We are a week ahead of the Revised Common Lectionary with our Epistle. Read it here.

This Gospel is one of the rare moments in the Bible when we see all three Persons of the Trinity in one scene. The Trinity is a core teaching of Christianity – the idea that God is somehow both One, and Three. Those Three Persons are distinct, not just one God wearing different outfits, but also somehow deeply and truly One: God the Creator and Source who Jesus calls Father; Jesus Christ himself, in his earthly life and in his resurrected life beyond his time on earth; And the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, Comforter, and Giver of Life.  Three in One and One in Three. 

Here we see Jesus, still soaking wet from his baptism in the Jordan River; the Holy Spirit descending upon him like a dove; and a Voice from heaven, the voice of God, Creator and Father, saying, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” 

Of the three Persons of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit is maybe the hardest to describe or explain, but paradoxically I think she’s also the most frequently or most easily encountered. She is the Aspect of God that empowers and inspires, guides and nudges, comforts and clarifies. 

Jesus teaches his disciples that the Holy Spirit will be kind of the caretaker of the church through the ages, helping it deepen and discern: “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, [They] will guide you into all the truth… [They] will declare to you the things that are to come.” (John 16:12-14) 

And in today’s Epistle, Saint Paul also has a lot to say about the activity of the Holy Spirit in the church. 

I want to spend some time with this Epistle. I love today’s Isaiah text about God’s tender and restoring love; I love this Psalm, about God’s glory seen in the awe-inspiring powers of Nature. 

But this Epistle is really important for my ecclesiology, a word which here means what I think “church” is supposed to be and do. So let’s dwell with this text a little. 

We’ll be hearing readings from the first letter to the Corinthians for a few weeks here, off and on, so it’s worthwhile to introduce the book. This is one of the Epistles, which means it’s one of the letters recording the teachings, experiences, and struggles of Christians in the first few decades of the faith. This one was written by the Apostle Paul, to the church in Corinth (now in Greece). It was probably written around the year 54, just about 20 years after Jesus’ death and resurrection. Paul’s letters are some of our earliest Christian texts!

Paul had helped found the church in Corinth, several years earlier. It was a mostly Gentile congregation – meaning its members weren’t grounded in Jewish faith, teaching, practice. And they were probably diverse in their backgrounds, in terms of culture, language, and class. 

Paul seems to be responding to a letter from the church asking for clarification about various matters of faith. But he’s also responding to reports of conflict and disorder within the church: rivalries, flagrant immorality, and disrespectful treatment of the poorer members. 

Today’s text, and the one we’ll hear next week, a continuation of the same passage, are a great example of the thing Paul does sometimes where his frustration and urgency to teach and correct turns into some of his most eloquent and beautiful writing. I really love these passages – and it is easy to forget how MAD Paul is, here!  

For a little context, let’s duck into the preceding chapter, chapter 11, which for some reason doesn’t come up in the Sunday lectionary. Paul writes: 

“Now in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse. For, to begin with, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you; and to some extent I believe it. Indeed, there have to be factions among you, for only so will it become clear who among you are genuine. 

When you come together, it is not really to eat the Lord’s supper. For when the time comes to eat, each of you goes ahead with your own supper, and one goes hungry and another becomes drunk. What! Do you not have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you show contempt for the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What should I say to you? Should I commend you? In this matter I do not commend you!” 

It’s an important passage because he goes on to offer us one of the earliest descriptions of Eucharist as a church practice: “For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”

So, because the Corinthians were doing Eucharist wrong and Paul was mad about it, we have this really important look at Eucharist in the first decades of Christianity, which tells us that the way WE practice Eucharist is part of this ancient sacramental tradition! Pretty cool. But also, again: Paul is not happy. 

So that’s kind of the vibe Paul is bringing into chapter 12, here. He’s not just talking about the variety of spiritual gifts in the church because it’s *nice*. He’s talking about it because he has heard that some people think their particular spiritual gifts make them better than everybody else. Specifically, some people seem to think that speaking in tongues is the spiritual gift that demonstrates the greatest holiness – and thus presumably gives you the highest standing in the community. 

Speaking in tongues, or glossolalia to use the scholarly term, is a spiritual practice in which people utter speech-like sounds. Sometimes it’s believed that these sounds are another human language, or an angelic language. Glossolalia is an ecstatic practice – something people do when worship and emotion and perhaps the Holy Spirit have brought them to an altered state of consciousness. It’s a core spiritual practice in Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity. 

Speaking in tongues may seem strange to most of us. But it is an ancient Christian practice. It’s clear that Paul did it, and saw it as a true spiritual gift. He just didn’t think it was THE spiritual gift that set someone apart as the holiest and best. 

Instead, he says something really important here. We heard it a few minutes ago; let me read it again from the Message Bible paraphrase, which sometimes helps us hear something with fresh ears: “God’s various gifts are handed out everywhere; but they all originate in God’s Spirit. God’s various ministries are carried out everywhere; but they all originate in God’s Spirit. God’s various expressions of power are in action everywhere; but Godself is behind it all. Each person is given something to do that shows who God is. Everyone gets in on it, everyone benefits. All kinds of things are handed out by the Spirit, and to all kinds of people! …

The variety is wonderful: wise counsel; clear understanding; simple trust; healing the sick; miraculous acts; proclamation; distinguishing between spirits; speaking in tongues; interpretation of tongues. All these gifts have a common origin, but are handed out one by one by the one Spirit of God. The Spirit decides who gets what, and when.”

Next week we’ll hear Paul use the human body as a metaphor to explore the value of a variety of skills and functions.  

