Sermon from Christmas II, 31 December 2006

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Readings: Isaiah 61:10-62:3, Psalm 147:13-21, Galatians 3:23-25;4:4-7, John 1:1-18

Those of you who were here for Christmas morning's service will be familiar with the first part of today's Gospel reading from John. You may also remember that at the end of my sermon that morning I asked for you to each give one last Christmas gift this year of yourselves to those around you, sharing the gift's that God has given each of us as individuals in order to help bring about the most amazing aspect of the abundance of God's kingdom - us in community sharing our gifts with the world.

The continuation of John's gospel this morning picks up the same theme of action from the first fourteen verses in which Christ represents to us God's volition in the act of creation as well as God's new creation amongst us of light, life, and the promise, through Christ born in human flesh, that we can become children of God.

Isaiah, the Psalmist, and Paul pick up on this same theme of action in our other readings, as well as further developing the cosmically profound change that has taken place in God's interaction with creation.

I don't think it's any coincidence that the stress on action also accompanies a new way of perceiving and interacting with God. As children we are brought up with parents who must act primarily as rule-givers as they seek to teach us how to live and survive as humans in this world. They have the difficult job of disciplining us in positive ways in order to teach us the values and "rules" that will keep us safe as well as which will carry us into our own ability to reason and make good decisions for ourselves. While they want only what is best for us and do their best to make our childhood fun, it is also a difficult necessary for them to discipline us when we willfully insist on our own destructive and potentially dangerous way.

As a lighthearted example, my Mom loves to tell the story about when I was four or five years old and she took me to the grocery store when my aunt was visiting. She had established a routine with me by saying when we entered the store that if I was good she would get me a treat on the way out of the store. This particular day, upon entering the store, I stood up in the cart with my hands on my hips and proclaimed that I would not be good unless she got me a treat. While my mom and my aunt both stifled their laughter, I can guarantee that I neither got the treat nor got away without learning an important lesson about who was in charge.

It is only after we have mastered the fundamental rules of how to appropriately live in and survive in the world that we can step out in our own independence and begin to act for ourselves. So too in our developing spiritual stage we must learn God's rules. It is only after understanding God's fundamental requirements for our righteousness that we can begin to spiritually reach out to others in faith. At both of these profound and life-changing junctures in our lives, our fundamental relationships change. Our parents become no longer figures of authority over us who have the task of disciplining us when they would rather gather us up into their arms and have a good belly laugh at our incorrigibility, but become, instead, a form of inspiration as we reflect on what we have learned and gain our own sense of right and wrong.

So it is with Christ. As Paul states in his letter to the Galatians, we were guarded under the law until faith would be revealed... God gave us the law and the prophets as our guides and guardians until we were ready in faith to step out in action to become God's hands and heart in the world. Christ's coming into the world marked that profound change in our relationship with God that accompanies our readiness to act on our faith and to claim our inheritance as children of God. As with any parent-child relationship, the transition is never smooth or easy, but God's willingness to take the first step in guiding us into a deeper relationship with God's own self in human form draws us ever closer to the kingdom of God as we move along our spiritual path in a state of perpetually becoming that frequently mirrors our perpetual development as human beings in the world.

This state of becoming is reflected in Isaiah's teachings today where his whole being exults in God for causing righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations. It is through God's interaction with us that we come to recognize and seek a deeper relationship with God. Through learning God's discipline we hone our spiritual gifts so that we can share them with others in joy and exultation.

Similarly, our Psalmist exults in God's awesome power and calls Israel to worship, praising God for revealing God's Word to Israel - which is made available to all the world through Christ, the Word made flesh. Through this same word, God has taught us through countless generations to know God's will and the rules necessary for caring for one another and sharing God's abundance as we strive for enough spiritual maturity to do God's will naturally.

Paul carries us deeper into our understanding of the transition that takes place when we are ready for a new, deeper, and profoundly different relationship with God. Christ exemplifies this type of relationship - one in which we are no longer disciplined as children who do not yet understand, but rather one in which we are invited as friends, as brothers and sisters, as cooperative instruments in bringing God's reign into fruition, to see the fulfillment of God's will and laws through that perfect and abundant love that Christ taught us and teaches us to share with one another.

John expands on this idea, calling our attention to Christ's awesome presence among us as God's gift of grace upon grace. In Christ, we come to know God not as disciplinarian but as inspiration - as teacher in a new and cooperative way that draws us into God's kingdom as God's very instruments. John summarizes all of our readings today in teaching us that through a perpetual state of becoming, by the grace of God, through Christ, we have been given the power to become children of God.

