Homily 12-31-17

As preached by Brother Christopher
December 31, 2017

Holy Wisdom Church 

As a culture, the aftermath of Christmas brings an abrupt end to the holiday steamroller that blitzed us day and night from Thanksgiving. I was in Rite-Aid the day after Christmas and the decorations were already down and Christmas theme items were on sale, crammed into a single aisle off to the side of the store. Soon we’ll be moving on to the next economic opportunity: Valentine’s Day. I don’t know about you, but for me, this feels odd. I mean, Christmas is over before we’ve actually begun to celebrate... at least, given the scope of the mystery.

In Orthodoxy, we don’t really have Advent properly speaking. While there’s a forty-day period of fasting, the pre-Christmas period itself lasts only several days. Instead, as we heard Brother Luke allude to on the feast, we celebrate the Incarnation from Christmas through Theophany all the way to the Encounter. I believe the reason for this is that it takes this long to really absorb the mystery, to try to interiorize its reality: God enters the human condition, God “empties” Godself of divinity, knows from inside all the feelings human beings experience. The mystery of the incarnation can’t be digested in one sitting. Rather, it requires a quiet contemplative pondering over time, and that happens over the seasons of Christmas, Theophany, and the Encounter.

But this Sunday, the Sunday before Theophany, focuses on John the Baptist. Yes, he is the forerunner, the “Elijah” who is to come before the Messiah and his appearing is significant. He proclaims that the one who will come after him is far greater than he, that he’s not fit to carry his sandals. He excoriates the Sadducees and Pharisees who have come out into the wilderness to observe what he’s preaching, perhaps even to get baptized themselves. He calls them a brood of vipers – a brood of vipers! – and assures them that there will be no ethnic or social favoritism in the kingdom of heaven. “The ax is laid to the root,” roars John, “and it’s going to burn every tree that doesn’t bear good fruit.” He is the fierce ascetic, who speaks truth to power and damn the consequences. John imagines a Messiah to come after him that is even more biting and austere than he, who will baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. “His winnowing fork is in his hand,” John challenges. The Messiah is going to burn the chaff in unquenchable fire.

But it’s clear that Jesus is not the type of Messiah that John expects. Later, in ch. 13 after John has been arrested and he hears reports about Jesus that challenge his expectations, he sends word to Jesus, “Are you really the one we are waiting for or must we look for another?” Implicit in the question is his own hesitation: because you’re not fitting into the Messiah mold. And look at what Jesus says in response: Tell John, the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear and the dead are raised, and happy is the one who is not scandalized by me.” Far from being the hard-nosed ascetic, preaching fire and brimstone that John anticipates, Jesus is something entirely different. Messiah: Yes, but a Messiah Through his messianic works, Jesus points to a God of love, who elicits dedication and devotion by love and not by force, by forgiveness that liberates and frees. Jesus is a healer, and his healings are both real and sacramental – pointing to what God is really like. We are being prepared by the Church to receive a Messiah that breaks the mold of all that is expected; who is not a political liberator, who is not a conqueror, who repudiates any sort of bogus triumphalism in favor of a radical vision of the Reign of God: whose purpose is to include rather than exclude and in so doing sow the seeds of real transformation. Jesus says, “Of all those born on earth none is greater than John the Baptist, but even the least in the Kingdom of God is greater than he...” John is the apex of the old era: austerity, judgment and a call to repentance that uses a healthy dose of fear as the catalyst for change. Jesus is about something different, something new, even revolutionary. In his person he ushers in a real metanoia, a new vision of what the Reign of God is that elicits dedication on the basis of love and not fear.  It remains for us to deepen our understanding and experience of this throughout this holy season.

Brother Christopher

  

An interesting note about Pharisees from Daniel Harrington: He explains that they were a Jewish group active in Palestine between 2cent B.C. to 1^st century AD. Their name likely has some connection with the Heb word “paras” which means ‘separate’. They are the separated ones and developed traditions concerning how to live out Torah in everyday life. These emphasized ritual purity, food tithes, Sabbath Observance. Given how they became such opponents of Jesus, it is highly significant that they resemble in attitude some of the legalists in Orthodox Christianity (as well as traditionalists and fundamentalists in Catholicism and Evangelicalism). Orthodox can sometimes place more importance on ‘ritual purity’ than on simply living out the Gospel in love. 

