A Living Epistle

By Shawn Ricketts

My Name is Shawn Ricketts. I’ve been attending St James Church for several years now.

Let me thank Holly, for allowing me this opportunity to share my thoughts and stories with you today. I also would like to thank members of the Anti-Racism group; as I was encouraged by the forming of that body and them sharing their many gifts and the will to elevate the conversation around our similarities and differences within our community.

For many of us, our childhood years growing up in church, attending Sunday School or the youth group; singing in the choir or serving at the altar may have just been fun and games. I spent eight of my early years growing up in a family that was very devoted to church and committed to many rules and principles. My mother and father are still to this day ministers in their church. I attended my parent’s church almost three times weekly for the first eight years of my life. My brothers, sisters and I, all had a role to play in the musical band and in the wider church community. The rules of the church were strict and could never be broken. I lived through years of witnessing members of my family and the church being judged and condemned for decisions and choices that were made in their lives. The punishments were sometimes drastic, such as being forced to sit in the back of the church or being dismissed or ex-communicated. I witnessed divorces and separations, early or out of wed-lock pregnancies, sexually challenged young men and women, folks living in poverty that led to crime, class warfare, and even the way someone dresses was somehow seen as an abomination to the church.

While living with my parents, I had to play and live by the rules but I found myself numb to some of the beliefs and practices.

Don’t get me wrong; to this day I love, adore and respect my parents for many things in this life. But there were just some things I could not understand.

At those tender years and with all the experiences around me, my numbness had me feeling that I was created for something bigger than myself. I saw evidence of a different and maybe higher calling; I just could not tell what it was.

As a little boy, I used to love and enjoy nature. I would sometimes isolate from my brothers and sisters, just to spend time with the things that were around us in a tropical land. We lived in a mountainous part of Jamaica. We had a farm, and on that farm we had many different types of trees, fruits , grass and birds; we raised chickens, goats, cows, pigs, horses, dogs, we even had a stream of water that flowed through our back yard. I used to spend an awful lot of time just mingling with the animals. I remember at times, being bitten, kicked or trampled but that did not stop me from making them a part of my life. I used to just chill and talk with the animals and the trees- I used to love lecturing them when they fought with each other or when too many leaves fell off the trees (some people thought I was loco L).

 My early years were also sometimes lonely, my ability to be active was compromised by my asthma, And in those days we did not have very easy access to medicine. I used to spend a lot of time in the house away from the allergens or not playing with my brothers or sisters because I was so sick and feeble.

The times that I was sick and was not able to go outside, I would stand at the back door of my parent’s house and interact with the creatures. The house was on a slope, so the backdoor acted as a platform for me to be able to look down and see them. The dogs especially, would gather around hoping I would throw a bone or two. My dad had built a kind of wooden fence at the backdoor so that we wouldn’t fall out and hurt ourselves. That became an obstacle for me to be able to see all my favorite creatures. So, I would borrow my mother’s highest platform heels so I can gain a few inches. Then, I was able to have a better view.

Because of the constraints of handling my asthma at my parent’s house, when I was almost 9, they decided to have me move in with my great aunt. She had just migrated back to Jamaica after serving as a nurse at a NYC hospital. I remember the first time I went to her house; I noticed that she was very Americanized; pictures of Reagan, MLK, Kennedy were all over her house. She was also a real fan of Etta James- RIP.  My Great Aunt was also a staunch member of the powerful Anglican Church in the community. When I started attended that church, it was interesting and special that several of the members had different titles and roles in the community (School Prinicipals, MP, JP, Mayor, Postmaster, the business folks etc.) The beginning was a bit of a culture shock for me. There wasn’t a live musical band, instead, we had an organ, there were not as much hand-clapping or shouting, it was quieter, the services were shorter and, people appropriately wore whatever they wanted. I was able to experience worship and serving God in a different way. The much quieter atmosphere reminded me of the times I spent at my parent’s house just chillin with my many animals and other creatures;  just the talking and listening to each other. That was what had the biggest impact on my life and for that reason I am still a member of the Anglican aka The Episcopal Church here in America. I enjoyed the many years I spent with the Anglican Church in Jamaica. I played many roles doing outreach, having fun, in the Sunday school, the Alter Guild, as a lay preacher and so on… But even after all those years I felt that there was still things out there that I needed to explore.  Something or somethings that needed to make me whole. Some desires that were burning deep in me. Maybe I could not comprehend them; maybe the obstacles and rules that were laid before me as a child made it even more challenging. I just could not understand it. I spent much of my years suppressing gifts and talents that were given to me by the one who created me. And after a long break-away period of time from the church, I had to wrestle with many challenges that my life was throwing at me. I grew up, and by traveling and living in other countries and by meeting so many people through various careers, schools and just everyday settings; I found myself being challenged to be formed into the image and likeness of God.  I was learning more about who I am in this world. Some of what I was discovering were things that I knew would be frowned on or be uncomfortable to many including my family. I had to live within myself. I had to gain my confidence and my trust but all along I reminded myself that “greater is he that is in me than he that is in this world”.

