Epiphany 6 B - Feb 12, 2012

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Mr. Peter Daino, a missionary in Malawi on a sabbatical visit to HCM
Epiphany 6 B – Sunday, February 12, 2012

2 Kings 5:1-14
1 Corinthians 9:24-27
Mark 1:40-45

Stand by me

Hello, my name is Peter Daino. I have lived and worked in Africa for 33 years.  Twenty five of those thirty three years I was a Religious Brother with the Society of Mary.  In the first two years of my African life, 1975-1977, I was a Peace Corps Volunteer, and in these last six years, 2006-2012, I have been a Lay Catholic Missionary, working for the Rosarian Sisters.  As Deputy Director of Lusubilo, I have been working with the Sisters to deliver food and farm supplies to 9,500 orphans and vulnerable children in 73 villages in Karonga, northern Malawi.  Lusubilo (Hope) believes the best way to help orphans is through the extended family, that is, by supporting the guardians of the orphans.  The grandmothers and the grandfathers are the real heroes of the orphan crisis in Africa.

That's enough about me.

Elisha heals a leper from afar.  Never goes out of his hut, just gives a command, through a messenger.  He didn't ask Naaman, but I think he expected Naaman to spread the word, "There is a prophet in Israel."

Jesus heals a leper from close up.  He engages him, talks with him.  Jesus stretches out his hand and touches him.  Jesus is moved with pity.  And also, opposite the Elisha's mentality, Jesus says to the cured leper, "See that you say nothing to anyone."

But there is more to this story.  Look how Mark ends the episode; "Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed out in the country."  The country is where the lepers stayed, they were not allowed to go into town openly.

What's happened?  The ostracized leper who had to live in the Wilds, at the margin of society is now standing in the holiest, cleanest place, The Temple, among the righteous, and Jesus has taken his place in the Wilds, at the margin of society.  Jesus is now outcast and stigmatized.  He could not go around openly.

To my understanding the difference between Elisha and Jesus can be summed up with one word -- Solidarity!  And that's what I want to talk about today.

Much of what I know about solidarity, I learned from the wildebeest.  It is an odd looking animal.  A wildebeest looks as if someone was tyring to paste half a deer on to half a cow.  And they're not very strong.

One day I was in the Serengeti, sitting high up on a rock watching a herd of about one hundred wildebeests.  They were grazing peacefully.  Suddenly, a lion appeared about fifty yards away.  Sighting the lion, the wildebeests instantly closed rank, stood side by side, shoulder to shoulder.  Without twitching a muscle they eyeballed the lion with 200 wildebeest eyeballs.  The lion got uncomfortable and moved behind them maybe for an easier strike.  But then the whole line of wildebeests turned around and was facing the lion again.  Standing shoulder to shoulder, side by side, they just kept looking at the lion.  After several more minutes, the lion gave up and slouched away in defeat.  Those funny wildebeests had stared down the lion.

Why didn't they run?  I think the wildebeests knew that if they each ran off in their own direction it would be the slowest moving wildebeest who would have been the meal that day for the lion.  It would have been the baby wildebeest or the pregnant wildebeest or the older wildebeest.  That's why the wildebeests stayed together.

 Wildebeests in the Serengeti - picture by Bruce Macaskill

Community, an elder in Kenya told me, works the same way.  If trouble comes, like Hunger, like AIDS, and we scatter, run off each in our own direction, the ones to suffer will be the children, the pregnant women, the elderly.  That's why those who are a little stronger must stand by those who are more vulnerable.  We have to stay together.

Mary stood by Jesus as he hung on the cross.  This for me is the most striking image of Mary.  I even wrote a book about it, "Stabat Mater," Standing Mother.  Allow me to share a couple paragraphs.

Mary bravely stands there as Jesus hangs in torment.  She stands beside Jesus as others have stood beside those unjustly persecuted.  She is visible in others who have taken a stand for the oppressed, others such as Oscar Romero, Steve Biko, Harvey Milk.  Like Mary these witnesses of conscience have stood beside the powerless: there, with her, they have stood against systems of injustice, against "the principalities and powers."