A few days ago I talked about this passage with a couple of members of this congregation, both women a little older than me, and we discovered that they BOTH had an issue with this text, because they BOTH, at some point, had being given some sort of evaluation to help identify your spiritual gifts. I’m envisioning this thing as one of those quizzes from Cosmopolitan magazine, where you tally up the columns to find out if you’re a Wise Counsel or a Discerning of Spirits! 

And for both of my conversation partners, everybody else in their small group found a spiritual gift, using this Cosmo quiz, and they did not;  and it was still kind of bothering them, decades later. This is funny but also tragic! I know both of these people well and there is no doubt in my mind that they are both people of profound spiritual gifts. 

So it’s important to say: This list of spiritual gifts Paul offers here is NOT meant to be the exhaustive, comprehensive list of ALL THE POTENTIAL SPIRITUAL GIFTS. He’s just giving some examples to flesh out his point, which is that the Spirit gifts people for the common good in a lot of different ways! (In fact, a few chapters earlier, Paul refers to celibacy – a lack of desire for physical intimacy – as a spiritual gift. Bet that wasn’t on that quiz!) 

When I say that this passage is really important for my ecclesiology, what do I mean? One thing I mean is that I really love discovering people’s charisms. Charism is the Greek word that’s translated as gift in our passage today, as in “a variety of gifts.” I think of a charism as something somebody is good at – it could be a natural talent, it could be a skill you’ve learned; lots of things are some of both. In my experience, everybody is good at a few things, and it’s really interesting to find out what those things are! 

But a charism in the sense of this passage, and in the sense in which I think about it, isn’t just something you’re good at; it’s something you’re good at that can be used for the greater good. Paul says: To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. The Greek word there is symphero, which comes from words that mean “to carry together.” By extension, it means what is beneficial or helpful to the group, to the whole. There’s a sense in the word of both coming together, and of helping or improving. So I think “for the common good” is a pretty good translation. 

We all have things we’re good at. But some of the things we’re good at may be particularly useful to the common good – skills or talents we can use for the benefit of our family, or our friend group, or our workplace or church or city or country. It’s really interesting to explore how somebody’s gifts and skills could also be charisms, something they can do for the greater good! Sometimes that’s obvious and sometimes it’s not. 

It’s not just that I love discovering people’s charisms – whether that’s in conversation with a new member, or with someone I’ve known for years who I just found out is also a glassblower, or something. It’s not just that those conversations are fun and interesting for me, though they are. 

It’s that discovering the charisms of the people of this congregation is one way that the Holy Spirit guides me, and us. That’s why we do things like ask you all, every few years, about your skills and talents, the things you’re good at and the things you love to do! Because I really really believe that God steers this church by the gifts and skills of the people who gather here. 

In our most recent such survey, we discovered, again, that mental health, creation care, making stuff, and diversity in gender expression and sexual orientation are big commitments of this congregation. I was struck by the range with respect to creation care – we have people who are knowledgeable about everything from groundwater contamination to native plants and pollinators to freshwater mollusks to bicycling and solar power and permaculture, and more! So many directions to keep exploring together. 

We also have a lot of bakers – which is part of why we were able to raise $800 with our youth bake sale in December. Being a skilled and generous baker is 100% a spiritual gift. 

Here are some of the other charisms people named on that survey – or that I know as manifestations of the Holy Spirit within this congregation: Being able to talk about recovery and addition, neurodiversity, and mental health. Being good at scheduling meetings and organizing a group; Lord, you cannot imagine what a blessing people like that are to me. Fixing stuff. Dramatic reading. Various aspects of theater and stagecraft. Many musical gifts and skills. Tech support. Editing, graphic design, strategic communications. Being a good listener, a good connector, a wise asker of good questions. Thanking and affirming. Welcoming. Sharing your story. Inviting others into sacred silence. [Being the person who so, so lovingly curates and tends that holy time after 10AM worship when we can stand around with a cup of coffee and a piece of cheese and talk. You NEVER have to apologize, Janet!] 

Please notice that these do not all involve doing something! I hear from folks sometimes who, due to age or disability or other reasons, feel like they can’t do much – and thus don’t have anything to contribute. That’s so, so far from the truth. I wish I had words for all the ways people who don’t “do” anything at church right now, contribute to the warmth and mutual kindness and holy curiosity and courage and hope of this community. 

Having my ecclesiology, my sense of church, shaped by Paul’s words, Paul’s insight, here, means that I’m eager to welcome people as their whole selves, and make space for folks to share their charisms as they feel so moved – for the common good. Listening to what people want to offer is a really important piece of my work as pastor. It’s not about twisting arms, but it is often about connecting and inviting and exploring possibilities. There are questions of capacity and availability, but in general, it feels good to be able to share our gifts, our skills, ourselves; that’s an important element of human wellbeing. Places where people feel like they don’t have anything to contribute, where our presence or absence doesn’t really matter, are rarely our favorite places. 

With the apostle Paul, I absolutely believe that God places among us – that the Holy Spirit stirs up among us – the gifts and skills, the charisms, that we need, to be the church God means us to be. And it’s a joyful adventure to keep discovering what that means, here at St. Dunstan’s. Thanks be to God! 

Invite kids up… 

Some of you looked at this Bible story in Sunday school a few weeks ago. It’s a scary story, isn’t it? With the bad king who wants to kill babies, because he’s afraid? … Why would we tell kids a scary story like that? … Well, I have some good news: It probably didn’t really happen! Does anybody remember another important person from the Bible, named Moses? Moses led God’s people out of slavery in Egypt and through the wilderness; and he told them how to live in God’s holy ways.  Now, before Moses was born, Moses’ people were slaves and had to work for the Egyptians. And the king of Egypt, Pharaoh, got afraid that they might get strong and rise up and refuse to be slaves anymore. So Pharaoh said that all the baby boys of Moses’ people should be killed! Just like in the Gospel story today! 