My experiences with the various churches that I have been a part of since my childhood; gave me valued lessons on how to carve-out my faith in God. I had to make my own path as a person that loves the Lord God. The book of Joshua said we should ‘choose this day whom you will serve, but as for me and my house we will serve the Lord.’ God’s Kingdom is made up of many of us. The same way my parent’s farm had all these creatures living and surviving. They were accepting and enjoying each other’s presence. Joshua’s house is in reference to all that I identify myself to be. Not just a part of a religion or a church or a group, but the gifts that God gave me. I can identify myself as a person that loves to dance, I love music, I’m a political junky, a social butterfly, a passion to care for the less fortunate- that I do in my everyday work; a great cook, a black man, a gay man, a Jamaican, a good friend to many but above all a disciple of Christ and I know that because “he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own” I took the black out of the color of my skin and the sex out of my sexuality; but I will keep Christ in my Christianity.

Since I’ve been attending St. James Church, Jesus has been transforming my life in a real quiet way. I learned how to be transformed by constantly renewing my mind, that I may know what is good and acceptable to him. St. James gave me a truer sense of my identity, and also the will to accept the things that I cannot change.

I believe that my bigger calling is, drawing to Christ the people that I engage on a normal everyday basis. By sharing with them my many gifts and talents and most importantly, letting them identify through my gifts, that it is the beauty of Jesus reflecting through me.

I am happy to be living with a generation where we are looking for more authenticity in the church; the truth to know who you are and what gifts (filled with integrity) you bring to the table. I find that I have a greater appreciation for the folks who are close to me, when they’re able to search deep down and share the truths about themselves.  

I was never always and still is not a perfect man. I live my share of sin daily, but daily  I also remind myself that nothing is going to separate me from the love of God.

I am still yet to come full-circle with my life but God is working his purpose out.

Lately, I‘ve been gathering much inspiration from a 22 year old college student from Tacoma WA. His Name is Jefferson Bethke. Jefferson took on Christ about 4 years ago and has been very active in his church and the community by talking about Christ and sometimes in very provocative and controversial ways. Such as, the fact that Republican does not automatically means that you’re a Christian.

His work has been creating very emotional responses from people on different sides. Feel free to view some of his videos on YouTube or find his page on Facebook. And here’s a somewhat abbreviated excerpt of one of his poems.  

Why I hate Religion but love Jesus

Just because you called some people blind doesn’t give you vision

If religion is so great, why does it start so many wars?

Why does it build huge churches but fails to feed the poor.

Tells single moms God wouldn’t  love them if they ever had a divorce.

Tends to ridicule God’s people; They did it to John the Baptist.

They cant fix their problems so they mask it; Not realizing its like

spraying perfume on a casket.

The problem with religion, it never gets to the core.

Its just behavior modification like a long list of chores.

lets just dress up the outside, let it look nice and neat.

But it’s funny, that’s what they use to do to mummies’

while the corpse rot underneath.

Now, I aiint judging, I’m just saying, quit putting on a fake look;

Cause there’s a problem if people only know you’re Christian by your facebook.

In every other aspect of life, you know what logic is unworthy.

It’s like saying you root for the patriots just because you bought the jersey.

I spent my whole life building this façade of neatness

but now that I know Jesus better, I boast in my weakness.

Because of his grace and his water, then the church should be like the ocean.

It’s not a museum for good people, it’s a hospital for the broken.

Which means, I don’t have to hide my failure or my sin;

Cause It doesn’t depend on me, it depends on Him.

One thing that is vital to mention; how Jesus and religion are on opposite spectrums.

See, one is the work of God, the other is a man-made invention.

One is the cure, the other is the infection.

Because, religion says do, Jesus says done;

Religion says slaves, Jesus sets you free.

Religion is man searching for God

Christianity is God searching for man.

He absorbed all your sin and he buried it in the tomb.

Which is why kneeling at the cross, he says come there is room.

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts, be acceptable in thy sight O Lord. AMEN

©Holly Lyman Antolini

Lections: Jonah 3: 1-5, 10; Ps. 62:6-14; Shawn Ricketts' Living Epistle; Mark 1:14-20

For You alone, O God, our souls in silence wait; truly, our hope is in you.  You alone are our rock and our salvation, our stronghold, so that we shall not be shaken. AMEN.

I’m very much taken with this image, the image of my opening prayer, the opening image of our psalm for today, so beautifully set for singing by our congregation member Margot Chamberlain.  “For God alone, my soul in silence waits; truly my hope is in God.”  I’m taken with the image of the soul, centered in stillness, waiting, hoping.  The psalmist doesn’t say, “ I wait in stillness.”  She doesn’t say “My soul and body, mind and strength wait…” She says, “My SOUL in silence waits.” Whatever our minds and hearts and bodies are up to – and in the early 21^st century, you can almost bet they’re busy, busy, BUSY – our souls can wait.