Where I have found some difficulty with today's readings is in Paul and John's contrast between Mosaic law and grace in Christ. Both seem to pit Judaism and Christianity against each other, frequently seeming pretty anti-Semitic in the process. While in their own time the dynamics of the inter-religious family struggle that resulted in Christianity and Judaism ultimately becoming separate religions, it can leave us in a difficult position in today's world.

For my own part, I've found some help in reaching out to others whose different experience of God has deepened and broadened my own understanding of God's relationship to all of us. In my chaplain internship at Akron General Medical center in the summer of 2004, Rabbileuca, a friend and Rabbi, discussed with me the similarity between the modern Jewish understanding of the Word of God and the Christian understanding of Christ as the Word made flesh. I was surprised and delighted to learn that our understanding of Christ's message of love, service, and becoming instruments of God's abundance in the world is just as present in the Jewish understanding of God's word spoken through the laws and the prophets. The same Word, speaking the same message throughout time, just heard differently depending on where we are in our particular journey as Children of God.

As we find our own understanding of God radically changed through Christ, and our own relationship with God to be ever evolving as we continue on our path of becoming children of God and seeking to bring the abundance of God's kingdom to the world around us, perhaps it is fitting that the challenges that keep us mindful of the path and faith of others keep us also mindful of God's grace working through others in ways that demonstrate to us that we are still Children.

Just as we never outgrow the fundamental lessons we learned from our parents, but continue to learn and grow throughout our lives, so too we can never exhaust the awesome abundance of God's ever-changing and ever deepening presence in our own lives and world.

This week, as we continue our celebration of Christ's coming into the world, we are reminded in our readings not only of God's perpetual creative act of becoming in Christ, but of God's ceaseless action in the world to bring us into relationship with God and each other. As Children of God, as heirs with Christ of God's kingdom, we are reminded yet again that it is a kingdom of becoming. Just as Christ was and is heir of a kingdom that is perpetually becoming, so too are we heirs of this same kingdom - one that only becomes through our cooperative action in bringing it to the world around us.

This new year, let us join with all of God's children around the world to breath new life into Christ's ministry of love and abundance, so that, as Isaiah said, we might become to all those around us crowns of beauty in the hand of the Lord.

Amen.

Okay... since you got all the good spiritual stuff and got to hear about Fuego's and my excitement about ERD gifts in my sermon for the day, here's the lowdown on the mass-marketed side!

Christmas was a blast!

I got Fuego the complete series of Sex and the City, sewing lessons, the first season of the Brady Bunch (what can I say, she wanted it ;o), and a Peets Coffee card. She got me new Chacos (orange and fabulous!!), Spiderman 2, Kingdom Hearts II, Groundhog Day, and Accepted, a thermal fleece from REI, and Pirates of the Caribbean II.

I also got the complete series of Firefly from Captain Technology; Fearless and Click from Bro-head, Coctail Monkey, and Miraclechild; Indiana Jones trilogy, Xmen III, Zelda for GameCube, a new pair of jeans, and an espresso serving set from Guinneviere, a new hand-made wooden puzzle from Woodelf, a corded drill from Dad, an awesome bottle of singlemalt (Bowmore 12 yaer) and a framed photo from the wedding from Muddy and Designgirl, and a similarly awesome bottle of GreyGoose from Grasshopper, Redhot, and the kids. DJ Purgatory brought us a 3 pound box of Sees candies, Mel-the-Great gave us an awesome bottle of wine, Sadu Crobinhobin and J-bewan gave me an awesome green fleece vest, Some-of-the-time-girlfriend hooked me up with an awesome and decorative double-pointed dagger, and Fuego's grandparents sent us a check for $100! We also got a hive of bees and some mosquito-bed netting donated in our names through ERD (sweet!).

I realize that it's always dangerous to start listing gifts since you're bound to leave something awesome out that you were entirely stoked and touched to receive... but I thought I'd give it a try nonetheless.

Since I ask that people don't cut down trees in order to give me thank you cards, I thought I'd at least recognize and give my profound thanks to all my wonderful friends and family who made it out to D-town (or who were just here in spirit). You made this, our first Christmas in a new town, awesome.

Many blessings!

My sermon from Christmas Morning, 2006

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Readings: Isaiah 52:7-10, Psalm 98:1-6, Hebrews 1:1-12, John 1:1-14

It's Christmas morning! All the wonder and anticipation of Advent has come to this awesome and amazing day. Beyond the Christmas tree and the ravaging of gifts last night and this morning, we can find ourselves in a time of peace and wonder - the Word, God incarnate, Emmanuel has been born into the world.

