Singing with the Psalms (Psalm 147)

As I read the psalm this week, I could not get out of my head the sound of old Baptist farmers, specifically when they were singing at the top of their lungs!

            To be honest, “old farmers singing” is the clearest memory I have growing up.  We really could sing our hearts out on a Sunday morning--the old men rumbling on the bass part of the songs.  While I remember other bits of my early years as a kid in church, what is particularly memorable is the congregation at song sticks in my brain.  We sang hymns that seemed to shake the rafters:

Praise Him! Praise Him!

Tell of his excellent greatness!

Praise Him! Praise Him ever in joyful song!

            As the Psalter draws to a close, the last five psalms (Ps. 146-150) are the so-called “Hallelujah” hymns, serving as a capstone and finishing flourish to the overall collection.  They are called the “Hallelujah” psalms due to each one beginning and ending with the Hebrew phrase “Hallelujah”.  The word is often rendered in English as the phrase “Praise the Lord!” though it is actually more of a command or a summons “to praise, shout, sing praise” to God (cf. “HALLEUJAH”, NIBD, Vol II, p. 723).   From beginning to end, the people are reminded to keep giving God due praise.

If you asked the various Psalm composers, they would say I remember one of the most important parts of worship:  the people of God singing together.  Of course, psalmists are quite biased, as the book of Psalms are a collection of songs, a veritable wealth of riches for the liturgical life of a people: calls to praise, calls to prayer, songs of sorrow and joy, songs of a people’s life with God (and often their failings to live into the fullness of this relationship).  The psalms serve as a communal summons to sing together at worship, on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and throughout one’s life. 

            So we find that the old Baptist farmers were doing something more than singing a song boisterously (and hopefully not too off key!).  The little group in a small town church engaged in the work of becoming the people of God at worship and using a venerable ancient spiritual practice to do so.  While we Baptists talked about the importance of the sermon in our worship service, the music made an even greater impression, forming and fashioning us into a people engaged in the praise to God.

            This particular psalm calls the people to give due praise to God as expected: at the beginning and at the end. In turn, the 147^th Psalm reads a bit like many hymns in our hymnal.  The psalm has three sections, similar to the verses of a longer hymn.  Each section builds upon the one previous, escalating a drama of sorts for those singing this psalm. 

            The first section opens with the call to praise God and reminds the worshipper of God’s worthiness of due praise.  Here, we get a glimpse of “when” the psalm was written, as reference is made to Jerusalem in need of reconstruction and persons in crisis.  For centuries, it was customary for interpreters to lump all of the psalms into the time of King David, the psalms of the royal court at its height.  As scholarship has matured in its reading of the Psalms, the consensus has shifted towards an understanding of the psalms as a collection coming together long after David’s monarchy came crashing down. 

Some psalms came in happier times in the life of ancient Israel while others came long after “the party was over” for life as the earlier generations composing certain psalms.   I cite the history lesson as it gives better perspective on why this psalm’s call to praise God has such power. The psalmist is encouraging those who are engaged in the hard work of rebuilding a life in the ruins of Jerusalem. It tells us who we are as God’s beloved, especially when times of adversity threaten to overwhelm and overshadow.  The psalm calls out a word of hope to the outcast, the broken-hearted, the wounded, the downtrodden and those victimized by the wicked.  The 147^th Psalm summons to praise a group of people just finding their voice again, sorting out what life looks like after great hardship or catastrophe. 

            Out of such hope from generation to generation, the melodies rise up in the voices of people regaining their very identity.  The psalms ground such hope not in the politics or economics ruling the day.  They place such hope in the hands of God, maker of heaven and earth, the one who binds up the wounded and cares for the vulnerable.  No wonder as the reminders of whom God is roll along, the psalm then says, “Sing to the Lord with thanksgiving.”  It is a statement of gratitude.  It is a word of encouragement to those whose voices seem lost in the midst of the world’s noise and indifference.

Over the narratives of the Hebrew Scriptures, we learn of God’s willingness to restore and rebuild the broken down, often wandering people.  The world may seem ready to fall apart.  The present may seem bleak, yet the psalmist calls people to the praise of God.