Moreover the psalmist doesn’t say, “My soul clamors out to you!” My soul clamors to you while I race around trying to stay on the clock, trying to get it all done, trying to stay in touch with everyone, trying to respond to every new stimulus, every new opportunity, every new challenge, every new categorical imperative.  (Although I’ve got to say, THAT’S my experience, most days: a clamorous soul in a clamorous body, helplessly tumbling along from one priority and prerogative to another, adding to the task-and-opportunity list as fast as – nay, faster than – I check things off.) No: the psalmist says, “My soul IN SILENCE waits.”  The world is buzzing with a cacophony of music, messages, images, imperatives, perpetually inviting – assaulting! – my eyes, my ears, my nervous system.  But amidst it all, my soul can wait IN SILENCE.  In fact, the implication is, for my soul to rely utterly upon God as the rest of the psalm insists – rely upon God as Rock, as Stronghold, as Safety, as Honor, as Refuge, in whom I trust absolutely, toward whom I pour out my soul – for me to place my reliance completely upon God, my soul MUST move beyond utterance, beyond thought, because utterance and thought somehow still contain our reliance upon ourselves, our own rationality, our own will.  No, to experience the absolute reliance upon God that underpins our well-being, my soul must move into the open, calm, serene, expectant attitude of SILENCE. 

O, TOUGH DEMAND, these days!  As anyone who has attempted to PRACTICE SILENCE will tell you, the brain’s chatter – the EMOTIONS’ chatter; the WILL’S chatter – seems unrelenting, insistently striving to fashion our selves and our world according to our liking, our yearning, unable to relinquish the illusion of control and acknowledge the relative proportions and power of our souls compared with God: a tumbling grain of sand beside the Rock.

And that’s not all. My soul, according to the psalmist, is not only SILENT; it WAITS.  It doesn’t make the new to-do list.  It doesn’t tell God the strategem most needed for the world to right itself.  It doesn’t jump into action.  It doesn’t twitter out a quick message or hit “send.” It doesn’t broadcast its latest impression or opinion to the world. It WAITS.

This brings to mind several images.  First, it brings to mind the attitude of one resting in a rocking chair on a porch, gazing out upon the world as it unfolds.  Once a symbol of reaching the age of retirement and relaxation, the age of allowing the younger folk to take over the work, porch-sitting is virtually passé. Now NO ONE is sitting on a porch for any length of time, young or old! Or if they are, they’re watching a video on their Droid Razr, and checking Facebook!  The world they’re gazing at is a disembodied world, happening someplace else, quite likely in someone’s imagination only.  That’s not a bad thing in itself.  But it’s not an invitation to let THE SOUL IN SILENCE WAIT.  Wait, rocking gently, in stillness deep enough to hear the breeze’s breath, till a Great Blue heron SCRAWKS and lifts clumsily off the tidal flats, legs trailing, reflected in the sheen of sunlight off of mud, Being, for the sake of Being.

It also brings to mind the state I finally arrive at when I’ve been on silent prayer retreat for three or four days of my allotted annual week at the monastery, participating in the round of the daily prayer office – Morning Prayer, Eucharist, Noonday Prayer, Evening Prayer, Compline – immersing my voice carefully in those of others in psalms & hymns, listening to scripture, but otherwise inhabiting the quiet of the guest house with no conversation with anyone, eating meals in silence, taking walks in silence, drinking tea and letting my thoughts drift as loosely as the light shifts on the river between the sycamore trees, sitting in silent prayer in the empty chapel between services, reading in the monastery library.  No cell phone.  No email.  And gradually, gradually, the cacophony in my head and heart begins to quiet down, my soul begins to settle, until at last it finds the silence where it can wait.  At last my soul in silence waits for GOD to be the Prime Mover in my life.

When you think about it, THIS SERVICE OF WORSHIP RIGHT NOW, RIGHT HERE, this weekly gathering in a space set aside for the sole purpose of being fully present to God – body, mind, soul and strength – and present to God in each other, this weekly rhythm of singing and scripture and sharing our celebrations and our heartsickness, of kneeling and rising and moving in space to partake of the body and blood of Christ in communion, this weekly rhythm of silence too, is an opportunity to slow the mad rush of our communication and accomplishment, set the cell phone aside, and allow our souls to settle into at least a MODICUM of silence, allow our souls to wait.  Indeed, sometimes I think that our simple weekly presence in worship has become more deeply, profoundly counter-cultural than ever before, and therefore more important than ever before, if we are to trust God, to find in God our hope and refuge, to pour out our hearts to God, indeed, if “power is to belong to God” and not to us and our devices.

I give you these images of cultivated quiescence because these are the kinds of soul silence we so often lack in our interconnected, energetic times.  The hyper-stimulus of our constant interconnectedness can mask from us the need for God and the presence of God. It can and DOES simply overload us.  It distracts our soul from its work of silence and open waiting. That’s why I create times for us to practice contemplative prayer here at St. James’s, to practice allowing our souls to wait in silence with no other demand upon them.

Sometimes, though, this attitude of the soul’s silence can come upon you, willy-nilly, in the midst of something very tumultuous and gripping and even terrifying.  Sometimes the soul’s silence can enter you at precisely the moment at which a situation is demanding your ALL.  In fact, the wordless silence of the waiting soul has a theological name – a Greek name, as so much of our theology found its first articulation in Greek – a name for a state that is not confined to worship, nor confined to quietist spiritual practice, as important as these are in laying the groundwork of receptivity.  This is the state of KAIROS, which means “the RIGHT time, the OPPORTUNE time, TIME FULFILLED.”  We LIVE hour to hour and day to day in CHRONOS time, time unspooling, sequential time.  KAIROS is completely different from that ticking, disappearing kind of time.  KAIROS is, in a sense, time standing still.  Or perhaps you could say, KAIROS is ALL TIME AT ONCE, A GLIMPSE OF ETERNITY.  KAIROS is a time of ABSOLUTE ONE-NESS WITH GOD, AT-ONE-MENT.