At the foot of the cross, Mary was standing up against all that brings down the poor.  She stood on Calvary's hill as a witness, a lone witness.  She stood in protest.  That is how she shared the exaltation of her son in his hour.  She did not cower, she did not run, she did not excuse, she did not compromise with injustice.  She POINTED at injustice by standing at the foot of the cross.

Aristotle said that to stop an army in retreat you just need one soldier to stop running, turn around, stick his spear in the ground, and take a stand.  And soon there will be a soldier standing to his right and another to his left.  And to the side of each of these, more soldiers will appear until the whole army has turned around and is facing the enemy again.  It just takes one soldier who decides to stop running, who won't be moved.

I am a Roman Catholic.  In the last twenty years I have seen fewer and fewer of my types -- Vatican Two Idealists -- willing to turn around and put our spears in the ground.  There is now little resistance left, liberals are running helter skelter to get out of the way of the Roman juggernaut rolling toward them.  Who knows how it will all end.  Many people just give up and leave.  But there are some I know -- Joan Chittester, Jeannine Gramick, Thomas Gumbleton -- who have decided to take a stand and stay, and by their prickly presence they practise the ministry of making people feel uncomfortable.

This is solidarity like the Jesus solidarity of today's gospel.  You take the leper's place, you take a few hits on your reputation.

When I wanted to leave the Society of Mary in 2007 I was told that I had to write a letter to the pope to request dispensation from my vows.  I thought, Okay! here is a chance to stick my spear in the ground.  This is what I wrote.

Your Holiness, throughout the eighties and nineties it became more clear to me that the Roman Catholic Church was losing the spirit of the Second Vatican Council.  I wrote to my bishop and superiors letters about my seven anguishes:
1. Why are there no women priests in the Roman Catholic Church?
2. Why are there no married priests in the Roman Rite?
3. Why is there no blessing for gay people who want to be committed to each other?
4. Why do we have so little inclusive language in our liturgies?
5. Why don't we welcome Protestants who want to receive Communion?
6. Why don't we welcome remarried Catholics who want to receive Communion?
7. And Why can't we encourage the use of condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS when millions of people are dying of this disease?  In little Malawi there are over one million orphans!

It seemed the church went backward in the eighties and nineties; and seems even more backward, Your Holiness, these last few years during your own pontificate.

I had been getting more and more discouraged.  Then in 2006 something wonderful happened.  I spent three months at an Episcopalian Benedictine monastery near Poughkeepsie, New York.  There I experienced the Second Vatican Council.  The spirit of hope and renewal was alive.  At that Episcopalian monastery, I experienced the fullness of Catholicism.  And I began to see what the Roman Catholic Church could be.

Your Holiness, I remain a Catholic, a catholic Catholic because my hope for the church has been renewed.

But...  just before I was going to post this letter, a former priest told me that the way to get a fast dispensation and to get it for sure was to blame yourself for everything, and not to question the set-up, or imply the institution might have it wrong.

Well...  I unstuck my spear and skedaddled.  I never sent my Truth Speaking to Power letter but this instead.

Your Holiness, I thought of listing here the great hopes I had regarding the Second Vatican Council, but I don't see the point in doing this.  I do not want to dwell on the liberals' disappointments with the Church.  These are already well known to you and I am sure you get many letters from disappointed liberals.  I want instead to dwell on my disappointments with myself.

The letter went on in that vein.  I was dispensed in 4 months; Record Time!

As years pass, I begin to recognize that it was not a fast dispensation that made me ditch my original letter to the pope.  No.  I know the real reason.  I was afraid to identify myself with any of those I mentioned in my brave paragraphs.  I get an F in solidarity.  My knees failed me.  I didn't take a stand.