This hopeful word of the psalmist echoes in our own historical treasury of songs.  From the early 20^th century onwards, the song “Lift Every Voice and Sing” takes the poetry of James Weldon Johnson and lifts up the travails and the determination of a people whose history is intertwined by tragedy and hope.  As I read the psalm, I recalled these lyrics, sung many a time at a MLK Day service over the years:

            Lift every voice and sing, till earth and heaven ring,

            Ring with the harmonies of liberty;

            Let our rejoicing rise high as the listening skies,

            Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.

            Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us;

            Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;

            Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,

            Let us march on ‘till victory is won.

As the psalm raises its singers above the world as we tend to experience it, the song turns us beyond the human experience of existence.  The psalm celebrates God’s handiwork in the fullness of Creation, bringing the world to life and celebrating its God-given liveliness.  The verdant green of the hills, the white caps upon the mountains and the mighty torrent of the waters are all celebrated as God at work in the midst of Creation.  We are gifted with a world that God endeavors to make it a place of abundance and good. 

Thus we turn to the grand delight of the Hebrew Scriptures, texts that remind us that humanity is part of a greater whole.  While we fritter away at our own problems, Creation is understood as a much bigger picture than humanity’s sometimes “human-centric” self-understanding.  All of Creation is given to the praise of God, not just us.  The psalms that begin and end with a summons to give praise to God do not presume to leave such work to the worshippers inside the temple.  It’s a wider chorus given over to the awe of God.

And now we turn to another hymn, one likely unfamiliar, yet as we get into its words and tune, we hear the same intentions behind the 147^th Psalm.   The hymn writer frames his words in the form of questions, perhaps ones that should be simply asked and pondered rather than hastily answered.  How does any part of Creation ever sufficiently give praise to God, humans included?

In singing to the God who created the tiny sparrow and the great whale, the congregation at song raises up the beauty of God’s creation yet admits that such wonder in the world can be scarcely summed up.  It is a hymn that calls us to praise while taking down our human pretentions to “know it all”.  When the world seems crashing down, the song of praise to God goes on, just as God’s goodness and love for the world is celebrated as the true “last word” on all things. 

God of the sparrow
  God of the whale

God of the swirling stars

How does the creature say Awe

How does the creature say Praise

God of the earthquake
 God of the storm

God of the trumpet blast

How does the creature cry Woe

How does the creature cry Save

God of the rainbow 
God of the cross

God of the empty grave

How does the creature say Grace

How does the creature say Thanks

God of the ages 
God near at hand

God of the loving heart

How do your children say Joy

How do your children say Home

Authority Figures (Mark 1:21-28)

            It’s a quiet morning.  The people gather for worship.  The rhythm of song and prayers just rolls along.

            Until….

            The brash newcomer arrives and seats himself in the posture of teacher.  What he says is quite believable, well received.  Nonetheless, folks look at each other in amazement.  How could someone unknown and so untested be so wise?

            No sooner has the crowd’s murmuring spread that something else extraordinary happens.

            A person in the crowd begins to shout.  The people look nervously at one another.  The odd behavior and the erratic words, the glint in the eye, surely this person has an unclean spirit!

            Now at this point, you and I hit the “pause” button and consider the scene.  We have a few options for reading this story.  Surrounding us is the knowledge base we bring as twenty-first century readers.   How do we read this story?  Is this a story best read with a grain of salt, knowing that the world of the first-century Christian writer reflected a belief in demons that makes western modern Christians wince a bit?  Or, do we page Dr. Freud to come and help us understand the story through the lens of modern understandings of psychology and mental health?  (Ah yes, Mark, just recline on the couch here, and tell me about your oral tradition….)

            At first, the story could be classified as an exorcism, a casting out of the demonic.  Some might even declare it part of the miracle stories of Jesus, a great show of his power.  As for Mark’s gospel, neither exorcism nor miracle would fit the best descriptor.  Mark is more interested in telling a story about Jesus and authority.