When you are in KAIROS, your body may well be in motion, you will undoubtedly experience a rush of adrenaline, all your gifts may be fully deployed, but at the center of all that motion, all that willful dedication, your SOUL IN SILENCE WAITS, because at your CORE, you know that what is happening is not because of YOU, not RELIANT upon YOU, but is an UPWELLING OF GOD IN YOU.  Oh, it may depend utterly upon you, but paradoxically only as you are OPEN, EXPECTANT, WILLING for God to use you.

As Mark tells it, when Jesus, newly baptized, emerged from his wilderness testing by the Spirit to find that John the Baptist had been arrested by King Herod, he took up his ministry with the words of John’s proclamation.  But he changed them in a critically important way.  Where John emphasized making straight God’s way, a kind of CHRONOS PREPARATION for God, Jesus proclaimed KAIROS, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news."  GOD IS HERE.  THE KINGDOM IS HERE.  TURN AND BELIEVE IT.  TURN & EMBRACE IT!  TURN AND BE GLAD!  No, things are NOT as they “should be.”  The world is full of anguish, brokenness, injustice and struggle.  I am traveling toward the Cross, as you will be, too, my followers.  But EVEN AS YOU WAIT FOR SHALOM, YOUR SOUL IN HELPLESS SILENCE, YOU ARE HELD IN GOD, YOU CAN BE FILLED WITH GOD, YOU CAN ACT IN GOD, FOR GOD, FOR GOD’S LOVE! In the midst of things that are passing away, KAIROS!

Mark’s story is such a familiar story that you could miss its astonishing aspects.  John has been arrested!  For Jesus to take up John’s message is to fly in the face of the most powerful players in Jewish society.  Moreover, Jesus starts his proclamation on the margins of Jewish society, in northernmost Galilee, and among fishermen, people of little power or privilege, whose livelihood is fraught with danger and uncertainty.  As a political strategy, it was dubious – don’t you need a powerful SuperPAC behind you?  And a war chest?  Shouldn’t you start fundraising at the center of power in Jerusalem???  Unless, of course, you’re dedicated to community development, to the empowerment of the powerless to effect change on their own behalf. Unless you’re looking to turn the structures of power upside down. Then you might choose Galilee and fisherfolk as a good place to start!  “Follow me,” Jesus tells those fishermen, “And I will make you fish for people.”  And immediately, says, Mark, they left everything and followed him.

How can we possibly we square this dynamic taking-up of mission with the soul’s silent waiting?  Isn’t this Tahrir Square all over again?  Yes!  In the same way that the Freedom Riders’ integrated bus rides in 1961 resulted in their incarceration in the dreaded Parchman State Penitentiary in Mississippi, which then became the crucible for training in non-violent protest from which there was no turning back: the Civil Rights Movement had received its unstoppable impetus and its modus operandi.  KAIROS, the soul’s silent waiting, fulfilled, not by us, by GOD IN US.

It’s fourteenth-century mystic Meister Eckhart, a man familiar with cultivated silence and waiting, who weaves our Psalm together with our Gospel call, when he turns the waiting around, and describes God as the patient fisherman in pursuit of us: “God lies in wait for us with nothing so much as love, and love is like a fisherman’s hook: without it he could never catch a fish, but once the hook is taken the fisherman is sure of the fish.  Even though the fish twists higher and yon, the fisherman is sure of him… When one has found this way [of God’s], he looks for no other.  To hang on this hook is to be so completely captured that feet and hands, and mouth and eyes, the heart and all a person is and has become God’s own… Whatever she does, who is caught by this hook [of God], love does it, and love alone…” [Paul Galbreath, New Proclamation, Year B, 2012]

We’re so afraid to DISCONNECT for fear we’ll miss something.  Yet in our insistent activity, we risk missing KAIROS ITSELF.  We risk MISSING GOD, and GOD’S OPPORTUNE TIME.  We, in our hyper-activity, may be unable to hear God’s call, God’s cherishing, ever-present voice, God’s refuge, GOD’S POWER. We let God’s hook of love float away downstream. We must wedge open time – CHRONOS – for porch-sitting, for retreat, for prayer, for worship, in order to rehearse our soul’s silent waiting. THE TIME IS FULFILLED and GOD’S KINGDOM – GOD’S REALM OF SHALOM – IS AT HAND.  God the great Fisher for People is CALLING US TO BE READY FOR KAIROS, so that when Tahrir Square opens, when we’re imprisoned together in Parchman, when we undertake Anti-Racism Training as our St. James’s Team does next Saturday, our souls will be quiet enough, patient enough, to hear the call. 

For You alone, O God, our souls in silence wait; truly, our hope is in you.  You alone are our rock and our salvation, our stronghold, so that we shall not be shaken. AMEN.