And I am not usually a coward.  I have had a run in with a crocodile.  I have held down snakes with rakes.  I've been shot at.  I was in a plane crash...  but I did not have the courage to take the place of the leper or those seen as lepers by some big people in my church.

Solidarity!  Who in your life may be calling out, "Stand by me!"  Who do you know, outside the City Wall, ostracized, crucified, and calling out to you, "sister, stand by me; brother, stand by me." 

 Mary Magdalene, Mary and John at the foot of the cross

from The Passion, a BBC 2008 television series

Epiphany 5 B - Feb 5, 2012

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Ms. Brin Bon, ’13 M.Div, Yale Divinity School, intern at our Monastery
Epiphany 5 B – Sunday, February 5, 2012

Isaiah 40:21-31
1 Corinthians 9:16-23
Mark 1:29-39

Paul’s letters are hard.  First of all it is a complex communication between Paul and these other churches, and we only have one half of the correspondence.  Paul says so himself that we’re better off preaching the gospel when he cautions, “Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel.”  
With that kind of exhortation it’s a wonder any preacher ever did discuss this reading.  That said, I’m going to take my chances…

Saint Paul Writing His Epistles (c. 1618-20),

(Probably) Valentin de Boulogne (ca 1594-1632), 

Blaffer Foundation Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX.

What I’d like to turn to is this now-clichéd message of Paul’s that we should be all things to all people.  What I have been especially curious about, Is how this particular exhortation (among Paul’s many exhortations) is related to his stern warning that we are to always preach the gospel.

Many years ago Woody Allen made a “mocumentary” (a fictional story in the form of a documentary) called Zelig.  Leonard Zelig was a person capable of being an Italian mobster in one minute and a black trumpet player, accompanying a 1920’s jazz ensemble, in the next; he could switch from being a Boston socialite, complete with a Havad accent, to a unionizing proletarian from the Bronx in a flash—all depending on what type of people he was surrounded by.  Zelig, “the human chameleon” could be all things to all people, it seemed.  

But the ability to alter your very identity in order to blend in with your surroundings is not what I think Paul had in mind when he used himself as an example of how to preach the gospel.  I think what Paul was demanding is more nuanced than that, and certainly more complicated than merely taking on the characteristics of the people around us in order to address them at their own level.

What this example highlights is the question of identity.  Is Paul advocating that we have to abandon our own identity in order to preach the gospel?  I can think of many ways that I try to be all things to all people in my own life: a therapist to a friend in need, a cook to a hungry partner, a nurse to a hurt child.  But none of these things require me to stop being the person who God made me.  As a therapist I am still a mother, as a cook I am still a student, as a nurse I am still writer.  So at this point we have to refine our question a bit further to ask: What does it mean for us to be all things to all people, while still maintaining our own unique identities?  And moreover, how does this help us proclaim the gospel?  As far as I can see it, there are two parts to answering this question, both of which help us understand something about our own relationship with God, and both of which are deeply theological.

The first part of the answer is to understand something about how we are known by God, and the second, related part, is to extrapolate from that relationship in order to understand what it means
to know God through one another, and for others to know God through us.  Importantly, neither of these things require that we lose our own identity in order to “win others to Christ,” as Paul hopes.  So first let me say something about identity, and then move on to what this means in terms of our relationship to God.

Earlier in First Corinthians (1:10) Paul urges the church in Corinth “to be united in the same mind and the same purpose.”  Now, here in chapter nine, Paul tells us that we are not just to be united with each other—in the way that coffee and milk become united in a cappuccino—
but that we are supposed to become like one another—the way that a chameleon turns green against a the leaf of a tree, or gray against a slab of rock.  To keep with the metaphor, what we have to remember is that a cappuccino is still coffee and milk, and a green or gray chameleon is still the same chameleon.  Similarly, though our primary identity should be as a disciple of Christ, we are also individuals with unique personalities, peculiar habits, different wants and needs—not to mention the rainbow of different shapes, sizes, colors, and abilities that make us exactly who we are.  

