Merry Christmas, once again. 

O God, by the leading of a star you manifested your only Son to the peoples of the earth: Lead us, who know you now by faith, to your presence, where we may see your glory face to face; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (BCP)

• Isaiah 60:1-6
• Ephesians 3:1-12
• Matthew 2:1-12 and 13-18.
• Psalm 72:1-7,10-14

January 5, 2025. the Feast of The Epiphany (observed).

Santa Cruz Lutheran Church, Tucson. 9:30am JRL+

Matthew 2:1-18

The Visit of the Wise Men

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, ‘Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.’ When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, ‘In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet: “And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.” ’

Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, ‘Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.’ When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure-chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.

The Escape to Egypt

Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.’ Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt I have called my son.’

The Massacre of the Infants

When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah: ‘A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.’

Footnote: I am looking forward to listening to the 2024 Town and Gown lecture with Nicholas Terpstra (University of Toronto) from the Division of Late Medieval and Reformation Studies at the University of Arizona, "Blood and Betrayal Meanings in the Massacre of the Innocents."

Temporarily available at https://youtu.be/5LbJOGuh42A?feature=shared

hope beyond hope

 A long time ago a friend of mine from the church we attended in Manhattan, St Clement's off Broadway, developed a one-man show he called The Reverend Billy Show. It later developed into a full choir revival tour style revue, in which his character, cracked street preacher Reverend Billy, would deliver two or three raving sermons - that were actually pretty good. 

But at first it was a one man show with just his character, Reverend Billy, in a clerical dicky, a white suit, fabulous hair, a bull horn, and an imaginary online congregation. He would stand at the pulpit and rave about commercialism, egregious bombing of innocents, and other apparently Quixotic concerns of the time. And he had a creed, which we repeated: 

We believe in the god that people that don't believe in god believe in. Chant that.

Reverend Billy's creed came to mind as Sarah and I read about mid-century German theologians, including Karl Barth and Paul Tillich, and especially Dietrich Bonhoeffer. 

At that time the world was plunging into despair, desperation, cynicism: no hope. There was no hope, but as some of those brave theologians put it, there was hope beyond hope. Beyond despair. 

It sounds absurd. But this is a time when absurdities are not unfamiliar, either. Hope beyond hope.

The times of the mid-twentieth century in places like Germany were times of extreme, of government unleashed upon the innocent, of babies born in the face of fear. Of families torn apart by arbitrary detention. Of executions personally authorized by the head of state. Of exile. Of famine. Of despair.

And of hope beyond hope.

The Blessed Virgin Mary, her cousin Elizabeth, her husband-to-be Joseph, and the children that came to them, lived also in a time of uncertainty, despair, and precarious hope. 

The world hinged upon a word. "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb," the angel greeted Mary. She could have said no. Angels held their breath. And then she said, "yes."

Yes, to the improbably babyish salvation of the world. An innocent, among many born that year, was to survive the massacre of its age-mates - ordered by the king - and become ... the hope of the world.

It seems impossible but it was so. Is so. In the small room at the back of a home in Bethlehem, and in the small home the family returned to in Nazareth - but not yet - a child arrived, was welcomed, and grew. 

But not yet: first the child and his parents fled by night from Palestine through Gaza into Egypt, there to remain until the implacable search blew over and it appeared to be safe to return home. 

We here may not know, or may not have known, what it meant to be nearly hopeless, in a village surrounded by an imperial enemy, with disciplined troops nearby, always vigilant for signs of resistance.

We may know, through our own experience or that of family members or refugees we have encountered, or aid workers we have known, just exactly what that was like.

There is fear. But there is always hope. There is darkness. And-- there is light. 

And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not - cannot - put it out. For in him was life, and this life is the light of all people. Merry Christmas, once again. 

December 29, 2024. Lessons & Carols. Episcopal Church of Saint Matthew, Tucson. 8 & 10:30am

modern prophets

The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness; prepare ye the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. (Isaiah 40:3)

Preachers tell us we need prophets. Prophets tell us what is really going on. They are not primarily people who predict the future. They tell us what is going on right now in our present situation and what it means in the light of the sovereignty of God. Sometimes what they have to say lasts beyond their own time. Isaiah and Baruch, for example. John the Baptist, for another. And Zechariah, John's father.

A more modern prophet lived in the last century. He was a German Lutheran theologian, and he spent most of his life in Berlin. Most of his life. He visited Spain, New York City, England, and Sweden. And at the end of his life he was not in Berlin, he was in a concentration camp.