Who remembers how baby Moses was saved? … Yes, his mother and his sister put him in a basket in the river, and Pharaoh’s grown-up daughter found him and decided to adopt him! 

Now, King Herod did some bad stuff. He was not a great person. But nobody who was writing down what happened, back in Jesus’ time, says that King Herod ever killed a bunch of babies. Our Gospel story today wants us to remember baby Moses, and to think about how Jesus is like Moses – a leader chosen by God to lead his people to freedom and holiness. And the story also wants us to remember that very powerful grown-ups can sometimes be afraid of little kids, because even very small people can be powerful and important when you stand up for something good and true! Right? … 

When we hear a scary story, it might also important to remind you that the people who love you will always do everything they can – everything we can – to keep you safe. Okay? 

Okay! Now I’m going to send you out with Io and Max. We have prepared a little New Year’s party for you in the meeting room!… 

Kids leave.

Tradition has a name for these children, the murdered babies of Bethlehem from Matthew’s Gospel. They’re called the Holy Innocents. 

This story doesn’t come to us every year. But when it does, I always tell the kids: It’s OK.  This story isn’t true.  And the people who love you will keep you safe. 

It’s a lie. We all know it. The truth is: we cannot protect our children.

I’m usually thinking ahead several weeks in the lectionary. I already had some thoughts about preaching this Gospel simmering on my mental back burner when I went to a concert on Saturday, December 14 – the concert of the Wisconsin Chamber Choir, in which our vestry co-chair Andi sings. 

They sang a setting of the Coventry Carol, a 16th century English carol that is a lullaby to the children doomed by Herod’s anger and fear. Lully, lullay, thou little tiny child… Herod the king in his raging, charged he hath this day, his men of might in his own sight all young children to slay… Then woe is me, poor child, for thee! By by, lully, lullay.. 

Then the choir sang a piece by Jean Belmont Ford, written in response to the Parkland school shooting in 2018. Ford draws on the Coventry Carol – lully, lullay – as part of a song of grief and anger and a plea for more kindness in the world. Be the one who knows what must be done, she writes. 

That Saturday I listened with tears in my eyes. 

Two days later, a 15-year-old girl brought a gun to school at Abundant Life Christian School, on the east side of Madison, where she killed two people and wounded six others before completing suicide. 

We can’t protect our children. 

I checked in with a few other parents of school-aged kids, that week, to see how the kids were handling it.  And we noticed, together, how little the kids seemed to react. I’m sure some kids showed signs of big grief, big fear. But a lot of them didn’t. 

We realized: They’ve been training for this, since they were four or five years old. Lock the door. Crowd into the corner. Practice being very, very quiet. Of course they’re not surprised or shocked when it actually happens.

But I think there’s more to it. It’s not that they take it in stride, exactly. It’s not that they’re not afraid. But they’ve had to lock up their fear – lock down their fear! – because there’s no alternative.

There’s no way to opt out.  Because we can’t protect them.  We teach them that with every Code Red drill. 

We grownups have had to lock down our grief and rage, too. Friend of the parish Jonathan Melton posted to Facebook a couple of days after the Abundant Life shooting.  Jonathan used to be the chaplain at St Francis House over on campus, and he served here on Sundays during my 2018 sabbatical. He lives in Texas now with his family. 

Jonathan’s words captured some of what I was feeling – or struggling to feel. He wrote, “Right now, I’m trying to feel more than empty grief… My grief has no legs today. There’s no surprise, even at the close to home-ness of it all. On one level, the closeness to our hearts and lives, for each one of us, is just an inevitably of math. Columbine was a quarter century ago. I was a senior in high school. My daughter is a sophomore now. It surprised us then. Through subsequent headlines and intervening years l’ve been alternately outraged and gutted and thoughtful and hopeful and determined and convinced by my own “if only”s. I’ve shared vigils and tears and swear words and prayers. But just now my grief doesn’t have any legs.” 

Numb.

Helpless.

Overwhelmed. 

Despairing. 

Grief without legs. 

What do we do with this fucking horrible truth? That we cannot protect our children?  That’s a big question. Let me narrow it slightly. What do we do, theologically, with the fact that we can’t keep our children safe? How do we grapple with it as people of faith? 

I know there are adults hearing this sermon who also feel at risk and face big challenges, too. I’m focusing on kids, today, because we just read the Gospel of the Holy Innocents. And because most of the time, any risk or challenge an adult faces is even more dangerous for a child or teen. And because it’s our responsibility, as the grownups, to try… to try to protect and help. 

One thing we can do is insist on not letting the horrible truth that we cannot protect our kids drive us apart. Separate us. 

Within hours of the Abundant Life shooting, people were fighting in the comments of the local community Facebook group about whether we should be talking about gun regulation or mental health support. As if we had to choose! As if we could not, collectively, decide to prioritize both commonsense gun safety laws, well enforced, AND a robust mental health care system accessible for everyone! 

Blame-shifting, scapegoating, anger – these are ways people try to handle their grief and fear. Releasing the negative feelings that threaten to overwhelm or consume. It’s not great, but I get it. 

Another way we try to protect ourselves – and end up separating ourselves! – is by deciding which children matter. Not consciously, of course – but we all do it. My friend Betsy is the rabbi at one of the synagogues in town, the Beth Israel Center. We’ve talked about how hard it has been for her to hold onto the truth that all children deserve to be safe. To keep insisting that Israeli children matter AND Gazan children matter. Yes, the terrorist attack in October 2023 was *genuinely* horrific in ways that many of us don’t even know, because the media we consume shielded us from some of the worst details. And yes, the continued crushing violence against Gazan civilians is ALSO horrific. And you have to care about BOTH. You can’t belong to the God of Abraham and Moses and Isaiah, and care about the wellbeing of one kind of child and not another kind of child. We are not free to do that. 