The fact of our uniqueness complicates the question of what it means to become all things to all people, while not losing the very identity that God so lovingly knit together in our mother’s womb.  But the fact of the matter is that God, in meeting us where we are, meets us in our particularity, as unique individuals, stamped with the mark of God’s creation.  God is at all times already with us.

The Gospel of John tells us that God loves us so much that he gave his only son as a sacrifice for the whole world (John 3:16). Second Corinthians assures us that our God is with us in times of suffering and affliction (2 Cor 1:4).  And the Psalms tell us that God is with us in our going out and our coming in (Psalm 121:8).  Not only does God love us deeply, but God is with us wherever we are.

The incarnation of Jesus Christ is the most vivid example of God’s radical love for us, and God’s deep desire to enter into relationship with us.  If we think about Jesus’ incarnation in the context of the passage from Paul, we see that the incarnation is the epitome of God’s willingness to meet us where we are, by taking on our very humanity, and by walking alongside us as a companion who knows our quirks, our temperaments, and our needs—because God has experienced them, too.  Ultimately, it is Jesus Christ who is all things to all people.

In 1 Corinthians 11:1 Paul says, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ…”  Here we begin to see what it means to be all things to all people: just as we imitate Paul, and Paul imitates Christ, we, too, are to imitate Christ.  And it is Christ who meets us where we are.  It is Christ who is all things to all people.

This turns us to the second part of what it means to be “all things to all people,” which has to do with how we understand God to be in relationship with us, and how we are to be in relationship with each other.

When we look at the text again we see that Paul is not just talking about his relationship to God.  In our passage from Corinthians for today, Paul is sandwiched between the God who called him,
and the people to whom he is sent to preach the gospel.  We, like Paul, are in similar interesting relationships—with God, our creator, sustainer, and redeemer, on the one hand, and with each other—our brothers and sisters in Christ, on the other hand.  In order to fully realize the importance of this “in the middle” position, we have to see that God is not just in relationship with us, but that God is in relationship with those around us—and is so in their particularity, too.

We must recognize that God is already dynamically at work in the lives of the people around us.
When Paul becomes like the Jew, or the Gentile, or the weak he is able to see God in them, and recognize his common humanity with those who are perhaps quite different from him.  He is able to find within himself the knowing that it takes to reach across identity, and past difference—a knowing that allows him to see that we are all members of the Body of Christ.  Thus, Paul preaches a gospel that is written both to our commonality and our individuality.

Here is where all these different strands of yarn begin to weave together.  God does not ask us to lose ourselves, our unique identities, or our individual differences, to share in His blessings.  The God who meets us where we are—in our affliction, in our daily routine, or even in our sinfulness—is a God who loves us and can heal, encounter, and forgive us all the while valuing the diversity or our gifts and the complexity of our needs.  In fact, it is in our particularity that we are most fully known by God as God’s unique and beloved creation.

Now I want to turn back, for a minute, to what I said earlier about Jesus’ Incarnation.  The Incarnation did not end with Jesus’ final ascension into heaven, but continues with the incarnational mission that we are called to live into as Christ’s disciples in the world today.

This past week I met a youth minister from Harlem named Aswan Morris.  The “Young Life” youth program that Aswan leads takes a deliberately incarnational approach to preaching the gospel to inner city kids in New York’s Harlem neighborhood.  The first thing Young Life’s leaders do is meet kids where they are.  This might happen by attending a high-school basketball game, or by hosting a social event and inviting area youth, or even just by hanging out with kids after school and asking them about their lives.

Aswan and his volunteers show these kids that Jesus loves them, by showing them that they love them.  The Young Life program is incarnational because the presence of the youth leaders
in the daily lives and activities of the kids they serve, helps these kids to see that Christ is alive in the world, and working through all of us.  It is incarnational because, like God, these mentors meet kids where they already are, recognizing the particular needs and the unique identities of each of the youth they encounter, believing that God is already there at work in each of them.

