Sermon Synopses - 2008

Sermons at Trinity are usually ex tempore, that is done without notes...Please enjoy our "Sermon Synopses" or short summaries of sermons preached at Trinity

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Veronica M. Tierney
Christmas 1, December 28, 2008
Isaiah 61:10­–62:3; Psalm 147;

Galatians 3:23–25; 4:4–7;John 1:1–18
Trinity Parish, Newton Centre, MA

“But to all who received him, who believed in his name,
he gave power to become children of God.”

+ In the Name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Perhaps you’ve heard it said that Christmas is about children.  I seem to hear this comment every year, and I have to admit feeling a little uneasy with the claim.  What about those of us who are no longer children?  What about those of us who don’t have children?  Can Christmas really be about children? Maybe there is some truth to this sentiment. 

On Christmas Eve, we watched with joy and delight as the children of this parish proclaimed the great story of the baby Jesus, born in a stable far from home, laid in a feeding trough, and visited in the middle of the night by shepherds who had seen a terrifying and glorious vision, and received the strange and wonderful news that the Messiah had been born at last.  And we heard Todd preach about the Christmas pageant as play, entrusted to children because adults had allowed themselves to outgrow their playfulness, to outgrow the delight and wonder and joy that is play.

Christmas IS about children.  But not in some trite way that focuses on those few moments of gleeful present opening, or those few days of endless play with whatever new toys and games found their way under the Christmas tree. 

Christmas is about children because the eternal, almighty, all-powerful, all-knowing, transcendent God chose to become a child, chose to become that very child whose story our own children presented to us only a few days ago.  God chose to become a child, a baby.  The God who created everything that is, chose to become utterly dependent on the parents he created.  The God whose presence fills all space and time, chose to take upon himself all the limitations of a human body, a baby’s body.  The God who gives food to all the creatures of the earth, chose to receive nourishment from his mother’s breast.  The God whom we call the Word, the divine speech that said, “Let there be light” and it came into being, that God, became a little baby unable to utter a single word.

What on earth are we to make of all this?  Are we serious?  Do we really mean that God really and truly became a human being?  Absolutely.  They say that truth is stranger than fiction, and for Christians, this is the strangest truth there is: the eternal, almighty, all-powerful, all-knowing, transcendent God chose to become a child, to live among us, to grow up in faith and love, to honor his parents, to serve his community.  It is a strange truth.  How can we begin to make sense of it?  Why would God do such a strange thing as this? 

I think it comes back to children.  John’s Gospel tells us that Jesus is God in human flesh, God the Son, the only Son.  “We have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.”  In the Nicene Creed, we proclaim: “We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God.”  That divine child, forever with his father in heaven, came to us, became one of us. That divine child became a human child, became the baby Jesus.  God chose to become a human baby, to take our nature upon himself, to unite our human nature with his own divine nature, for no other reason than love, pure and simple:  “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”  Everything that God does is an act of love.  God came to us as a human being so that we could SEE love, see it with our eyes, hear it with our ears, touch, taste, even smell love.  God made himself a baby so that we could receive him, so that we could receive the love he embodies.  Just think of how much a newborn child draws the attention of those around him: our instinct to reach out our hand to touch the little fingers or toes; to speak in a gentle voice; to set our faces so close that a little hand can reach up and touch our cheek.  Babies are approachable.  We tread softly, not because they are majestic, but because they are so vulnerable.  What better way for God to invite us to approach him, to receive him, to long to touch him and be touched by him?

But the story doesn’t end there.  God’s coming to us is strange and wonderful and mysterious, but it has a further purpose.  God came to us as a baby, born, as the carol says, “to give us second birth,” born to make us babies once again.  God became a child so that we might become children, not children born “of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.”  God became a child so that, through him, we might become children of God, and as God’s children, to inherit eternal life.  John’s Gospel tells us that Jesus gives us the power to become children of God, power that comes through our willingness to receive him, our willingness to trust him with our whole selves, our willingness to believe in his name.  Jesus, the only Son of God, invites us to join him as sons and daughters of God.

If we think it a strange thing that God should become a human being, that God should come to us as a little baby born in a stable, how much more perplexing is it that God should want to make us like himself? St. Paul tells us, “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children.”  What a strange thing it is, to think that God should want to adopt us, to receive us as his own children, when he has his own, natural Son.  God wants us to become his children, we who are by nature someone else’s child.  God gave us himself, incarnate from the Virgin Mary, so that by cleaving to him, we might share in his Sonship. 