Activist Glennon Doyle puts it this way: There is no such thing as other people’s children. 

Facing the truth that we can’t keep our kids safe brings us into solidarity with the rest of humanity. We can’t protect our children, just like parents in Gaza or Ukraine can’t protect their kids from missiles and bombs, or death from exposure to the elements as winter deepens. Just like undocumented immigrants can’t protect their children from the possibility that their US-born kids will come home from school one day to an empty house. 

I’m not saying we should tear our hearts open, feel every death. We can’t function that way. But we need to commit to the idea that there’s no such thing as other people’s children. To resist the false solace of caring about some children, but not others. To resist letting terrible things drive us into fruitless squabbling instead of the work of care and change. 

The reality that we can’t keep our children safe draws us into solidarity with the rest of humanity. It also should draw us into solidarity with God. 

One of my favorite authors, Francis Spufford, talks about the thwarted tenderness of God (Unapologetic, page 109). Thwarted tenderness. Tenderness, because God actually really, really loves us and wants good for us. Thwarted, because we humans get in the way of the good and holy, in so many ways. We turn away from what’s true and life-giving. We hurt each other. We hurt ourselves. 

And it’s all built up, over millennia, into deeply entrenched patterns of division and inequality and struggle. 

Jesus, looking out over Jerusalem, cries out: How often I have desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! It’s one of the most powerful expressions of God’s thwarted tenderness in Scripture. 

But there are so many other places, especially in the books of the prophets, where we hear God yearning for us to return, to come home, to accept the love God offers us, to make amends and set things right and be made whole. 

God is a Parent who can’t protect us. Because She lets us be free, as every parent has to let their children be free. And because we have used our freedom, individually and collectively, to make some very bad choices. 

That helpless heartache we feel when we watch a young person we love walk out the door, knowing that we can’t guarantee their safety of body, mind, or spirit… that’s what God feels for us. All of us. All the time. 

God is aching with us, yearning with us, raging with us. 

The fact that we can’t keep our kids safe should draw us closer to each other, and closer to God. It should also – perhaps needless to say! – drive us towards action. Here are Jonathan’s words again: “Just now… I will let it be enough for my soul today to say to myself what we all already know, as an articulation of a hope still capable of grief: it doesn’t have to be this way.”

Our children are SAFER than they used to be. Thanks to improvements in maternal and infant health care, and vaccines that have controlled illnesses that used to kill and disable millions. Thanks to government regulation of things like the environment, food, medicine, cars, and toys. We can’t create a perfect world for the young people we love. but we can improve on it, if enough of us are loud enough long enough. 

And we can choose to be the proverbial village – the one that helps raise a child. 

A couple of days after the Abundant Life shooting, I shared on Facebook that I was feeling some complicated grief towards the perpetrator. Some of my favorite people in the world are fifteen-year-old girls, and I can’t help thinking how deeply things must have gone wrong for this young woman to lead her to this lethal violence against self and others. 

One of the gifts of our new, larger diocese for me has been getting to know Amy Heimerl, who serves Ascension Episcopal Church in Merrill, Wisconsin. She also served for many years as a chaplain at Lincoln Hills, Wisconsin’s juvenile detention center. In response to my post, Amy wrote, “When I worked at Lincoln Hills, I worked closely with thousands of kids who had done horrible, awful things—even killing others… Most of the kids I worked with carried so much pain and trauma that they had become almost numb in order to be able to do what they did. [The problem isn’t] just mental health or just access to guns (although fixing both would help). It’s that we only want to be a village when something bad happens. What we need is to act like a village SO THAT nothing bad happens.”

It may be a cliche but it’s true: Kids do need a village. Parents do, too. Being the village for the young people of this congregation (including the ones who just come to youth group!) is a significant and holy part of our common life and work as God’s people, here. 

If you’re thinking to yourself, I don’t have kids, or, I don’t have young kids… look around, when they come back, in a few minutes. Yes, you do.

If you think you don’t have gay or trans kids, who face new governmental assaults on their freedom and sense of self-worth – yes, you do. 

If you’ve been around here long enough to attend a baptism or a confirmation, you have made some very specific promises to support the young people of this parish in their lives in Christ.

The baptized children and youth of this parish include gay, trans, and nonbinary kids; neurodiverse kids; disabled kids; brown kids; and more. You’re in it, friends. This is your family. And your care – our care – for them, matters. It matters to them. It matters to the world they’ll help shape.

In a few minutes, when the kids come back, after the Prayers of the People, we’re going to bless them and pray for their protection. This is a tradition, a custom, for the feast of the Holy Innocents – praying over the children of the church, together. I’ll invite you, if you want, to come forward and gather around – or you can stay in your seat and extend your hands, as a way to participate in the blessing. For now, let’s pray the Episcopal Church’s prayer for the Feast of the Holy Innocents. 

Prayer for the Feast of the Holy Innocents

We remember today, O God, the slaughter of the holy innocents of Bethlehem by King Herod. Receive, we pray, into the arms of your mercy all innocent victims; and by your great might frustrate the designs of evil tyrants and establish your rule of justice, love, and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

BLESSING

I call today upon our God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity, 

in unity of love,

to bless our children among us. 

I call upon God’s power to guide you,

God’s might to uphold you,

God’s Wisdom to teach you,

God’s Eye to watch over you,

God’s Ear to hear you,

God’s Hand to guide you, 

God’s Shield to shelter you,

God’s Way to lie before you.

Christ be with you, Christ within you, 

Christ behind you, Christ before you,

Christ beneath you, Christ above you,

Christ in hearts of all that love you.