Turning to the Gospel we read this morning (because I had to fit that in this morning, too!) we see how Jesus meets the people he encounters where they are, and in knowing them in their individuality he is able to provide them with what they need.  For Simon’s mother-in-law he gives healing; to the others who are sick and suffering from disease, he cures them; and to those possessed by demons, he frees them from their captivity.  After Jesus performs these miracles in Capernaum he goes to the people of Galilee, searching out the sick and the tormented wherever they may be, and proclaiming the good news to all who need to repent and turn to the Lord.

I think that in the passage from Corinthians Paul is inviting us to live out the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, in our encounters with each other.  Being all things to all people does not mean losing our own unique identities, but in fact, it requires us to honor the particularities and search out the individual needs of ourselves and each other.

Where is God asking us to find God in the strangers around us?  Where does God invite us to meet God in the particularities of our neighbors, or even our enemies?  How might we proclaim the gospel by meeting someone else on his or her own ground?  Who is God inviting us to serve
by honoring those things that make that person unique in the eyes of God?

If God loves us in our uniqueness, then we are also called to love each other in their uniqueness.  If God meets us where we are, then we are called to meet each other wherever “the other” happens to be, or in whatever state of need we might find our brothers and sisters in Christ.
Looking deeply for the Incarnation of Jesus through the lives of one another allows us to be all things to all people—to recognize the Holy in one another, and to bring our whole selves before a God who loves us and takes us as we are.  By searching out the presence of God in the people around us, whatever their difference, or ours, we can love God and love our neighbor, and we can proclaim the gospel that is the Good News of Jesus Christ.  Amen.

The Blessing & Dedication of Holy Cross School, Grahamstown, South Africa

Mariya uMama weThemba Monastery, Grahamstown, South Africa
Br. Robert Sevensky, OHC Superior
Blessing & Dedication of Holy Cross School -  Saturday, February 4, 2012


Malachi 3:1-4
Hebrews 2:14-18
Luke 2:22-40

Some of the schoolchildren and Ntombekaya, one of their teachers

As a teenager I quite loved cartoons, and among my favorites was a comic strip called Peanuts, created by an amazing artist Charles Schultz, a man of deep faith and a shrewd observer of human life...always a dangerous combination.

The comic strip addressed every sort of topic, including theological or religious topics that were usually off limits for such artists.  And it was for me a kind of primer in these areas, raising questions I had never thought of and putting into perspective some of our peculiarly American religiosity, often by pointing out its absurdities and deflating the balloon of its many hypocrisies.

A recurring setting for these lessons was the baseball diamond, that arena of classic American sport where the experiences of winning and losing, of trust and betrayal, were explored by the principal cartoon character, Charlie Brown, a kind of ten-year old Everyman, and his close circle of friends: Lucy, Linus and Schroeder.

One Sunday cartoon strip remains vivid to me to this day.  Charlie Brown is standing on the pitcher's mound in the middle of the baseball diamond looking very unhappy.  In the bubble above his head he is saying:  “Nine home runs in a row!  Good grief!  What can I do?  We're getting slaughtered again, Schroeder....Why do we have to suffer like this?”

Schroeder responds:  “Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward.”

Charlie Brown: What?

And then Linus, the resident philosopher and budding theologian explains: “He's quoting from the Book of Job, Charlie Brown, seventh verse, fifth chapter.  Actually the problem of suffering is a very profound one, and...”

And the debate begins.  Lucy interrupts:  “If a person has had bad luck, it's because he's doing something wrong, that's what I always say!”

Schroeder:  That's what Job's friends told him. But I doubt it...

Lucy:  What about Job's wife?  I don't think she gets enough credit!

Schroeder:  I think a person who never suffers, never matures. Suffering is actually very important....

Lucy:  Who wants to suffer?  Don't be ridiculous.

Schroeder: But pain is a part of life, and...