Certainly, the spectacle of this scene misdirects our attention:  a person starts acting out, screaming and shouting.  Then after a brief exchange between the person and Jesus, the person falls over, released from what Mark terms “an unclean spirit” within him.  Make no mistake:  While a person with an unclean spirit causes a ruckus, the real rumble about to take place revolves around religious authority.

The gospels revolve around those who would praise Jesus and those who would gladly discredit him.  Look back at the scene in Mark’s gospel:  the crowd is astonished that Jesus has presumed to enter into a place of worship and teach.  Jesus was just gaining public attention.  Indeed, after this incident with the unclean spirit, Jesus is said to grow in his standing among the local people. 

Indeed, this type of scene repeats throughout Mark’s gospel:  people hear Jesus, some sort of challenge to his honor and authority is levied, and Jesus’ response not only is honorable, he becomes that much more respected as a teacher and healer.  In the words of the late German feminist theologian Dorthee Soelle: 

“With a host of friends (women as well) going through Galilee’s villages and towns

he healed the sick and told stories of the eternal God suffering in the world”.  (cf. Jesus of Nazareth, W/JKP)

Even as the crowds murmur their guarded praise and Jesus’ newly called first followers watch on with curiosity, the unclean spirit realizes the fullness of Jesus’ authority.  The spirit names Jesus as “the Holy One of God”.  While the spirit is trying its best to get out of what is certain doom for itself, the spirit is also quick to acknowledge true power. 

In the first chapter of Mark alone, we get narrative after narrative of those who affirm the authority of Jesus.  The unclean spirit is actually right in step with John the Baptist, who proclaims Jesus as the one long awaited in the hope of Israel.  The unclean spirit is in tune with Mark’s ebullient opening words, proclaiming this gospel as the good news of “Jesus Christ (or “the Messiah”), the Son of God”.  The unholy even agrees with God, whose voice is heard rumbling approval at the baptism of Jesus as the beloved one.  Toss in a few disciples who drop everything, sight unseen, and you get where Mark is leading his reader even before we get to the second chapter.  Here is Jesus, one with authority.

Again, we hit “pause” to ponder that word “authority”.  Authority is a hard sell today.  Studies show public trust is eroding, and not just in the areas of public life that you might expect.  Such surveys show decreasing trust in religion and especially religious leaders (i.e. “clergy”).  A story about trust, let alone trust in God, gives today’s average American pause, wondering if trust is just a passing fancy on the way to the eventual questions and doubt too easily earned by institutions and authority figures once thought above reproach.

            Mark’s gospel builds its story of Jesus, who emerges on the scene an unknown, yet steadily hailed as “the real deal”.  This story of authority is in the midst of the world’s doubts and ambiguity around human authority.  It unfolds in the midst of a religious gathering in Capernaum.  The crowds reflect the sentiment of the day: reserved at first with this outsider who presumes not only entering their worship, he also presumes to teach.  They are a people caught up in the midst of life, just trying to get by in a land under the economic thumb of distant Empire.  It’s hard to believe much good can be found, let alone the type of authority that shall lead us forward.

Mark contrasts these positives with the lack of response or outright scorn of others in the narrative.  Time and again, Mark will introduce characters who arrive at moments of teaching and healings to challenge, scoff at, or outright dismiss Jesus and his ministry.  Ironically (and Mark loves irony in his narrative), the scribes, or religious authorities, whom Jesus is hailed as more authoritative than, are said later in Mark’s gospel to be accusing Jesus of being possessed himself.  The gospel keeps asking:  will you see and believe in Jesus who his followers call Messiah and Son of God?  

Curiously, with all this talk of authority, Jesus himself does not want the fuss.  He tells the unclean spirit to hush.  (The Greek is fairly blunt, the tone more “Shut up!” than the NRSV’s more Protestant restraint of “Be silent”.) The spirit has named him rightly, yet Jesus dismisses him straight away.

Again, Mark likes some irony with his gospel.  Crowds will try to hail Jesus king; the disciples will claim boldly and brashly the authority of Jesus and their fidelity to him. The unclean spirit screams at first, then realizing who is front of him, the spirit then shrieks in fear. As for Jesus, he looks at his well-wishers and around his inner circle and tells them, “Shhhh!”  