            Good Morning Saints. It is lovely having you here to celebrate with us on this long Martin Luther King weekend. I spent part of this weekend with my mother, who just turned 64 and of course decides that that occasion calls for even higher heels than she wears already. She could not be here today but please congratulate her next time you see her. We are in the midst of an Epiphany Season where we hear a lot about discipleship. Holly taught us last week about the manifestation of Christ, both in the flesh in our Gospel and through the discipleship Ginny. Today our Gospel features the calling of Phillip and Nathanael as Disciples. Within that call story, we witness the prejudiced Nathanael’s astonishing and transformation. We are in the midst of a weekend celebrating Martin Luther King Jr., a man whose work of discipleship involved believing in, envisioning, and enacting a radical transformation of a racist and prejudiced world. Considering this all, what are we to do to experience and participate in God’s work of transformation.

            Looking at our Gospel we hear the story of Phillip and Nathanael being called to be disciples. Phillip meets Jesus first and only needed to hear “follow me” to join the fold. Nathanael, on the other hand, is a bit dubious that anything or anyone good can come from Nazareth. His prejudice seem to melt completely away once Jesus reveals that he not only knew him before meeting him but knew everything about him. In the end he proclaims that Jesus is the Son of God and King of Israel. Quite the transformation.

            You see we only hear about Nathanael in the Gospel of John and yet in those handful of verses we see some one who has transformed and is transforming. What we know for certain is that Nathanael had a good deal of prejudice against people from Nazareth, that good-for-nothing place. Nathanael, upon meeting Jesus, experiences an immediate and miraculous change of heart about at least one Nazarean. Now it is easy to doubt or be dubious of such radical change but I believe that Nathanael’s continued and faithful following of Jesus throughout the rest of the Gospel is a sign that this transformation was for real. What I am guessing, is that Nathanael continued to be a prejudiced man, he may have even continued to hold that opinion of other people from Nazareth for a while, but through ongoing relationship with Jesus and encountering many different from himself in their shared ministry he continued to grow, change and transform. The story of Nathanael is one of transformation, discipleship and good news.

            For me it makes so much sense that this Gospel falls during Martin Luther King weekend because the parallels are there. There were many Nathanael’s during Martin Luther King’s time as there are many now. He lived in a world where racism and prejudice were supported by the law and pervaded the fabric of society more so than today. Martin Luther King Jr., like Jesus, saw the goodness within all and “had a dream” of a world that was not dominated by racism and prejudice. Martin’s work and dream frequently encountered prejudice like Nathanael’s and worst, yet he continued on hopeful. I have read that upon meeting The Rev. Dr. King in person people who thought all black people were stupid or worthless and immediately be taken by his kindness, spirit and vision. The truth is that these people who were so impressed by him could just as easily consider him an exception while continuing to harbor prejudice against other people of color. Nonetheless, in time, and through ongoing relationship and a sharing in his ministry, many people came to be more fully transformed in their belief in ways that resulted in Civil Rights Laws, desegregation and countless other things that have made this country a better place to live for everyone. So we see, in Rev. Dr. King’s story we see prejudice, met gracefully, followed by a transformation that was both immediate and ongoing through relationship and shared ministry.

            So, looking at these different, and yet similar and connected stories of transformation, what can we take away from this? What do we learn about discipleship from this? First and foremost, we must allow ourselves to be transformed. We must be willing to have our thoughts and ideas change, and change radically in the presence of God’s truth. In order for us to do this we must recognize ourselves as people who need changing, who require transformation, who hold onto feelings and ideas that aren’t good, that aren’t from God. Martin Luther King Day and our Gospel give us an occasion to consider our prejudice, which is very important, and there is much more.

            Secondly, as we are transformed ourselves, we must like Phillip be patient and hopeful when we encounter the prejudice of others. Phillip could have figured that Nathanael would not be open to following Jesus upon his initial response and said never-mind, instead he said “come and see.” Let us, like Phillip, like Jesus and like Dr. Martin Luther King respond to prejudice we encounter with further invitation.

            Thirdly, when we witness some one’s radical change in some one else, let us acknowledge and celebrate it. While it can be easy to doubt or be suspicious of some one who experiences such a drastic turnaround, by recognizing the transformation we are honoring the work of God within them and their openness to change. Next time you encounter a friend or family member who has decided that from that day forth they will exercise, or stop smoking or something else, try taking that at face value. Your belief in them will support their self-belief and their belief in God’s transformative power.

            Finally, just as Jesus invited Nathanael into an ongoing relationship and shared ministry, let us do the same to those whose prejudice we encounter. This can mean spending time with and partnering with a difficult sexist, racist or otherwise prejudiced person you know who has demonstrated a willingness to change. At the ordinations yesterday Bishop Tom talked about how former Hutu perpetrators of mass genocide are being transformed through their relationship with their Tootsie victims and their participation of rebuilding their homes and lives. Encountering their victims in a new context showed the perpetrators that their prejudice was unwarranted, yet it is the ongoing relationship and shared ministry that is giving the Spirit room to truly transform their hearts. Thankfully most of us in this room don’t have to respond to a manifestation of prejudice quite that malignant and yet ti si hard work. Let us remember also, that as often as we are the Phillip’s, Jesus’, & Martin’s were are also the Nathanaels. So let us have patience and grace through it all.

            So people of God, as we continue through this season of Epiphany, this season of reflection upon discipleship, let us live out our discipleship through the work of transformation. Let us like Nathanael and many others be open to changing our own beliefs and ideas; let us like Nathanael be willing to put aside our own prejudice. Let us practice patience in encountering the prejudice of others like Phillip. Let us acknowledge with faith the rapid transformations that we experience with God and commit to the ongoing work through relationship shared ministry. It is through this work that our families, communities, and world are all changed. It is through this work that God’s plan, vision, and dream is revealed. Amen.