Linus:  A person who speaks only of the “patience” of Job reveals that he knows very little of the book.  Now, the way I see it...

The final panel has a bewildered Charlie Brown looking at the reader and saying: “Good grief!  I don't have a ball team.  I have a theological seminary [college].” 

We do learn about God, about theology, about faith and life everywhere...including on the playing field.  Every place is potentially a school, every event in life potentially a classroom.  And if we are aware enough and open enough, then every single human encounter can be a theological college of the most profound sort.

Oddly, I am reminded of this cartoon today because of the Bible verse from the book of Job quoted by Schroeder: “Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward.”  I was, I must confess, not much of a Bible reader as a teen, but I have never forgotten that verse.  It is so very poetic, so very memorable.  And so very, very true.  “Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward.”

We all know trouble.  And no one is exempt, though it does seem that some get more than their fair share. 

When the Order of the Holy Cross came here 14 years ago, it was at the invitation and encouragement of many, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who felt that a religious community without some of the familiar colonial baggage might be a welcome presence or seed in a country that was rapidly changing, coming out of an era of tumultuous troubles signaling the end of Apartheid and the emerging hope for a new South Africa, a better South Africa.  It was an exciting and heady time. 

But we asked ourselves:  What are we to do here? Where would our work, our ministry lie?  The answer was to wait upon the Lord's leading as we remained faithful in prayer and in monastic living.   And it did not take long for the needs to surface.  And then one Maundy Thursday, that holy day inaugurating the Church's annual observance of the saving death of Jesus, just across the road from here, two young boys died, run over by the train from Alicedale.  It was a terrible tragedy—one of those troubles that the Book of Job speaks of and about which we can make little or no sense.  But what came out of it was this: that for the Order of the Holy Cross here in the Eastern Cape, our work, our ministry—whatever else it might be about—must include and be about the children.  And so it started:  first transporting children into town for school after the local farm schools had closed, then establishing scholarship/bursary assistance, then helping with after school studies, and finally starting a very small, very simple one grade school to help prepare the young ones for future studies.  And now this....a school that is welcoming, modern, effective, safe and beautiful, as befits all God's children!  Out of that Maundy Thursday tragedy, something new and unexpected has come.

This physical building itself arises out of another trouble, another tragedy.  In November 2008, our Holy Cross monastery in Southern California burned to the ground in a wildfire.  Unfortunately, the insurance coverage was not enough for us to rebuild that beautiful hilltop monastery and guesthouse which had been our home for more than sixty years.  But it allowed us, among other things, to construct this building that we dedicate today.  Here, almost literally, Job's saying proves true:  "Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward.”  But out of those sparks and out of those ashes more than 15,000 kilometers away something new and hopeful is rising.

Now I don't for one minute believe that our God willed or desired that Maundy Thursday tragedy.  And I don't for one minute think that God desired or directed the burning of our California monastery. That's not the God we see revealed in our Lord Jesus Christ.  But I do believe that it is a sign of God's love and of God's nature and of God's ongoing creative power to take the troubles, the tragedies and the limitations and disappointments of this life, and reweave them into something new and beautiful and life-giving.  Brothers and sisters, God did it most dramatically with Jesus whom he raised from the dead, and through him God continues to do it today with you and me and with South Africa and with all creation. 

Today we celebrate the feast of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple as a child of 40 days.  It's a wonderful feast, one that lets us see Mary and Joseph bearing the Christ child and offering him to the Father.  Today we too join that joyful procession.  And what we offer and present is this school.  We present it first to God, for as our liturgy reminds us:  “All things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee.”  We present it to God so that through the gift of learning, language, art, mathematics, science, and human community God will be glorified and honored, because those most precious to him, the little children, are themselves being honored and nurtured and formed.

And we present this school as well to the children...to those 28 students currently enrolled here but also to the many hundreds who, God willing, will study here as we expand in future years that they and others might became more and more what God intends them to be: God's living image and reflection.