Dear ones, may you grow in wisdom as in stature,

and in divine and human favor. 

And the blessing of God the Holy and Undivided Trinity be upon you, body, mind, and spirit, this day and forever more. 

And let the people say AMEN. 

Reading: All of the first chapter of Luke’s Gospel. 

How many of you have seen Wicked?… 

I’m sure it’s not a new thought, but it occurred to me for the first time this year that the first chapter and a half of Luke’s Gospel is a musical. People keep pausing the action and bursting into song, to reflect on the significance of what’s happening and to express what they’re feeling. [10AM: And the Bystanders in the story are kind of like the chorus in a musical, reacting to what’s going on with the main characters!] 

Let’s look at the musical songs First and most familiar, there’s the Magnificat, Mary’s song of fierce hope. You could describe it as what musical theater people call an “I Want” song! John Kenrick, a scholar of musical theater, explains: “The main “I Want” Song comes early in the first act, with one or more of the main characters singing about the key motivating desire that will propel everyone (including the audience) through the remainder of the show.” Yep, that’s the Magnificat! 

Then there’s Zechariah’s prophetic song on the birth of his late-in-life son – called the Benedictus, Latin for the first word, Blessed. Part of the beauty of the Benedictus is the way it ties the very specific and human joy at the birth of a much-wanted child to big cosmic themes and possibilities. That’s great songwriting! 

If we continued on into chapter 2, there’s the song of the angels: “‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom God favours!” It’s much shorter than the others, but still unmistakably a musical number!

And then when Jesus is eight days old, his parents take him to the Temple to make a thank-offering to God for his safe birth, and there they meet Simeon – an old man who is righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel. God has told Simeon that he will not die until he sees God’s Messiah, the one sent to save God’s people. When Simeon sees the newborn baby Jesus, he takes him in his arms and says – or sings! – words that are familiar to folks who say Compline often: 

“O God, you now have set your servant free 

to go in peace as you have promised;

For these eyes of mine have seen the Savior, 

whom you have prepared for all the world to see:

A Light to enlighten the nations, 

and the glory of your people Israel.”

This song of faith is known as the Nunc Dimittis – from the Latin for “Now dismiss.” 

These three poems or songs have been recognized as beautiful texts of faith for a long long time, and have been used in worship apart from their narrative context here in Luke’s Gospel. The Magnificat, the Benedictus, the Nunc Dimittis, each have their own place and life and voice in the prayers of the church over the millennia. That’s partly why I think it’s valuable, once in a while, to read through Luke’s narrative and remind ourselves where they come from. These are texts that speak far beyond their place in this story, but they should also point us back towards this story! 

Where did the songs come from? I’m certain there’s been plenty of scholarly debate about this. They certainly don’t come out of nowhere; they draw on patterns and images from the Psalms and other Old Testament songs of faith. But they aren’t just quoting those sources. They are new compositions. They are, in fact, early Christian hymns, likely used in worship. But did Luke compose them – or collect them, transcribing songs that were already being sung in the early church communities? 

Here’s what Luke says about his sources and his process, in the first few verses of his Gospel: “Many people have already applied themselves to the task of compiling an account of the events that have been fulfilled among us. They used what the original eyewitnesses and servants of the word handed down to us. Now, after having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, I have also decided to write a carefully ordered account…” 

So, Luke tells us that he’s done some research! He’s writing his version of the Gospel of Jesus Christ on the basis of as many sources as he can find. But he’s also clearly not just stitching things together; he’s an artful writer with his own understanding of Jesus’ life and mission. 

So, maybe these songs of faith were already in use, perhaps even passed down from their original sources – Mary, Zechariah, Simeon. Or maybe Luke felt like the story needed some poetry. Or maybe Luke gathered bits of early hymns and filled them out into the beautiful texts we receive. 

It’s interesting to think about, but I don’t find that my faith, or my appreciation of these songs, gets hung up on these questions… partly because what Luke offers us in these first two chapters makes such a beautiful whole. Whether he composed, collected, or some of each, he did an amazing job. 

Why the musical numbers? What do they do? It’s a question for any musical, not just the Gospel of Luke. In listening to people talking about Wicked, I’ve been reminded that some people really don’t like musicals. They find the singing and dancing an annoying interruption. Why tell a story this way? I’m sure there are experts with a lot to say on this subject! And there are people in this congregation who know much more about musicals than I do! I’d love to hear your thoughts, later. 

It seems to me that the songs do at least three things. One, they invite us to pause at significant events or moments, and just dwell with them a little bit more instead of rushing onward. Two, they give us a window into the characters’ inner lives and feelings. Biblical narrative often doesn’t offer us that kind of inner view or insight, which is one of the reasons these songs are so special and lovely. Three, music adds an additional channel, besides the words themselves, to communicate emotion. I wish we could know how these holy songs were sung, two thousand years ago! 

Luke chapter 1 is a musical. So instead of just being told that Mary is confused and a little scared, we get the Magnificat, which tells us so much about how she’s thinking and feeling about this surprising pregnancy. “Look! From now on, everyone will consider me highly favored, because the Mighty One has done great things for me! God has cast down the mighty from their thrones!” “Something has changed within me, something is not the same; I’m through with playing by the rules of someone else’s game!”  

There’s one more question I think is interesting: Why do the songs stop? After the Nunc Dimittis, the Gospel of Luke stops having a musical number every thirty verses. It’s kind of a shame! I don’t know the answer to this; nobody living does. But I have one observation. All of the Gospels are weighted towards Jesus’ death and resurrection. That’s a tremendously important part of the Gospel story, and once Jesus starts his public ministry at the age of around thirty, many moments and interactions point or push him towards the cross. Luke’s playful, joyful origin story for Jesus helps us pause on how it all began, and the meanings and hopes that surrounded him from birth. The songs add depth and energy and weight to the beginning of Luke’s Gospel, thereby giving us a more complete and powerful story overall. 