John's introduction to his gospel this morning shouts to the world and to the heavens declaring that since the moment creation began there hasn't been a single more cosmically significant event than this birth. I love John's excitement in today's gospel. Here in microcosm is the entirety of salvation history including the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Christ in the world.
Starting with the beginning, John declares Christ as the Word, present with God before creation began - one and the same with God as God's spoken word. As we state every week in our creed, John states that through him all things were made. We talk about this a little bit on Trinity Sunday, but we rarely get the chance to really look at what it means that Christ is the Word of God made flesh. God the all powerful, all knowing, indescribable creator of the universe is known to us only through ways in which we can perceive God's presence. The Word is one such way. In this relationship we might think of God the Creator voicing God's will through the spoken Word, which becomes the power that creates - the Living Word of God as God's action in the decision to create. In this model, the breath of God that drives the spoken word can be seen as the Holy Spirit. This Living Word, God's volition in the creative act is the same Word that is made flesh in Christ - the living manifestation of God's own pure will put into action amongst us in the world.
John continues with a twist on the creative act of the Word, switching to the new creation that came along with Christ into the world - new life that John says is the light of all people: A light that shines in the darkness, a light that is present still, while the darkness that tried to overcome it is in the past - the darkness did not overcome it. Here John touches on all of salvation history. God's Word sent through the prophets, the visitation by angels bringing God's Word to God's chosen leaders, from Melchizedek in the time of Abraham to the burning bush, down through history to Mary, until finally the Word is simply born into the world to bring light and life personally through God's direct action in the world.
John the Baptist, Jesus' cousin by virtue of Elizabeth's family relation to Mary, came to proclaim that light, which other than Mary, a few magi from the East, and a couple of temple prophets, was unknown in the world which was created through him. Even after coming to know of him, John explains, his own people in the world he created ultimately rejected him.
But, and there's always an awesome and cosmic "but" in the Gospel message, the Good News is that to those who come to believe in him, Christ gives the power to become children of God - to continue Christ's work of light, love, and redemption in the world.
And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth.

I think one of my favorite things about John's gospel is how marvelously he conveys his excitement about the story and the news he's telling. It's an excitement that I've experienced both personally and vicariously through friends and family as they have come to experience God in profoundly personal and close ways for the first time in their lives. And this is the same excitement that John brings to his gospel - that of a new, invigorated, life-changing encounter with God that simply cannot be contained.

I remember making a phone call to my brother when I got back to my home parish after Happening. Most of you have heard me speak of Happening before, it's a spiritual retreat for teenagers, planned and led by other teens who have experienced the weekend before. It is similar to Cursillo, which is the adult version of the retreat, and is designed to help teens to experience Christ in a personal and meaningful way. For most it is a profound experience of God's love that many have never experienced before. Such was my own experience. Having come into the presence of the Holy in a way I had never experienced before, I felt that profound excitement that John conveys in his gospel - an excitement that I couldn't contain. As soon as I was within reach of a phone after the retreat, I called my family to share my experiences with them. I told them everything about the weekend and about my experience of God, so profound that I would never be the same. I remember my brother saying that he had never experienced God in that way and that he hoped he would some day. I felt as though my face must have been shining from the reactions I got from people I passed on the street and interacted with for the next several weeks.

This is the excitement of the shepherds as they came in from the fields and then went back into the world rejoicing, this is the excitement that brought magi from great distances from the East to bring gifts and took them home by another route so as to protect the holy family from Herod, this is the excitement of a new mother who has just birthed God into the world. And this is the excitement that I hope each of you can feel anew this Christmas morning. The excitement of knowing you've been in the presence of the holy and have been blessed by the encounter in ways that will change you forever.

This Christmas morning I hope you'll each make one final gift of your own selves to the world around you. We've each been given gifts to lighten the world around us, to proclaim the light that came into the world through sharing of ourselves with all those around us. This is the ultimate abundance of God's kingdom - an abundance of life, light, love, and support through us, who have been made children of God through Christ.

Merry Christmas.

Amen.

My sermon from 4 Advent - Christmas Eve morning, 24 December 2006 (they overlapped this year, so we did Advent 4 in the morning and Christmas Eve in the afternoon and evening... see my post for more info =o)

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Readings: Micah 5:2-5a, Canticle 3 or 15, Hebrews 10:5-10, Luke 1:39-45, (46-55)

It's difficult to preach this morning. Having the Fourth Sunday of Advent fall on Christmas Eve must be about the pinnacle of anticipation as with a grand flourish the long anticipation is about to yield fruit in our glorious celebration of the birth of Christ into the world - a celebration that is heralded both in our spiritual lives as Christians and in our nation's marketing and media campaigns.