©Holly Lyman Antolini

Lections: Genesis 1:1-5; Ps. 29; Acts 19:1-7; Mark 1:4-11

You give strength to your people, Lord; you give us the blessing of peace.  AMEN.

Welcome to the season of Epiphany, the season of epiphaneia, in Greek, meaning “manifestation:” the season of the REVEALING of the nature of Jesus Christ.  We snuck the real beginning of Epiphany right by you in the Christmas season as part of the story of Christmas, the story of the Incarnation of God’s Child as the human infant Jesus.  We buried the Epiphany story of the long-journeying astrologers called the Magi and their presentation of royal gifts to the Child in the manger in acknowledgement of his royalty as the 7^th Lesson in our Christmas Lessons & Carols last week.  Then we passed quietly through Friday, January 6^th, the actual Feast of the Visit of the Magi, without any observance.

That means that effectively we’re beginning our Epiphany Season today, not as the Western Church has done, with the Visit of the Magi, but in the way the Eastern Orthodox do with the Feast of the Baptism of Christ.  For the Orthodox, the opening theophany of the human Jesus’ divine nature happens as he wades into the Jordan River in the huge crowd of seekers who have been drawn away from towns and cities by John, the wild Elijah figure who has stalked out of the wilderness to call everyone to a baptism of repentance. 

The Evangelist Mark agrees with the Orthodox.  No nativity narratives for him.  No “back-story” for Jesus’ adult ministry.  For Mark, Jesus’ baptism is the very opening event of his Gospel, his Good News, which Mark describes in his opening sentence as “The Beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ the Son of God,” as if all that comes after it – Jesus’ ministry of teaching, healing, confronting and reconciling, his death on the Cross, his Resurrection, and indeed, even our lives as readers of the Gospel and disciples of Jesus – is just the Continuation of the Good News. As Mark begins the Good News of the Divine/Human Jesus with Jesus’ baptism, so we begin our Epiphany with Jesus’ baptism, the heavens torn open and the Spirit descending like a dove, proclaiming Jesus God’s Son, the Beloved, with whom God is well-pleased.

So although we are not actually physically baptizing anyone today, the lessons for this First Sunday in Epiphany draw us to reflect on baptism in general and on our baptism in specific, and how baptism assists in MANIFESTING CHRIST.

Now you could ask – and many HAVE asked over millennia of Christian thought and practice, of Christian study of Scripture – WHY Jesus, the “sinless one,” had to participate in the baptism of repentance that John proclaimed, and why THAT, of all things, would initiate his ministry.  He had done nothing needing forgiveness.  Why, then, be baptized? 

Mark gives us two strong hints about this.  First, in his baptism by John, Jesus visibly, MANIFESTLY participates in the DIVINE WORK OF FORGIVENESS & RECONCILIATION which underlies the Good News of God’s work in Creation, and which is the taproot of our ability to live into the promises and calling of the spiritual life.  He MANIFESTLY JOINS THE CROWDS IN THEIR BAPTISMS – crowds of striving, erring, fumbling human beings like us. Were God not so merciful, so ready to let go of the mistakes engendered by our limited and selfish perspectives of the past, so ready to renew our opportunities for the future, could we truly muster the HOPE OF PARTICIPATING IN THE DIVINE AGENDA for Creation?  Jesus, one with us in baptism as we are one with him, he “dwelling in us and we in him,” as Eucharistic Prayer One puts it, draws us into the circle of God’s reconciling power and imbues us with that power, the power truly to be his disciples, followers in his footsteps.

And second, Jesus’ baptism draws the Holy Spirit MANIFESTLY INTO VIEW descending from heaven to bless and empower Jesus’ ministry.  It’s the same Spirit we heard about in Genesis One this morning, which at the very beginning of all things breathed light from darkness and commenced the great Ordering of all Creation.  It’s the same Spirit which invests the Ephesians with power to become children of God when Paul baptizes them in the Acts reading for today. It’s the same Voice of the Lord that sets the foundations of the mighty oak and cedar trees writhing, spinning and dancing in Psalm 29.

All these lessons depict the embodied work of God’s Holy Spirit as AMAZING, STUNNING, more than a little TERRIFYING, and GLORIOUS.  And it’s more than a little intimidating to think that we, in our own baptisms, are invested with this same glorious power, and called into the same ministry with Jesus, IN JESUS, the ministry of Kingdom-bearing, the ministry of prophetic confrontation, the ministry of reconciliation and forgiveness.  As our Collect of the Incarnation puts it, succinctly linking Jesus’ own baptism with ours in the mighty redemptive work of God in Creation: O God, who wonderful created and yet more wonderfully restored the dignity of human nature, grant that we may share the divine life of him who humbled himself to share our humanity, your Son our Savior Jesus Christ…  This is our discipleship, our “following” of Jesus: it is the miracle of our baptisms working in us, that we literally SHARE THE DIVINE LIFE OF CHRIST who shared our humanity.