What had he done to earn that? From the beginning of his country's turn to national socialism, he had spoken out to his fellow Christians about what it meant. What it ultimately meant. 

To some of them, it meant good times ahead. What could be better than a strong leader who would clean house and bring church and state together to strengthen the nation? 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, for that was his name, saw differently. He was not alone, but he did not, at the end, have many friends. There were family members who were much more, or much less, implicated in resistance to the national socialist regime that took over their country.

What he did at first and for many years was simply to point out what it meant for the church to merge its identity into a national project. What it meant for the church not to be an independent voice, for justice, for the poor, for the person on the edge of society, and for the person pushed there by politics. What it would mean if it was. And so he was among those who raised that voice.

During the war he became involved in working for military intelligence, but while he worked there he was also a courier for the resistance movement, trying to build bridges for democracy with people in other countries. And his clandestine work, for awhile, included raising money to help Jews seek safe haven in Switzerland.

He was famously involved, but only peripherally, in a plot to kill Hitler. That plot failed in July 1944 and gradually the conspirators were rounded up. Eventually they came for Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

But that is not the end of the story. In prison he was able to write to friends and family, and continue to develop his understanding of what was going on. He continued to be a prophet.

One thing he said that I have been thinking about puts a different spin on this season of Advent.

Advent we rightly hold to be a time of preparation, of repentance and renewal, in anticipation of the arrival of Christ at Christmas. 

It is a time of hope, hope that bridges the distance between faith and love, between what we hold to be true and how we put it into action.

That bridge of hope is what got Dietrich Bonhoeffer into trouble. Most pastors just went along with what was going on - or took quieter ways to resist.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer had taught something important to think about. God is already active in the world. From the beginning of the world through Christ to the consummation of time, God is at work. Responding to God’s love by placing our trust and primary allegiance in his hands, and faithfully participating in God’s work of redemptive love, will carry us through the toughest time.

Want to know more? I’d start with Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s own writings, especially Discipleship, Life Together, Ethics, and Letters and Papers from Prison.

The Rev. Dr. John Leech is a priest associate at the Episcopal Church of Saint Matthew, Tucson.

Previous version submitted to the Arizona Daily Star, December 8th 2024, as a Guest Opinion. Slight corrections made here 7 Jan 2025, after reading Ferdinand Schlingensiepen, Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906-1945, Martyr, Thinker, Man of Resistance. T&T Clark/Continuum, London, 2010. Original edition Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906-1945 Eine Biographie. München, 2006.

P.S.

Unpacking Bonhoeffer's Legacy, a conversation with Victoria J. Barnett, Wednesday 15 January 2025, spnosored by the Institute for Islamic-Christian-Jewish Studies (https://youtu.be/KPiT9fUON3A?feature=shared) yielded this list...

resources mentioned during the program or recommended by Victoria Barnett:

Barnett, Victoria. "After ten years": Dietrich Bonhoeffer and our Times. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2017. Barnett, Victoria. Bystanders: Conscience and complicity during the Holocaust. Westport, Conn: Praeger, 2000. Barnett, Victoria. For the Soul of the People: Protestant protest against Hitler. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Hale, Lori Brandt. “Resource (Fall 2024): A Collection of Public Statements, Movie Reviews, and Essays for Reading, Teaching, and Understanding Bonhoeffer (Links and Pdfs) - Check Back for Updates.” International Bonhoeffer Society, English Language Section, December 23, 2024.  Barnett, Victoria. “There’s No Such Thing as a Bonhoeffer Moment.” The Christian Century. January 2025.  Barnett, Victoria J. “Track Two Diplomacy, 1933-1939. International Responses from Catholics, Jews, and Ecumenical Protestants to Events in Nazi Germany” Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte 27, no. 1 (October 1, 2014): 76–86.  Barnett, “Women’s Interfaith Activism and Resistance: A Case Study from the Holocaust,” in Women, the Holocaust, and Genocide. Carol Rittner, R.S.M., editor. National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education, 2020. Bethge, Eberhard, and Victoria Barnett. Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000. Bonhoeffer’s Works in English  Collegeville Institute. “Theology in Uncertain Times - an Interview with Bonhoeffer Scholar Victoria Barnett.” Collegeville Institute, October 29, 2018.  Housley, Kathleen L. The scientific world of Karl-Friedrich Bonhoeffer: The entanglement of Science, religion, and politics in Nazi Germany. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019. Kessler, Edward, and Neil Wenborn. A documentary history of Jewish-Christian Relations: From antiquity to the present day. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024. “The Collected Sermons of Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Volume 2.” Fortress Press.