In Mark’s gospel, Jesus is shown to have due claim to authority, yet he declines taking the spotlight or capitalizing on the fame.  Surely his reputation grows, yet he is not like those who gain respect or trust then try to spin it into finer things: status, wealth, or power.  Jesus lives a different path, not claiming authority as the scribes wanted.  Jesus steered clear of the populist impulse within the crowds and even his band of followers, not claiming a crown.  Jesus does not need that type of authority.  He keeps to his mission, proclaiming the Kingdom/Reign of God at hand. 

            He stays on message.  He stays on mission.  He stays true to everything Mark’s gospel is proclaiming.  Jesus is the Messiah/Christ, the Son of God.  

            And the unclean spirit does not fight him.  He pleads meekly and then departs.

            For a people knowing authority is hard to find and hard to believe, the story offers us the opportunity to open our hearts a bit more and let God in the midst of our lives.  When those fears or passions threaten to possess and consume us, we call upon the good name of Jesus, who healed the many and taught those who would receive him gladly.  When the world or the powers that be keep us distracted, the stories of Jesus, the one whose power and authority is earned by his humility rather than by his grasping after it, offer their ancient power to kindle our faith and trust.

            Whom do you trust in this world?  To whom be your glory and honor?  Do you hear the story and agree, this is truly the Holy One, who speaks as one with authority?

The Searchers (Mark 1:4-11)

The Searchers 

Growing up, I traveled with my father around the back roads, making our way to check on various places where we pastured cattle or had crops planted.  Going down one dirt road after another, I remember being quite puzzled why one of these roads seemed to veer off in another direction, a strangely sharp turn around a bend.  (Note: Given that this was Kansas, a much flatter terrain, I know that a road like this does not sound that much out of the ordinary to Vermonters.)  One day as we made our way down that particular road and neared the strange veering off along the road, I asked my father why the road was so oddly designed.

            Father pointed out a bramble of trees and brush just beyond the bend. He told me that decades ago the road used to go straight ahead, leading to a homestead about a quarter mile over the horizon.  When the land sold, the farm house and the road were abandoned. The road reverted back to weed trees and tall grass, and the county road crew just made due by reshaping the rest of the intersection as best they could.  Unless you knew where to look, you’d think that there had never been a road there.

            The British Baptist theologian Paul Fiddes tells the story of workers renovating an old residence.  Working in the basement, they were quite puzzled by a pit they found downstairs. Was it the place where coal was stored up until needed for heating the family home?  They had never quite seen one just like it.  After some inquiries, they discovered that the house used to be a small Baptist chapel, which eventually sold the property to a developer decades ago.  The chapel had been turned into a duplex, and the “coal pit” turned out to be the one-time congregation’s baptistery!

            These two stories remind us that times change.  A house was built by an enterprising family in one generation and a couple of generations removed, the years of work creating a homestead out on the Kansas prairie became a curious footnote, nearly forgotten.  What looked like a coal pit was really a sacred place, a “home” of sorts for the faithful, where they were to be brought into the fellowship of a congregation and more importantly, to follow Jesus obediently into the baptismal waters. 

A congregation could build a chapel (in this sense of the word, a smaller church building), and years later the very focal point of a Baptist worshipping community (its baptistery) had been long disused, its original purpose forgotten as the congregation moved on to build bigger facilities elsewhere or the fellowship simply disbanded at some point in the past. 

Today we encounter a road of sorts.  The path to baptism and the way of discipleship intersect necessarily where we move from being an interested learner to the decision to follow Jesus as believers.  Each Christian has to follow this pathway (though curiously the road may seem longer or shorter, steeper or smoother, depending on the faith journey made by an individual).  Nonetheless, along that way, as a person moves toward baptism and the life of discipleship, the Church has the task of road upkeep.  Without a community of believers encouraging and supporting newcomers to the faith, the pathways might be forgotten, leaving very little clue about how to find one’s way along the path of Christian discipleship. 