And we present this school to the many who have labored to make to possible—friends,  parents, neighbors, staff, supporters and benefactors, and generations of ancestors who have longed for a new day.  May this school be a small but real fulfillment of that ancient dream and longing.

The Principal (Br. Robert Magliula) proudly looking over his charges

And we present this school to the people of this area and to the whole Eastern Cape as a resource and perhaps even as a laboratory and a model of new directions in childhood education.

As Mary and Joseph presented Christ in the Temple, so we today make this our offering.  In the larger scheme of things and of world history, it is a very small offering, a mere seed. But with God's grace and with our continued prayerful support and help, it can bear much fruit, touching one life at a time, changing one family at a time, until God gathers in a fruitful harvest multiplied a hundredfold.  Because God does those kinds of things.  That's how our God works!

Today's Gospel reading concludes with these words:  “The child [Jesus] grew big and strong and full of wisdom; and God's favour was upon him.”

That is our prayer today...for all the children here today, for all the children of Africa, and for children everywhere. May they grow big and strong and full of wisdom.  And may God's favour be upon them all.  Abundantly.

Amen.

The Presentation - Feb 2, 2012

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Scott Borden, OHC
Feast of the Presentation – Thursday, February 2, 2012


Malachi 3:1-4
Hebrews 2:14-18
Luke 2:22-40


Today we celebrate the Presentation of Christ in the Temple – but we could celebrate the feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary – or feast of The Meeting of Christ with Simeon. Not enough choice?

Candlemas is another name for today's feast’s – it includes the Purification and Presentation and thanksgiving for relief from a plague. Today is a day of options...

The story of the Presentation in Luke occupies an interesting place - it is the end of the beginning if you will - the last thing Luke tells us of the infancy of Jesus. After this morning’s passage Luke tells us that Jesus grew up and became strong, filled with wisdom... and 12 years go by before we get further details...

For me this feast is the climax of Luke’s birth narrative – and it may be the most stunning moment in scripture. So what leads us to this moment? This is the point in a television drama where the announcer says: “Previously in the Gospel according to Luke...”

Elizabeth, the Mother of John the Baptist becomes pregnant. It is a miraculous pregnancy – unexpected and most deeply longed for. Then Mary becomes pregnant. It is also a miraculous pregnancy – unexpected, but not exactly longed for. Mary is assured by an Angel that it is God’s will that she become pregnant and her reaction to the news, expressed to Elizabeth, is so profoundly beautiful and powerful that we recite it daily – the Song of Mary. “My soul glorifies the lord and my spirit rejoices!”

Then Mary and Joseph travel to Bethlehem where Jesus is born in a stable with a chorus of shepherds (as opposed to a chorus of “the right sort of people”) in attendance. Luke is underscoring the point that the margins of society are closer to God's heart.

Then, according to Luke, after 8 days Jesus is circumcised – in accordance with the law. 33 days later Mary has completed her time of Purification – in accordance with the law. And Jesus is ready for Presentation – in accordance with the law. That string of out-of-the-ordinary events brings us to today's various feasts.

There is one more moment where something out of the ordinary happens: Old Simeon, a very holy man, arrives at the temple guided by the Spirit. He takes Jesus in his arms and delivers his famous song - “Lord, you are dismissing your servant in peace and according to your word.” Once again it is a text of such beauty and power that it is a daily fixture in our worship.

Simeon knows that he will not die before the law of God is fulfilled. When Simeon says that he may now depart in peace (and just to be clear, that is his “departure” from this life), it is because Jesus is the fulfillment of the law. This moment is not just the end of the story of the birth of Jesus, it is the end of a much bigger story.

"Simeon's Moment" - Ron DiCianni - 1978

Lets put our feet in the sandals of the holy family. They are devout and faithful Jews. Their entire lives are bound not just to serving the law, but to loving the law. The Psalms tell us that the just meditate on God’s law day and night. That is what Mary and Joseph have been doing presumably for all their lives. They have followed civil law and God’s law to the letter. They are devoted to the law and the law is their life. And here is Simeon telling them that their child completes the law. Simeon may depart in peace, but what about those who are left behind? What about Mary and Joseph? What about us?