resources recommended by Victoria Barnett:

Barnett, Victoria. "After ten years": Dietrich Bonhoeffer and our Times. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2017. Barnett, Victoria. Bystanders: Conscience and complicity during the Holocaust. Westport, Conn: Praeger, 2000. Barnett, Victoria. For the Soul of the People: Protestant protest against Hitler. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Hale, Lori Brandt. “Resource (Fall 2024): A Collection of Public Statements, Movie Reviews, and Essays for Reading, Teaching, and Understanding Bonhoeffer (Links and Pdfs) - Check Back for Updates.” International Bonhoeffer Society, English Language Section, December 23, 2024.  Barnett, Victoria. “There’s No Such Thing as a Bonhoeffer Moment.” The Christian Century. January 2025.  Barnett, Victoria J. “Track Two Diplomacy, 1933-1939. International Responses from Catholics, Jews, and Ecumenical Protestants to Events in Nazi Germany” Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte 27, no. 1 (October 1, 2014): 76–86.  Barnett, “Women’s Interfaith Activism and Resistance: A Case Study from the Holocaust,” in Women, the Holocaust, and Genocide. Carol Rittner, R.S.M., editor. National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education, 2020. Bethge, Eberhard, and Victoria Barnett. Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000. Bonhoeffer’s Works in English  Collegeville Institute. “Theology in Uncertain Times - an Interview with Bonhoeffer Scholar Victoria Barnett.” Collegeville Institute, October 29, 2018.  Housley, Kathleen L. The scientific world of Karl-Friedrich Bonhoeffer: The entanglement of Science, religion, and politics in Nazi Germany. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019. Kessler, Edward, and Neil Wenborn. A documentary history of Jewish-Christian Relations: From antiquity to the present day. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024. “The Collected Sermons of Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Volume 2.” Fortress Press.

How do you get ready for something that has already happened?

How do you get ready for something that has already happened?

 

People love Christmas. And who can blame us? Christmas means God is present and at work in the world. We love getting ready for Christmas.

 

We love getting ready for it as if it had not already happened, as if this was the first time.

 

Advent is a funny time of year, between the feast of Christ the King and Christmas Eve. Christ the King was all about the fulfillment of the promise, the completion of what was begun in the Nativity of our Lord. Christ the King we proclaimed: there is no other like him.

 

We will not be fooled. We will not take counterfeits. Whatever, whoever, claims our first allegiance, there is one prior, greater, and first in line.

 

Frankly I don’t know what it would be like to live under a king. I’m an American and this is where I’ve always lived. I’ve seen one or two royal persons from a distance, but they weren’t my royalty, just visitors.

 

So when I hear of the kingdom of heaven, the reign of God, I don’t have anybody in the way. Except everybody and everything that puts itself, or that I put, in between me and God.

 

But God does not allow that. God does not accept that anything or anyone should come between us and God. All other allegiances, all other kings, come second. God in Christ comes first. 

How do you get ready for something that has already happened? The love of God is already at work.

 

While we are waiting for the arrival of the Messiah, of Christ on Christmas, we already know that God is at work. Because this Christmas is a reminder that in the arrival of God into our world, in the Holy Spirit, in Creation, and in Christ, we know that we are not separate from grace.

 

We may think of Holy Week, of Good Friday and Easter, as the time when we remember that we are redeemed, saved, made whole again from what was broken; that it was then that the eternity of God’s love was revealed.

 

But the good news in Christmas, and anticipated in Advent, is that Love has already come into our world.

 

When we think of advent we may think of joyful preparation, and the need to get our house in order to make room to welcome Jesus. We may think “prepare the way” - and we’d be right. But we would also be right to recall that God was there first, in the world from the beginning, and is only now in the new day that Christ has made, redeeming the promise of ages: God with us, Emmanuel.

 

In Christ the fullness of God was pleased to live, and we are called into the fullness of living by that gift. That gift that opens before us on Christmas.

 

***

 

And while we prepare for it, in self-examination and repentance and fasting, or decorating the church with greens, or reconsidering our yuletide gifts, we get ready. We get ready while we watch a Christmas movie - though it’s too early! and sing a song of welcome to the one who is coming.