Stunning and glorious as the Spirit’s power can be, however, the work of discipleship to which we are called in baptism, the work which in fact draws us deeper and deeper into our baptisms – the work of incarnation, the work of BEING the Body of Christ, which is the work of KINGDOM-BEARING – actually tends to be far less flamboyant.  No oak trees writhing.  No heavens torn open. No doves descending.  Most actual work of discipleship is an everyday business, manifesting the Kingdom only to those immediately around us, and even among those, only to the ones who have their eyes peeled.

Let me tell you about the baptismal life of my friend Ginny, diagnosed in her 40’s with early-onset Parkinson’s Disease, and by the time I met her, living full time in the Island Nursing Home, confined to a wheelchair, no longer able to play the organ as had been her vocation for years. Ginny’s life was necessarily conducted on a very small scale, revolving between her church and the Nursing Home in rural Maine.  But within the confines of that small scope, and with honesty and humor, Ginny grew and stretched over the whole time I knew her toward the full scope of her baptismal call to follow Christ.  She served on the Bishop’s Committee of our mission congregation, which met in the Nursing Home common room.  She presided over Bible Study at the Nursing Home, half of us sharp as tacks and wringing Scripture for all its worth and the other half barely able to rub two thoughts together consistently. She led a 20-girl Cadet Scout Troop that met in the Island Nursing Home because she couldn’t easily leave it.  (We’re talking 12 and 13-year-olds, meeting weekly in a nursing home!) She bore compassionately with a roommate so ill with multiple sclerosis that the woman moved and groaned all day and all night in the neighboring bed. She read poets Galway Kinnell and Derek Walcott aloud to visitors, unabashed though her disease had condemned her to receive them sitting on the portable toilet in her nursing home room.  But my abiding image of Ginny was watching her roll her wheelchair through the locked doors of the Alzheimer’s Unit waving a pink elephant puppet on her hand, on mission to sing nursery rhymes to Alzheimers sufferers too far gone to speak or make eye contact, let alone thank her for her kindness.  Ginny’s life is my model for the baptismal life, lived without regard for scale, but with utter courage and authenticity, refusing to be defined by her limitations and her disappointments.  She died of pneumonia in her early 60’s, but like all good saints, she lives still, her voice counseling me at unexpected moments of ministry even now, some 15 years later.

At the same time that the discipleship born of the Holy Spirit in baptism works its quiet way in the building of community and making of relationships, in little invisible but empowering acts of self-sacrifice and courage, hopefulness and generosity like those of my friend Ginny, it can also suddenly, like tinder, flare up and catch fire and “extend in faith out of the realms of domesticated safety and into the wild life of God’s Spirit at loose in the world.” [Deborah Krause, New Proclamation Year B 2005-2006]  We have seen this with our own eyes in the astonishing breaking loose of the Arab world from a variety of dictatorships last year.  By no means is the vote in on how those nations – Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Algeria, even Jordan, Israel, Palestine – will stabilize in future and how the synergy of their crumpling dictatorships will impact others from Iran to Burma and perhaps even North Korea.  Maybe even among our 99% in the U.S.A.  But no one could have anticipated the rolling, unfolding energy of freedom that erupted across the Middle East, any more than we anticipated the fall of the Berlin Wall and the breaking open of the Soviet bloc in 1989.

I often wonder if Jesus himself had any idea of the scope of what he was setting in motion on the margins of his society, in a tiny country, itself on the margins of the Roman Empire.  I do not believe we, pursuing the logic of our baptisms in our daily lives, seeking to enact the healing, confrontation, and reconciliation, the rebalancing that opens new possibilities for those who have been systemically excluded from possibility, ever know what the impact of our faithfulness may be.  It’s not in our hands.  It’s not under our control.  Placed as we are in our own limited incarnation, with the givens of our own gifts and limitations, our degrees of privilege, with the givens of our neighborly relationships, our physical and economic and educational location, we must find our way of discipleship forward in those very concrete circumstances.  The consequences of our faithfulness – and the scope of those consequences – are up to the Holy Spirit.

That’s how I understand what I view as our baptismal call to the work of racial reconciliation – and the reconciliation of other wounds of inequity in our social body – in the congregation of St. James’s.  Responding to the profound GIFT of our diversity as a congregation at St. James’s, we are forming our Anti-Racism Team under the leadership of its Chair, Dr. Michelle Holmes, and anticipating our first weekend training workshop at the end of this month, funded by a diocesan Congregational Development Grant so that we can work with experienced facilitator Dr. Valerie Batts and VISIONS, her consultancy that has resourced Episcopal Divinity School for the last 15 years in their ongoing work of inclusion. Our training will help us – within the bonds of our baptisms that forge us into the Body of Christ – to engage a work of reconciliation that our society as a whole resists notoriously: using the variable of race to unpack our own dynamics of institutional racism and to understand how bias, modern oppression, and discrimination play out across the other “isms” that produce division – conscious and unconscious – among well-intentioned people, even people who lovingly value, as we do, our common life as a congregation.

Called into this work by the confronting and reconciling energy of the Spirit in our baptisms, we do not know what the outcome will be.   Perhaps, like Ginny’s Cadet Scout Troop and Alzheimer’s ministry at the Island Nursing Home, it will remain a quiet work of love and respect, of light in darkness amongst our congregational family at St. James’s.  But perhaps it will “flame out like shining from shook foil” [Gerard Manley Hopkins, “God’s Grandeur”] and set other reconciliation work afire in our deanery and diocese and beyond, extending in faith out of the realms of domesticated safety and into the wild life of God’s Spirit at loose in the world. [Krause, op. cit.]  All we hope is that our work will – as we hope all our baptismal ministry will – restore the dignity of human nature and share the divine life of Christ.  And that God will send his Holy Spirit upon us and declare Godself “well-pleased.”  AMEN.