Thanks again to our readers! Maybe next time we should have you SING the songs!… 

The first Sunday in Advent is the church’s New Year’s Day, so we just started a new church year last week! Each year of the church’s three-year cycle of readings primarily uses one of the Gospels in our Sunday readings. This year, it’s the Gospel of Luke; I’ll say more about Luke next week. Today’s Luke reading introduces a figure who appears in all of the Gospels: John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness outside Jerusalem, calling people to repentance and transformation of life. 

As our song of faith today we read the Song of Zechariah. Zechariah is John’s daddy, who sings this prophetic song of joy at the birth of his son. Zechariah describes John’s calling as one who will go before the Lord (meaning, here, Jesus) to prepare the way for him. That language echoes our Old Testament reading from the tiny little prophetic book of Malachi: “See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me.” It’s not entirely clear who Malachi thinks he’s talking about; but Zechariah, and Luke, and centuries of Christian tradition, have read his words as pointing towards John the Baptist, and his role gathering seekers and proclaiming Jesus before Jesus began his public ministry. 

So that’s how some of our readings fit together! But what do they have to say to us?… 

Last week we heard Dietrich Bonhoeffer pointing out our tendency, in Advent and Christmas, to focus on the “pleasant and agreeable,” and not the “shiver of fear” that we should feel when we consider the idea that “the God of the [cosmos] draws near to the people of our little earth and lays claim to us.” But our Advent readings – this year, and most years – don’t shy away from the fearful!… 

In the weeks leading up to Advent and in last week’s Gospel, we have heard Jesus talking about challenging times ahead for his followers and the world: signs in the heavens, wars and rumors of wars, floods, earthquakes, birds and snakes and aeroplanes… and so on. 

Today, Malachi talks about God’s people being purified like silver in a furnace – which is an uncomfortable process for the silver! – or like a fleece, wool fresh off the sheep, filthy and greasy, that is violently scrubbed with harsh soap to make it, eventually, clean and white. And then there’s John the Baptist and his “good news”: “Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” 

Later on we’ll sing the lovely Advent hymn “Comfort, comfort ye, my people,” but these are not comforting images! 

Or are they? I love Advent; it’s my favorite church season, and I know I’m not alone in that. Many years – and this year – I do find a strange kind of comfort in Advent’s apocalypticism, its insistence that everything will change and everything will end, the things we love as well as the things we dread or despise. Advent confronts us with both the fear and grief of things passing away, and the fierce assurance that God still reigns, that God’s love can and will break through into our broken world. That, yes, there is a crack in everything – and that’s how the light gets in. 

But acknowledging the precarity of existence, the transience of any given order of things, does not tell us how to deal with it in the day to day. How do we live? … beyond listening to ourselves churn?

Father Tom McAlpine and I were chatting about this year’s Advent readings a couple of weeks ago, and he called my attention to a word in these readings that I hadn’t really noticed. 

It’s a word that’s central not just in our Advent Scriptures but throughout the Bible, Old and New Testaments alike; but we don’t necessarily use it much in our faith talk or daily lives. That word is righteous. Or the noun form: righteousness. 

One way we use that word is in the phrase self-righteous. That means an assurance of one’s own correctness and superiority. It’s not a quality that we admire! But even when we drop the “self” and just say “righteous,” I think it’s a word that carries some ambiguity and discomfort for many folks. It tends to show up hand in hand with other words, like righteous anger or righteous zeal. It suggests that even when someone is on the right side of things, maybe they’re so sure of themselves that they’re a little bit scary, a little bit dangerous. There’s a sense of inflexibility and intensity.

I’m sure there’s an interesting history to how “righteous” became an uncomfortable word for many today. But it’s a very positive and important word in Scripture! There’s a deep and rich well of Jewish commentary on the Hebrew word that’s translated as righteous, Tzedek. The word has a close kinship to justice (mishpat in Hebrew). One modern translator (Fox) renders tzedek into English as “equity.” Tzedek means fairness and compassion. It means truth and integrity. It means caring for the socially and economically vulnerable, neighbor and stranger alike – and building a society in which people have what they need and don’t have to depend on charity. 

Tzedek is a characteristic of God. It’s also a call on God’s people; those who belong to God are called to be righteous, individually and together. But righteousness is also understood as a manifestation of God’s presence among God’s people. A gift, something we can tap into. Something that just happens when we’re grounded in God. 

The words righteous or righteousness, translated from Hebrew or Greek, appears 630 times in the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible. We’ve had six of those occurrences just in last Sunday and this Sunday’s readings!… 

Last Sunday, we read Jeremiah chapter 33: “In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land…And this is the name by which it will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’” It’s a prophecy about a just and righteous ruler who will one day lead God’s people and help them become a people known for their holy righteousness. 

In our Malachi reading today, we heard about God’s people – specifically, the priestly leaders who interacted with God on behalf of the people – being purified “until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness.” You weren’t supposed to enter the Temple to do the holy work of that place if you were in a state of sin or ritual impurity! It was a much more hardcore version of what’s embedded in our pattern of worship, in which we confess our sins and speak peace to our neighbors before approaching the Eucharistic table. 

This is a complex little passage, but one thing it’s expressing is that God’s desire for God’s people – past and present – is not just to say and do the things they’re supposed to say and do, but to be people of righteousness, in some deep sense. 

The Song of Zechariah, from Luke’s Gospel, seems to be riffing on this Malachi text. It takes that idea and gives it an interesting little twist. Within this song of praise, Zechariah reminds God of God’s promises to God’s people: to set them free from their enemies – “free to worship You without fear, holy and righteous in Your sight.” 