 

There are many forces bearing on us, attractions and distractions pulling on us.  But we get ready when we set aside all distraction and turn to the Christ-child once again, in confidence and poverty, in wealth of grace and gift and gladness and gravity, in expectation and hope of a renewal once more, once again, of what really matters in our lives to come to the fore.

 

And once again, as if meeting the Christ-child for the first time, we await one little baby in whom the hope of the world is contained. As if you can contain a little child: for from him comes the explosion of grace and joy and hope that we call Christmas. Here it comes. Get ready, church. Get ready, world.

 

***

 

Preachers tell us we need prophets. Prophets tell us what is really going on. They are not primarily people who predict the future. They tell us what is going on right now in our present situation and what it means in the light of the sovereignty of God. Sometimes what they have to say lasts beyond their own time. Isaiah and Baruch, for example. John the Baptist, for another. And Zechariah, John's father.

 

A more modern prophet lived in the last century. He was a German Lutheran theologian, and he spent most of his life in Berlin. Most of his life. He visited Spain, New York City, England, and Sweden. And at the end of his life he was not in Berlin, he was in a concentration camp.

 

What had he done to earn that? From the beginning of his country's turn to national socialism, he had spoken out to his fellow Christians about what it meant. What it ultimately meant.

 

To some of them, it meant good times ahead. What could be better than a strong leader who would clean house and bring church and state together to strengthen the nation?

 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, for that was his name, saw differently. He was not alone, but he did not, at the end, have many friends. There were family members who were much more, or much less, implicated in resistance to the national socialist regime that took over their country.

 

What he did at first and for many years was simply to point out what it meant for the church to merge its identity into a national project. What it meant for the church not to be an independent voice, for justice, for the poor, for the person on the edge of society, and for the person pushed there by politics. What it would mean if it was. And so he was among those who raised that voice.

 

During the war he became involved in working for military intelligence, but while he worked there he was also a courier for the resistance movement, trying to build bridges for democracy with people in other countries. And his clandestine work included raising money to allow Jews to seek safe haven in Switzerland. The Gestapo arrested him in April 1943.

 

He was famously involved, but only peripherally, in a plot to kill Hitler. That plot failed in July 1944 and gradually the conspirators were rounded up.  

 

But that is not the end of the story. In prison he was able to write to friends and family, and continue to develop his understanding of what was going on. He continued to be a prophet.

 

One thing he said that I have been thinking about puts a different spin on Advent.

 

Advent we rightly hold to be a time of preparation, of repentance and renewal, in anticipation of the arrival of Christ at Christmas.

 

It is a time of hope, hope that bridges the distance between faith and love, between what we hold to be true and how we put it into action.

 

That bridge of hope is what got Dietrich Bonhoeffer into trouble. Most pastors just went along with what was going on - or took quieter ways to resist.

 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer had taught something important to think about. God is already active in the world. From the beginning of the world through Christ to the consummation of time, God is at work. Responding to God’s love by placing our trust and primary allegiance in his hands, and faithfully participating in God’s work of redemptive love, will carry us through the toughest time.

 

What Christmas means to us, Christmas that is coming, is hope. It means the arrival of God in our world, bringing peace on earth. The good news is even better: Christmas means that he is already here.

 

God is already active in the world. How can we not love a season that invites us to begin to live like that?  We are invited this pre-season, as every season pre- Savior, to look at ourselves and others, and see what God sees in us: not mortal sinners but eternally beloved children. 

 

We see the love of parent and stranger, community and chorus of angels, shining the love of God on one child. But not only him.

 

Children in the Holy Land today, in places torn by war, civil strife, or natural disaster, children desperately crossing waste places through the desert to hoped-for new homes of safety, children placed in foster homes or cherished by grandparents, children safe and embraced by loving families, all these have the light of the love of God shone on them.

 

And when they grow up, they may not be as cuddly, but they are still children of God's grace. They are beloved of God. Each of them, all of them. We are with them.

 

We know we need Advent. Four Sundays are short notice to get ready. To begin to see the impact of God's present - since the beginning - in the world.

 

We know we want Advent. We want wreaths and glory to the king and simmering cider and cookies and greetings from strangers and all the rest. The chance to give to relieve the suffering and brighten the days of the lonely. The chance to give and the chance to receive. For we have all received, before we have had a chance to give, God's love.

 

Hope is the struggle of the soul,

breaking loose from what is perishable,

and attesting her eternity.

 

-Herman Melville  1819-1891