Here we stand, yet again, in the middle of two worlds that converge and diverge around some of our most sacred and significant moments in the church year, racing simultaneously to the finish of our preparations for family and friends along side our own attempts to make time for deeper spiritual contemplation on the nature of God born into the world through the helpless crying flesh of a human baby.

I am struck, particularly this morning, by the polarity between those two worlds, and perhaps it is fitting that as the rest of that world of marketing and worship of the almighty dollar has already plunged headlong into Christmas Eve as it prepares for the END of Christmas tomorrow, we take this last moment out of our frantic schedules to appreciate the profound nature of this celebration, which for us is just beginning tomorrow on the First day of Christmas.

As we heard this morning in our candle lighting, the Fourth Sunday of Advent is the Sunday of Love. It is this Sunday when we hear of God's promise through Micah; of Mary's song of praise for being chosen as God's "handmaiden;" and of Elizabeth's proclamation of a joy so profound that even the growing child within her womb leaps for joy. This is certainly a Sunday of profound joy, profound faith, and of profound love. And it seems to me that nothing short of something this profound could call us away from the palpable anticipation of Christmas Eve, just a few short hours away - and could call us back to that inner quiet as we take these last few hours to contemplate the awesome miracle of Christ's promised arrival.

Looking more closely at Micah, we see a prophecy about Christ the King, the messiah who would come and rescue Israel from the persecutions it had been enduring from practically every side. Messiah would call all the inhabitants and sons of Israel back from the foreign lands to which they had been scattered, and would stand victorious over Israel's enemies to take the throne of David - providing security and prosperity for all time. This strikes me as some pretty intense marketing on Micah's part - no doubt every family in Israel would have been sold on this kind of Messiah. Unfortunately, the release date kept getting postponed while the product was refined and revised until it finally meet with God's idea perfection...

Mary and Elizabeth, several hundred years later, are still children of this same marketing promise, only to Elizabeth has come the promise that her own child - the child of her late years after long years of barrenness and waiting - was going to prepare the way for this promised messiah to come! Mary, not to be outdone, has also had a visitation from the Angel Gabriel proclaiming not only that the messiah was finally going to come, but that she was going to bring him into the world (about six months after Elizabeth's son John the Baptist was to be born)! When they meet in today's Gospel reading from Luke, they are both so elated that they practically burst into songs of praise and thanksgiving.

I suppose by this Christmas's marketing standard, it's a bit like having a friend who says her son can take you to a place where they still have the Nintendo Wii in stock so you can get it for your family, and then finding out that your own eldest son makes the Nintendo Wii and will bring one for you in time for Christmas... or perhaps not. Somewhere the marketing breaks down. The promises don't appear to live up to what they claimed, and we arrive at a different destination than the one promised in the hype of pre-messiah marketing.

Hebrews gives us the Messiah 2.0, "Jesus edition," press release, explaining that Jesus abolishes sacrifices and offerings (representative of the law) in order to establish the will of God for all time. This doesn't quite sound ... well ... anything like the promises that were made before. Where's the king that releases all of Israel from captivity and sits on the throne of David for all time bringing peace and prosperity? Again, the marketing breaks down.

There is a profound difference, however, between the prophecies of Christ and the prophecies of our modern cultural icons in mass-marketed Christmas goods. What humans create, it is of our own greed and marketing tricks that we come to misrepresent a product. When God came to us in Jesus, it was of our human blindness that we couldn't comprehend the awesome gift of a humble messiah who would teach us God's Love.

This Love Sunday, the last Sunday in Advent, let us look with new eyes at the promises of Christ's coming. Where we expected earthly power and a ruler by the sword, let us reexamine our ideas of power and glory through the person of Jesus... In Christ we learn that true power and glory come from the healing touch that reaches out to the outsider and draws them in and heals them. True power and glory come from the abundant compassion that demands we share what little resources we might have in order to feed the hungry multitudes. True power and glory come from the willingness to put others needs before our own - to the point of laying down our lives for those we care about and love. True power and glory come from the confidence and strength to stand up for what we believe in, even in the face of persecution from others. True power and glory come from faith. While we may have missed the point of Christ's purpose as messiah, just as his own disciples frequently missed the point, we have the opportunity still to rejoice in this new coming of Christ - a cyclic new beginning that allows us, each year, to reflect anew on the awesome importance of Christ's birth, life, ministry, teachings, death, and resurrection.