Once again righteous worship is the goal, but Zechariah says: it’s hard for us to offer the worship God desires when we’re bound by our enemies, subject to powers that oppress our people and don’t respect our faith. Liberate us for righteousness, God! … 

Out of four Scriptures today, our Gospel text is the only one that doesn’t use the word righteous. But John the Baptist is absolutely talking about righteousness. He uses these frightening, urgent images, drawn from the agricultural practices of the time: there’s an axe ready to cut down a tree that won’t bear fruit, wasting space in the orchard; there’s a winnowing fork ready to separate wheat from chaff, and burn the useless chaff in eternal fire. 

I know some folks are very sensitive to anything that suggests hell or damnation. Let me say that both John the Baptist, and Jesus, do not want people to choose good out of fear. We only get a little of John’s preaching in the Gospels, but his core message is a call to metanoia – a word often translated as repentance, but really meaning something like, a renewed way of knowing. I like to translate it as a changed mind that bears fruit in a changed life. 

And it’s very clear in Jesus’ teaching that he wants his followers to become people who operate from love – love of neighbor, love of the world, love of God; people who fundamentally aren’t driven by fear, because fear tends to shut us down and close us off. 

Over and over again, God or God’s messengers tell us, “Don’t be afraid!” So, yeah, John says some stuff about unquenchable fire. He’s that kind of preacher. Don’t take it to heart. 

I think the conversation between John and the crowd is so interesting! People ask him, What should we do? How do we show this metanoia in our lives? And John’s responses are honestly so basic! If you have an extra coat, give it to somebody who’s cold. I bet half the people hearing this have done that, one way or another. 

Same with having extra food; give it to someone who needs it. By the way, our food drive for WayForward Resources starts today!… 

John’s not talking to people who have more than enough consumer goods, as many of us do. He’s talking to people who don’t have much, and might be tempted to hold on to extra. In our lives of relative plenty, it may be important for us to dwell with what’s enough and what’s extra. 

Then some soldiers and tax collectors ask John, Well, what should we do? These are people who are part of the structure of oppression in this time and place. The soldiers are in some direct or indirect way part of the occupation – the domination of Judea by the Roman Empire. And the tax collectors, likewise, serve the government by, well, collecting taxes – which were punishingly high. And again, John’s advice seems so minimal! He doesn’t say, Drive a spoke into the wheel of the machine of unjust government! He says: Do your job honestly. Don’t take more money than you’re supposed to. Don’t threaten people; don’t be a bully. Be satisfied with your wages. 

Times were hard and things were uncertain. Just like holding on to an extra coat, taking a little extra money in the course of your duties was a rational choice. It meant you could do a little more for your own family, or hide something away just in case. These small corruptions weren’t the acts of bad people, but of ordinary people. But John tells them: Don’t deepen other people’s misery. If you want to align yourself with God, be honest. Be just. Be righteous. 

I think John would say that giving away a coat or not taking a bribe is the beginning of metanoia and the path of righteousness, not the fulfillment. Square one. You can’t start down the path of love of God and neighbor, when you’re cheating them both. 

I love what the apostle Paul says about righteousness, in our epistle today. He prays for this community, the church in Philippi, that their love for one another may overflow more and more, with knowledge and full insight.  What a powerful, important idea: that love can lead us to knowledge and insight! And that knowledge and insight in turn will help them determine what is best to do. How to be honest and just. How to share. How to do good, when things are bad. And that process – love leading to understanding leading to discernment of right action – that’s what will make Jesus proud of them, as people who have produced the harvest of righteousness. 

A couple of days ago, on December 6, the church honored the feast of St. Nicholas. St. Nicholas is a cousin of sorts to Santa Claus, who is famous for giving gifts to nice children and coal to naughty children. I’m not sure how “nice” and “naughty” in this context relate to righteousness, exactly! 

Nicholas the saint was a bishop in the port city of Myra, in the fourth century, in what is now part of Turkey. He became beloved during his lifetime, and honored as a saint after his death, because he was righteous. 

Some of the stories about Nicholas may feel more like folklore than history, like the one where an evil innkeeper kills some traveling students and makes them into stew, and Nicholas by holy magic reassembles them and brings them back to life. 

But other stories have the ring of truth. That Nicholas secretly gave gifts – bags of gold coins tossed in a window or down a chimney – that allowed poor families to care for their children. That he would buy a big bag of bread, then go out at night and leave loaves beside the unhoused, sleeping on the streets. 

That he was friendly with the sailors and dock workers of the port, and prayed with and for them, in their dangerous jobs. That when a rich man’s son killed someone, and a corrupt judge was paid off to pin the crime on others, Nicholas showed up to pray with that judge until he changed his mind. That despite the comfort and privilege that could have kept him apart from the ordinary people of Myra, Nicholas chose to be among them, and to be for them. That he let love overflow and lead to understanding, and then to knowing what to do. 

How do we live, in cold, hard seasons? How shall we live, when the times are strange and frightening, and many are fearful, or struggling, or at risk? I expect we’ll be spending a lot of time with those questions. But one old, bold, hopeful answer offered by our faith and our faith-ancestors is: Strive for God’s righteousness. 

I wonder if we could reclaim righteousness as part of our core values and vocabulary. Righteousness as integrity and compassion. Righteousness as choosing kindness, choosing truth, even when it’s hard. Righteousness as what bubbles up at the fierce fruitful places where our joy intersects with our anger. Righteousness as the manifestation of God’s presence among us. Righteousness as deepening love that leads us towards understanding and into action.

Text from Job here. 