Sermon 152 Nov 26: Jer 23:3-8; Gal 4:4-7; Mt2:1-12.

As preached by Brother Luke

Holy Wisdom Temple

        Christmas is the gift-giving season. The Christian pedigree of this gift-giving activity goes back at least to the three wise men who came bearing gifts when they visited Jesus and his family. Jesus at the time was maybe 2 years old if we use Herod's reckoning. In this setting we can see that gift-giving is a recognized part of the tradition.

        How this tradition is lived out varies greatly from family to family and I would guess from age to age and culture to culture. In some cultures, the gift giving is on St Nicholas Day, in others St Barbara and in many European countries it is New Year’s Day. We no longer think of the 12 days of Christmas as being the 12 days following Christmas, rather it is the month preceding Christmas.  At some time long past the feast was celebrated from Christmas through the New Year right up to Theophany, or as in our tradition, to the Encounter February 2nd. Now that is lost. Christmas Day comes and goes and quickly the season shifts to New Year’s Day and beyond. The Western church has created Advent to focus attention on the anticipation of this feast. Nevertheless, the culture governs much of how this feast is celebrated.

        I remember asking my father what Christmas was like when he was a youngster. And that was long ago since he was born in 1906. He said the tree and all the trimmings and presents were brought into the house Christmas Eve and the celebration was Christmas Day, not before. And in those days the lights on the tree were candles and not electric lights. That would make any modern-day OSHA official’s hair stand on end! I knew some families who would open their presents on Christmas Eve. In my family, Susie and I felt we were at a disadvantage with other kids in the neighborhood. We were allowed to open our Christmas stocking but nothing else until after Christmas breakfast, and that only happened after my father drove to my grandparents’ house and brought them over to our house for breakfast followed by the gathering around the tree. By that time the neighborhood kids were already riding their new bikes or testing out their skate boards. Notice I didn’t mention going to church on Christmas Day. Church remembrance of Christmas would be on the closest Sunday to Christmas plus a Christmas concert during that period.

        So, was Christ missing from these Christmas celebrations? Not at all. We had the usual nativity creche on the mantle or near the tree. Christmas carols were sung carrying the message of Christ’s birth.  And how can we not notice the way children live out the anticipation of this feast? So, excitement around this event is there. We need to channel that excitement to the deeper meaning of the event.

        And if we take this morning’s readings to heart we may see a dimension of the Christmas celebration that can be easily overlooked. This celebration is about a very special birth. Jeremiah prophesies that God would raise up a righteous shoot to David. Hence last Sunday we remembered the ancestors of Christ; a lineage that includes King David. The birth of this child, depicted in many popular hymns and carols, make that point. 

This feast is about a child and draws in the perspective of children; but that does not leave adults out. The nativity of Christ is about new life and how that new life connects all of us to God’s larger purpose. St Paul, in his letter to the Galatians, gives us a related insight on this very special birth when he writes that God sent the spirit of his son into our hearts to make us all children of God and thereby God’s heirs. I like to look at that as also as an invitation to us to become children at heart.  After all, Jesus said: Allow the little children to come to me. We too are to meet Jesus with the open heart of a child.

      God gives himself to us through the incarnation. And what a gift this is! A connection to the divine, becoming heirs of God. It all begins with the birth of a child.  Notice how all the other actors in this scene are depicted: the shepherds, angels and even the Wise Men approach this event with joy and celebration. Children and their anticipation, enthusiasm and joyful spirit, are integral to the Christmas celebration so let us join them!  Let us open our hearts to the reality that God, through his son, has entered our hearts.  Now we are called to take that reality to heart and to live it to the full every day that God gives us to live.

        Christ is Born! Glorify Him!