This past year, we only had one baptism.  Christopher Redding came to First Baptist, thanks in part to the encouragement of his grandmother and parents and the time we spent together talking about the faith.  I again apologize for the “cold mountain stream water” he encountered the day he was baptized, yet nonetheless, he became a follower of Jesus through his exploration of faith, his study of Christian scriptures and readings, and his willingness to search, ask questions and ponder the beliefs of Christianity in his heart.  The membership numbers may not have leapt upwards by the dozen in 2011, yet I believe we helped Christopher begin a lifelong journey.  Some of this journey ahead is by his continuing choice to do so.  Nonetheless, this congregation and others in his future have the task of being places where pilgrims on the journey can find hospitality, support and opportunities to grow.

After all, what else are congregations for?

On PBS this winter, the second series of Downton Abbey will air over the course of several Sunday evenings.  Set in the era around the first World War, the story traces the waning years of a country estate where the aristocrats watch their world of privilege being outmoded and the dozens of household and grounds staff get caught up in the changes sweeping society (the suffrage movement, the escalation up to WWI, the growing opportunities for persons to leave the rural villages in pursuit of greater opportunities in the city, etc.). 

At the helm of the family and ancestral estate is the Lord of the estate, Sir Robert Crawley, the Earl of Grantham.  He is the last of a line, and through situations beyond his control, he finds his title and the estate’s future in question.  A distant cousin, never in consideration as an heir, becomes the inheritor of the estate and title when two relatives die in the sinking of the Titanic.  Now trying to make the best of it, Lord Grantham is introducing his cousin Matthew to what will await the younger man when the estate and title are passed over.  Walking around the estate grounds, the two men look at the large manor home, a sight that Cousin Matthew is not quite ready to consider “his” someday.  Sir Robert observes,

Lord Grantham: You do not love the place yet.
Matthew Crawley: Well, obviously, it’s…
Lord Grantham: No, you don’t love it. You see a million bricks that may crumble, a thousand gutters and pipes that may block and leak, and stone that will crack in the frost.
Matthew Crawley: But you don’t?
Lord Grantham: I see my life’s work.

Sometimes we lose sight in congregations about our basic mission.  We build places of worship and then spend more time worrying about upkeep than we do mission. When Downton Abbey first aired a year ago, I quoted Lord Grantham’s line about “a million bricks that may crumble, a thousand gutters and pipes, stone cracking in  the frost” at the Trustee meetings as it spoke to one of the tensions we deal with having such a large building.  Yet I also quoted the other of Lord Grantham’s lines regarding the property:  “I see my life’s work.”

Here in this place, we have a mission that is delightfully diversified. In part, we have the missional church work of providing space to community programs and various non-profit activities that help people meet their basic human needs.  This work has helped us generate revenue to tackle present and deferred upkeep needs, while also raising our value in the community as a place where people can find help.  Indeed, this coming Thursday, Wayne and I will be guest lecturers for a Doctor of Ministry class in Kansas City, speaking to a group of pastors learning new skills to deal with this strange world we are now living in, where people have decreasing interest in “religion”, numbers have declined across the denominations, and what little “margin” is left in many congregations is not able to keep up with the demands of increasing bills and a tough economy.   First Baptist is part of the solution to the problem, as we have put together over the past three-plus years a new way of keeping a “large building and a smaller congregation” as a recipe for good things yet to come rather than “it’s only a matter of time”.

Of course, now that we have gotten some of the “big picture” issues resolved (missional purpose chief among them), what does it mean to be also “in love” with this place?  For congregations, “place” or “home” is more than just a collection of bricks, pipe, and stone.  We are more than the sum of property.  To understand “church”, you have to talk about people who believe in Jesus and find ways to encourage one another in the life of faith through the corporate/communal practices of a congregation.  Our love of place grows out of singing and praying together, serving one another and the neighbor in need alike, reading and discerning God’s word for us today, and especially for Baptists, knowing how to throw a good ole potluck.  We sometimes bog down in questions of brick and mortar, yet we are learning not to be defined by them. 