At the heart of all of our readings today is the rejoicing that comes from reveling in the anticipation of something awesome - something that will change our lives forever. This last Sunday of Advent - indeed in these last HOURS of Advent - this is the joy that I hope for you to experience as we enter into the new cycle of Christ's ministry to the world. It is up to each of us how we will find the song in our hearts that resonates with the rejoicing of today's awesome anticipation, and it is up to each of us how we will bring that joy with us out of the marketing Christmas season and into the world.

As many of you know, Fuego and I made the decision a few months ago that we were going to adopt a baby. We began taking the necessary steps in the adoption process, and will begin our required parenting classes in January. By the time we finally become eligible as adoptive parents the waiting will begin in earnest as we're put on the list with other hopeful parents... I am learning anew what it means to anticipate something awesome that will change my life forever, and as such, this has been a particularly profound Advent. However, amidst the excitement in our own lives, as well as in the lives of friends and family also experiencing major life changes, Fuego and I both found this Advent that we were having trouble getting into the mindful anticipation of Christ's coming that usually comes so easily with the Advent season.

We decided to enjoy some of the media-mass marketing aspects of Christmas such as listening to Christmas carols (yes, during advent), while also entering into a more purposeful exploration of Advent themes in our own lives that relate and connect into the Advent of Christ's birth. We discovered that through some aspects of the market driven Christmas season, we have actually been able to experience a more meaningful Advent and are both shocked at how quickly Christmas is already upon us. Fuego put it wonderfully when she said that when Christmas finally comes, we'll get to celebrate it for another eleven whole days beyond the marketing hoopla.

As much as we as Christians in today's world find ourselves in two different worlds, it is important for us to explore those ways in which our worlds converge. It is in these convergences, such as Mary experienced in a more profound way than any of us could ever know, that we too might find ourselves rejoicing in the presence of God that transcends the artificial boundaries we place between the different "worlds" of our own lives. In the meantime, let us anticipate just a bit longer as we prepare our hearts and minds for Christ's coming.

Amen.

Must relay a funny (I use the term loosely) story...

So I was working on my finals, really just two since they were both research papers that I didn't have time to write amongst everything else going on in the busy life of Garnabus. Anyway, I looked at the syllabi, noting that one was an 8-10 page paper and the other was a minimum of 15 pages. I carefully planned out the 15 page essay, realizing that it would make a great chapter in my thesis next semester as it involved research that is highly important for my topic (it was the parallel history of homosexuality and Christianity in Africa). This was a difficult topic to research and after searching for a couple of weeks, I settled on three books that provided the meat for three of the five sections (the other two being an introduction to the current state of tension in the Anglican Communion, and the application of my research to the current attempts for reconciliation). I read the six-hundred pages worth of books over a three-day period and then settled down to write the essay, which turned out to be twenty pages long and a very satisfying piece of research after about a day and a half of writing.

Here's the part in the plot where our hero discovers something dramatic that causes a somewhat comedic but really more tragic turn of events.

I sat down later on the second day to start my second essay, which was supposed to be a cinch since the long one was already done. I should note at this point that this is the day that both essays are due, but since that's when I finally had the time to write them, I just sucked it up and went for it. I got out my syllabus to double check the requirements of the paper -- the faint of heart may want to stop reading at this point -- to find that the paper was to be "15 pages."

"What could this mean," I wondered to myself, quickly shuffling through my notebook to reread the requirements for the first paper, which I found (to my horror) was to be "8-10 pages."

So... since I wasn't going to butcher a fine piece of research needlessly, I took a few minutes to write my professor an email letting him know what had happened and proposed that my final reflection paper's page count be added to my Final Paper, which would mean that I was only over by as many as five pages. I explained that if he wanted me to cut down my paper to ten pages I would need to file for an incomplete and request an extension, but added the concession that if he would accept the 20-page paper but still wanted the last reflection in addition, I could probably get that done this week (in time for grading which is supposed to be turned in next Monday). As I haven't heard back yet, I'll have to leave you hanging on that part of the story.

Wrapping up the other piece of the story, I received an email from my other professor asking me if I needed an extension on the final since he knew what had been going on in my life (very generous and thoughtful of him, I thought!). I wrote back letting him know that I would be able to get my final in later that evening, and proceeded to reread and take notes on the relevant sections of the Buddhist sutras involved. As it turned out, it took me exactly 15 pages to say what I had to say about the subject I had proposed as my final project (a philosophic/meditative exploration of the different descriptions of the Pure Land between the "Smaller Sutra" and the "Larger Sutra" in the Pure Land tradition of Mahayana Buddhism -- okay, yes, this is kind of esoteric, but it's also awesome). I sent the paper off at 2:00 am on Friday night/Saturday morning with a note asking if it would reflect poorly on my grade if I failed to turn in my last two one-page reflections. Happily, my professor received my paper and let me know that if I would be able to submit at least on of these reflections, it would mean that my grade would not be effected.