So how is it that we can become babies again, that we can offer ourselves for adoption into the life of the Holy Trinity, becoming children of God and inheritors of eternal life?  Nicodemus the Pharisee asks the question for us when he asks Jesus, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?”  Jesus answers, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.”  Being born of water and Spirit is a different kind of birth than the one through which we entered this world.  Being born of water and Spirit is being born from above.  Being born of water and Spirit is what we have come to know as the sacrament of Holy Baptism.  In Baptism, we enter the waters of rebirth by dying with Christ and rising to new life with him.  In Baptism we are sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever.  But baptism is not magic; it is the sign by which we declare openly that we are willing to receive Jesus Christ, the Only Son of God, that we are willing to believe in his name.  Baptism is our way of saying “yes” to Christ’s invitation to become God’s children alongside him, God’s only natural child.  

And yet, we often feel at odds with our new identity.  We never forget that we have natural parents.  We never forget that we don’t properly belong in the divine family.  This awkwardness leads us to test God, to see how far we can push before the whole covenant of adoption falls apart and God gives up on us and on the commitment to us.  The whole history of the people of Israel in the Old Testament could be retold in this way.  And we are no different.  We receive this invitation to become children of God by adoption, an amazing invitation, an awesome demonstration of God’s never-failing love.  But then we get scared.  We doubt that love and we wonder why God would choose to bind himself to us in this way at all.  But God DOES choose.  Every day of our lives, and every day beyond our lifetimes, God CHOOSES to bind himself to us as an adoptive father binds himself to a child who is not naturally his own.  This is the incarnation: God, binding his own divine nature to our humanity, in a bond that will never, ever break.  And in binding himself to us, he gives us nothing less than his own self. 

Let us turn to the Lord, let us receive him, let us believe in his name, that we might receive power to become children of God.   Amen.  

Sermon for Christmas Day
December 25, 2008

Todd began with a story from a recent edition of the Boston College newspaper in which a young woman who had been abroad for a semester was asked by the interviewer what her most memorable experience had been.  The young lady, who had been in Santo Domingo, said that her most memorable experience was the hour or so she had spent with a young girl in an orphanage.  The girl of about 7 or 8 and she had talked for a while, part of the time exchanging knock-knock jokes, until toward the end of the time the girl said to the young lady, “I know something that can make you happy.”  “What?” responded the BC student.  “Do you know God?” asked the girl.  The young woman was struck by the girl’s question.  Here was a girl who had nothing, but was happy; and here she was, a relatively wealthy western woman with lots of things, whom the young girl sensed was not happy.

Christmas is a time of giving gifts.  We have many things, but do we have God, the one thing that can truly bring us joy and happiness?

Todd told the story of one of the sisters in Mother Theresa’s order who came to Mother Theresa to tell her what a difficult time she was having:  it was hard to minister to the poor of India; it was challenging to live in community.  Mother Theresa responded, “You are finding your life difficult because you have not yet given of yourself fully.”  A pious platitude?  “That sounds so ‘Mother Theresa!’” said Todd.  “But after I thought about it, I think she has a point…”   Todd added a corollary to Mother Theresa’s point:  “If we are finding our lives difficult and sense a lack of joy, might it also be that we have not received the gift of God in Christ fully?” 

At Christmas we celebrate God’s gift of himself to us, in the person of Jesus Christ.  Todd said that today and over the next twelve days, he was going to ask himself if he had fully received God’s gift.  “I have a hunch that the extent to which we can find joy and happiness in this life,” said Todd, “is the extent to which we are able to fully receive God’s gift of himself in Jesus Christ.” 

December 24, 2008
Christmas Eve

“The reason we have the children do a Christmas pageant every year,” said Todd, “is not because it’s cute.  Nor do we have the children do the Christmas pageant merely because it is a convenient way to teach our young people one of the great stories of the Faith.  The reason we have a children’s Christmas pageant is because the message for us tonight is much too important to entrust to adults!”

Tonight’s message – the mystery of God becoming human in Jesus Christ, a message that is the source of hope for the world – can best be apprehended through color, costume, gesture, music, poetry and song:  in a word, through play.  And play is something that is often in short supply among adults, said Todd.

“And so we are grateful for our young people for presenting to us this evening the mystery of God becoming human in Christ.” 