In the upcoming bylaws proposed for your consideration and vote, we are looking at strengthening and streamlining the number of boards.  Our present bylaws presume nearly two dozen people to serve in ongoing officer or board membership.  As we assessed the present day needs of First Baptist, we need leadership to manage financial and property issues, yet we also need a board to oversee what it means to be a member of First Baptist.  Discipleship takes on many forms:  worship, education, fellowship, care, and service.  This proposed board takes primarily the place of the Board of Deacons and the Board of Christian Education, being charged with the task of asking good questions of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus and how First Baptist can be a place that helps us individually and communally flourish.

As we look at realigning our boards, we aim to strengthen our ministry and mission, so that we can keep up with our primary reason for being, which is to keep the faith and encourage others, especially those who have not yet heard the good news of Jesus Christ.  We can only benefit from spending more time asking questions and exploring what it means to be better disciples, deepening our engagement with becoming a worshipping, learning, caring and serving community of believers.  Our past and our present depend on our willingness to keep into the future with this mission, lest the path and the household we have become outmoded, forgotten as time moves on and what we’ve been about for nearly 185 years becomes a fading footnote.

There are many roads we traverse in life.  Sometimes, the roads are straight and smooth. Other times, we find ourselves on the twists and turns of difficult terrain.  Faith can be just like either type of road, veering off when we least expect or taking us down paths that we don’t know if we can quite make it all the way across.  I give thanks constantly that when I’m out on such roads, I can see the well-worn footpaths of other saints (and even a few sinners) that have gone on ahead of me.

Together, we gather each week to worship and grow together in faith.  Together, we keep up with this place that is more than the sum of its utility bills and maintenance upkeep.  Together, we aim to be the group of disciples who tell and live out this story called “gospel”, so that others may seek and find.  Together, we search for the roads that lead us to our true home.

Amen.

A Year for Praise (Bennington Banner, 1/7/2012)

For some folks, beginning a new year can be a time for reflection.  Indeed, in making “New Year’s resolutions”, we take stock of what’s gone right and what’s gone awry in our lives.  Such resolutions arise out of our hope that we will be eventually for the better. 

         When we consider a new way of living, where do we find our strength to change?  For Christians, we go to God in times of good and times of bad alike.  Out of such love and trust for God, we aim to live our lives by the gospel’s ways.  We offer our talents and gifts in ways that reflect a love of God and neighbor.  Foremost is our resolve to give praise to God.

         Thus, I found it providential that the Sunday readings for January 1 included the 148^th Psalm, a great reading for a worship service coinciding with New Year’s Day. In this psalm, we are called to the praise of God, wherever and whoever we may be.  No one is to be left out of joining this summons to praise!

Of course, giving praise to God can be a challenge. Hearing the call to praise God can be a bit difficult while weathering the anxieties of a lingering down economy. As we think about the year just completed, we have our own “pro” and “con” list about how 2011 played out.  Like it or not, there’s always something about the past year we opt out of writing about in the Christmas letter!

The Psalms may have been written generations ago, yet they keep on speaking to us about what it means to be human.  In the Psalms, we encounter the kaleidoscope of human experience:  abundant praise and deep lament, words that ring out with happy delight and others that are laden with grief. From generation to generation, we are a people somewhere between delight and misgiving, triumph and tragedy.  Psalm 148 reminds us to join in, even when we are weary or hesitant. 

         The psalmist goes a step further, not satisfied with merely the human in the summons to praise. The psalm calls out to the rest of Creation to join in: the rocks, the trees, the winds, the skies, the oceans, and all creatures great and small.  In short, the psalmist calls back to the stage the entirety of Genesis’ Creation story to bring the praise of God to its most fulsome.

         From our modern perspective, we might harbor skepticism that a mountain or a hummingbird could be on equal footing with us, especially in singing praise to God.   One might read the psalm and chalk its expansive vision up to “poetic license”.  Surely humanity is the pinnacle of Creation, so shouldn’t we be the sole choristers?

From a contemporary ecological perspective, the psalm appeals to our growing awareness and ethical responsibility to the world as an interconnected web of life, where we have to consider how our use of the world’s resources needs to be balanced with the reality that resources are finite and curb our habits of overdevelopment and more importantly, over-consumption.  The world is not just “backdrop” for humanity to live and give praise to God.  The psalmist calls the entirety of Creation to praise for good reason.  The praise of God would be diminished without literally all voices, including those humanity tends to neglect or dismiss.