Good Evening everyone! Merry Christmas Eve, the season where Scooby-Doo happens. It’s a special pleasure to see those of you who we don’t normally see and I hope that there will be some singing later on. Our Christmas Eve Gospel today is the well-known Nativity story in the Gospel of Luke. Like most of you, I have heard the story many times, and yet this time around I encountered something. I suddenly developed the sense that Christmas was not so much about what is created, or what miraculously appears, but rather what is brought forth or uncovered. That sense, that idea that came to me brings me great hope, provides me with insight I seek to share with you this night, and somehow also made me think of Scooby-Doo. By the grace of God this will all make sense to you in a few minutes so please, bear with me. And as you bear with me keep this question in the back of you mind: Will you seek to uncover, celebrate, support and live into truth this Christmas?  

Now please raise your hand if you have ever seen the cartoon Scooby Doo or at least know a little something about it. In Scooby Doo, nearly every episode involves a mysterious crime being committed. Scooby and his gang go to work to solve the crime and normally encounter someone along the way who they don’t initially suspect, at times this person even seems to help them. Towards the end of the episode, the truth is revealed however, as they remove the mask of the captured criminal, revealing that the person who they hadn’t originally suspected is the criminal. In Scooby Doo the truth is uncovered when things or people that appeared to be one way are revealed to be another. You could even call the revelation of such inner truth a “Scooby-Doo Moment.” So what does that have to do with Christmas? What does that have to do with our Gospel?

Looking closer at our Gospel, we see things and people who appear one way being revealed as something else. We see a nature within things being unleashed in all its glory. Luke’s Nativity Story involves Baby Jesus, Mary & Joseph, the Shepherds, Angels and the Heavenly Host. As it unfolds we are told about what Holly would call the ignomious birth of a child in a manger. Nearby, some shepherds who were minding their sheep encounter an Angel who tells them of their Savior, the Messiah, who appears to be a baby wrapped in bands of Cloth. The Heavenly Host appears singing Glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth peace among those whom he favors! The shepherds, excited about all that they have seen and heard, go and encounter their savior in the manger. They then go on to spread the good news and rejoicing. Does that sound about right? Are you with me?

So where are the Scooby Doo moments? Where do we see the truth being uncovered or brought forth? Well, Luke mentions that Joseph was of the family of David. Now David, like the other characters of the story, was a shepherd, who with God’s grace and power was revealed to be a King. Truth uncovered. Our entire Christmas experience centers around the fact that baby Jesus, born in the poorest of circumstances was revealed to be the Savior, The Son of God and really God himself. Scooby-Doo all over again. The night sky into which the shepherds gazed was revealed to be the Heavenly Host, singing and praising God. If this seems like a stretch ask some one like my fiancée Susan, who has spent enough time out in nature to understand that that praise and majesty of the Heavenly Host is always there. The miracle of Christmas was that it was uncovered for the Shepherds to see on that night and my prayer is that one of these days when she makes me look up when I have something better to do I will see more than just sky too. And finally, we see this group of shepherds revealed to be Angels and Heavenly Host themselves. You see Angels are messengers of God and the shepherds carried that news to many. The Heavenly Host glorifies and praises God and the shepherds were revealed as the Host on that night.  

So we see, a shepherd is revealed to be a King, a baby, revealed to be a Savior, a night sky revealed as a majestic Heavenly host and shepherds unmasked to be the true Angels that they are. All by the power of God. All part of the miracle of Christmas.

So with this, it is my belief that we are called to consider the truth that remains masked or uncovered within us. Perhaps there is a humbly held part of our selves that carries amazing saving grace. It could be that a call to greater or a different kind of leadership will draw forth something amazing and unexpected. I believe that we are also called to uncover and recognize the majesty that lays ready to be revealed within ourselves and within our loved ones. We, like the shepherds, must live into our truth in a way that lights the way and celebrates the truth of those around us. Just imagine, what if we spent each and every Christmas looking for, uncovering and acknowledging the true godly and majestic nature of those we love? What if we gave gifts that spoke to that, that helped some one uncover that? What if we, in addition to those gifts, spent this time celebrating all that has been uncovered already while continuing to anticipate, work for and support all that is to come.

St. James’s is a place where this happens. Every week in our pantry board and volunteers are revealed as Angels, our donations are revealed to be lifelines. Through GBIO and our many other social justice ministries people from age 5 to age 95 are revealed to be prophets. St. James’s members abroad take part in critical, saving work while continuing to be inspired, transformed and saved by the Christ exploding within the disadvantaged in Burundi, Ecuador, Costa Rica and so many other places. Each of you is or will soon be having these many Scooby-Doo moments where the majesty of your life is not only apparent, but life-giving for everyone. That, people of God, is part of the Christmas miracle and I pray that all of us in this room will head into this Christmas Season and new year ready, waiting, excited for and supporting of all that continues to be uncovered. Amen.