That is why this is one of the most stunning moments in scripture. It is turning point, a crisis, the moment when everything changes. Luke tells us that Mary and Joseph were amazed. Indeed. The world, as Mary and Joseph and all faithful children of Israel know it, is gone forever. “All generations will call me blessed.” Maybe yes... maybe no...

Simeon could probably have stopped with his song – Mary was no doubt adequately traumatized. But no, he tells her that her son will be at the center of great upheaval and that a sword will pierce her soul. Thank you Simeon! We get the picture. Or do we?

We look at the details of Luke from our vantage point and see a story of a remarkable “forced entry” into the world. Mary, a virgin, conceives. That’s revolutionary to us because we know everything there is to know about conception and birth. Our headline reads: “Virgin conceives.” But that might not have been the headline 2000 years ago. After all, Mary’s pregnancy didn’t break any scientific laws at that time.

Luke’s story of the birth of Christ reaches its climax today. Faithful devotion to the law has led Mary and Joseph to this time of Presentation. And here they learn that they are going to have to find a new way to know and love God; a way without the law. The implications of God’s incarnation start to become apparent. Their headline reads: “Unchanging God changes.” Now that’s news!

Jesus, from this moment on, is revolution. Jesus is not a revolutionary... Jesus is the revolution! To follow Jesus is to be in revolution. Being a Christian, being part of the body of Christ, is being in revolution. It is an ongoing revolution – a revolution of love: Love of God, love of self, and love of neighbor.

Mary and Joseph have to learn a new way to know and love God, a way that does not involve perfecting their understanding of God’s law. We, too, need to learn to know and love God in ways that are not legal. Jesus did not replace the old law with a new one – though many fundamentalists (including our own “internal fundamentalists”) might wish it so.

Our revolutionary path is a path of insecurity – a path of faith, not of law... A path that calls us to be entirely present in this moment because we can not love in any other moment.

Love of God, love of self, and love of neighbor... Neighbor is very broadly defined. Simeon speaks of a light to be a revelation to all the world. That is how broad the definition of neighbor is. In this revolution of love we move from “I, me, and mine” to “ours and us” - not just us Christians, not just us Americans, not even just us human beings or just us carbon-based life forms... Its us – all the works of God’s hand – animal, vegetable, mineral... ALL the earth, including the earth. All us and no them...

This revolution – Simeon’s revelation – is still most desperately needed, here, now, this moment. The revolution of Jesus is entirely current. Human greed, power, and ambition are as powerful and destructive in our world as ever. The wall between us and them is built higher and defended more agressively. Self-interest, even “enlightened” self-interest is not compatible with the revolution of Jesus. Only the interest of love, and the justice born of love, is compatible with this revolution.

The implications are enormous – touching every aspects of how we live our lives – politics, justice, economy, ecology, education, and on and on. Mary and Joseph probably thought they were going to a routine Presentation... We could easily spend the rest of our lives contemplating its enormity.

But we might better look to the Songs of Mary and of Simeon. These are songs of rapture and of liberation. They say “yes Lord, here I am, your willing servant, in you I place my faith. Lead me. Free me.” These songs show us how to let go, to trust, to feel joy at the presence of God’s love in our lives and in our hearts.

The task is not monumentally daunting, though as Simeon warns Mary, it is not pain free. It is a path that is joy-filled. It is the leaving of “self” behind.

So let us respond to God's incarnation with rapturous, willing, and open joy as Mary did. To worship and serve without fear, like Zechariah. Let us celebrate that our eyes, as Simeon’s, have seen salvation and that we are set free. Let the light of the Gospel and the love of God shine in and through us so that we can carry that light to all the world. In Jesus' name we pray.