         In my church office, I keep a small art piece of St. Francis of Assisi, a saint remembered for his humility, his deep commitment to voluntary poverty and a love of Creation.  True to form, Francis is imaged with his arms outstretched as birds descend to rest on his shoulders and arms.

This image of Francis reminds me daily that we are part of a bigger story.   We are part of a greater song of praise that even when we humans falter in joining or remembering to join our own voice, the song continues on.  Just as the saints sing in heaven above with eternal alleluias, so the earth shall be always singing out.

         Praise the Lord. Amen.

The Word you've been waiting for (Christmas Eve 2011)

[The Gospel of John, chapter 1, verses 1-14, precede the homily.]

I don’t know about you, but we seem spend our day deluged by words.  Checking my Facebook account alone keeps me awash in words, some wise, some less so.  You can learn just about anything via a quick Google search.  Then let’s not forget the conversations around home, work, and even the text messaging on our cellphones.  Finally, just to feel a little old school, there’s still that old fashioned experience of getting a letter in the mail.  (Yes, that’s right: an actual letter from somebody other than a credit card company that can’t wait to share that you are “pre-approved!”). 

At the end of the day, you’ve been around more words than you think, as the words add up from the breakfast time perusal of the newspaper, that report that must be read by noon, the dozen emails that rolled in while you were trying to respond others, the status updates that pop up on FB, and then, last but not least, a chapter or two from the novel you’re reading just before going to sleep.  

We get through the day with words swirling around us, dancing across the computer screen and swirling around our ears (provided you can get your ear buds to actually fit in your ears!).  Awash in words, we start filtering out the ones that don’t seem that important.  Often, we err by ignoring more words than we should, ironically becoming inattentive to the words around us, tuning out most of everything in the name of a rare moment of silence.  We even hope we got through a day without hearing words that trouble us (and hopefully avoided saying words that trouble others).   Words are plentiful, yet as the old saying goes, talk can be cheap….

In the midst of our world, the gospel of John yearns to be heard, telling his story of Jesus, the Word of God.  Bringing John’s gospel out at Christmas time can be a hard sell, as he does not tell a story of Jesus being born with the “Christmas Pageant” of shepherds, kings, and angelic choirs floating above the manger.  You read John’s gospel, and you think now here’s a guy who marches to the beat of a different drummer.  (And not the one who goes “ra-rumpa-rum-pum”.)

John’s gospel opens with these words set up in the lofty clouds above.  It’s not a straightforward story of Jesus being born.  Instead, we get this philosophical take on Jesus as “the Word of God”, pre-existing before Creation itself, divinity taking on humanity and not just as if slipping into an acting role.  Here, we are told Jesus became one of us, part of the limitations and the frailty, willfully accepting life as it is, including pain, suffering and even death.   

When the Word becomes flesh, our English translations falter in saying that the Word “dwelled among us”.  The Greek drives the point home much closer:  “the Word became flesh and pitched its tent among us”.  In other words, the Word digs in his heels in and lives in the midst of life as we know it.  This is a Word that is right in the middle of the conversations we have with what it means to be human.  John 1 pushes the envelope of the image we have of God as divinity aloof, off up in the clouds. 

The faith of Christianity welcomes the hard questions we wrestle with: questions of life, death, and the meaning behind it.  Life causes us to ask all manner of questions that make us weep or laugh.  Some questions we keep close to the vest, confiding with only our closest of friends.  And, quite frankly, we harbor a few questions that keep us up at night, wrestling with them late into the wee hours of the night. 

Christianity claims that such questions find their dialogue partner in the form of Jesus, the Word made flesh.  The gospel affirms that Jesus is to be found in the midst of those who harbor doubt within, those who grieve, those who hurt, those who are marginalized, and those who feel forgotten.  Jesus is with us, each step of the way, because he walked our way through birth, life, and death already.  The Word became flesh and lived with the same wonders and woes that we know firsthand.  

May the Word be heard and known in your life.  AMEN.