December 29, 2024 – The First Sunday After Christmas
Greg Phelps
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be always acceptable in your sight our strength and our redeemer. Amen. (Gesture to be seated if people are up)
What’s he doing up there? I’m not Father Cal
Episcopal Preaching Class of 2025 Cal Appreciation
Theme in this time of darkness is From Law to Light
Slow Down
613! That is the number of rules, commandments, prohibitions, mitzvots, chukims, mishpatim, found in the first five books that comprise the Torah according to the Hebrew physician and scholar Maimonides (my Mon i deez)
Then add on the number of additional laws and rules in the rest of the Old Testament, the New Testament, the church and state over the last 2000 years! Then think of everyday rules we encounter in daily life. For example, I didn’t even know there was a rule on how to load a dishwasher until I was married.
In our Galatians reading today we read that “we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed…
The author A J Jacobs wrote a book called A Year of Living Biblically: one man’s humble quest to follow the Bible as literally as possible. He carefully researched and read numerous bibles, texts and consulted experts. Then he attempted, somewhat humorously, in New York City to live by them.
This included everyday dressing in a long white robe with outer cloak taking care not to mix fabrics such as wool and linen. Every day, he went out and looked for opportunities to be able to fulfill his biblical commandments.
My favorite encounter is about how Jacobs kept several pebbles in his pockets waiting for an opportunity to stone an adulterer … Pebbles, he didn’t want to actually hurt anyone. An elderly gentleman accosted him in Central Park asking why he was dressed ‘all weird like that.’ Jacobs explained he was trying to fulfill the 613 laws of Torah including his current mode of dress– up to stoning an adulterer, holding out his hand to show the pebbles he’d been hoarding.
The elderly curmudgeon said “well I’ve been an adulterer, I’ve been an adulterer yesterday and I’ll be in adulterer tomorrow.” then he slapped at Jacob’s handful of pebbles. Only one pebble was remined. Jacobs took the opportunity to retaliate by tossing lone pebble back at his adulterer and complete his mitzvot.
Ajay spent eight months of his year long quest on the Old Testament, reserving four months for the New Testament rules. These included a visit locally to Del Rio with a University of Tennessee professor for an episode on snake handling.
So here we are, in the dark, struggling and groaning under the laws.
But now SWOOSH!! The LOGO! We all know that word. Like the checkmark logo of Nike brand shoes.
Our gospel reading today begins with “in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God” The Greek word this translates from Logos. Which is where we get the contemporary word logo in which a single image can come to signify a particular brand, company, set of ideas, political party, emotions or ambitions. It is much more than a word.
(Our son Ben as a teen was terribly disappointed when we refused to let him a Nike swoosh tattooed on his ankle. “But it ‘s cool, It says action, just do it ” he exclaimed demonstrating the power of the logo. We as his parents, much to his disappointment -demurred. Now a banker at 42, he appreciates our parental discretion.
The Gospel continues- “And the word became flesh.” Because where one picture can be worth a thousand words, a human being can be worth a million pictures. Thus, it was not sufficient for God to simply to send a description this time, or tablets of what we should do but rather to send his Son to model the behavior and lessons.
So why this Gospel now? Here we are coming out the darkest time of the year. In this dark time, just after Christmas, we have these Gospel of John reading repeated in all three years of the lectionary
In these readings we are moving from Law to Light. So, where the law was given through Moses; “we are now crying Abba Father (literally Daddy) So we are no longer a slave to the law but a child and that if a child also an heir through God.”
Here we get John the gospel writer, writing of John the Baptizer. He notes that the light (meaning Jesus) “shines in the darkness” and then goes on to say of John “he himself was not the light but came to testify to light, the true light which enlightens everyone was coming into the world.”
So, a little more on light. First the electromagnetic physical phenomena. We don’t think that much about it, flip a switch and carry on. But until almost 1900, the world was lit only by sunlight, moonlight or fire, bonfires, torches, oil lamps, or candles. No LEDs, no fluorescence, no incandescence. So physical darkness and cold was a big deal, in that time. Activity dwindles, people huddle at home in the dark until dark comes to an end. Light was precious no wonder it is a common metaphor.
Robert Louis Stephenson as a child was watching the street lamplighter working. Urged to come away from the window he relied, “I can’t. I’m watching a man poke holes in the dark. “
There is of course also spiritual darkness in our world about connection and meaning.
So, what is the meaning of life? It is my favorite question! Often when I go to a conference or store, or restaurant with Gayle and someone asks me if I have any questions? I light up: my opportunity to get someone to think on the deeper questions. (This is how a hospice and palliative care doctor entertains himself) Gayle recognizes the look and will usually wince and whisper sotto voce ‘please don’t.” Because she’s heard this exchange before. I make eye contact, smile, “Well yes, I do have a question: what is the meaning of life?” There’s often a discombobulated look, uncertain smile and stuttered pause, by the person I asked and then they refer usually to the menu or the topic or business at hand. Occasionally I’ll get an attempted answer. The best answer I got was from a nurse who died and lived to tell the tale. But that is a story for another sermon.
Imagine my delight when I discovered that the Unitarian pastor and author Robert Fulghum has a similar predilection for this question. In his book: It Was on Fire When I Laid Down On It, he recounts a story of being at a Peace conference in Greece. The speaker was offering the closing words when he asked the fatal query: “Any Questions”
Fulghum asked.
The speaker looked hard at Fulghum to see if he was serious.
Fulghum, delighted, nodded an enthusiastic yes
The speaker pulled out his wallet and extracted a small ovoid mirror. The speaker was a child in Greece during World War II. There had been brutal fighting with the Nazi’s. He came upon a wrecked German motorcycle and amid the wreckage on the road was good sized fragment of a mirror which he took and filed down on the rocks into a round circle. He then took that little piece of mirror and kept it with him and invented a game of shining light into crevices, and cracks, darkened rooms. Later, as he matured, he found this mirror could be a metaphor for a Christian life as well. The speaker then took his small fragment of mirror, expertly catching the sun shining in the window, he reflected it back on Fulghum saying: “like this mirror I am part of something that is much bigger, I am not the light, my job is to reflect the light and THAT is the meaning of life.”
Finally, there can be personal spiritual darkness when it may seem that God has distanced or abandoned us. We feel isolated and alone. Even Mother Teresa went years feeling God had stopped talking to her.
That is when we must connect with each other to reignite one another’s light. As Mother Mary said last week, ‘it wasn’t until Elizabeth shared her joy with Mary at the coming Christ child that Mary herself could find joy.’ I was at a Catholic Healthcare conference when I worked at St. Mary’s and the theme song for the conference was light in the darkness. The theme song was from Kathy Troccoli’s “Go Light Your World -Carry Your Candle.”
There is a candle in every soul
Some brightly burning, some dark and cold
There is a Spirit who brings fire
Ignites a candle and makes His home
Carry your candle, run to the darkness
Seek out the hopeless, confused and torn
Hold out your candle for all to see it
Take your candle, and go light your world
Take your candle and go light the world
Some our sister hospital systems were so excited they went out that night and had temporary candle tattoos made for their whole delegation to proudly exhibit the next day. Talk about being religiously one upped!
So, in summary, in this season when literal darkness competes with the Christmas Holiday, remember– the LOGOs, the light, the flesh, the savior. Remember our job as heirs, not lawbreakers, is to carry light to each other and our world.
I hope that this exposition helps lighten your winter journey and that with refection you can share HIS light.
Any Questions?
Amen