The end...Sort of... now I finally get to prepare for Christmas and keep my fingers crossed that my other professor will be as generous ;o)

That's me for now... I'll update you when I know more.

Celebrating my first blessing of a marriage was one of the most profound and ... well ... frightening experiences of my life!

I was so nearvous that I stuttered over Muddy's last name (I've only known him for the past fourteen years). I did my best to make light of it and the rest of the ceremony went great.

It was a truly amazing experience.

Between Muddy, Grasshopper, and I, we brewed 25 gallons of homebrew for the occassion (okay, so my part was only 5 gallons, but I did bring a keg =o).

The party was awesome, and we sent the newly married couple off in style, thanks to Mamaduck's hiring of a bagpiper to play them out the door to their convertible roadster to make their final escape from the festivities.

As a gift for doing the service, they gave me a beautiful liturgical stole, which I wore for the ceremony.

This has been an insane couple of weeks... I wish I could crash for a few days, but at least Christmas is coming (we get the whole week between Christmas and New Year off!). It's hard to believe it's already Advent!

This is the sermon I gave for two dear friends, Muddy and Designgirl, whose wedding was my first blessing and celebration of a non Eucharistic sacrament as a new priest. I hope they won't mind my posting it here ;o)

10 December 2006 (a week and a day after my ordination!).

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Readings: John 15:9-12, (also a Celtic blessing and a poem by Czeslaw Milosz - included below)

Celtic Blessing:

If there is righteousness in the heart, there will be beauty in the character. If there is beauty in the character, there will be harmony in the home. If there is harmony in the home, there will be order in the nation. If there is order in the nation, there will be peace in the world. So let it be

The Two of you... by Czeslaw Milosz:

Don't run any more. Quiet. How softly it rains On the
roofs of the city. How perfect all things are. Now, for the two of you Waking up in a royal bed by a garret window. For a man and a woman. For one plant divided Into masculine and feminine which longed for each other. Yes, this is my gift to you. Above ashes On a bitter, bitter earth. Above the subterranean echo of clamorings and vows. So that now at dawn You must be attentive: the tilt of a head, A hand with a comb, two faces in a mirror Are only forever once, even if unremembered, So that you watch what is, though it fades away, And are grateful every moment for your being. Let that little park with greenish marble busts In the pearl- gray light. under a summer drizzle, Remain as it was when you opened the gate. And the street of tall peeling porticoes Which this love of yours suddenly transformed.

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Most of us would agree that the heart of every good marriage ought to be love.

Well... it is clear to me that on this glorious day, we have all gathered in the presence of Love, to celebrate and together to consecrate the Love that Muddy and Designgirl share for one another.

Our three readings today all point to the heart of a deep and abiding care that heals, transcends, lifts up, and glorifies. Bridemom’s reading from the Celtic tradition draws the conclusion that through the shared love and harmony of the home, order and peace can be created in the nation, and the world. Groommom’s reading from Czeslaw Milosz speaks of love as transformative of both life and heart. John's Gospel similarly speaks of love, as Christ's one great commandment to his followers.

While each of these speaks of love in ways that draw up our hearts in the warm embrace of comfort and peace, they also come with a catch.

As Muddy and Designgirl, and any of us who have been in a committed relationship know, love isn't always easy. Our Celtic Blessing speaks of harmony in the home leading to order in the nation and peace in the world, but there is a critical step that is required for one to lead to another. Milosz touches on the same theme in speaking of the many different transformations that love has the power to bring about both within us and because of us. Yet Love is powerless until acted upon. It is this same aspect that draws my attention to the last bit of Jesus' commandment in John's gospel today - "love one another - as I have loved you."

Jesus' love was a love of action. He walked thousands of miles over the course of his life, looking with compassion and love on those who were oppressed, marginalized, ostracized, and outcast. Yet without reaching out his hand to make a difference in his world, all his love and compassion would have made no difference.

Christ's love, which we are commanded to have for one another, is a love that transcends fear and convention. It is a love that boldly spoke truth, heedless of consequences. It is a love that teaches us that in order to be great, we must become the servant of all those around us - heedless of reward or repayment. It is a love that teaches us that the greatest gift we can give one another is to lay down our lives for one another.