Todd quoted from the tombstone of poet Rainer Maria Rilke:  “Alle sind Spiele, aber Spiele…”  “Everything is play, and yet play…”  Play enables us to apprehend and appropriate truths in a way that serious reasoning often cannot.  And so we gather here with color, costume, gesture, music, poetry and song – we gather to “play.” 

Sermon for Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Luke 7:19-23
“Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”

I am puzzled by this evening’s Gospel from Luke chapter 7.  I am remembering that, just a few chapters ago, in Luke 3, how John the Baptist confidently proclaimed, “I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals.  He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”  And presumably, when Jesus was baptized, John saw the Holy Spirit descend on Jesus in the form of a dove and heard the voice from heaven proclaim “You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.”

How is it, then, that John is now questioning, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”  What accounts for this shift from confidence to questioning, from bold proclamation to doubt?  Perhaps John’s experience of imprisonment is affecting him, and he is beginning to second guess himself.  Perhaps he is doubting his memory of seeing the Spirit and hearing the voice.
 
At any rate, here we see in John a shift from feeling confident to feeling shaken. 

As for John’s sudden shift from confidence to doubt, do not we ourselves experience this shift in the spiritual life?  And regularly?  Our souls are rather like a balloon:  they swell up with the least bit of encouragement, and they shrink back down with the least discouragement.  What can we do, we who are caught in this perpetual cycle of consolation and discouragement?

Jesus’ response to John’s friends offers us a clue:  “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard.  The blind receive their sight, the lame walk… the deaf hear.”  When we are in “prison” and are shaken, we are helped as we bring to mind the things we have “seen and heard” and recall all the ways in which God has cared for us.  Is there a time when God has not loved us?  Is there a time when God was not watching over us?  Was there ever a time when God was not with us?  God is always with us, is always watching over us, and always – ALWAYS – loves us.  To be sure, there will be times when we are unable to see that God is present, when we are unable to feel that God loves us – and these are normal movements of the spiritual life.  If we are able to bring to mind the things we have “heard and seen” during times of consolation, we will have hope in the darkness of our times of doubt.

We are not alone as we go between feeling confident and feeling shaken.  John, also, experienced, in short succession, great confidence then doubt.  When we are shaken and doubting, we can be helped by looking to John’s example and recalling Jesus’ words to him.  And we can rest assured that our time of doubting and feeling shaken will eventually pass.

Sermon for Sunday, December 14, 2008
The Third Sunday of Advent
John 1:6-8, 19-28

“Who are you?”

“I would say that every parent remembers their child’s first words – How could you forget? – except that when I was asked my wife about our kids’ first words, her recollection was different than mine.”  Todd began by telling about the first words spoken by his children.  “Da-da” is what he remembers.  “Mama” is what his wife remembers.  Don’t most parents try to teach their toddlers “Mama” or “Da-da?”  (And don’t most toddlers say “Da-da” first because it’s easier to say than “Mama?”)  “First words are significant,” said Todd, “the first words we teach are children impress upon them what we consider important, what is worthy of their attention, and what kind of relationship they can expect.”

In today’s gospel lesson, we hear the first words spoken in John’s Gospel.  They are a question:  “Who are you?”  Even before we consider the meaning of these words, the fact that they are a question is important.  These first words impress upon us that it is OK to not know things and to ask questions; they tell us that the search for an answer is worthy of our attention, and they tell us that the kind of relationship we can expect with God is one marked, not by answers, but by questions.

If the gospel of John were a primer teaching us language, it would develop our “speech” by asking questions:  Who are you?  What are you looking for?  Can anything good come out of Nazareth?  Where do I get this living water?  Do you want to be made well?  Whoever lives and believes in me will never die, do you believe this?  Simon, son of John, do you love me? 

We will discover the answer to this first question, “Who are you?” as we consider the subsequent questions.  While we might think that the goal of our journey is to come to a place, like Peter in the final chapter of John’s gospel, where we are able to answer Jesus’ question “Do you love me?” with “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you” – and this is an important step! –  there is actually more.  The goal of all our learning these questions is to come back to a place very similar to that in which we started:  to have so intimate a relationship with God that we call God “Abba” or “Daddy” as did Jesus. 

Sermon for Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Matthew 11:28- 30

“My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

I have a hunch that many people tend to think of God as somebody who lays burdens upon us, who gives us commands to follow and commitments to keep, and who ends up making our lives more difficult than they would be otherwise.  Today’s gospel reading assures us that God does no such thing.  Today’s Gospel lesson tells us that if we are truly following God – and not a false god that we in our minds have set up – our experience of God will be one of rest and refreshment, of being relieved from hard yokes and heavy burdens.  Indeed, here is a sign to pay attention to:  if your experience of God is one of heavy burdens, it is not really God you are experiencing.