Let’s pause here and talk for a moment about Behemoth, the creature – monster? – described in this passage from the book of Job. Behemoth eats plants, hangs out in rivers and swamps, and is incredibly, perhaps terrifyingly strong – does that make anyone think of a real animal?… 

Yes! Behemoth seems to be sort of a super-hippo, perhaps based on what this author has heard about hippos from travelers to Egypt and beyond. 

Who’s seen pictures or videos of Moo Deng?…  Moo Deng is the new baby hippo who’s taken the Internet by storm. She’s a baby pygmy hippo, who lives at a zoo in Thailand. 

She is small and very cute, and doesn’t really match this Biblical description! But she’s definitely having a moment. There’s all kinds of Moo Deng memes, merch, and fan art on the Internet. 

Okay. Why are we talking about hippopotamuses? It’s a very fair question, not just to me but to God, and/or to the author of the Book of Job. For 36 chapters, Job has been crying out to God, demanding an explanation for his suffering, while various “friends” tell him he can’t talk to God like that. 

In chapter 38, God finally speaks up…. And then talks for four chapters. Four chapters of nature poetry. 

But this isn’t poetry about how a field of daffodils made somebody feel better once. This is about how strange and wild and fierce Nature can be. 

God begins with the cosmic – the depths of the sea, the homes of darkness and light, the rules that govern the movements of the stars, the sources of rain and snow. 

Then God moves on to some of God’s favorite animals: lions, ravens, mountain goats. Wild donkeys, who wander the wilderness; they scorn the tumult of the city, and don’t have to listen to the shouts of a human trying to get them to cooperate. 

Likewise the wild ox, who will not spend the night in your barn or help you plow your fields. 

There’s a terrific passage about ostriches and how stupid they are – they lay their eggs on the ground, where they can easily be crushed, and barely take care of their young; and yet when an ostrich runs – it laughs at horse and rider. 

After describing Behemoth, we get to Leviathan, some sort of sea-monster or super-crocodile. God is really pleased with Leviathan and spends a whole chapter describing how badass it is. 

And that’s it, really. Job says, Okay. I hear you, God. There’s a bigger picture here that I didn’t understand.

Job says, I repent in dust and ashes – a ritual expression of humility. He has dropped his charges against God. 

God goes on to tell Job’s friends that God is angry with them because they have not spoken rightly about God, as Job did! As puzzling and unsatisfactory as God’s response to Job may feel, at least we see Job’s rage prayers ratified, as God smacks down the friends’ smug assurance about what God is like. 

I love the fierce nature poetry of God’s answer to Job. But in what sense does God answer Job’s anger and anguish? 

Bible scholar Robert Alter writes: “Through that long chain of vividly arresting images… Job has been led to see the multifarious character of God’s vast creation, its unfathomable fusion of beauty and cruelty, and through this he has come to understand the incommensurability between his human notions of right and wrong and the structure of reality.” (577) God’s answer, then, invites Job into appreciation of the bigger picture beyond his personal pain. 

On the other hand, Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggeman writes, “After Job relates in great detail his anguish and pain and bewilderment, [God] responds, ‘Let me tell you about my crocodile.’ Any pastoral supervisor evaluating this act of ministry would say to [God], ‘You couldn’t stand the pain and you changed the subject.’” That’s fair. 

And yet. And yet. 

We do seek out mountains and beaches and stars. 

We do revel in the glory of a thunderstorm. 

We travel to volcanoes and glaciers. 

We’re drawn to the power and danger of apex predators.

My social media has been overwhelmed lately with people’s photos of the Northern Lights. Now, maybe 50% of that is the thrill of taking a cool photo and posting it online. But standing at the edge of a field in rural Wisconsin, looking up at the night sky, and knowing that the faint shimmering green you’re seeing is because there’s a storm on the Sun… can create a certain exhilarating sense of smallness. 

Old Testament scholar Ellen Davis points out that the natural phenomena God describes in Job are not useful to, and often not even friendly towards, humans. God describes a world, a universe, in which we – humanity – are neither center nor pinnacle. God loves the wild, the fierce, the mysterious. 

And – so do we, often. 

This remains true even in the deep shadow of the devastating impacts of Hurricanes Helene and Milton. As with every such event, it’s wise to consider the degree to which a natural disaster is also a human disaster: the product not only of natural systems intensified by climate change, but of poor planning and regulation, the failure of warning systems, political roadblocks to effective climate adaptation and adequate funding for relief work. 

There are no easy explanations for suffering, but part of the answer, surely, is that we choose poorly, individually and together. 

But even in the face of such loss, humans continue to find a strange consolation in the power and danger of creation. 

People will return and rebuild because they love the wooded wilds of the Blue Ridge mountains, and the moody glory of the ocean visible from vulnerable oceanfront homes in Florida. 

The thing about Moo Deng is that people don’t love her because she’s cute and cuddly.

People love her because she’s filled with rage.

She’s constantly trying to bite her keeper on the leg, or chase him around the enclosure. 

And it’s adorable, but also: Me too,  Moo Deng. Me too. 

God’s answer to Job does not explain or resolve Job’s pain, anger, and desolation. 

Go look at the stars, or Let’s talk about crocodiles, is not a good response to deep suffering. 

But it’s not the worst response, either? … 

There is an impulse here that we recognize. 

It’s something that sometimes helps, a little – turning our eyes and minds and hearts towards creatures and landscapes and cycles that are living their own vivid lives and care not at all about the things that overwhelm us. 

And there’s an invitation here, I think – embedded in the rich poetic tapestry of this text – to venture beyond the familiar and fallible moral frameworks of virtue and reward, into a sense of a sense of self and world and God that is stranger and riskier, less reassuring, more capacious and paradoxical.

Into the wild, fierce faith of Job.