Muddy and Designgirl embody this love today. As they lay down their individual lives to commit themselves to becoming one, they mirror Christ's commandment to all of us. In taking courage in the transforming and transformative power of love, they have been moved to act on that courage and have just begun to unlock the amazing power that love holds in store for them in their lives together.

From our friendship over the past fourteen years, as well as from our conversations over the past couple of months in premarital counseling I am confident in the knowledge that this action will not stop at their joining together before God and us today.

I first met both Muddy and Designgirl in 1992 through youth programs in the Episcopal Church. Muddy at Youth Group, and Designgirl a few months later at a powerful weekend youth retreat called Happening. Both of them were profound examples to me to God's love during a hard time in my life, and despite the difficulties that each has endured over the years, neither of them has ceased reaching out and caring for others around them.

And though neither of them has frequented a physical church on a regular basis for some time now (something I hope I can convince them to think about), they continue to model Christ's love in their daily lives. When both played active parts in my wedding three years ago, it was my secret hope that they might finally recognize that they were perfect for each other.

Designgirl, each and every day of the long years you waited for a new kidney, you took the opportunity to be thankful for the small things that kept you positive, motivated, and looking forward. Your gift of courage and your ability to recognize the silver lining in every cloud touched so many of our lives. It is a gift that will serve you well in the years to come as you and Muddy continue to face each new day together.

Muddy, you've been a brother to me for almost half my life. Your ability to find and share humor and joy in life, to reach out to those near you in love and generosity, and your faithfulness to your friends and family are some of the most dear and treasured traits a person can have. They have already served both you and Designgirl well as you struggled together through the last stage of her wait for a kidney, and they will be invaluable in your relationship as husband and wife.

You are a treasured and loved couple, and my hope for you both is that you will continue to cultivate your many gifts together, and continue to share that amazing love that you share in common with those around you who so need a glimpse of the holy Love that your relationship embodies.

We are each called, with Muddy and Designgirl, to reach out beyond our own circles of comfort today and every day. To act on the kind of Love that Christ speaks of, transforming lives around us, serving those who most need to experience the abundance of God's love in this world, and by the power of love, to make the small differences in each others lives and the lives of those around us that, when added up over a lifetime, have the power to change the world.

Amen.

Too much to say and too little time to say it right now... a brief calendar of events and I'll fill in the details after the 15th! (I'll also post my sermon from last Tuesday below... and a special one from today after I get it from the friend on whose computer I wrote it).

Okay...

3-5 Nov: Disneyland trip with 48 teenagers

9-11 Nov: Diocesan Convention (where I got to do a pretty major presentation!)

16 Nov: Gave my first ever lecture (for a 3-hour long class). Well received and a lot of fun!

23 Nov: Thanksgiving -- made dinner for nine people (turkey and all the trimmings! Okay so MFA made delicious pies!!)

(it stands for Master of Fine Arts... I realize there are other words that match the acronym -- it's not those words ;o)

27 Nov: My Birthday

27-28 Nov: My Ordination retreat

2 Dec: My Ordination to the priesthood (yay!! The fulfillment of a lifelong dream!)

3-5 Dec: Presided at four services.

10 Dec: Officiated at my first wedding (Yay Muddy and DesignGirl!! Congrats!!!)

This week: Write two 15 page research papers and one reflection paper that I didn't have time to turn in because of all the other stuff that's been going on!!

Mind you, there has continued to be 40 hours of work per week and at least another 20 hours per week of studying and paper writing.

By the 15th, I will be ready for a pretty serious break! (Just in time for Christmas... when I'll be preaching on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Year's Eve -- sweet!).

Hope everyone's Advent is going great! (No, there are in fact NOT 40 days of Christmas starting on Black Friday and ending on the 26th of December. There are four Sunday's worth of weeks of Advent and THEN Christmas begins on the 25th and lasts 12 days... sheesh ;o)

Sermon from 5 December 2006 (Tuesday of Advent I)

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Readings: Isaiah 25:6-9, Psalm 23, Matthew 15:29-39

Advent has become one of the most overlooked church seasons of the year in contemporary culture. Our mass media and marketing society has no time to anticipate, to contemplate the great mysteries of spiritual life, to wait with bated breath for a glorious arrival. About the closest we come in today's society is the release of the PlayStation 3 or the Nintendo Wii - the two most coveted Christmas gifts of what has become the gift buying season between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Christmas displays started popping up the day after Halloween - still two church seasons removed from Christmas. And by the Monday after Thanksgiving, anyone who was anyone had made it out to put up their Christmas lights and their inflatable Santas and Frostys.