As we follow the true God, the God who is gentle and humble in heart – and not a harsh god who is a figment of our imagination – we will come to experience “rest for our souls.”  Our weariness will dissipate; our heavy burdens will become light. 

How does tonight’s passage square with other passages in scripture, passages that suggest that following Jesus is actually quite demanding?  Recall such passages as, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”  Or, “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it.  For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.”

To make sense of these passages, I offer one thing to remember, and one thing to notice.  1)  The important thing to remember is that weight is relative.  It is one of the great deceptions of the world to convince us that its yoke is easy and its burden is light – its yoke, for example, of the desire for power and prestige, money and possessions.   But the yoke and burden of the world are relatively much harder and heavier than those of Christ.  2)  The important thing to notice about tonight’s Gospel lesson is that Jesus does not say that following God is to be without any yoke at all.  No teacher in antiquity worth his salt would have advocated that to his disciples.  Tonight’s passage tells us that the yoke of Jesus’ discipleship and the burden he asks us to carry is, in contrast to other yokes and other burdens, easy and light.   

How do we get to a place in which we are freed from the deception that the cross is heavy and the narrow gate difficult and can see the truth of the Gospel, that Jesus’ yoke is easy and his burden light?  Grace, grace, and more grace.  Not a cheap grace that asks nothing of us, but a true grace that invites us into deeper relationship with God.  This grace invites us to discover that, in comparison to the yokes and burdens of the world, the way of the cross is the yoke that is easy; the narrow gate is the burden that is light.

I know of no better way to hear this invitation than through prayer.  I wish to leave you with a beautiful prayer that conveys this mysterious truth, that the way of the cross is none other than the way of life and peace.  It is the Collect for Fridays at Morning Prayer:

Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified:  Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord.  Amen.

Sermon for December 7, 2008
2 Advent
Mark 1:1-8

“The beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” – Mark 1:1

Todd began by telling about his witnessing an adult learn-to-dive class.  He was struck by the humility it must take to learn to dive as an adult:  a willingness to enter a place of incompetence; a willingness to submit to the discipline of teacher and class; and willing to do all this in public!  (“Would that there were a way to practice diving in private.”) 

“To be a beginner calls for a certain humility,” said Todd.  And at the center of this humility is an acknowledging and owning of desire.  “Those in the adult learn-to-dive class had to own their desire to learn to dive.”  We don’t often associate humility with desire; indeed, we tend to think that humility is the suppression of desire. But at its best, humility is to recognize we are “humus,” earth.  To own a desire is to acknowledge our creatureliness, to accept how God has made us, what God has given us. 

Today, we stand in a place of beginnings.  Today is the Second Sunday of Advent, the second Sunday of the Church’s new year.  And today we began hearing from the Gospel of Mark, the gospel from which we will hear for the bulk of the coming year.   If we would make progress in this coming year, it helps to retain a sense of being a beginner; we are to cultivate “beginner’s mind.”    Todd mentioned the book “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind,” and asked, “Why not ‘Christian Mind, Beginner’s Mind?’”  He quoted the first line of the book, “In the mind of the beginner there are many possibilities, in the expert’s there are few.”  “If we would uncover the great possibilities we have for growth in God – to discover how much God loves us, what it means to be created in God’s image, the extent to which we stand in need of Jesus Christ and redemption, the great lives God is calling us to live – it helps to have ‘beginner’s mind.’”  The Christian manifesto for “beginner’s mind” might be Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians:  Paul did not come proclaiming the mystery of God in lofty words or wisdom, but preached only Jesus Christ, and him crucified.  Todd quote more from I Corinthians, “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise….” 

And cultivating a ‘beginner’s mind calls for a certain humility.

How do we find this humility?  Like the divers going to class and the crowds going into the wilderness in Mark 1:1-8, we can cultivate humility by being willing to go into the unfamiliar.  Like the divers recognizing that they needed a teacher and a class in order to make progress, and like the crowds in Mark 1 recognizing that they needed a teacher and ritual in order to live changed lives, we can cultivate humility by acknowledging that we cannot make it on our own but need the help of Jesus and a community.  But the most we can do to cultivate humility is to uncover and own our desire.

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