Christmas songs, proclaiming that Christmas has already come, sing gaily in stores and malls of packages in red and green, bright shining Christmas trees, and all the toys and goodies that are owed to us because of the gifting season.

Lest this begin to sound of bah' humbug, let me just say that I LOVE Christmas. But I also Love the season of Advent, in which I find myself invited back into the anticipation of the awesome mystery of Christ's coming.

As we move through the beginning of Advent, we find our selves, in our readings, enmeshed in the advent of the Kingdom of God. Indeed, we find in today's readings some great examples both of the spirit of advent in anticipation, expectation, faith, and hope, and also two perfect examples of the signs that the kingdom has come near.

Isaiah's words today reflect the hope of the world. A great feast to which all the peoples of the world are invited to have their fill of decadent foods and fine wines. A feast at which the stain of sin has been removed, the burial shroud of death has been destroyed, sadness and despair have been wiped away. This will be the coming of the kingdom of God and the long anticipated arrival of God among us.

The Psalmist's words of faith resonate with Isaiah in the spiritual bond between us and our Lord, who provides for our every spiritual need, sustaining us, giving us peace and comfort, and anointing us as children of God such that nothing can ever separate us from the Love of God.

In our Gospel today, we have the fulfilling of these hopes, both spiritual and physical. The two sure signs of the coming of God's kingdom are abundance of God's grace in physical and spiritual wellbeing, and physical nourishment beyond our capacity to want.

Jesus heals all manor of physical and spiritual illness, and then when the crowd's spiritual needs have been cared for and their bodies have been made whole, he provides them a feast in their tranquility, providing them with such abundance that seven baskets full were collected from their leftovers.

This is the coming of the kingdom. But it is a kingdom that is always at hand, always coming, always near, always anticipated, yet is also always yet to come.

As Christ's hands and heart in the world, it is up to us to continue Christ's work to bring about the kingdom of God... to continue that hope and faith of the world for the time when we can all sit down to the banquet and feast together - with none being left out.

Fuego and I are struggling this year as we decide to limit our gift buying to TWO gifts per person on our list. What we have decided is that one gift will be the traditional fun and exciting gift that we have come to associate with Christmas. The other will be a gift out of the Episcopal Relief and Development catalogue, giving mosquito netting, livestock, sustainable crop resources, funding for medical treatment and providing of a clean water source and sanitation education to needy families and villages in the two-thirds world.

The Millennium Development Goals have brought to our attention the fact that we can make a very palpable difference in the world. As part of our prayerful anticipation of the coming of God's kingdom through the birth of Christ, we have come to a place where we can no longer ignore our responsibility to bring the abundance of God's kingdom to those who have never experienced a day of abundance in their lives.

While the rest of the world still waits with bated breath for the promised feast, we, as Americans, already have so much abundance that within a week of both Thanksgiving and Christmas, we as a nation will throw away enough food that we could have fed ALL of the world's hungry along with us for those two festal meals.

There is a sense in which all the hullabaloo of Christmas marketing serves to highlight the anticipation - mirroring Advent in a secular looking forward to another massively consumptive consumer holiday - but the atmosphere of careless spending and frivolity is also easy to get caught up in and can take us away from contemplating the most important gift ever given to the world, our Lord Jesus Christ.

This Advent, let us prepare the way for the coming of God's kingdom by doing our own small part in making this the Advent of the whole world.

Amen.

Wow... this has been a weekend to remember!

Saturday was my Ordination to the priesthood -- I don't think that will really sink in for a while yet, but it was an entierly overwhelming experience (in a profoundly good way ;o)

It's hard to explain, but the most amazing moment for me was the moment just after the bishop and pretty much EVERY priest in the diocese finished laying hands on me and saying the prayer of consecration over me. It was a feeling of lightness, joy, and profound connection to the centuries of Anglican tradition before me. It was quite simply awesome.

After the ordination a group of about twenty or thirty people gathered with me to celebrate at Gordon Biersch in downtown San Francisco. My mom drove Fuego and I down from D-town, so I actually got to have a couple of beers in celebration -- thanks ma'! =o)

Sunday was my first Sunday as a priest at St. ECWIW's, and I got to preside at all three Eucharists! About the only way I can explain it is that it just fealt right... and it was amazing.

I got to celebrate again at today's Eucharist, as well as preaching (I'll post my sermon today too).

As an introvert, you might guess that I'm exhausted after all the excitement and fun... you would be correct. I'm hoping to have a pretty low key week. Especially since next Sunday is Muddy and Designgirl's wedding (yikes -- my first wedding)!!

What a weekend!